Top 6 Ways To Make Your Windows PC More Like A Mac

There has always been two major camps in the personal computer sphere – the PC and the Mac. So defined is this distinction, that Apple itself draws upon this fact to make hilarious ads. But all the passion and glitter aside, the truth is that Windows and OSX work and act in highly different ways, and that they both offer significant advantages in their own measure over the other. If you’re reading this, chances are you already have a PC running Windows; so how does one make your PC feel more like a Mac? Here’s how:

 
1. How to emulate Mac Spaces : Dexpot

Spaces is Mac’s answer to having multiple applications open at once cluttering up your workspace. Anyone who has ever had to juggle different duties at the same time – like managing Youtube, iTunes and a bunch of minor tasks while you’re doing an assignment on Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer, perhaps – will find that compartmentalizing the two categories will yield better results. PC users, however, do not have access to this feature natively; but they do now.

Dexpot is a nifty little third-party program which allows you to implement a Spaces-like function to your screen. While it’s not the only function of the program, it certainly is the best – with it, you can open 4 separate desktops and, for instance, write your assignment in one, and switch to the other when you’re doing miscellaneous stuff. Here are all the new functions (including Spaces) which are present in the newest revision of Dextpot.

2. How to emulate the Mac Dashboard : myBoard

Dashboard is an apt name for the Mac OS functionality – it dims the screen and opens a dashboard of sorts where your collections of widgets sit waiting for you. By itself, Dashboard comes with a few useful native apps included, including a weather widget, a calculator and a clock, but the real deal of widgets arrive in the full-blown third party support developers have injected into the functionality.

For Windows, Dashboard arrives in the shape of myBoard, and instead of widgets, they’re now called magnets. It’s hardly surprising that there is a lot less third-party support given that this isn’t a native application in Windows, but the basics are there; calculator, weather, notepad, clock, calendar etc.

Tip: After you install myBoard, you’ll be prompted to click the middle mouse button to bring up the empty ‘Dashboard’; look for a “+” sign on the bottom-left side of the screen. That brings up the option to access the Magnet Store, where you can obtain magnets.

3. How to Emulate the Mac Dock : RocketDock

Dock is a solid, unique way of getting around Mac OS in the way Windows does with shortcuts, except prettier, and is one of the most defining features of OS X. Windows Vista and 7 both have taskbars which allow you to pin items to them, but it’s just not the same as having a row of icons which ‘pop’ when you hover over them.

Being one of the most famous functions of the Mac, there are many third-party iterations of Dock; but my personal favorite is RocketDock. RocketDock behaves exactly like Dock does in OS X, just less snazzy-looking; you can place customizable shortcuts in it, the Recycle Bin, and it has the familiar ‘pop-out’ effect as you hover over it.

4. How to Emulate Mac Expose : Switcher

All of us who have used Windows before should now be familiar with the Alt+Tab function, which surprisingly hasn’t been given a dedicated name besides its key presses. Nevertheless, it’s a practical way to get around; but it still can’t beat OS X’s Expose though. That’s why it’s Windows alter ego exists – in the form of Switcher.

Anyone who has used Expose will instantly relate to how mind-blowingly profound the visual representation of tasks arranged in sizes according to their importance is – it takes every lesson of human psychology in the book and applies it to the simple function of task-switching. It just feels right. And more and more importantly, that has become what we as users are increasingly looking for. Just using Switcher for the first time has got me utterly convinced that I’ll be using it for a long time to come.

5. How to emulate Mac Stacks : 7Stacks

Stacks in OS X is precisely what its name supposes it to be – a way to stack programs into one icon to save space, which pop out like a pop-out book upon clicking. There are so many ways this could be done wrong, but Apple has managed to make it not only eye-catching, but functional as well. There’s no greater joy than the convenience of watching all your Microsoft Office shortcuts unfold neatly into a list of choices.

The third-party Windows alternative that you’re looking for here is 7Stacks. Developer Alastria wasn’t able to incorporate the pop-out aesthetics into 7Stacks, but what they’ve done is pretty close and equally as practical. 7Stacks is definitely worth a shot, as it accomplishes what it sets out to do.

6. How to Emulate Mac Multi-task Scrolling : KatMouse

One of the biggest complaints about Windows is that despite its maturity as an operating system, it still misses out on a few elementary functions – the ability to maintain different screen resolutions for different users, the ability to run .ISO files out of the box, and among the most glaring, the ability to scroll through open programs when they’re not being selected as the primary application.

For instance, if you’re doing some research on your Internet browser, you can’t scroll through your open Word document unless you click on it first. And then you’d have to click on your browser again to scroll through your research material, and back and forth.

KatMouse does away with this concern by bestowing the all-empowering function – of middle-mouse scrolling just by hovering over the application – upon your Windows computer, which has been on Macs since eons ago. I can’t tell you how much time this little third-party software that runs quietly in the background has saved for me. If you’re a student or someone whose work involves looking for information online, be sure to get this.

Source : friedbeef.com