Appletell

So you just switched from a PC to a Mac and you’re completely lost on what to do.  Fortunately, there is plenty of options available to learn about your new machine.  The best part?  Many of these options are free!  Here they are:

1) Apple Store Sessions:  If you head on over to you nearest Apple Store’s Calendar of Events, you will find a whole schedule full of free sessions they offer.  These sessions are made to help you get to know your computer and the software on it and are usually one hour in length.  A small price to pay for how helpful and smart some of those Apple employees are if you ask me.

2) Podcasts:  Podcasts are a great way to learn about anything, not just Macs.  However, if you want to use these free audio/video services to help you, I recommend it.  Apple even offers it’s Quick Tip of the Week (note: iTunes link) video podcast.  The advice that comes from most of these feeds is extremely high quality.

3) Application Help Menus:  In almost every application on your Mac there is a “Help” menu item.  Filled with FAQs, these are a great place to read how to do a certain task.  Just type in what you are looking for and you will most likely find a few options to help you.  I, to this day, still find myself using these sometimes.

4) Google!! Google is your friend.  Always.  Anything that is on the internet is on Google.  Just type in your question and you will instantly have numerous ways to go about answering it.

5) The Community:  Join a social networking site and make some friends.  Your bound to find someone who knows how to do what you are trying to.  The internet is a great place to meet new people and get advice from them.

With recent news of Microsoft opening up retail stores, it got me thinking.  Why?  Microsoft already has its OS available in almost every technology retail store there is, and you can get a Xbox 360 or Zune in almost all of these places, too.  Sure, it would be great to specifically promote your own brand and give consumers another store to shop at, but would it just fight for sales with the many stores that already sell Microsoft products?  If you ask me, Microsoft doesn’t really even make enough products themselves to make the store interesting enough.  They have the Zune, 360, their OS, and some peripherals, but how interesting could a store with just this really become (unless they have 360 game competitions, that is)?  All I could see these stores really being good for is maybe a cheaper alternative to Best Buy’s Geek Squad.  Maybe I’m missing something, but I just don’t think a Microsoft store could create quite the community the Apple stores are so famous for.

Apple stores offer an experience like no other.  They are full of life, learning, and, of course, awesome products.  If you ask me, Apple stores aren’t just stores.  With the Genius Bar, One on One Lessons, and daily help sessions, they are full of activity other than just buying.  They don’t pressure you to buy products, they make you WANT to buy the product.  They make people like me and you get excited about visiting them and cause you to want to come back.  I just can’t see a Microsoft store doing this.  I don’t know why, it just seems like it would be sort of dull.

Do you think a store made by Microsoft is just what they need to get back on track after the Vista disappointment, or would it be a waste of money?

Although the Safari 3 beta was released just minutes ago, and I’ve already been digging for new features. I found the standard advertised features like the new “Find” interface and the new tab functionality, but I managed to find a feature most Safari users have been craving for a long time, sessions. Safari 3 supports sessions, and can restore all tabs from a previous session, as well as open up the last window that has been closed. Although this feature may seem minor, it’s a feature that most Safari users have been requesting for a long time. Sessions save time too, as they allow the user to quit the browser and still have the same sites open from their last session when they begin browsing again.

Safari 3 also allows the user to bookmark groups of tabs as a single bookmark, and have them open up together. This is great for people who open up the same group of sites everyday. Safari is available as a public beta for both Windows and OS X, and is available today.

Download [Apple.com]