The biggest difference between Windows and Mac is that on a Mac if you close the Window of a program the program does not quit. It just keeps running in the background. It's fine to leave lots of programs running. Clicking on any application window, or on the application icon in the dock, brings that program to the front and gives you "focus" on that program. The "Mac way" is just to leave your most used apps open and then bring the one you want to use into focus (rather than quitting and restarting all the time.) If you really want to quit you have to specifically choose 'quit' from the programs main menu (always the name of the program next to the apple menu at top left of screen.)
The biggest possible "gotcha" is that on Windows, when dragging one folder onto another folder Windows will merge the contents of the two folders. Macs just overwrite with the new files and you lose the old files. In other words, if you copy "Pictures" folder, with just a few recent photos, over your old huge "Pictures" directory suddenly all the old photos are gone! Windows does a "merge' instead which might make more sense. Don't get burned by this. Ask if it's not clear what I am talking about and I'll give more examples.
In terms of software you need, I would first open System Preferences (either through the apple menu always at top left of screen, or through the gear like System Preferences icon in the dock - same thing.) In System Preferences select Software Update, and in that window click 'Check Now'. This will go to Apple and get a list of available software updates (just for Apple software.) Install them all. Probably you'll have to reboot. Then go back to Software Update and 'Check Now' again. Repeat this process until there are no more updates to install.
Have a look through the other screens in System Preferences. You can control almost everything from in there. The help system is good too!
Take programs you don't want out of the dock by clicking and holding on the icon and dragging it out of the dock and then letting go. Add a program to the dock by clicking and holding on the application in your Applications folder and then dragging it onto the dock and letting go. Similarly you can add and remove folders from the Finder's sidebar in this same way.
I recommend using Safari as a browser. If you are going to do that start up Safari (it's in your dock, but all applications are also always in your Applications folder - the Dock is just shortcuts to stuff in that folder.) Choose 'Preferences' from the top left 'Safari' menu. All programs have their preferences in this location. Set it up the way you want it (open with a blank page or a specific site; set where downloads go automatically, although I like the default; I recommend unchecking 'open safe files after downloading' if it is checked just for more security; and set open links from application to open in a new tab.) Still in preferences click 'tabs' at the top and make sure "command-click to open a link in a new tab" is checked (I'm not sure what the default is anymore.)
Next I would download Perian. This will go to your Downloads folder if you didn't change the default above. This folder is at the right hand end of your dock. Click once to pop up it's contents and double click on Perian_1.1.dmg that you just downloaded it. Any .dmg file will mount in the finder as if it were an external drive (dmg is a "Disk iMaGe") and the Finder should open a window showing the contents. Just double click as the instructions in that window say and it will install. Perian adds a whole bunch of codecs to Quicktime so you can play almost any video in Quicktime or any other program that uses Quicktime (which is almost everything that plays video on the Mac.)
That will handle most stuff, but you probably still want VLC. Download here. This is an alternate audio/video player that will often play the rare thing that Quicktime w/ Perian will not. It will also play DVDs without respect for region coding.
The Finder has zip and unzip built in. Just double click a .zip to uncompress, or select a folder or group of files and select 'compress' from the Finder's File menu.
Use versiontracker.com to find random free software you might be looking for (you can search for, say, id3 editor, and you'll get a bunch of hits, or any other utilities like that.)
Feel free to ask other questions.
Some thoughts on my first day with a MacPro.
- Jeebus there's a lot of aluminium in that case. I haven't done the full disassembly, but my first impression from taking off the side door is that it's much beefier than ANY PC case I've dealt with (other than something like my cold-rolled steel rack mount case). And ... they did industrial design on the inside!
- I miss my right click. There's all kinds of goodies hidden under that right click, like "properties" of a file I'm looking at. I'm sure there's a way to do it on a Mac, but it's surely more involved. (You can go your whole life without right clicking on a PC, but for power users, there are some nice short cuts.) I was missing my click wheel, but then I figured out that they've got some sort of track ball built in to the top of the mouse that's similar.
- I'm not real sure about that keyboard. It sure is purty though. I'm kinda old school.
- Final Cut Pro is a strange and wonderous program. I've got much(!) to learn, but I think I figured out how to add a 1080p@59.94Hz video sequence profile, and actually generate a short clip in that format. I think. I'll have to pull in some still frame test patterns to be sure.
Yeah, they do industrial design everywhere. Like the traces on the back of the motherboard. I know, makes no sense. But they're like that.
If you have the apple mouse (mighty mouse) it should have both left and right clicks. There aren't buttons, but just click using the right side of the mouse and it will be a right click. Or, alternately, hold down ctrl while you click for right click. Or, much better, plug in any PC mouse and right click will just work. All programs have right click contextual menus. Can't live without them.
