Kevin's on MC today. Just hope he gets better. He's a very responsible supervisor! We were given a list of questions to work on in order to familiarize with the Mac. Let me just put up the questions and answers here (:
P.S. Bernard is a really nice person too! Hehe.
Do check out Zac's blog too, he's got his answers there as well. Lets get started.
Q1.
What is the DOCK and how is it used?
A1.
It is used for the running of applications and switching between running applications. In NeXTSTEP and OpenStep, it is a launcher that holds frequently used programs. However, in the Mac OS X, it is used as a repository for any program or file in the OS. The number of items it can hold is unlimited. Applications that are not kept in the dock would still appear when being run. The size of the dock in NeXT OS is limited by the display resolution, but for the Mac, its not.
The dock on the Mac OS X also has extended menus to control applications without having to make the applications visible. Take iTunes for example. The extended menus allow users to control certain playback options. Been tinkering with the extended menu for iTunes to get some screenshots but to no avail.
Reason: I've got no songs on this Mac -.-
Thanks Zac for reminding me on that point.
Q2.
What is the Menu Bar and how is it used?
A2.
The Mac OS X menu bar is a thin horizontal bar that is permanently anchored to the top of the desktop. It can be hidden though. It always contains the Apple Menu as well as the basic menu items such as File, Edit, View, Window and Help. Aside from these basic menus, the menu bar would contain the menus of the currently focused application.
The far right area of the menu bar contains optional menus (called menu extras) for controlling applications and configuring the system. These include the date and time, the volume control as well as the spotlight (search tool for Mac OS X). There's also the fast user switching menu here, if enabled. All these menu extras can be moved horizontally when command-clicking and dragging left or right. If dragged and dropped vertically, the icon disappears with a puff of smoke. Cool eh.
Q3.
What are the three Red, Yellow, Green buttons at the top of an application window for?
A3.
Happened to chance upon this PDF document when researching. Find it quite useful for starters! (: take a look here.
These buttons has somewhat similar functions to Windows' buttons. Nevertheless, there are still differences. The red button closes the window, AND, in many applications, such as MS Word, a black dot appears in the red button if the document is unsaved. Unlike Windows, an asterisk appears beside the document name when the document is unsaved.
The yellow button puts the window in the Dock, somewhat similar to the minimize button in Windows. As for the green button, it does not only maximize the window size, minimizing of the window size can be done as well.
There is also this clear elongated button on the top right corner. When clicked, it either show or hide the toolbar.
Q4.
What is the equivalent of the Control Panel in OS X? How do you enable left+right click on the mouse?
A4.
The Control Panel in OS X is called the System Preferences. It allows users to modify various system settings, divided into separate preference panes.
P.S. I just learnt how to take a screenshot on the Mac. Hehe. Check it out here.
To enable left+right click on a Mac, all that has to be done is to fire up System Preferences and click on Keyboard and Mouse. Then set the mouse as follows:
Once the right mouse button is being set to Secondary Button, right click is enabled (: Here is the full tutorial.
Q5.
What is the equivalent of Windows Explorer on the Mac? What are the different views in which one can view their files and folders?
A5.
Its called the Finder. It allows users to visually access practically everything on the mac - applications, hard disks, files, folders and even CDs.
There are 4 different views in the Finder.
Icons View
List View
Columns View
Cover View
Q6.
How does one launch an application that's not in the DOCK?
A6.
There are actually 2 ways to run an application that does not reside in the dock.
The first way is to command+click on any applications that are currently in the dock. This would fire up the Finder and a list of applications installed on the Mac can be found.
The second way is to make use of the Spotlight on the menu bar. All the user have to do is just to type in the application name, and the OS will run a search on the system and display a list of applications that can be run.
Q7.
What is iTunes? What is it good for?
A7.
iTunes is a proprietary digital media player application. It is used for playing and organizing digital music and video files. Apart from being just a media player, is also acts as an interface for managing the contents on Apple's iPod and iPhone, not forgetting the iPad.
The iTunes Store can be accessed via iTunes as well when there's internet connectivity. Purchasing and downloading of music, music videos, television shows, iPod games, audiobooks, podcasts, feature length films and movie rentals (only available in certain countries), and ringtones (iPhone only). Applications for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad can also be downloaded from the iTunes Store.
iTunes is available for download at no cost.
With that, let me answer the question on what is iTunes good for in my own opinion. I like the way how iTunes centralize all the media that I use on my computer. Everything can be found in the iTunes folder, plus, they are all organized nicely. Backup of all my favorite media can be done easily by copying the whole iTunes folder. This way, I would not miss out any that are scattered all over my computer.
That brings me to the next question, what's bad? Well, up till now, I've had no issues with iTunes except for some lag when used on Windows. Other than that, it's all up to my expectations (:
Q8.
What is iPhoto? What is it good for?
A8.
iPhoto is an application developed by Apple, exclusively for the Mac OS X. Importing, organizing, editing, printing and sharing of digital photos can be done using this software.
