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Control-Command-D = MIND BLOWN! (or I was a teenage Mac noob)
langfor6
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
A little background information: I bought my first Mac computer last August, taking advantage of one of their back-to-school specials by buying a MacBook Pro.
I started a new job for the summer, and we have several staunch Mac users at my job, people that have been using them for much longer than me. The other day a coworker showed me the instant dictionary functionality referenced in the thread title, and I thought it was one of the coolest little built-in features that I've ever seen.
I realized that there are probably several more features in OS X that I'm not aware of, hence this thread. I'd like to gather the collective wisdom of the Mac users on this forum so I can find out other cool things. Please keep this restricted to OS X if you will, and to shortcuts, tips, and tricks of this nature as well.
I started a new job for the summer, and we have several staunch Mac users at my job, people that have been using them for much longer than me. The other day a coworker showed me the instant dictionary functionality referenced in the thread title, and I thought it was one of the coolest little built-in features that I've ever seen.
I realized that there are probably several more features in OS X that I'm not aware of, hence this thread. I'd like to gather the collective wisdom of the Mac users on this forum so I can find out other cool things. Please keep this restricted to OS X if you will, and to shortcuts, tips, and tricks of this nature as well.
langfor6 on
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Shift+cmnd+4 brings up a cursor. Click and drag it over the area, and presto! You've saved the selection into a PNG!
Sure beats Print Screen pasting.
I can never remember the dictionary shortcut, but my favorite attribute of OS X is simply that it's based on Unix so I can write shell scripts to my heart's content. Bash is a pretty fucked up language sometimes, but you can do some real nice things if you even know the basics. I made some scripts to help my parents with some things on their computer (they have multiple iPhoto libraries and share one music library, among other things that constantly create permissions and alias moving issues) and used Automator to turn them into double-clickable applications. Very nice.
There's also applescript, but I never bothered since it's also a pretty weird language and I've found bash to be much more universally useful.
Hit space when you get the cursor and it changes to a different cursor. Now click any window to take a screenshot of just that window.
Or BootCamp into Win7.
I'm still tempted to pay a pretentious Genius to show me how truly awesome my Mac really is.
The Opt key works with other letters to do accents and things (Opt-U is for Umlaut, E is for Accent etc)
Well I mean that's pretty much how I use it too, with the major exception of it being my development machine so I spend a massive amount of time writing code in TextMate, Eclipse, Xcode or some such. And doing things involving said code on the command line.
But most things to do with a computer these days involve browsing the internet, so it's not like you're doing something wrong. I kind of like Chrome a lot better than Safari these days (since Safari's GUI & feature set is soundly stuck in 2004), though it's a little less snappy.
Time Machine is one very good reason to do as much stuff as possible in OS X. Adium is another (Pidgin really can't compare). I've found MoneyWell to be a fantastic budgeting app (at least for my purposes). If you need to make good-looking documents, iWork makes it so much easier than Office (I rarely ever touch it except to make a presentation though, since google docs is good enough for me and much more convenient). iLife is also kind of a big deal, but the only piece I really use is iPhoto so it depends who you are.
Tell me something you boot into Windows or run Parallels for, and I can probably suggest a reasonable or superior Mac equivalent.
My answer to this used to be Steam
most of the few games you can even play on OSX are crappy cider ports. there are a few exceptions i guess.
that said, PC gaming is kind of on the downswing anyways, and there aren't too many games that are unavailable on a dedicated gaming console or considerably better on a PC.
But hey! Portal is one fifth as likely to crash on a Mac! ;-)
why do people keep saying this I play far more PC games than I did 3 years ago, as do all of my friends and coworkers
To restore it? Hold option when releasing command-tab.
10 years ago, PC gaming was your only real option.
possibly because of the prevalence and ease of piracy, or maybe because the broader consumer marketplace prefers closed systems like consoles, or maybe because PC gaming has historically been such a nightmare of installation and driver reconciliation/ spec chasing, "serious" PC gaming is a lot less prevalent that it once was.
A couple of years back, a few of my friends had a lot of fun with this when they discovered that repeatedly mashing the Exposé key when Shift was depressed would cause it to continually slow-motion Exposé for as many times as the key was hit, making it impossible to do anything until the entire sequence was over. This revelation was the cause of much grief for the Mac users among our group :?
They've "fixed" it in Snow Leopard, though, by making it only Exposé once no matter how many times the key is spammed whilst Shift is held down.
@Lone: if you can show me how to reliably get USN Outlook Webmail to work properly with my Smart Card Reader, I will pay you may dollars -- in Oreos. (http://www.militarycac.com only goes so far for me and then I keep getting SSL error pages)
That and MS Project are the two main reasons I have BootCamp set up because I need both when I'm on the road for work.
Really, the DoD's reliance on very specific products and processes has me pigeon-holed into a lot of technology black holes (the largest one being phones with cameras; and before you people in the service say that you have camera phones, it's different for a DoD Civilian who has to travel to Shipyards regularly).
Squeezing the side buttons on the mouse works too.
Useful shortcuts:
Cmd+shift+A :Applications folder.
Cmd+option+esc :Force quit.
One nice feature I've used for certain "sensitive" files, is using disk utility to create a password protected .dmg file of whatever folder I choose.
The character viewer is great. You can enable the "input menu" in the menu bar in the language and text preferences. From there, you can open character viewers for whatever language you're using. It's very handy for taking sciency notes, when you need all kinds of σρϕΔ‰φΩ etc...
As was already mentioned, you can hold down option while entering text to give you all sorts of characters: ¡™£¢∞§¶•–≠œ∑´®†¥¨ˆøπ“‘åß∂ƒ©˙∆˚¬…æΩ≈ç√∫˜µ≤≥÷ etc...
Those into graphic work might appreciate the Digital Colormeter app in the Utilities folder. It basically gives you the RGB value (or whatever you choose) of whatever colour is below your cursor.
If you have a mobile phone capable of it, you can use iSync to sync everything with bluetooth. I'm doing that with my Nokia E71. It synchronizes my calendars and contacts in a few seconds, all over bluetooth. Pretty useful... and a lot easier than digging around for the right cable.
Be sure to use the following: Expose, spotlight (easiest way by far to find apps or files), stacks, labels (in Finder... highlights any file or folder... handy for frequently used stuff, or marking your place in a list of files)... yeah.
Also, download the iStat widget for dashboard. It's a nice way on checking up on CPU activity, memory usage, down/up speeds, various temperatures, etc...
And download an app called Seismac. It isn't particularly useful, but it's cool.
That's all I've got at the moment.
Option+8 = bullet
Option+2 = trademark symbol
Option+u/i/e/backtick, followed by a letter = various accents
Option+p = pi
Option+g = copyright symbol
Definitely experiment.
Portal crashes?
I mean, I'm suspect of steam as much as the next time, but getting a crash for only about 40 minutes of game play (the length of time it takes to complete Portal)...that just sounds like bad luck. Then again, it is Steam...
(On a more realistic note, I was surprised that only 2/3 of Steam Mac users were using laptops. I expected it would be higher.)
Ooo, I didn't know that one.
Command-Control-Option-8
(Use the same key combination to put it back).
Also, here's a list:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
I am disappointed I cannot hold these keys down for a seizure-inducing light show.
Holy crap. I'm going to play with this all the time now. Probably while making Six Million Dollar Man noises.
Also works with Dashboard and Minimizing windows.
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.