If the mighty mouse doesn't work for right click check "keyboard and mouse" in system preferences. I think originally (10.2 or so) you had to turn it on, but I think it's on by default now. It's definitely in there.
I agree the keyboard looks a little questionable. I haven't used it extensively. Kind of reminds me of my old IBM PCjr. But apparently a lot of people come around. Still, plug in whatever you want just like the mouse.
Interested in your other opinions.
This Mac Pro project is turning into a serious pain. I'm sustaining 200 MB/s throughput from disk array to video card, which sounds like a lot, but I need 250 MB/s (2 Gbps). I have throughput utilities that show performance north of 350 MB/s, but the real apps can't hit that, despite running very, very low on the CPU meter. My last hope is that bumping system memory from 4 GB to 8 or 16 GB will fix the problem by eliminating any risk of swap or buffer under/over flow.
I'm also having fun(?) in Mac-land. It wouldn't be quite the same issue if I wasn't in a hurry. This evening I typed into a help box "What the fuck is the dock?" As funny as that might sound to a Mac user, picture this ... It took me about three tries to submit the question -- don't even try to click anything, just hit carriage return. D'oh!
But hey, I've got an entire week to resolve the hardware issues obtain hundreds of gigabytes of video content, resolve rights issues on the content, obtain and test the rest of the video equipment, etc., etc.
Do you have the 15000 rpm SAS drives? Are you running RAID 0? (Scary, but fast)
There are two banks of five SATA 2 drives. Each bank is RAID 0. Each bank is connected via 4 Gig Fibre Channel to the Mac. The two banks are striped by the OS to RAID 0 with the biggest sector size. (The files are Gigs to tens of Gigs.)
So we're running RAID 00, which is double scary.
This is the external RAID chassis. It's supposed to have a >=350 MByte/sec mode. But it's not getting there.
I've got an alternate system coming Tuesday from Dulce, to see if that fixes the problem.
To put it in other terms, we need to transfer the amount of data on a CD ROM in 2 seconds -- every two seconds continuously without break ... ever. And right now it's closer to three seconds.
Right, now I remember the external RAID. Damn.
Does it do better with smaller files? That might indicate the additional RAM would help. Probably you're way ahead of me here.
That Dulce looks nice.
You might drop a line to Promax. They know their stuff and might have a recommendation.
I posted this in a forum and someone suggested maybe the software RAID 0 is the bottleneck. Maybe try without that? Doesn't sound quite right to me - all those cores shouldn't have a problem with it - but maybe worth a try.
Thanks for looking into it. The SW RAID is one of the things we've looked at. The SW RAID 0 does help performance, at least in the speed test utility.
I'm very happy to say it looks like we've got a temporary workaround that will get us through the trade show. One of the apps in the Final Cut Suite will do a compression to a few hundred Megabits per second that a) can be decoded in real-time, and b) looks pretty clean. Coincidentally, it's an MPEG-4/AVC encoder. It's a little frustrating for compressor geeks that they don't expose much of anything about the compression parameters. I'd like to tweak the GOP (no B frames), the entropy scheme (CAVLC, not CABAC), the rate control (VBR), but none of that is exposed. We tried AVC encoding in Final Cut, Compressor, and Motion. The way Motion does compression seems to be compatible with real-time decode, at about 50% utilization across all eight cores.
I'm suspicious that QuickTime is behind the problems with real-time playback of uncompressed 1080p60. But, bizarrely, Apple doesn't provide a mechanism for rolling back to earlier versions of QuickTime 7 in OS X. I did a roll back on a couple Windows machines, because one of the QuickTime 7 releases regressed in its support for the AVC files that are generated by my handycam.
So if I want to roll back QuickTime in OS X, I think I have to go all the way back to QuickTime 6. I've heard they did a special release that does rollback because some people hated QuickTime 7. (It moves some features to the "pro" upgrade that used to be in the free version. Some of the features are hilarious. I don't know if they've always done this, but if I download a TIFF from the NASA website, it goes to QuickTime, which won't save the file unless I give Apple $30.)
It took a day, but now the uber Mac geeks are weighing in. Check the thread. Sounds like some good advice. Especially from cp5184 and RicDavis.
thx. I also tried an Apple board, but the Ars board has a lot more action on it. No solution yet, but I think I've got a workaround.
Tried a different disk array ... Win!
Details at that Ars Technica thread.
The biggest difference between Windows and Mac is that on a Mac if you close the Window of a program the program does not quit. It just keeps running in the background. It's fine to leave lots of programs running. Clicking on any application window, or on the application icon in the dock, brings that program to the front and gives you "focus" on that program. The "Mac way" is just to leave your most used apps open and then bring the one you want to use into focus (rather than quitting and restarting all the time.) If you really want to quit you have to specifically choose 'quit' from the programs main menu (always the name of the program next to the apple menu at top left of screen.)