It is designed to allow importing of photos from digital cameras, scanners, picture CDs, as well as the Internet. No additional software is required for iPhoto to recognize most digital cameras and scanners. The most common image file formats are supported by iPhoto.
Imported photos can be titled, labeled, sorted and organized into groups (known as "events"). This is optional though. Using the basic image manipulation tools, photo editing can be done. These tools include but are not limited to red-eye filter, contrast and brightness adjustments, crop, and resize. Still, it does not provide comprehensive functionality that other programs provide, such as Adobe Photoshop.
There is also the facial recognition feature, and it allows for tagging and organizing photos by person. embedded GPS tags will be read by iPhoto and these photos can be organized by location, represented by a pin on a map that is powered by Google Maps. If in any case where photos take using cameras that does not support geotagging, it can be done manually within iPhoto.
Photo albums in iPhoto can be made into dynamic slideshows, and optionally set to music imported from itunes. Exporting to QuickTime movie files can be done and further edited in iMovie or burned into DVDs using iDVD. Both the slideshows and static photos can be shared to other Mac devices on a local network by using the Bonjour "zero-configuration" technology. They can also be uploaded using simplified web publishing to Apple's MobileMe online service. Photo albums can also be synced to any iPod with color display.
Q9.
What application is used for mail? What is the difference amongst POP, IMAP and Exchange accounts?
A9.
The application used for mail on Mac OS X is Mail.
IMAP: Internet Message Access Protocol
POP: Post Office Protocol
For IMAP, when checking mail, the messages are being pulled form the server and shown in inbox. However, for POP, the messages are downloaded from the server and saved locally, and then accessed from there. As for exchange, the mails are stored on the central server, and there's also the option of saving it locally.
Time check: 11.50 am
Going off for lunch with Zac now! Will continue later.
Time check: 12.30 pm
Let us continue!
Q10.
What is the quicktime application good for? Open a clip and trim it to a shorter period.
A10.
Quicktime uses the latest video compression technology and is able to compress videos tightly. This results in much smaller files, without any loss in quality. Videos can then be watched in awesome quality.
It also is able to determine the system's connection speed and choose the highest quality stream based on the amount of bandwidth available, automatically. In cases where connections are lost during video steams, reconnection is done automatically as well.
Downloaded a sample clip but unable to try out the video trimming feature :S got to have the pro version installed on this Mac.
Q11.
Connect Mail, iCal and iChat to Gmail account.
A11.
Tried connecting to Mail but was only able to receive mails through IMAP. However, couldn't get to send any emails. Seems like the connection to the Gmail's SMTP cannot be established.
Managed to sync my Google Calendar with iCal! Tried creating an event in iCal and look what happens to my Google Calendar (: follow the instructions here if you wanna try!
Was able to set up the account for iChat, however, iChat couldn't connect me even though I've set my status to online.
I suspect there's some privilege issues here. Same thing is happening to Zac as well :S
Q12.
What is an RSS?
A12.
RSS: Really Simple Syndication
It is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works, such as blog entries, news headlines, audio and video - all in a standardized format. An RSS document, called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel", can include full or summarized text, as well as metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Publishers benefit by automatically syndicating content, while readers get timely updates from favored websites, or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.
RSS feeds can be read using RSS readers, feed readers, or aggregators. These can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based. The standardized XML file format allows the information to be published only once, but can still be read by many different programs. There is no need for publishing multiple times.
Subscription to an RSS feed is done by entering the feed's URI into the reader or just by clicking the RSS icon in a web browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader would then check the user's subscribed feeds regularly for updates, and provides an interface for monitoring of the feeds.
Subscribed to nba.com's RSS feeds using Google Reader. Hehe.
Q13.
What is a Podcast?
A13.
Podcasts (also known as non-streamed webcasts) are a series of digital media files that are released in episodes and often downloaded through web syndication (RSS anyone?).
The mode of delivery differentiates podcasting from other means of accessing media files over the Internet, such as direct downloading or streamed webcasting. There would be a list of all the audio and video files associated with a given series that are being maintained centrally on the distributor's server. This list is maintained as a web feed. The listener/viewer is required to make use of special client application software known as a pod-catcher. This application can access the web feeds, check it for updates, and then download any new files in the series. Automation of this process can be done for automatic downloading of files. The files would be stored locally, and ready for offline use.
In other words, a podcast is a digital audio or video file that is episodic, downloadable, program-driven, mainly with a host and/or theme, and convenient, usually via an automated feed with computer software.
Downloading some podcasts via iTunes (: 2 episodes in this series.
Managed to complete my tasks for the day! A very fruitful day indeed. Starting to get used to the Mac already. Alright, now for some more tinkering with the Mac...
...Trying out Objective-C...
Had some time left, so did a little exploring and here are the results:
Got this code on the internet and tried it out.
Compiling the code in the Terminal.
There you go! Hello World! :D
Here's another one. Took me longer than I expected -.-
Had problems trying to print out the integer.
This seems to be a useful link to read up on: NSLog and Format Specifiers
Found another link while trying out some codes. Has some really good tutorials. Click here.
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