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Mac 101 – System Preferences: System – Part 2

Thursday, September 27th, 2007 | Mac 101 | No Comments

Well, we’re done to the last few areas under the System category of System Preferences. Today we’ll talk about Speech settings, Startup Disk and Universal Access settings.

Speech
If you didn’t know this already, let me tell you – your Mac can speak. It can read off text and it can also respond to spoke commands. In the Speech section of System Preferences is where you can control the speech settings of your Mac. Here you can turn on and off Speech Recognition, as well as calibrate the microphone and modify a few other settings. Further, your Mac can read to you. It can read the text of alerts when they are displaced, it can announce when an application requires attention and it can also read selected text. Again, the Speech section of System Preferences is where you can modify the settings that control the speaking ability of your Mac.

Startup Disk
Most user probably will not need to modify any settings in this area of System Preferences. Basically, here you can tell your Mac to use a different Startup disk than your hard drive. You can tell it to use a network drive to load the operating system when starting up or a partition on the internal hard drive. My suggestion is, don’t mess with these settings unless you know what you’re doing.

Universal Access
The Mac is handicap accessible. Universal Access is a group of settings that can modify the way the system works and looks to assist people with various handicaps. There are settings to make the Mac more user friendly for visually impaired or hearing impaired people.

This wraps up the System Preferences series of lessons. System Preferences has another category called “Other.” Settings in this category will vary from user to user. These depend on software utilities that you install on your Mac. As you install utilities that are integrated into the Mac OS X, their preference panes will appear in the Other category of System Preferences.

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Mac 101 – System Preferences: System – Part 1

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 | Mac 101 | 1 Comment

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

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Mac 101 – System Preferences: Internet & Network

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 | Mac 101 | No Comments

Do you know where the Internet settings are? Have you wondered about Network settings? Well, do day I will take you through the Internet & Network setting in the System Preferences. Let’s begin with .Mac.

.Mac
.Mac is a service that Apple provides. This service includes a number of features. It allows the user to host a web site, sync a variety of data, back up data and share photos. The service comes at a fee of $99 per year. If you have purchased this service this is where you would sign in and set up synchronization, back up and sharing. If you’ve never used the service before, Apple offers a 60-day trial. Which can be accessed from this Systems Preferences panel.

Network
This section contains settings that relate to the network. That’s pretty obvious. Here you can see the status of the network, change settings for Bluetooth, Ethernet, and Firewire connections. Network setup may seem complicated. On a Mac however, this process is usually pretty straight forward and painless.

QuickTime
QuickTime is a video player application that comes pre-installed on your Mac. Here you can adjust some settings for this program. First off, this is where you would register the Pro version of QuickTime if you purchased it. Further here you can modify QuickTime’s behavior in a web browser. This includes settings such as playing movies automatically and caching movies when possible. In addition, you can modify streaming settings, such as streaming speed and play back delay.

Sharing
This is where you have access to modify the sharing settings. Here you will find settings for sharing services, firewall and Internet. This is where you can give your Mac a name that will be displayed on other computers when it is shared. You can turn on and off the firewall and allow or disallow certain access. Furthermore, you can turn on Internet sharing and specify the type of connection to use, such as ethernet, firewire or airport. This is also the area where you can turn on services such as remote login, Windows sharing or Printer sharing.

This concludes the Internet & Network section in the System Preferences. We’ll continue the journey through System Preferences in the next installment of Mac 101. Please return soon. You can also receive these and other posts in your inbox by signing up for email delivery.

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Mac 101 – System Preferences: System – Part 1

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Mac 101 – System Preferences: Hardware – Part 2

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 | Mac 101 | No Comments

There are three more groups of settings under Hardware that were not covered in Part 1. These are Keyboard & Mouse, Print & Fax, and Sound. These Hardware preferences allow you to control physical components of your computer or devises attached to it, such as keyboard, mouse, printer or speaker volume. Let’s dive right in.

Keyboard & Mouse
This group of preferences has lots of great settings. If you have a laptop, this will also include trackpad settings. Here you can adjust the key repeat rate, illumination of the keyboard if you have a MacBook Pro, trackpad speed, double-click speed, scrolling speed and other miscellaneous options. For the mouse you can set various behaviors for the buttons as well as adjust scrolling and clicking speeds. If you have a wireless mouse or keyboard, this is were you will pair them and set some related bluetooth options. Finally, this is a great resource of keyboard shortcuts. This is a great place to come to learn what they are and to modify them. So, if you’d like to keep your hands on the keyboard a little more than come here to find ways to do that. I’ve also written a separate post on keyboard shortcuts that lists some of the commonly used.

Wow! That was a lot.

Print & Fax
For the most part you will not use this group of options very much. In most cases, Mac OS X will recognize your printer and set it up automatically. However, here is where you can set the default printer or the printer that will be selected in the Print Dialog, as well as the default paper size. If you use a fax, this is where you have some options for that. You can enable receiving faxes on your computer in this area of system preferences. And finally, there’s an option to share your printer with other computers.

Sound
I don’t know about you, but I like sound on my computer. It helps me know if there’s a problem or I’m doing something wrong. In this panel you can select the alert sound for the system, set alert volume, set general output volume and also input volume and sensitivity.

This completes the Hardware category of System Preferences. In future posts we’ll discuss the remaining categories, Internet & Network, System and Other.

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Mac 101 – System Preferences: Internet & Network

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Mac 101 – System Preferences: Hardware – Part 1

Saturday, September 8th, 2007 | Mac 101 | No Comments

In this section of the System Preferences you can control the hardware components of your computer. These things include the display, optical drive, keyboard, mouse, printer and so on. There are seven groupings of settings in this section of System Preferences. We’ll cover the first four in this post.

Bluetooth
In this section you can control the Bluetooth functionality of your Mac. This is where you can turn Bluetooth on or off. If you’re using a wireless keyboard or mouse, this is also where you would manage the connectivity of such devices. And finally, here you can also control the sharing settings for bluetooth, including security and folders which connected devices can browse, such as your bluetooth-enabled mobile phone.

CDs & DVDs
In this section you control the behavior of CDs and DVDs that are inserted into your optical drive. You can specify what action should be taken when a blank CD or DVD is inserted or a music CD, picture CD or a video DVD.

Displays
In the Displays section of the Hardware preferences you can adjusted the resolution of your display, the number of colors displayed, the brightness and also select a color profile. If you’re an artist and you need your displayed color calibrated, this is where you would come to do that.

Energy Saver
This is where you can adjust your Mac’s power usage. You’re really not adjusting the wattage that your Mac will use to power itself, but you can adjust how long to keep the display on or when to put the computer to sleep if its idle. If you own a Mac laptop, you will want to be familiar with these settings as they will allow you to adjust power usage to extend battery life. This is where you can set up a schedule for your Mac to power up or shut down at specific times of the day.

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Next Lesson:
Mac 101 – System Preferences: Hardware – Part 2

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