Relearning the Mac

Hello again, Mac.

After spending the last 7 years on a PC, I'm having to reorient myself in becoming productive on a Mac again, specifically a MacBook Pro. I'm not a total newb to Apple's products--my very first computer was an Apple IIe and I worked with a G3 for a couple years while at EarthLink--but things have changed quite a bit since then. Here's a simple running list of things I'm discovering:

- option-click to bring up contextual menu (but connecting a 2-button mouse automatically triggers this; pressing the trackpad with two fingers also works)
- use two fingers to scroll via mousepad (check out trackpad prefs for more options)
- replace command (⌘) with ctrl (e.g. ⌘-v to paste)
- access applications via Finder > Go > Applications (is there a shortcut?)
- closing an application window does not close out the application
- ⌘-w to close window, ⌘-q to close application
- alt-tab is ⌘-tab to switch between apps
- ⌘-tabbing back to an app does not return a minimized window--grr (UPDATE: ⌘-h will hide an app completely instead of leaving the menu bar and will also reappear when you ⌘-tab back to it)
- option-clicking the green + button maximizes a window
- control-tab to switch forward through tabs in Firefox (add shift to go backwards)
- when switching between applications, email messages in their own window don't show up as an option; instead, you can only switch to the entire application (UPDATE: ⌘-tilde (~) switches windows within an app)
- is there anything like Window's character map app? (UPDATE: System Preferences > International > Input Menu and then select both "Character Palette" and "Show input menu in menu bar" at the bottom of the dialog window; a language flag appears on the menu bar and you can click it to access the character palette)
- to take a screenshot of the entire viewable desktop, click ⌘-shift-3; to select a certain area, click ⌘-shift-4 and then select area (screenshots are saved to desktop)
- to delete a file, select it and then click ⌘-delete to move it to the trash (for those on extended keyboards, this will not work with the delete⌦ key)
- Apple Grab (http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/02/28/screenshot.html) is a screenshot utility that allows you to include the cursor in the screenshot, amongst other things. Go to Applications > Utilities > Grab, then in the file menu go to Grab > Preferences... and select the mouse pointer you'd like to capture. Go to Capture > Timed Screen and when the screen appears click on Start Timer. It'll take a screenshot after 10 seconds.
- Paparazzi! is a screenshot app that will capture a webpage's multiple screens and put them into one file.
- Application Frame in CS4: This feature places a cover over the desktop when working with files in Photoshop (a la Photoshop in Windows). Very nice to "quiet" all the background noise when working with graphics.

Links to articles which cover this same topic:
- Some General Tips for Switch to Mac From Windows
- Apple's Switch 101