To skip to the beginning or end of a line, hit the Apple key (command) + left or right arrow key, respectively.

To select text while moving through it using the arrow keys, hold down the Shift key. If you hold down the Apple key at the same time, everything to the left or right on that line will be selected.

To quickly select an entire line, skip to the beginning or end using Apple + left/right arrow, then hit Apple + shift + left/right arrow.

Also, I’m not sure if Windows has anything like this, but OS X supports rectangular text selections by holding down the Option (alt) key. I cannot tell you how often this comes in handy when editing large chunks of similar text, when it’s just too much trouble to write some regex or something to do the job for you! macosxtips.com has a good explanation:

http://www.macosxtips.co.uk/index_files/rectangular-selections.html

Text editors often add their own keyboard shortcuts. For example, TextMate supports selecting the current line by hitting Apple + Shift + L.

I absolutely disagree about the right-mouse button not being useful in OS X. I’ve been a Mac user since 1995 and can’t EVER go back to using a one-button mouse.

Nearly all apps (including the OS) natively support a contextual pop-up menu right under the cursor when right-clicking… and with a good mouse configuration utility (such as “SteerMouse”), you can assign the right-mouse button to many other useful functions on a per application basis (ie, page-grab scrolling in QuarkXPress, copy-dragging of text/graphics/audio, not to mention the necessary second-trigger in numerous games.)

I’m not sure how you figure it takes two hands to use the right-mouse button, but it’s much more efficient to use only a second finger to pull up a contextual menu than two hands (one on the Control key, other on the mouse button).

The one-button mouse/trackpad concept is one area where Steve Jobs really needs to let go of his ego and go with what’s truly functional (at least they kinda got it right with the Mighty Mouse… now what about the damn MacBooks?!?)

Second: file sharing limitations of windows are a windows problem, not a mac problem. The mac doesn’t want to be a closed environment, so Apple tries to make it easy to share any kind of disk from anywhere. Put a FAT16 thumb drive into a Mac, it works. Put an HFS+ thumb drive in a Windows machine… Houston, we have a problem.

But the fact you have to jump through hoops to get sharing to work right in Windows is frustrating. Even from windows machine to windows machine, setting the right workgroup and all that gets annoying. And don’t get me started about trying to set up network printers in Windows compared to a mac, and how the printers get “lost” too routinely. Again, Apple tried to make it easier for EVERYONE with Bonjour, every printer maker has adopted Bonjour (and it works like butter) but, well, MS decided not to include it. Yo can download it for free from Apple, but you’d have to know about it first, and MS ain’t gonna tell ya…

3rd: Home and End are cool. Vestiges of DOS. I wish the Mac had them (of course, considering how they get moved around on PC keyboards, their usefulness diminishes). But Mac has always been a GUI, and has always been about using the mouse. Die hard PC people tend to rely on the crutch of memorizing 100s of keystrokes to do anything, but basically because “that’s the way it always has been” and they aren’t as familiar with how to make the mouse work for them.

Learn to use the mouse a bit better on the mac or the arrow keys for that matter, you’ll find the mac has all sorts of options for text selection. It’s just not exactly the SAME as windows. Try TRIPLE click sometime, or playing with the command and shift keys with arrows to move about text. You’ll find there is little you can’t do. I’ve always found selecting text with keystrokes to be quite clunky, and I’m a writer by trade, but I guess if you are a coder, it’s vital. But especially with laptops, where the majority of the rest of the world does heavy writing work, the proximity of the trackpad makes learning 100 keystrokes seem silly. But hey, if you want to learn all those shortcuts, do it. After all, the mac has some valuable ones too, such as…

4th: Command+H is no secret. It’s been that way for decades. Well, at least 15+ years. Windows minimize was taken from this idea combined with window shade (which is now gone). (just as aliases pre-dated shortcuts in windows)

And Command+Option+H is even nicer. Hides everything but the app you are using, even the Finder.

But frankly, i don’t think either Windows or OS X has this right. There needs to be a new paradigm. Maybe “stacks” and “spaces” is it. Don’t know. But dumping aliases all over and minimizing windows and hiding apps and such still requires a lot of thinking about what is where. There has to be an easier way.

And while I appreciate the tips in this article, most are really about a Windows user just discovering the basics of Mac use (or the limitations of Windows), not about anything really earth shattering. Same thing would happen going the other direction, with Mac users looking for “how can I do this?” answers on Windows.

1. You’re definitely not limited to one button. In fact, virtually any USB-based mouse can be used on a true plug-and-play basis, i.e. no driver installation required for basic functionality including scroll wheel and right-click.

If your machine is equipped with a single-button mouse, contextual menus are displayed by holding down the control (not Alt) button then clicking. And by the way, there’s no “quirkiness” to it at all: If the current context has an associated contextual menu, it will appear.

2. Contrary to your assertion about Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) users being out of luck because SharePoints no longer works, the fact is that SharePoints is no longer necessary: You can specify shared folders by user on a drag-and-drop basis directly in the Sharing pane of System Preferences under File Sharing. No third-party utility or command-line voodoo required.

By the way, the Firewall settings will be automatically adjusted when you enable file sharing.

4. On the Mac, applications don’t minimize, windows do. Therefore, instead of tediously minimizing each open window and palette of an application just hide the application (command-h) when you want to get it out of the way. A click on the application’s icon in the Dock will make it and all its windows instantly reappear as the frontmost application.

5. A quicker way to make instant aliases (to anything, not just applications) is to simply drag-and-drop the object while holding down the option-command keys.–instant shortcuts wherever you want.

Finally, your assertion that there’s “some freeware” available for Mac OS X is a bit of an understatement. There are, in fact, many thousands of freeware applications available in addition to even more shareware offerings. As others have mentioned, versiontracker.com is an excellent site as is macupdate.com.

VLC is almost entirely obviated by the simple addition of two QuickTime plug-ins: Flip4Mac and Perian.

Commercial software and hardware products can be found here.

My experience is that it’s best to learn and use the mindset of each platform. It doesn’t make sense to make Windows act like my Mac, nor, I believe vice-versa.

So for example, forget about right-clicking the mouse on a Mac. The OS doesn’t really use it. It doesn’t take two hands to use a mouse, so learn to use your other hand the way God intended… on the keyboard. All the really nifty Mac tricks are the shortcuts and menus that occur with combined use of Command, Option, and now to a lesser degree, cntrl with that one mouse button. (Don’t you want to keep one hand on the keyboard anyway?)

If you use this mindset, item #5 never existed; making an alias was always just a matter of holding command and option as you drag an icon to wherever you want the alias to be.

As for freeware/shareware, you’re probably right about relative quantities, but VersionTracker is generally the most useful site, and most Mac-Heads use or subscribe to it.

All in all, it’s neat to see how we adapt to something we’re not familiar with!

Thanks! – Paul