Thanks for the info. I assumed all programs were using up a lot of resources when I kept them open. Now I’ll just leave them open until I shutdown at the end of the day.

You do have a little mis-information about Windows though. Since WinXP, they combine the taskbar buttons for windows spawned from the same process after the taskbar gets full. The button then becomes a menu for that particular application (all Outlook windows under 1, all IE under another, etc). They also don’t force you to view the window at full screen, though I do for most things because I like as much visible area as possible on webpages and documents that I’m viewing/editing. I have the windows maximized on the Mac as well for the same reason. I hate scrolling all the time. But you can change the size of the windows in Windows just as you can on the Mac. The difference is that the Maximize button in Windows fills the screen (which I actually like).

I’m hoping Firefox 3 fixes the memory leak (which it supposedly does). I prefer it to Safari, but depend on too many extensions to use the beta version.

Mac OS X allows you to keep all your useful programs on and available at al times. There isn’t a burden on the system for doing this. This makes it easy to spontaneously open up documents you want to work with. The whole program doesn’t have to be reloaded into memory like Windows. It also isn’t like Windows, where the program that is running becomes unclear as its button gets squished so you can’t see the names as more and more windows are opened.

It’s OK to forget that a program is running. If it is (and generally is) a well behaved program (unlike Firefox which has a huge memory leak), then it takes up little or no system resources in Mac OS X. Having multiple programs running simultaneously is one of the great abilities on the Mac.

I find it funny that Windows pushes people into using one program at a time. Programs, for example, can take up the entire screen, blocking out other programs. In the default, each application’s windows are all referenced by individual windows on the task bar - which becomes unreadable as more windows are opened.

On a Mac, it is very natural to multitask by having numerous applications on at the same time. For many programs, I prefer to open them without a default window so that they are ready to go when I am ready to go, not vice versa.

When Apple designed its keyboard in the early 80s, they were trying to simplify the DOS keyboard… that’s why there aren’t DOS-related buttons like Print Screen (PrntSc), which was used in DOS for literally printing the contents of the screen to your text-only printer. (It would be a while before the IBM PC would support Dot Matrix printing.)

I used DOS back in the day, pre-Windows, and the Crtl key wasn’t for menu shortcuts. Remember, there were no such thing as menus in DOS! (The Ctrl key was intended solely for entering control characters in the terminal.) When Apple invented what we know as the desktop GUI (yes, borrowing many ideas from Xerox but adding plenty), they added “keyboard shortcuts” for common pulldown menu commands - Quit, Copy, Open, Save, etc, and the Command key was designed exclusively for this use. Only later, when the Mac became used for UNIX terminal operations, did Apple add a “Control” key for this rare use.

Of course Windows started to copy Apple’s features in the ensuing years. (I remember how jarring it was to see Quit, Save, Copy, Paste, etc. on a PC for the first time, since the language and placement was identical.) Since they didn’t control the hardware specifications for the IBM PC clones, they couldn’t add a special command key for keyboard shortcuts, so they borrowed a key meant for another purpose.

Suppose you have a document open in Word, and you want to save it as an attachment in a Mail message. Save the file in Word and click and drag the little word document icon right next to the document’s filename in the window title. Press the Exposé function key and mouse over to Mail (all the while dragging the icon). Wait a second and Exposé selects the Mail application and closes down. Finally, let go of the mouse button to drop the Word document icon in your compose window. Voilà, you have attached a Word document into your mail message, without having to use the Finder, or the little “Attach” toolbar button and wading through your filesystem.

My recommendation is try a little experimentation - you may discover ways to perform certain activities much faster than you would have thought possible. Hope this helps.

Even if MS copied Apple with the copy/paste shortcuts, it’s still a whole lot easier on the fingers (and @Bob, maybe I did, but it’s a valid complaint as someone who uses those shortcuts quite frequently).

As for the Command Q, that makes sense… but I HATE that I can’t close an application with the close window button, as I can in Windows. That’s something that I am just starting to get used to, but still find myself forgetting. I do plan on following some of the suggestions, like the Applications folder on the Dock (and I do put the more commonly used apps, and some others, on the Dock).

And yes, a lot of what I’m complaining about is stuff that would change after time, but these are the most common things I use just about all day every day.

I don’t use either Cmd-Tab or Expose. I just run each app in its own space, then navigate by clicking on the appicons in the dock or using Ctrl-arrow or Ctrl-number (or the Spaces icon). Since you can assign each app to a particular space, it is easy to remember that browsers are always space 1, cirtual machines are space 3, etc.

I do think you invited some of the criticism by complaining about Cmd-V rather than Ctrl-V, etc. because 1)the Mac keys are better thought out and more consistent, 2)this is about as trivial an issue as could be imagined, and 3)you can always remap the keys.

Now, I’m not calling all Windows users Windowstards. Just making a point about Sebhelyesfarku’s post.

Bot
cyborg Mac fanatic

If I recall correctly, Microsoft changed its cut, copy, paste to be more similar the Mac’s key combos. Remember in DOS it was something like delete to cut and insert to paste? It’s been so long that my memory is clouded and I’m too lazy to Google it. But I remember the keys were different. INS and DEL would make sense, but then Microsoft changed them (AFTER the Mac came out).

How about Command-H to hide applications? The Windows equivalent is, um. Is there one?

I’m a Windows convert (since 2001) and I haven’t had many problems adjusting to Command-XCV. I’m trying to figure out what fingers I use. I guess I use my thumb to press the command and then pointer to press one of the others. It’s never been a problem, except when I go back to Windows and hit Command/Windows key by accident.

And Expose’ ROCKS!

Bot