Finding the right resources

Since I got my Mac I have been highly dependent on three resources for information on Mac when I get stumped: Friends, Forums and Blogs. 


Friends

Bradley and Dylan were the guys that convinced me that I should get a Mac in the first place; they’re both pretty big Mac Fanboys (yeah, you know it) and as power Windows users and software developers they had experience setting up their machines similar to the way I did. Their help and guidance has been invaluable in getting the most out of my Mac and answering my initial Newbie questions. If you're lucky you have a couple of people like them around you for the inevitable Noob questions.

Forums

Beyond them there is an incredibly rich array of resources on the Interweb that can help you answer questions or point you in the right direction. Here is a list of the places I go when I’m looking for something:


Mac-Forums

I’ve made this place a second home and is my most frequently visited Mac destination. There’s a wide range of different forums and most important to me, a Switching area for people that are making the move from Windows to Mac. The people on the site are really friendly and you rarely get the “attitude” you see in some of the hard core Mac-centered places.


Mac Rumors

I pop in to Mac Rumors’ forums on occasion, usually to search for a specific topic (like mentions of reviews of products I’m considering). I don’t participate; I just lurk there.


Mac OSX Hints

Like Mac Rumors, Mac OSX Hints is a place I pop in on occasion to see what’s going on, but again it’s really more of a research destination as opposed to an interactive place.


Blogs

For Mac information there are a couple of Blogs that I go to that keep me up on what’s going on in the Mac world. I don't visit the sites directly but do subscribe to their RSS feeds. Grab a news reader like NetNewsWire and point it at these to stay up on Mac:


iLounge

More of a news aggregation site, it has a heavy Mac focus.


MacMegaSite

Again, a Mac oriented news aggregation site.


MacMerc

Great site with lots of articles on useful Mac topics. I always find something cool there.


Daring Fireball

This is on my list of most read news sources. Highly recommended that you add them to your feed.


Engadget

While not Mac specific, there are lots of cool articles on hardware and peripherals that I find here.


Gizmodo

Another great gadget site. Lots of great finds in there.


These are not all of my news feeds - I actually have a couple of dozen - but these are the ones I look to for information on my Mac. Do you have a forum, blog or news site I should be adding to my list? A great Mac resource perhaps? Drop it into the comments!

Comments

Vito Traino said…
The Unofficial Apple Weblog is in my opinion the best place, and a one stop shop, for all your Mac news. They stay current on all the news, find third party software (usually freeware) that you might not have found, and even have different.."events" such as Mac 101 where you get to ask them questions. Nevertheless, it is always the first bookmark i hit.

www.tuaw.com

AppleInsider is also nice, though sometimes they tend to lean towards the "business" side of Apple, while TUAW focuses on you.

www.appleinsider.com

Hope you like them
March 4, 2008 at 8:17 AM
David Alison said…
Great stuff - thanks Vito!
March 4, 2008 at 8:24 AM
Unknown said…
MacDailyNews.com has great snarky comments.
March 14, 2008 at 1:55 PM
Anonymous said…
If you want some really deep tech articles on how OS X work, Ars Technia has done major writeups and reviews of every OS X release. They also have decent Apple news as well, though I tend to follow TUAW daily.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars
March 14, 2008 at 3:35 PM
Karl Otto Henriksen said…
For troubleshooting and stuff like that i log on to flickr.com, find the macintosh group and search the discussions there (or post, just search first of course)

flickr.com/groups/macintosh

for news i go to tuaw or macrumors

tuaw.com (as mentioned before)

macrumors.com
March 14, 2008 at 5:30 PM
mpancha said…
When I got my first mac (2001, the dual USB G3 iBook) I found http://forums.macnn.com

I've been a member since, great site for help on all levels.
March 15, 2008 at 12:34 AM
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