Thread: Just got myself a big screen Mac but.....

Safari is your internet browser program

Don't use Microsoft Office there is a Mac version you can download Open Office from the net for free does everything Office does but better

If you're going to put it in a cupboard send it to me instead

Have you installed the operating system or was it pre installed for you

This is a used Mac with a lot of stuff installed. I hope I can figure it out. Most of the "icons " seem to be for photography and sound. However I am interested in photography but I would like to use it for regular stuff

Too much to put in a forum post, perhaps, but here's a start...

As you have probably figured out, there is a set of shortcut icons that (depending on the previous user's preferencess) are at the bottom or one of the sides. This is called the "Dock". They may or may not be hidden until your mouse pointer rolls over that area (once again a user pref thing). You can add new programs to this by clicking on them from the Applications folder (see below), and remove them by dragging them to the trash can icon (at the end of the Dock).

If you need a program that is not available from the Dock, when you have the "Finder" menu at the top of the screen click on File -> New Finder Window. This opens up a window similar to Windows in which you can navigate to Applications and find your desired program.

When navigating through the Finder, you expand and collapse folders by clicking on the little triangle at the left of the folder name.

As mentioned the default web browser is Safari, which is quite good. If you are already used to Firefox on Windows then you may wish to install it on your Mac too. I prefer Chrome to both of those (a download from Google). Internet Explorer is not and will never be available for Mac (which I consider to be a blessing).

Oh, and just like Linux, Unix, BSD, and just about every operating system written in the last 20+ years other than Windows there are none of those old things called drive letters that you are accustomed to. A drive is a storage device with a name - eg. what you may have thought of as "Drive C:" under Windows is probably called something like "Macintosh HD".

Once you get used to it you'll find that the differences from Windows are not all that great really - the principles of using a mouse are the same. Then after a while you will decide that you like the way it works more and more and more and will struggle with Windows, or you will decide that you don't want to have to adapt and can give it to MEEEE instead of cartm58!!!

Good luck with it

Chris