okay, you don't need any hack to move the dock. Just right click it (control - click) on the line to the left of the trash and you will see all the dock options. You can also click and drag that same line up or down to make the dock bigger and smaller.
You can add things to the dock by just dragging them down onto it. You can remove them by dragging them off. Programs that are open will always show up in the dock and will have a little black arrow under them.
To open an application (more often called a program or ".exe" in windows), you either can click it once on the dock, or you can open a finder window to see all available applications. To open a finder window you click on the smiley face on the dock (when you put the mouse over it it will say "finder"). THis will open a finder window which is similar to opening "my computer" on a windows PC. On the left side of the window you will see desktop, home, applications, movies, music, documents and pictures. Just click once on applications and you will see all the programs that are installed on the computer. Double click them to open them, or drag them down to the dock if you want to keep them there.
Noticeable differences between Mac and Windows:
Shortcuts: Macintosh doesn't require you to throw shortcuts all over the palce just so you can open a program. You can put the actual program wherever you please and it will work just fine. If you would prefer a program to be on your desktop instead of in the applications folder, just drag it there. You can make shortcuts, but on a mac they are called aliases. To make one just select the application, file or folder that you want an alias of and go to the file menu and select "make alias".
Install/Uninstall: Since mac programs store almost all their data in one file, it is usual unnecessary to have installer or uninstallers. Everything can be done by simply dragging and dropping. If you want to install a program from a CD-ROM, you can just drag the program from the CD-ROM to your applications folder (or wherever else you want it) and that's it. If you decide to delete an application, all you have to do is drag it to the trash.
Media loads up on the desktop/no autoexecs: On a windows computer when you put a software cd-rom into your computer, a program will open up and offer you installation/uninstallation options. Since installers are unnecessary (mostly), you won't get this. Instead, the cdrom will show up on your desktop and to install the software you simply ahve to open up that cdrom and drag the application to wherever you want it.
No start menu: Apple encourages you to organize your files any way you like. YOu don't have to use the start menu or a desktop shortcut to open a program. If you miss the start menu then I recommend dragging your applications folder to the dock. Right clicking this folder will then bring up a menu of all of your applications.
More menu based: In windows, menus are attached to windows. In mac te menu bar is locked to the top of the screen and in addition to the typical menu items, it incorporates some of the features of the task bar and start menu. You can adjust the system volume, access wireless networks, change screen resolution, setup bluetooth connections, see your battery life and you also have the apple menu. YOu can also get applications that add features to the menu.
Quit: In windows, when you close all of the windows in a program it is done and closed (except for the programs like AIM that remain alive in lower right of the taskbar). In mac this is not the case. YOu can close the itunes window and itunes will still be open and continue to play whatever music is playing. This may seem illogical, but sometimes you don't need any windows in a program open, so why it helps get rid of clutter. In order to exit completely out of a program, you have to "quit" the program. To do this you can go to the file menu and select quit, or you can use the keyboard shortcut, apple-Q.
Maximize, minimize and hide: CLicking maximize in windows usually means making a window consume the whole screen. When you maximize a mac window it will only grow big enough to show everything in that window. For example if you only ahve one file in a folder and you click to maximize it, it will probably shrink so that it is big enough to see that one icon and that's it. Clicking the maximize button again (the green button in mac), will send the window back to the shape it was before, or if you have changed the windows since you previously maximized it, it will adjust it to suit the changes.
control panel = system preferences: Most of hte stuff in windows' control panels is in the system preferences which can be found in the apple menu.
