<p>Thanks everyone for your hints. emeraldkity4,thanks for the password saving hint. I got it to save passwords but I realized that there are a few sites where Safari doesn’t ask to save (and one is CC). That’s OK, I think all but 2 or 3 of my favorite sites don’t save.</p>
<p>fairyblood, thanks. The 2 finger tapping does work like the “pc right click”. I’m just a little spastic at it right now. It’s a little odd trying to go against what my fingers have been used to for so many years. But it’s FUN learning!</p>
<p>So far so good. I’ve learned a lot in just 24 hours. Keep the hints coming. I think the next thing I’ll try is the Stacks option. Any suggestions on that?</p>
<p>I’m going to take a class to learn to use dotMac. I’m paying for it but never use it, and it would be great to have my photos saved online in case my laptop ever takes a dive off the table onto the floor. Also I need to learn to use Time Machine.</p>
<p>Stacks - I must have deleted it somehow, and I wish I knew how to get it back. I have to go into my harddrive to open my documents now.</p>
<p>An Apple worker at my local Apple store suggested this AMAZING book to me for new mac users; it’s called Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual by David Pogue. You should definitely check it out-- it has the mac equivalents of windows shortcuts and gives many useful hints.</p>
<p>I’m a Mac fan from waaay back. (Remember the square things w/ 512K ram and a 9" monitor in '85? Yep, I’m that cool. Or old. Whatever.) Having owned about 6 Macs and 6 PCs (plus the PCs DH brings home from work for me to troubleshoot/optimize) I must say I’m the happiest with the Macs. And through a little work, we have our home network of 2 Macs and 2 PCs working together quite well.</p>
<p>I think the investment in Word (actually I bought the educational version of Office so it works w/ the other main MS office aps) is good just to keep formatting generally the same working cross platform. I’m also a mouse fan and use a Microsoft wireless notebook mouse (USB) w/ my main Mac.</p>
<p>Certainly take advantage of training at the Mac Store. The Apple website is a good place to troubleshoot issues, as well as Google. I’ve never spent a penny on fixing a Mac. Only had two issues and they fixed them for free (and I was out of warranty).</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. I really appreciate your help.</p>
<p>No problem, glad to be of some use. I love the fact that once in a while I learn or find something new about my computer that I didn’t know before. I really like the little surprises of useful features that pop up on occasion.</p>
<p>I purchase .mac every year and use the email account, storage. I post pictures almost weekly on iweb so my digitals don’t just sit around but can be viewed by family and friends. I haven’t used imovie for awhile but was able to make some wonderful little films of my parents before they died telling stories and using their narration with photos and film that the family will have down the line. I am so happy I learned the programs. By the way, I have a real cheap logitech mouse, right and left click. When I am travelling I have learned to use the keypad.I have a macbook but I have connected a 20" screen to it that works as my home computer. Actually my son sets me up when he comes home and when I travel to see him, I take the computer so he can tweak it! He has been working on Macs since he was 2 and is pretty good at this point. It helps to have a family teacher. Ny, enjoy and learn to use all the “specials.”</p>
<p>A couple of other hints from another PC to Mac “switcher.” </p>
<p>First of all, remember the defrag, scan disk, virus checks that you used to do with the PC? Well, some of it is still available for those of use who like our ducks in a row. For the defrag and scanning operations, apparently Macs are still doing them, but they are scheduled (maintenance scripts) at 3:00 am, when all but college kids ( 
) are awake. These scripts can’t run when the computers are asleep. But you can download a simple operation called Onyx and you can run these and other maintenance ops yourself. It cleans up the drive, gets rid of old and temporary things, and runs the maintenance scripts. There are two operations involved, and they take altogether about 10 minutes which is better than the PC operations. </p>
<p>Second, my Mac is a long-term loaner from the school where I work; all full-time faculty have them, and many of the students have either the same computer, or a different one. We are not a laptop school, but there are a lot of laptops in use. Anyway, despite the creed that Macs can’t get viruses, we all did get one. It’s pretty harmless, but a pain in the neck, and involves Word documents with disrupting macros embedded. So, we all downloaded an antivirus program: ClamXav. </p>
<p>This is also free and easy to use. Definitely recommend these two downloads, because as Macs get more popular, viruses seem to be creeping in slowly but surely. </p>
<p>I am definitely not a computer geek. I’m a mid-life mom who just happens to like to maintain the computer and I like to know as much as I can about it. I also very strongly second David Pogue’s books. I have the one called “Missing Manual Mac OS X Tiger Edition” and have also read parts of the Switch one as well. He is a great tech writer who makes it seem like a normal conversation. Very user friendly.</p>
<p>It took me about three months to fully make the transition from PC to Mac but I am convinced now that Macs use very good operating systems.</p>
<p>This just in!! I researched this really good question, which I was also wondering about for a LONG TIME:
</p>
<p>Here’s how you get a home button on the toolbar:</p>
<p>In Safari> View>customize Toolbar. There is a line of icons in the top of this drop down box, and one of them is the home page icon. Drag that icon into the top tool bar, next to the address page, and Voil</p>
<p>franglish, THANKS! Thanks to your hint, I now have a HOME button.</p>
<p>I haven’t had a chance to buy the recommended books yet but it’s definitely on my “to do list”. </p>
<p>I have another question. If I want to delete a program, do I just click it and drag it into the trash can? Or, is there an “add/delete program”
place like in the windows control panel that I have to go to? </p>
<p>Thanks again everyone.</p>
<p>You can drag the icon into the trash or go up to “file” and click on “move to trash.” Don’t forget to “empty trash” occasionally if you really want deleted items to be gone.</p>
<p>Thanks. I did that and it seemed “too easy” so I just needed someone to confirm the program delete procedure. lol</p>
<p>Nooo OP-you’ve gone over to the dark (apple-y) side! 
