We’re nearing the end of the series on System Preferences. System settings is that last category in System Preferences. There is a category of Other, which will vary from Mac to Mac based what software or utilities you have installed. In the System area of System Preferences we have six groups of settings that allow you to control the behavior of your Mac system.
Accounts
This is where you control the user accounts on your Mac. If you’re the only user of your Mac you will only have one account in this area of System Preferences. This is where you can set up additional user accounts if you desire to do so. It may be useful to have multiple user accounts if your Mac is used be several people. Multiple user accounts help to keep settings and data organized for each user. In the Accounts are you can set and change user passwords, change the user picture, modify login items and set parental controls. Login Items are programs or services that you want loaded upon login. So, if you’d like to have a particular program load when you login to your user account this is where you would set that up.
Date & Time
Here you can set the date and time of your computer. You can keep the time current manually or you can select an option to automatically set time and date according to a server at Apple. Further, you can set the Time Zone that you live or work in. This will adjust the time accordingly and allow the Apple server to synchronize your computer to the proper time if you’re using that feature. Finally, this is where you can modify Clock settings. You can change if the clock appears in the task bar and how. You can view the clock as digital or analog, 12 or 24 hour format, display the time in seconds and other options.
Software Update
Every Mac comes equipped with a software update utility. This utility periodically checks for new software updates. In Systems Preferences under Software Update you can change the frequency at which the Mac checks for new updates. Here you can also tell the system how you would like it to behave if there are new updates. Software Update can notify you when new updates are available for download or it can download them in the background and let you know when its ready to install. Finally, you can also see a list of all updates installed to date. In case you’re uncertain if you installed a certain update, this is where you can find out.
In the next installment of Mac 101 we will cover Speech, Startup Disk and Universal Access settings. If you’d like to receive these posts and other content from Gustacci.com in your Inbox, please sign up for email delivery.
Next Lesson:
Mac 101 – System Preferences: System – Part 2