Switch from Windows Laptop to Mac Macbook – A Beginner’s Guide

Did you recently buy a new MacBook or you got the job to work on Macbook and don’t ever used OS X before or you was the Windows user earlier? Then you are at right place. Here I am going to share with you some tips, tricks, or guides that you can use to do some works and operate Mac OS easily.

Let me tell you first my story. I was using Windows prior to using Mac and the initial Mac days were so hard. I had to work for 8-10 hours daily on the Mac and first few days were sort of nightmare for me. I tried to look for things here and there and in the end I got so comfortable that I am frightened of touching a Windows laptop or PC these days.

Learn Some Keyboard Shortcuts of Mac OS.

Recognize these common keyboard icon and name of it.

Keep this link handy – Table of Mac keyboard shortcuts

Keys transition

Everything remains more or less same. I used to miss a couple of keys – page-up/down, home, an end from Windows. But Mac has these arrows keys which are multifunctional when used with command and shift keys. Command + Shift + Arrow keys do all the things.The ctrl key creates a lot of confusion in the beginning. But later on, you realize that the Command key is what you would take as a Window’s ctrl key in general life, and the Mac’s ctrl is mostly used when you are on the terminal. (ctrl +e, ctrl + w, ctrl + r etc.)The function key(fn) and keys (f1-f12) are pretty much the same as they are in windows. You can easily change the behavior of fn keys from preference.

The touchpad transition

Forget the right/left click. I struggled a lot with the touchpad in the beginning. I had to first google search for how to use Mac’s touchpad from my Windows laptop. The two finger scroll and three finger select is the coolest thing I find in my Mac. They simplify things way too much. You can configure the trackpad from preference quite easily.(The two finger scroll works in Linux as well.)One can use two fingers to scroll up/down and the direction can be configured. Tapping two fingers is Windows’s right click (so much energy I had wasted). Three finger drag is equivalent to – holding Window’s left click button and dragging your fingers to select some text (again I lost a lot of energy here). A smooth easy three-finger swipe will do the thing for you.

The Terminal

• More than half of my time goes on the terminal. Mac’s terminal is so cool. You can change colors and fonts and everything so easily.
• The Dock – Dock is yet another cool feature in Mac. It can be considered similar to Windows dock. You can stuff up your favorite applications here as you do on Window’s desktop. This dock can again be positioned on any of the edges of your screen. With Yosemite (the latest Mac OS), a dot below every application’s icon in the dock means it is open.
  

  
• Some other important shortcuts –
  • command+shift+4 = used for taking screen shots of a particular area. For the screenshot of whole the screen use command+shift+3.
  • option+command+eject = puts the system on sleep. Eject is the top rightmost key.
  • use 4 fingers, swipe outwards on the touchpad to go to the desktop directly.
  • while using the browsers you can two finger swipe left/right to navigate to the pages you have visited. Quite useful thing.
  • command+space = opens up spotlight where you can search for things/applications in your system and directly open them from there.
  • command+q = to close current windows; command+m = for minimizing
  • command+n = for a new window, command+t = for a new tab.
• There is concept of multiple Desktops also. I generally do not use it much.
• Airdrop – which is used when you have to transfer files over the network. It’s quite useful and way too simple. Just a file drop on the windows.

Overall, Mac is total cool and sexy and colorful and lively. Its a matter of days and you will realize how simple is everything. You will certainly find yourself more productive. And then you will always wish to never return back to those energy draining days of Windows.