Here are a few pointers for Mac noobs. Lets start with the Basics, the machine itself. Boot option screen:
If your Mac is a g4 or later, you have a boot options screen. You just have to know how to get to it. This is useful if you boot more than one OS, or are trying to boot from a CD. This comes in handy when you rebooted without selecting the startup disk you wanted to use. This way you will not have to boot all the way into an OS and use system prefs to pick the disk you want to boot.
When the machine is booting hold down your option button on the keyboard. This will bring up screen like this.
Although the appearance can slightly differ between models.
A lot of people are unaware of the existence of this function. I find it to be very useful on machines that triple boot.
Zapping the PRAM:
Indeed things can go wrong time to time with a Mac. On the Brightside, Zapping the PRAM almost always will get you going. When you get a sad Mac face or a hanging boot screen, it is usually from some setup/startup option you have toyed with that is causing the problem.
To Zap your PRAM hold down command+p+r as soon as the Mac is booting. Hold them down until you hear three boot chimes. You will have to redo your time and date but you are back in business.
Open Firmware:
Open firmware is best explained as the Mac version of DOS, although it is a UNIX environment. You should rarely if ever have to boot into OF. It is mainly used to fix serious errors in the file system. You can also use it to run some Hardware diagnostics. Open firmware is limited to PPC Macs. The Intel Macs have something called EFI, which I don’t know too much about.
To get to open firmware hold down command+o+f while booting.
This is the best pic I could get without saving my work and actually booting OF to get a pic.
If you are having serious start up issues, reset your PRAM and then boot into OF. You will see a command line that says
“to continue booting type mac-boot”
Instead of typing mac-boot, type reset-nvram and press return. At the OF prompt type reset-all followed by return again. Then give the OS boot another shot by typing mac-boot. You can also use OF to boot a CD if need be. The command for that is CD-boot.
Some people do cool stuff with OF like write pong for it. You can play pong on OF. Here’s a link to the guys supporting that.
http://members.aol.com/plforth/ofpong/ Some quick OS X tips:
If you have a bunch of windows open on top of each other press F9 and watch magic happen. You can now click on the window you want to display on top of all others, very useful.
In a similar cir***stance you want to get to the desktop with out fooling with all the windows, press f11.
F12 is a shortcut to the dashboard without using the dock.
System preferences is your friend.
I plan on elaborating on OS X goodness in another thread at a later date.
Mac pointers
Mac pointers
Linear Mode
