Windows and Mac OSX

 Formatting a disk prepares it to accept data  NTFS on Windows  HFS+ on the Mac  There are lots of different formatting options. It is not important to know a lot about them. OS X and Windows format differently, but OS X can read Windows formats fine and automatically formats removable disks in a format that Windows can read.  For more info on file systems see wikipediawikipedia

 Both Windows and Mac feature hierarchical structures that allow you to access files.  A typical path to a file in Windows looks like this:  A typical path to a file on a Mac looks like this: C:\Documents and Settings\Dawn\Desktop\files to be organized\personal files\letters Macintosh HD/Users/dpedersen/Desktop/file.docx

 Double-click My Computer  Double-click the proper drive  Then the next folder, and the next until you drill down to the file.

 Click on Documents and Settings  You will see folders for different users  Each user has their own desktop

 If I double-click my name, I will see a folder called Desktop  If I open that folder, I will see the stuff that is actually on my Desktop.

 Mac is very similar. You open the device and you see a folder for Users.  Inside the Users folder will be a folder for each user set up on the computer  Inside that is a Desktop folder for each user

 Properties on Windows, and Get Info on the Mac, give you more information on a particular file or directory.  In both cases you right click on the file to choose Properties (Get Info on the Mac)

 File extensions tell the computer which programs open up different types of files  You can change what program is set to open any given file type.  To view file extensions on the PC, you may need to unhide them: ◦ Open any folder in Windows Explorer ◦ Tools > Folder Options… ◦ View tab ◦ Uncheck the item that says “Hide extensions for known file types”

 To select which program will open a given file, right-click on it and select Open With, and then Choose Program  From there you can change the default program

 On the Mac you can use the Get Info panel to open in a non- default program, or to change the default program