The Mac is considered simple and easy to understand. The operating system and its most important program, Finder, play an important role in this. But there are some places that cost time and nerves – especially because there are not workarounds for all of them
Some of the following seem quirky, but if you find yourself bumping up against them on a daily basis, you’ll be glad for any way out that presents itself. It’s just a pity that some things can’t be changed at all. Best example: We regularly receive questions about how to present the contents of a folder with Mac OS X in the same way as with Windows: at the top of the list are all the subfolders, and then the files below them. This sorting is not feasible on the Mac because the operating system treats all items in a folder the same way. No matter how you sort – folders and files are always messed up.
The green point
This zoom button is useless due to its unpredictability
Our favorite in the list of nonsensical features is the green button that is visible in the top left corner of almost all windows on the Mac. Apple calls it the “green zoom button” because it lets you switch between two sizes for each window.
Annoying What the Apple documentation discreetly conceals is which sizes are involved. If you grab a window by the grooved corner at the bottom right and bring it to the maximum size, you will find that clicking on the green zoom button will bring the window back to the previous size. There are also a number of exceptions: The font selection window, for example, is set to a maximum size (known only to the Apple developer) with the green button; switching to the previous size is not possible. But the music software iTunes takes the cake: There you can switch between the normal view and a thumbnail of the playback window by pressing the green zoom button. The familiar zoom function is only available if you hold down the selector button while clicking on the green button.
Way out Simply ignore. The green button is currently completely superfluous in our eyes. It is only useful in rare cases when a window extends out of the visible area so that you can no longer reach the rippled area at the bottom right. Then clicking the button will bring the window back to the maximum that can be displayed on that screen.
Quit programs
Quitting programs or windows makes a big difference
To close a program, click on the red button in the upper left corner (in Apple German: “Schlossenaste”).
Wrong – this is how it works in Windows. On the Mac you only close the window. The Mac separates windows and applications since the childhood days of the operating system. A program can also be active without a window; i.e.: essential parts of the software are in the working memory and can be brought back to life with a keystroke. The best example for this is Finder – the software is always active, even if you don’t have any windows open at the moment. But a click on the Finder icon in the Dock brings up a window.
Annoying Unfortunately, there are exceptions to this rule: The System Preferences program, for example, is closed by clicking the red button.
Way out To quit an application on the Mac, there are several ways: For example, via the menu bar at the top of the monitor. There you can see the name of the program on the very left. If you click on it, you get a menu in which the lowest command terminates the respective program. Alternatively, the combination “Command-Q” should trigger the same effect. If you are looking for the emergency stop button in case of a problem, you should remember the combination “Command-Option-Key-ESC”: It opens the window “Quit immediately”, with which you can switch off an active software immediately. But be careful: information that is not yet saved will be lost with this emergency help.
Symbols on the desk
A restart, for example, changes the usual arrangement of the icons
Mac-OS X does not show (by far) everything that is stored on the hard disk. This makes it easier to keep track of things because, for example, only four folders are visible at the top level of the hard disk instead of the more than 20 folders that are actually present. However, if something goes wrong in the invisible part, repair becomes difficult. Best example: the distribution of icons on the desktop. Stored is the information in the invisible file “.DS_Store “. But what is crucial is the inside of the file, it contains the information about the size of the icons, the associated file name and the position on the desktop. However, not in plain text, but in a form that only Apple developers can understand.
Annoying Every now and then, after restarting the Mac, the icons are simply sorted alphabetically on the right side of the screen. This happens especially often when you use a notebook alternately with or without an additional monitor.
Way out If you use Apple’s Time Machine backup software and are confident enough to use some complex commands in the Terminal utility, you can use the “.Restore DS_Store” from a backup.
Example with five variables in rectangular brackets depending on the Mac:
rm . ~/Desktop/.DS_Store
cd . /Volumes/[name of backup disk]
cd . Backups.backupdb/[name of Mac]/[date]/[name of hard disk]/Users/[user name]/Desktop
cp . .DS_Store . ~/Desktop/
The first command deletes the existing file, the two following are the jump to the folder with a backup of “.DS_Store”, which was saved at a certain date. The last command “cp…” copies the invisible file back to the harddisk.
Afterwards you have to restart the Finder application immediately. To do so, hold down the Control and Option keys and click with the mouse on the Finder icon in the Dock. Visible is the context menu which contains the command “Restart” at the very bottom of the menu. Select this command with the mouse and wait until the Finder is completely restarted. If the backup is halfway up to date, the icons should be back in the usual place afterwards.
Eject USB sticks
After saving, there is no escape without logging off
Under Windows it works: save files to a USB stick and remove the stick as soon as the copy process is finished. But not on the Mac, there every hard disk and every USB stick, even the memory card from the photo camera must be logged off correctly, otherwise you get an error message.
Annoying If you remove a USB stick from your Mac, you will not only get an error message, but you actually run the risk of making the data on the stick unreadable. One reason for this is Spotlight, the combination of database and background software, which also catalogs the files on USB sticks and saves the database on the stick! Another one is the cache mechanism: To be able to copy faster, Mac-OS X creates a cache also for USB sticks: On the screen the message about the copy of the data has already disappeared, although copying is still going on in the background.
Way out None. Every USB stick and memory card must be “ejected” after saving – either via the command “File> [name] eject” or by dragging it with the mouse to the recycle bin icon in the dock.
