The adventures of a seasoned Windows user with his new Mac Mini
By Toxin
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Chapter Two
In which the author reads a manual,
learns that he is too clever sometimes, and discovers the meaning of
the term “user-friendly”...
Bring your own – is there a
corkage fee?
Normally I don't
read manuals. Most consumer goods are pretty self-explanatory, and
manuals are there for reference in the event that I can't work out
how to use a particular feature. I was sorely tempted to rush in,
plug everything in to the obvious sockets, and hope for the best. A
cooler head prevailed, however, and I made myself sit down and read
through the manual first. After all, I wasn't using all-Apple
components; my monitor is made by Eizo, my keyboard by Saitek, and my
mouse by Logitech. The box said “bring your own display,
keyboard and mouse”, but third-party keyboards don't have the
same symbols one sees on Apple's own keyboards. Third-party mice have
more than one button, too.
The manual
explained the equivalents of the Command and Option keys, how to
navigate around OS X, how to find and use the built-in Help, how to
eject a disc, how to find the Control Panel, er, I mean System
Preferences, how to kill an unresponsive application, how to
reinstall the operating system, and much, much more. Betrayal of geek
principles it may have been, but I was very glad I had taken the
time. It meant that I knew enough to start making use of my new toy.
The moment of truth
I hooked everything
up, said a quick prayer, took a deep breath, and pressed the power
button. Nothing happened. Then I heard a soft chime and the screen
turned white. I guess I had turned it on, after all, but it was so
quiet!
As this was the
first time I'd switched on the Mac Mini, it wanted to spend a few
moments setting itself up for my use, starting with the keyboard. It
couldn't identify what sort of keyboard I had, and it hoped that Sir
would not find it too onerous a chore to expend some effort pressing
one key and selecting an option afterwards.
Sir appears to be too clever for his
own good
This is where I hit
my first stumbling block. I've a UK keyboard, and OS X was asking me
if I had a European (ISO 9995), American (ANSI) or Japanese keyboard.
A less-knowledgeable user would have breezed through this without a
care in the world. Such a user might think, I'm in England, my
keyboard's got a UK layout, therefore I'm using a European keyboard,
no? I, on the other hand, with my couple of decades' experience
with Microsoft, have a passing familiarity with code pages and
translation. I turned my attention back to the manual in an attempt
to find out whether I should choose European or American. The manual
told me nothing.
It was time to hit
up Google and Apple's own support pages, but without success. Perhaps
I couldn't adequately formulate the question I was trying to ask, or
maybe my question was so manifestly dim that no-one would ever think
of asking, never mind answering, it. I struck out. Almost an hour
later I was still no closer to learning which option I should choose,
so I crossed my fingers, prayed, and chose European anyway.
The rest of the
setup routine went smoothly, with the exception of providing my Apple
ID. Setup used the Apple ID to populate my user information
automatically. Immediately before this step I was asked if I had a UK
or US keyboard layout; I chose UK. The very first hurdle upon
switching on the computer was the identification of my keyboard and
so I was surprised to be asked another keyboard-related question. The
Apple ID is typically in the form of an e-mail address, and the @
symbol on a UK keyboard is in a different location than on a US
keyboard. Happily, I speak both UK and US keyboard layouts, so I
could continue. Further reading has led me to believe that had I
opted to pay the extra £53 for an official Apple keyboard and
mouse I would not have had a problem with this.
I have set up
Windows XP on countless machines. I am far too familiar with that
sequence of azure screens for comfort. The setup routine is clunky,
to say the least. In contrast, the OS X setup routine is, well,
polished is the only word I can think of; not slick,
nor elegant, though they're close. I was beginning to suspect
that this would be a theme. Keyboard niggles aside, niggles which a
novice would hopefully never encounter, the setup of my new toy went
like a dream.
It's blue!
Pretty soon I was
at the OS X desktop, gazing at an abstract blue background, and a
Finder (the OS X equivalent of Windows' own Explorer) window open to
my home directory.
First things first.
OS X hadn't set the resolution to the maximum my monitor would
support, so I had to find out how to do that. If this had been
Windows, a quick right-click on the Desktop would have fixed it in
short order. OS X does support the right-hand button, but clicking on
the background did not bring up the desired option. It was time to
delve into the Control Pan- I mean System Preferences.
Before I could get
that far, a window appeared suddenly, announcing the presence of a
few hundred megabytes' worth of updates from Apple. No biggie; I'm
used to the same thing from Microsoft after a new installation, so I
let it carry on with the updates and brewed some tea. The update
process was seamless, polished even, and a couple of reboots
later I was back at the abstract blue background.
Little did I know
that my keyboard woes were not yet finished...
Stay tuned for the next instalment,
in which the author fiddles while home burns, learns that enemies do
not always remain vanquished, plays with IRC, and eliminates his
dependency on CAT5...
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