Your computer should be on when you arrive at the lab; if it is "sleeping", you can wake it up by moving the mouse or pressing the return key. If there is still no response, you can press the power button to turn your computer on. The power button is a round button located on back of the monitor.
Once your computer has either been woken up or turned on, you will be presented with a login screen. For your name, use the first 8 characters of your Quest userid. If your Quest userid is shorter than 8 characters long, use the entire userid.
There are some small differences between Apple keyboards and IBM-compatible PC keyboards, with which you may be more familiar. Many of the special keys are useful for keyboard shortcuts, allowing you to access certain menu items without having to use the mouse. A list of keyboard shortcuts can be found at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343; these are not required course material, just handy ways to speed up your work.
On either side of the space bar you will find a command key (with a picture of an apple and four-looped design). Some of the other special keys used in shortcuts include the alt or option key, the escape key (at the top left of the keyboard, labeled esc), the control key (to the left of option), and the arrow keys (at the bottom right of the keyboard). For example, in the description of shortcuts "Command-S" is used to indicate that you should hold down the command key while typing a captial S, and "Option-Command-W" is used to indicate that you should hold down both the option and command keys while typing a capital W. At the top right of the keyboard is an eject key that allows you to eject CDs. It looks like a triangle over a line.
Although keyboard shortcuts can be different for different applications, many are common across applications. Here are some useful ones:
Translating from a Windows mouse to a single-button Apple mouse is usually straight-forward: double-click is double-click, left-click is click, and right-click is (often, but not always) Control-click (that is, holding down the control key while clicking). In many applications, Control-click brings up a box with useful information. Try Control-click on an icon in the Dock.
The mighty mouse does have sensors for different buttons, so it's possible to configure them to accept right-click for computeres equipped with them. This can be done by opening System Preferences, clicking on "Keyboard & Mouse" (under the Hardware heading), selecting the Mouse tab, and then selecting "Secondary Button" from the drop-down menu on the right-hand side of the mouse picture.
When you are done working, you should save all your work, close all the open applications, and log out.
You can figure out which applications are open by using the Dock. Unlike in Windows, an application can be running even if it has no open windows. To close an application, you can select "Quit" from that application's menu or use the keyboard shortcut Command-Q. The Finder cannot be closed.
To log out, select Log Out from the Apple menu. You do not need to shut down the computer .