Calendar week
The calendar week can be accessed only with additional software
There are many legends about the “calendar week”, but you won’t find a clear statement on Apple’s internet pages. But it is obvious that the calendar week is invisible in the complete Mac operating system. You can’t get it from the clock in the upper right corner of the Mac’s menu nor from the software iCal. Even on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad this information is missing.
Annoying Without additional software (or crude terminal commands) the calendar week cannot be determined on the Mac.
Way out There is a whole series of programs that determine and display the calendar week according to the rules common in this country. If you want to see the information in iCal, you can resort to Numsemain, which creates its own calendar with the appropriate entries. Alternatively, you can subscribe to such a calendar over the Internet via various places (for example, the calendar of Mac Service& Support Berlin, www.mac.berlin.coiplet.en).
In the Terminal utility the command is
date . +”KW . %V”
The program quit unexpectedly
The last picture before the crash helps with the analysis
Determining the cause can be difficult, but the error message after an application crashes on the Mac rarely helps: “The application quit unexpectedly.”Since Mac-OS X 10.5 this surprise is sweetened by the fact that you can restart the program – optionally even with deleting the preferences beforehand.
Annoying The crash of a program is almost always unexpected. Instead of the message it would be much more helpful to get a collection of the most important facts like version number, manufacturer plus internet address.
Way out Almost every software crashes from time to time. In case of emergency, the most important information is therefore, the name of the manufacturer and a hint when and how to reach their customer service. If you can’t remember the error messages, you should at least remember the key combinations “Command-Shift-3” or “Command-Shift-4”: This will take a picture of the screen, which can be really helpful in analyzing the problem.
Eject volume
A hint why a volume is not ejected would be nice
If you log off a USB stick (see point 4) or an external hard disk, you finally get a helpful hint about the culprit with the operating system Mac-OS X “Snow Leopard”: “The volume … is currently being used by xxx and cannot be ejected.” But in all previous versions of the operating system you only get the terse note “… cannot be ejected”.
Annoying programs like Adobe Reader and Microsoft Word occasionally block the “Eject Volume” function in the Finder because there are still files open in the background that the software uses as caches.
Way out In most cases, the volume can be ejected when you exit the respective program. But the crucial clue to the program blocking the operation is only available if you are using the Mac-OS X Snow Leopard operating system. In exceptional cases the hint is misleading because several programs are blocking the volume. Therefore, in case of doubt, there is only one tedious way out: restart Mac and unplug the volume when the startup sound is audible. At this point (and for a few seconds after), the Mac is certainly not accessing the volume.
Change window size
Several handles are still necessary for this change
As a Mac owner, you’ll eventually get used to not having complete control over the size (and occasionally the position) of a window on your Mac. Say: After restarting the computer (or the respective software) the window has a different size or position than before. To move the window, you have to grab the very top or the very bottom with the mouse. But the resizing is possible only with the discreet dashed corner at the bottom right of the window.
Annoying In Windows, you can resize a window by approaching one of its four edges. On the Mac, the change is only possible via a corner, so that you occasionally have to “reach around” – i.e.: first zoom out and then move it around.
Way out Apple has explicitly defined this behavior in its “Human Interface Guidelines. It is extremely unlikely that these policies will be changed in the foreseeable future.
file types in Snow Leopard
Open files with the default program
The “progress” of the current operating system Mac-OS X “Snow Leopard” comes with at least one setback: the connection between file type and program. Example: You create an internet page with an HTML editor. After double-clicking on the icon of the file, however, not the editor opens, but the browser Safari. Almost more annoying is the resulting loss in subtle differences in file handling: For example, if you save an HTML file with Safari, you probably want to view it after double-clicking in Safari. But if you create an HTML file with Adobe Dreamweaver or Barebones BB-Edit, you expect the respective editor to open after double-clicking – as it is usual in all previous versions of the Mac operating system.
Annoying Without time-consuming correction, Mac-OS X opens a “standard program” after a double-click on a file; that is: a certain software, which Apple has declared to be the standard for this kind of files.
Way out If you generally want to set a new default program for all files of a certain type, you can do this via the info window in the Finder (“Command-I” or “File> Information”) do. In this window, select the desired program in the “Open with” section and then click “Change all”.
If you want to assign a (or single) file to another program, you can do it the same way: select a file, open the info window and select the desired program under “Open with”. If you want to change several files to one swing, select them, hold down the Option key and open the “Information” window. Another alternative is one of the two programs Launch Codes or Magic Launch.
Occasionally without protection
Additional protection against unauthorized access is definitely advisable
If you can start a Mac, you usually get full access to all data – except for information that is protected with encryption like Filevault. This means that especially after the theft of a Mac notebook, one should thoroughly consider what data was stored there. When in doubt, we recommend going public, especially with business data, so that business partners are aware of the theft and can respond to strange requests.
Annoying Two convenience features of the Mac are to blame for this misery: “Firewire Disk Target Mode” and “Single User Mode”. If you start a Mac while holding down the “T” key, you can turn the computer into an external hard drive. If you connect a Firewire cable to your Mac in this mode and connect it to another Mac, you can read all files on the first Mac. There is just as little protection when starting the Mac with the “S” key. If you keep this key pressed, the Unix operating system, which is the basis of Mac-OS X, is started in a special mode. This can be used to type in Unix commands only, which makes access somewhat more difficult. For professionals, however, the Mac in this mode is an open book, because the protection mechanisms such as username or password are not necessary.