The biggest possible "gotcha" is that on Windows, when dragging one folder onto another folder Windows will merge the contents of the two folders. Macs just overwrite with the new files and you lose the old files. In other words, if you copy "Pictures" folder, with just a few recent photos, over your old huge "Pictures" directory suddenly all the old photos are gone! Windows does a "merge' instead which might make more sense. Don't get burned by this. Ask if it's not clear what I am talking about and I'll give more examples.
In terms of software you need, I would first open System Preferences (either through the apple menu always at top left of screen, or through the gear like System Preferences icon in the dock - same thing.) In System Preferences select Software Update, and in that window click 'Check Now'. This will go to Apple and get a list of available software updates (just for Apple software.) Install them all. Probably you'll have to reboot. Then go back to Software Update and 'Check Now' again. Repeat this process until there are no more updates to install.
Have a look through the other screens in System Preferences. You can control almost everything from in there. The help system is good too!
Take programs you don't want out of the dock by clicking and holding on the icon and dragging it out of the dock and then letting go. Add a program to the dock by clicking and holding on the application in your Applications folder and then dragging it onto the dock and letting go. Similarly you can add and remove folders from the Finder's sidebar in this same way.
I recommend using Safari as a browser. If you are going to do that start up Safari (it's in your dock, but all applications are also always in your Applications folder - the Dock is just shortcuts to stuff in that folder.) Choose 'Preferences' from the top left 'Safari' menu. All programs have their preferences in this location. Set it up the way you want it (open with a blank page or a specific site; set where downloads go automatically, although I like the default; I recommend unchecking 'open safe files after downloading' if it is checked just for more security; and set open links from application to open in a new tab.) Still in preferences click 'tabs' at the top and make sure "command-click to open a link in a new tab" is checked (I'm not sure what the default is anymore.)
Next I would download Perian. This will go to your Downloads folder if you didn't change the default above. This folder is at the right hand end of your dock. Click once to pop up it's contents and double click on Perian_1.1.dmg that you just downloaded it. Any .dmg file will mount in the finder as if it were an external drive (dmg is a "Disk iMaGe") and the Finder should open a window showing the contents. Just double click as the instructions in that window say and it will install. Perian adds a whole bunch of codecs to Quicktime so you can play almost any video in Quicktime or any other program that uses Quicktime (which is almost everything that plays video on the Mac.)
That will handle most stuff, but you probably still want VLC. Download here. This is an alternate audio/video player that will often play the rare thing that Quicktime w/ Perian will not. It will also play DVDs without respect for region coding.
The Finder has zip and unzip built in. Just double click a .zip to uncompress, or select a folder or group of files and select 'compress' from the Finder's File menu.
Use versiontracker.com to find random free software you might be looking for (you can search for, say, id3 editor, and you'll get a bunch of hits, or any other utilities like that.)
Feel free to ask other questions.
- jim 3-30-2008 9:18 pm
Some thoughts on my first day with a MacPro.
- Jeebus there's a lot of aluminium in that case. I haven't done the full disassembly, but my first impression from taking off the side door is that it's much beefier than ANY PC case I've dealt with (other than something like my cold-rolled steel rack mount case). And ... they did industrial design on the inside!
- I miss my right click. There's all kinds of goodies hidden under that right click, like "properties" of a file I'm looking at. I'm sure there's a way to do it on a Mac, but it's surely more involved. (You can go your whole life without right clicking on a PC, but for power users, there are some nice short cuts.) I was missing my click wheel, but then I figured out that they've got some sort of track ball built in to the top of the mouse that's similar.
- I'm not real sure about that keyboard. It sure is purty though. I'm kinda old school.
- Final Cut Pro is a strange and wonderous program. I've got much(!) to learn, but I think I figured out how to add a 1080p@59.94Hz video sequence profile, and actually generate a short clip in that format. I think. I'll have to pull in some still frame test patterns to be sure.
- mark 4-01-2008 5:13 am
Yeah, they do industrial design everywhere. Like the traces on the back of the motherboard. I know, makes no sense. But they're like that.
If you have the apple mouse (mighty mouse) it should have both left and right clicks. There aren't buttons, but just click using the right side of the mouse and it will be a right click. Or, alternately, hold down ctrl while you click for right click. Or, much better, plug in any PC mouse and right click will just work. All programs have right click contextual menus. Can't live without them.
If the mighty mouse doesn't work for right click check "keyboard and mouse" in system preferences. I think originally (10.2 or so) you had to turn it on, but I think it's on by default now. It's definitely in there.
