Beginners Guide to Macs

[nawbus]

Can anyone suggest a good site or resource for a beginner to Macs?
Our performing arts dept. are about to get one and apart from using a Mac in a cyber cafe about 7 years ago, I've got no experience of them. Are they as easy to use as everyone says?

All suggestions greatfully received.

Ta

Nick

[Roger]

Nick, we have 7 eMacs here, I had not used one for over 15 years and I soon found my way round !!

The biggest problem you will have with OS 10 is learning how to set up the security, especially if you are connecting to the network.

There is lots of info on the Apple site

Roger

[nawbus]

Cheers Roger,

That does confirm to me that they should be easy to use!

Nick

[StewartKnight]

perhaps I'm just biased, but I always thought of Macs, as the AOL of the desktop world

(crawls into a ball, waiting to be kicked)

[GrumbleDook]

Hmm ... AOL ... OS X...

Simply interested in getting as many people to you a stylish interface to get on with things and not worry about the technical stuff, or by making the technical stuff so easy it no longer seems technical.

At least Apple were sucessful in their attempt :-)

Oh yeah ... and they both completely screw a windows box if you try to install it.

[GrumbleDook]

To reply to the OP ... for plain and simple use of the Mac ... not the settingup, security, configuration etc ... then get a dotMac account and / or subscribe to iCreate.

Lots of useful tutorials and glossy pictures. It'll make even the most knuckle-dragging of teachers a Macphile in days.

For the rest ... Apple website, apple mailing lists (such as those on JISCMAIL.ac.uk) or go and visit a few schools that have Macs set up ... either straight to AD, via OS X Server ... or by using 3rd party utils like MacAdministrator from Hi-Resolution.

[nawbus]

Thanks for the suggestions Tony.
I know Macs don't suffer the same problems as Windows with viruses, but can anyone suggest a good, preferably free Mac Antivirus programme?

[Geoff]

There's a slightly modified version of ClamAV that works quite happily with MacOS X.

http://www.markallan.co.uk/clamXav/

Its not likely you'll see much in the way of viruses on a Mac though unless your exchanging files or emails with Windows PCs. There's little to no danger to your Mac however its nice to be able to avoid passing on infected files to others.