Be a Mac Explorer

After a lifetime on a Windows computer, the change in the Mac’s desktop appearance may seem like a new universe to you—eerily similar but vastly different. Take some time today to explore your desktop.

Notice there is no “Start” button. Don’t panic! That little Apple to the top left? That’s where you’ll find the vital functions of the computer, like shutting it down, accessing system preferences and logging in and out. The Mac equivalent of your C:\ drive is now parked to the top right of your screen.

Scan through Finder, a square, smiley-faced program on your “dock” that has replaced your “my computer” in Windows. This will help you navigate through the programs and files on your Mac. You’ll slowly start to see that this isn’t the completely different world you feared.

See that blue spyglass in the top right corner of your screen? That’s Spotlight, a search tool for you computer. This little tool will save you in your first week of using a Mac. You can search for anything—a file name, a program name or even a word within a file—in this little search box. Try it out. Search for an obscure word in a letter you may have written and see if it finds the document you are thinking of.