h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This seems as good a place as any, so here goes...

My work is getting me a nice new Mac to do all the design stuff on, now I haven't used a Mac for a very long time.

So, what do I need to know about how to use one? How does the single button mouse work (is it still a single button)? What software is there, generally that it might come with initially, and what does it do?

I'm a PC user so comparisons would help. Cheers folks

I've got my old G3 blue clamshell iBook running OSX v 10.2.6 with the ram maxed out at 288 megs, a paltry 300 Mhz processor and I am very happy with it. I have a USB Logitech mouse (two button with wheel) and I am completely addicted to the wheel for scrolling. The second button only works for a very few specific programs but it can be programmed for some games which is nice.

If you go with OSX (which I strongly reccomend, even if your majority of programs are OS 9) you get enough free *stuff* with it like Safari, iPhoto, iTunes, etc. to really save money in the long run. If your hardware peripherals are mostly not USB you will have some troubles, though. If you can afford it, Zip drives, printers, and scanners are cheap enough in USB since they are common in the PeeCee world. Just make sure there are drivers for Mac and OSX in particular. One thing I found out was that there are lots and lots of drivers included with OSX for printers and cameras. My little Nikon Coolpix 2100 was just plug and play.

Hope that is of some help.

How is your nice (old) Mac going, Pastey?

Cheers

Rod

My bet is he's got a mini and Tiger by now.

I'm thinking about Tiger!

Moi aussi, although my current Panther is acting like it has been programed to convince me to change. Has anyone else had problems with Permissions and specifically Safari and the Address Book?

No, but generally, I use Camino, and I use the Entourage address book.