I agree the keyboard looks a little questionable. I haven't used it extensively. Kind of reminds me of my old IBM PCjr. But apparently a lot of people come around. Still, plug in whatever you want just like the mouse.
Interested in your other opinions.
- jim 4-01-2008 5:42 am
This Mac Pro project is turning into a serious pain. I'm sustaining 200 MB/s throughput from disk array to video card, which sounds like a lot, but I need 250 MB/s (2 Gbps). I have throughput utilities that show performance north of 350 MB/s, but the real apps can't hit that, despite running very, very low on the CPU meter. My last hope is that bumping system memory from 4 GB to 8 or 16 GB will fix the problem by eliminating any risk of swap or buffer under/over flow.
I'm also having fun(?) in Mac-land. It wouldn't be quite the same issue if I wasn't in a hurry. This evening I typed into a help box "What the fuck is the dock?" As funny as that might sound to a Mac user, picture this ... It took me about three tries to submit the question -- don't even try to click anything, just hit carriage return. D'oh!
But hey, I've got an entire week to resolve the hardware issues obtain hundreds of gigabytes of video content, resolve rights issues on the content, obtain and test the rest of the video equipment, etc., etc.
- mark 4-04-2008 7:25 am
Do you have the 15000 rpm SAS drives? Are you running RAID 0? (Scary, but fast)
- jim 4-04-2008 7:56 pm
There are two banks of five SATA 2 drives. Each bank is RAID 0. Each bank is connected via 4 Gig Fibre Channel to the Mac. The two banks are striped by the OS to RAID 0 with the biggest sector size. (The files are Gigs to tens of Gigs.)
So we're running RAID 00, which is double scary.
This is the external RAID chassis. It's supposed to have a >=350 MByte/sec mode. But it's not getting there.
I've got an alternate system coming Tuesday from Dulce, to see if that fixes the problem.
To put it in other terms, we need to transfer the amount of data on a CD ROM in 2 seconds -- every two seconds continuously without break ... ever. And right now it's closer to three seconds.
- mark 4-04-2008 8:45 pm
Right, now I remember the external RAID. Damn.
Does it do better with smaller files? That might indicate the additional RAM would help. Probably you're way ahead of me here.
That Dulce looks nice.
You might drop a line to Promax. They know their stuff and might have a recommendation.
- jim 4-04-2008 9:15 pm
I posted this in a forum and someone suggested maybe the software RAID 0 is the bottleneck. Maybe try without that? Doesn't sound quite right to me - all those cores shouldn't have a problem with it - but maybe worth a try.
- jim 4-06-2008 12:13 am
Thanks for looking into it. The SW RAID is one of the things we've looked at. The SW RAID 0 does help performance, at least in the speed test utility.
I'm very happy to say it looks like we've got a temporary workaround that will get us through the trade show. One of the apps in the Final Cut Suite will do a compression to a few hundred Megabits per second that a) can be decoded in real-time, and b) looks pretty clean. Coincidentally, it's an MPEG-4/AVC encoder. It's a little frustrating for compressor geeks that they don't expose much of anything about the compression parameters. I'd like to tweak the GOP (no B frames), the entropy scheme (CAVLC, not CABAC), the rate control (VBR), but none of that is exposed. We tried AVC encoding in Final Cut, Compressor, and Motion. The way Motion does compression seems to be compatible with real-time decode, at about 50% utilization across all eight cores.
I'm suspicious that QuickTime is behind the problems with real-time playback of uncompressed 1080p60. But, bizarrely, Apple doesn't provide a mechanism for rolling back to earlier versions of QuickTime 7 in OS X. I did a roll back on a couple Windows machines, because one of the QuickTime 7 releases regressed in its support for the AVC files that are generated by my handycam.
So if I want to roll back QuickTime in OS X, I think I have to go all the way back to QuickTime 6. I've heard they did a special release that does rollback because some people hated QuickTime 7. (It moves some features to the "pro" upgrade that used to be in the free version. Some of the features are hilarious. I don't know if they've always done this, but if I download a TIFF from the NASA website, it goes to QuickTime, which won't save the file unless I give Apple $30.)
- mark 4-06-2008 3:55 am
It took a day, but now the uber Mac geeks are weighing in. Check the thread. Sounds like some good advice. Especially from cp5184 and RicDavis.
- jim 4-06-2008 8:19 pm
thx. I also tried an Apple board, but the Ars board has a lot more action on it. No solution yet, but I think I've got a workaround.
- mark 4-07-2008 9:25 pm
Tried a different disk array ... Win!
Details at that Ars Technica thread.
- mark 4-09-2008 9:37 am