Bought my first Mac today, now to learn how to use it!

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Wills1

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#113278 11-Jan-2013 18:44

Hi there,

Today I bought a Macbook Pro 13" it is an older 2010 model. it has OSX 10.6.8 installed

I have two initial questions firstly how do I get Safari into fullscreen. I googled and it said to look for the arrows in the top right hand corner. I dont seem to have any arrows.

Next is, if I upgrade to Mountain Lion will I get I life as well? or is that additional through the app store? Really wanting iMovie.

Thirdly could anyone direct me to a good website to learn how to use the macbook, its very daunting at the moment.

Many Thanks
William

RunningMan

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#743497 11-Jan-2013 19:00

I don't think full screen became a feature until OS X 10.7 - it's part of the OS, not Safari.

iLife has generally been a separate product from the OS, although it is often bundled with consumer machines.

Fairly sure you can get iMovie by itself from the App Store.

Did your MBP come with the original install disks? If so, iMovie etc. may be there for you already.

Wills1

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#743498 11-Jan-2013 19:08

RunningMan: I don't think full screen became a feature until OS X 10.7 - it's part of the OS, not Safari.

iLife has generally been a separate product from the OS, although it is often bundled with consumer machines.

Fairly sure you can get iMovie by itself from the App Store.

Did your MBP come with the original install disks? If so, iMovie etc. may be there for you already.

Thanks for your reply.

I have one original OS cd, I've just had a look and the only optional software on it is Xcode whatever that is.

RunningMan

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#743526 11-Jan-2013 19:43

Yeah, the iLife stuff would generally be on a separate DVD - not enough room for both on the one disk.

igorportugal

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#743617 11-Jan-2013 22:26

Xcode is developer tools, not the OS. Are you sure that you have all the CDs?

I would recommend upgrading to the latest OS - 10.8.2 - it is very nice and user friendly.

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Wills1

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#743827 12-Jan-2013 18:45

igorportugal: Xcode is developer tools, not the OS. Are you sure that you have all the CDs?

I would recommend upgrading to the latest OS - 10.8.2 - it is very nice and user friendly.

Yes I was only supplied the one OS cd. Never mind I will just have to purchase Imovie. I will add it to the list with pages, numbers and mountain lion ( Which I will download tonight)

One other important question I had was what is the best browser to use?

Behodar

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#743837 12-Jan-2013 19:03

You'll be starting a war with that question! I personally use Safari but a lot of people use Firefox or Chrome.

Covering some of the earlier questions: Fullscreen was added in 10.7 but I do recommend getting the hang of not making all your windows huge. You'll do a lot more dragging and dropping between apps in OS X compared to Windows and will soon want to see more than one app on the screen at a time.

As an alternative to buying iMovie, you can call Apple and ask for a set of replacement DVDs. There's a charge for this and I'm not sure of the figure; I'm guessing about $30. That's more expensive than iMovie on the App Store but consider that you'll get iPhoto, GarageBand etc. too and it might be worth doing.

Mountain Lion is very slow compared to Snow Leopard if you don't have an SSD, so keep that in mind.

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RunningMan

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#743838 12-Jan-2013 19:04

Wills1:

One other important question I had was what is the best browser to use?

How long is a piece of string?

Personal preference really - each has it's pros and cons!

Wills1

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#743839 12-Jan-2013 19:15

Behodar: You'll be starting a war with that question! I personally use Safari but a lot of people use Firefox or Chrome.

Covering some of the earlier questions: Fullscreen was added in 10.7 but I do recommend getting the hang of not making all your windows huge. You'll do a lot more dragging and dropping between apps in OS X compared to Windows and will soon want to see more than one app on the screen at a time.

As an alternative to buying iMovie, you can call Apple and ask for a set of replacement DVDs. There's a charge for this and I'm not sure of the figure; I'm guessing about $30. That's more expensive than iMovie on the App Store but consider that you'll get iPhoto, GarageBand etc. too and it might be worth doing.

Mountain Lion is very slow compared to Snow Leopard if you don't have an SSD, so keep that in mind.

Thanks for your comments, I will call apple about the software.

When I called Apple yesterday for help with the mac they told me it would be beneficial to upgrade to Mountain Lion as it had all these new features and increased security. I'm quite keen to give it a go and stay up to date.

I may have been a bit hasty in buying an antivirus/malware program from Noel Leeming yesterday, but after having bad experiences with malware on PC I thought it better to be safe than sorry.

Wills1

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#745348 15-Jan-2013 21:52

Next question is about Ram upgrades.

Does the brand of Ram make a big difference in quality? I'd like to upgrade to 8gb or perhaps even the full 16gb kit. Shopping around it would appear you can get 16gb kit of Strontium for $120.

RunningMan

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#745388 15-Jan-2013 22:37

Try these guys

OWC

igorportugal

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#745389 15-Jan-2013 22:55

I use three - Safari, Chrome and Firefox. Each browser has its good sides, it's bad sides and it's bugs. I tend to rotate my default browser about once a year. At the moment my default is Safari.

I use a few web apps, so I tend to use a single browser for each app so it doesn't get buried inside tabs or windows.

At the end of the day I'd recommend trying them all and settling on one that you find performs the best for the sites and apps that you tend to use most.

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geocom

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#745397 15-Jan-2013 23:38

One of the best things I have done on my MBP 2010 was to replace the CD Drive with a SSD you can find the process on iFixit which is relatively easy(but not for the faint of heart though). Because you keep the HDD in the main slot its the best of both worlds speed and Drive capacity. If your willing to upgrade the RAM a SSD will make a even bigger difference.

To reinstall Mac OS X you can still startup into your HDD Mac OS X when you open the Install Mountain Lion.app you will be able to chose the SSD once installed you can then migrate from your HDD to the SSD but you will need to pick and chose or you can transfer the files your self.

Geoff E

Behodar

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#745432 16-Jan-2013 07:26

Wills1: Next question is about Ram upgrades.

Does the brand of Ram make a big difference in quality? I'd like to upgrade to 8gb or perhaps even the full 16gb kit. Shopping around it would appear you can get 16gb kit of Strontium for $120.

In the old days, you needed to use good-quality RAM or you'd get crashes. Since the move to Intel that seems to be significantly less of an issue, but I'd still avoid the bottom-barrel stuff just to lessen the potential for failure (I've never even heard of Strontium!)