Hi everyone
Im new to the World of Apple having brought a MBP 17
and loving it
any suggestions on the do's and dont's would be great

1. Don't rename your home folder/change your shortname. This will cause umpteen issues.

Great tip but I don't think Leopard allows you to do that anymore...

Here's a tip - Don't get frightened if you accidentally press control+option+command+8, you can press it again to turn it off

And don't install Antivirus software.

what doescontrol+option+command+8 as i am to scared to press it to see what happens !
Is that like the colution to windows is alt + F4

Haha, all it does it invert the colours on your screen

No need to be worried.

Oh, and the equivalent of alt+F4 is command+q

The things i always install when i see a new mac.

Google them, most of the are free or can be 'free'.

Fetch
Stuffit
Flip4mac
Fan Control
KDX (not that may people use it)
iGetter
Office 2007
Photoshop cs3
Handbrake
Mactheripper
Azurus
Minivmac

and i normally remove all the printer drivers. thats a bit of free space to move in.

perian

and VLC (Just in case).

Office 2007 is not available on Mac.

2008 is.

And I would not recommend StuffIt in any form. Nobody uses it anymore.

There is no need to install Stuffit in my opinion... that's so 1999.

I use stuffit all the time, I reckon it's a great app.

The Unarchiver

That will handle StuffIt AFAIK.

How often do you see .sit files? (or .sitx).

Macs have built-in 'compress' (zip) when you right-click.

I wouldnt worry about MS Office... unless you have a VERY good reason for it....

iWork does most of it beautifully for much less.

d/l'ed one yesterday, rare but you still do see em.

iWork '08 is better than Office '08 IMHO.

But on top of that, don't go fiddling around in the /Library or ~/Library folders unless you know what you're doing. Definitely don't go into the /System folder unless you REALLY know what you're doing... or have a Time Machine backup to revert to if all goes wrong.

Some keyboard shortcuts I use all the time:

• Press space when a file or folder is selected in the Finder to Quicklook it. Download some quicklook plugins off the net to quicklook more files.
• -space to bring up the spotlight menu. Some people prefer a program called Quicksilver, but don't like to install things that do what I already can do.
• -[up arrow] for going up a folder hierarchy in the Finder using only the keyboard. Like pressing Backspace in Windows Explorer.
• -[down arrow] for going down a folder hierarchy or opening files. Like pressing Enter in Windows Explorer.
• -tab for switching applications. Like Alt-Tab, but with whole applications, not with every single open window. Also if you hold the key and tap the tab key, you can use the scroll wheel/ball of your mouse, two-fingered scrolling on your trackpad, the mouse pointer itself, or the arrow keys to switch between applications (and release the key to go to that app). Tapping tab will go right, holding down shift and tapping tab, or just tapping the tilde (`) key will go left. Pressing the esc(ape) key will cancel the action.
• When using Exposé for all windows (ALL windows, or all windows in front-most-application) you can press tab or tilde for going between applications and showing all open windows of that application in your current space.
• ctrl-arrow keys for switching spaces (unless you choose a different key command).
• On your new MBP, fn-delete will perform foward delete.
• -Q will quit the current application.
• -W will close the frontmost window of the current application until there are no more open windows (does NOT include windows minimised to the dock). It also does not quit the application upon the closure of the last open window.
• -M minimises the current window to the dock. Add the option key to minimise all windows in the current application to the dock.
• -Delete will send a file or folder to the trash. -shift-delete will empty the Trash.

Some moderately useful ones:

• -shift-3 to take screenshot of entire screen (default saves to .png file on desktop).
• -shift-4 and click and drag mouse to take screenshot of area of screen.
• -shift-4 and press space to get a camera icon on your cursor to take a screenshot of a particular window (will go a shade of blue when you hover over that window, doesn't have to be a window fully in view).
• option-[function key with appropriate symbol on it] will bring up the appropriate system preference pane for that function. Examples are option-brightness (Displays pane), option-exposé (Exposé & Spaces pane) and option-volume (Sound pane).

And some advanced ones:

• -option-esc for the force-quitting application menu (kinda like task manager in Windows, accessible with ctrl-alt-del).
• -option-eject to sleep the computer.
• ctrl-shift-eject to sleep the screen but leave the computer running.
• -ctrl-eject to restart.
• -option-ctrl-eject to shut down.

Also for dragging files:

• Press the option key whilst dragging to copy the file or directory to the dragged location. If it is dragged to the same folder, a duplicate will be made "File-Or-FolderName copy" "...copy 1" etc.
• Press the key whilst dragging to move the file or directory to the dragged location. Useless if dragging to a folder on the same volume, useful if dragging from one volume to another without wanting to have to delete the original data later.
• Press the and option keys whilst dragging to make an alias. Like a shortcut in Windows.

And that's all I can think of off the top of my head. You probably wouldn't need any more that you couldn't work out yourself.

Oh yeah, and don't forget to empty the trash. Whilst items are in there, they still take up space, whether they're on an external drive or not.

Happy times are ahead! Enjoy!