iMac first steps for dummies - guide to MacOsX Mavericks (part 1)
You made up your mind and bought that good-looking white and black computer with a bitten apple logo on it that you thought was so cool. You unpacked it, plugged the power chord in and now what? You don't know what to do. After years and years of Windows computers you don't know where to start from.
No fear. Don't feel overwhelmed. I've been through your same doubts when I bought my iMac in 2010 after utilizing Windows for most of my life. You'll have to change your habits and the way you've done things so far, but at the end of the day you'll likely find out it's worth it.
Hardware and general look
Unless you buy an iMac Mini, you won't have a case connected to a monitor, unlike a Windows-based computer. You'll have an all-in-one computer having all the hardware components inside the monitor. So when you look at it and, being used to Windows, you'll think: "Where's the computer case?" You're looking at it right now.
Where the heck is the power-on button? In Windows-based PC's it's generally located in the front part of the case and that's where you expect to find it, but guess what...it's not there. It's located on the back part of the iMac, precisely on the bottom left corner (you can actually feel it if you touch that corner with your finger).
On the back of your iMac, to the right, you'll also find all the ports you need.
Operating System and software
Once you've booted up your iMac and gone through the initial screenshot, you'll find yourself right into OS X desktop. Do you already feel lost? Well, let's start breaking it down.
ALT (ALT ⌥) key is used for several key combinations in MacOsX (see Resources below for a complete list of MacOsX keyboard shortcuts).
Stick around for the following part of this tutorial in the coming posts.
Go to part 2
No fear. Don't feel overwhelmed. I've been through your same doubts when I bought my iMac in 2010 after utilizing Windows for most of my life. You'll have to change your habits and the way you've done things so far, but at the end of the day you'll likely find out it's worth it.
Hardware and general look
Unless you buy an iMac Mini, you won't have a case connected to a monitor, unlike a Windows-based computer. You'll have an all-in-one computer having all the hardware components inside the monitor. So when you look at it and, being used to Windows, you'll think: "Where's the computer case?" You're looking at it right now.
Where the heck is the power-on button? In Windows-based PC's it's generally located in the front part of the case and that's where you expect to find it, but guess what...it's not there. It's located on the back part of the iMac, precisely on the bottom left corner (you can actually feel it if you touch that corner with your finger).
On the back of your iMac, to the right, you'll also find all the ports you need.
Operating System and software
Once you've booted up your iMac and gone through the initial screenshot, you'll find yourself right into OS X desktop. Do you already feel lost? Well, let's start breaking it down.
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| MacOsX desktop (Click to enlarge) |
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| Menu Bar (Click to enlarge) |
On the upper part of the screen we find the Menu Bar. It shows the application that's currently open to the left, and to the right, a series of icons that I'll analyze in more detail in the coming posts.
On the left side of the Menu Bar we find the menu of the application that's currently open (Finder, in the example). I'm going to explain the Menu Bar more in the coming posts, but I will say that a very important difference with Windows is this: if you have an application open and then close its window, this will not close the application. To actually close the application you have to right-click its icon and select Quit. In other words, if you have some Safari tabs open (Fig.1) and then close them, for example, you won't terminate the browser, but only the open tabs. To actually close Safari, you have to right-click its icon and select Quit (Fig. 2).
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| Fig. 1 (Click to enlarge) |
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| Fig.2 (Click to enlarge) |
Keyboard
A Mac keyboard has two special keys:
- Command (CMD ⌘) - in older keyboards it was the Apple key ()
- ALT (ALT ⌥), sometimes also called Option key.
ALT (ALT ⌥) key is used for several key combinations in MacOsX (see Resources below for a complete list of MacOsX keyboard shortcuts).
Stick around for the following part of this tutorial in the coming posts.
Go to part 2
Resources:
- iMac ports: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4619
- MacOsX keyboard shortcuts: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343
- MacOsX Mavericks - free upgrade, no revolution (Part 1 Part 2 Part 3)
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