j/k</p>
<p>[AppZapper</a> - The uninstaller Apple forgot.](<a href=“http://www.appzapper.com/]AppZapper”>http://www.appzapper.com/)</p>
<p>this is preferable to just dumping the app- because you will have random files in folders you wont think about</p>
<p>nysmile: Congrats on your first mac! We’ve had Macs since that first itty bitty one, but my H takes care of all of the set-up and problems. I just use and enjoy.</p>
<p>I have an answer for you about the right-click on an apple mouse. Years ago we were given a old Mac Powerbook G-4 from Hs work, and we purchased a logitech mouse for it, so I always had right click and learned to love it. Last year we got an iMac with the apple mouse and there was no right click, which drove me crazy. Neither my H or S seemed to mind, but I went hunting for relief.</p>
<p>Go to the apple icon in the upper left corner, click on it and go to System Preferences. Under Hardware, click on Keyboard&Mouse. Once in there, make sure that you have the Primary Button on the left and the Secondary Button on the right. Then you will have a right click. If you switch them around, the same functions will be a left click. Since there is no official “Right Click” spot on the mouse, I have found that sometimes you have to search around for the correct spot, but on the whole it works great.</p>
<p>Oh, and thanks for asking about the Home icon. I now have them on both of the Macs that I use.</p>
<p>My S just got a MacBook Pro to take to college, and this morning we tried out the iChat function between the Pro and iMac. It is a blast! I’ll be able to occasionally see my S when he is 2000 miles away. You can change the backgrounds, and do all kinds of fun stuff with it.</p>
<p>We are frugal with our money - drive a 1994 Taurus, for example - but we do like our Macs. They are literally the only things worth stealing from our house.</p>
<p>Didn’t someone mention the right click on the touch pad? I love being able to just tap two fingers on the pad to right click! I do not use an external mouse although my son gave me one for my birthday; I like using my Mac while sitting on the sofa, so a mouse would just be in the way.</p>
<p>I kind of like the “2 finger tap” in place of the “right click”. It takes some getting used to but it works fine. </p>
<p>The next thing that I have to tackle is Pages and/or Word 2008. I have both installed on my new Mac. I noticed that when I open Word 2008 for Mac on my Mac, it doesn’t fill the screen the way my windows version of Word does on my windows laptop. Does anyone know if there is a way to make it view larger so it fills up more of the screen? The way it set up now makes it somewhat difficult (yes, over the age of 40) because the screen view is small.</p>
<p>I never use the pad, because the very old PowerBook that was given to us doesn’t work unless it is hooked up to the power supply and has iffy connections if moved around. So it just sits on the desk like a desk top. Since I use Back all the time and my hand is always on the mouse, it would be an extra hand movement to get to the pad. Whatever works! I did try the 2-finger-tap thing on the PowerBook pad and it doesn’t work.</p>
<p>Of course the iMac doesn’t have a pad, so the right-click mouse is invaluable, especially for oldsters like me with bi-focals. The iMac screen sits up higher than a laptop, and to see the top of the screen to get to Back/Forward means I have to tilt my head up. Not fun for me.</p>
<p>Can’t help you on the Word2008 problem.</p>
<p>Sorry to hijack the thread, but, I looked at Macs tonight, and almost bought one, but everyone is saying to wait to see if Steve Jobs makes some big announcement on Monday, just in case a new laptop is introduced, or in case some special offer is announced - does that make sense? I had planned to sleep on it tonight and make my decision tomorrow, and then if my decision is yes (leaning strongly towards doing it) making my purchase tomorrow…</p>
<p>Is it really more prudent to wait until Monday; is there really a chance of some new product release in a short period of time? I need a new laptop NOW (this is a replacement for my personal laptop) - not in six months…</p>