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Mac 101 - System Preferences: Personal Settings - Part 1

Sunday, August 26th, 2007 | Mac 101, Tips | No Comments

Today I will cover the first four groups of settings under the Personal category in System Preferences. These are Appearance, Dashboard & Exposé, Desktop & Screen Saver and Dock. Each of these groups allows you to control an aspect or two of the way your operating system looks and functions. Let’s begin with Appearance.

Appearance
As the name of this group indicates, here you can change the way windows, menus and scroll bars appear. First off you can change the overall look of buttons, menus and windows. Your choices are Blue or Graphite (a grayish looking color). Next you can select the highlighting color for selected text. Here you have several more options of colors, ranging from graphite to purple.

Beside changing the color of menus and buttons, you can also change some settings on the appearance of scroll bars. You can select the placement of scroll arrows and the action when clicking in the scroll bar. Here is where you can also activate smooth scrolling. I have this option deactivated because scrolling is smooth enough by default. Plus, when smooth scrolling is activated it requires your computer to work a little harder when you scroll. Further you can select the number of recent items to show on various recent item lists. And finally, you can select the font smoothing style. Mine is set to automatic, which works best for the main display. You may want to modify this setting if you’re using an additional display with your laptop or desktop.

Dashboard & Exposé
In Dashboard & Exposé you have two main settings. First, this is where you can set different functions of screen corners. For example you can set your bottom right corner to activate the screen saver. So, when you place your mouse in that corner the screen saver will immediately activate. Second, here you can modify the shortcut keys for activating Dashboard, clearing the open windows to view the desktop, as well as viewing all windows and application windows.

Desktop & Screen Saver
This one is pretty self-explanitory. This is where you modify the background on your desktop and set a screen saver. Your Mac comes with a set of images preloaded by Apple. You can also use images from your iPhoto library as background for the desktop. Beside these options, you can select a folder on your hard drive to use as a source of images. You can also have the background change automatically at a predetermined interval.

Your Mac comes with a set of screen savers. You can select them in this section of System Preferences. You can also use your iPhoto library as a screen saver. Pictures from iPhoto will be displayed as a full-screen slide show if you choose to use this option. Here you can set how long the computer needs to be idle before the screen saver comes on.

Dock
There are several options for the Dock. You can modify the size of the dock and the amount of magnification when you place your mouse over it. You can deactivate magnification completely, if you find it bothersome. In addition, you can select where the dock should sit. It can be placed along the bottom, where it usually is by default, it can also be placed along the right or left edge of the screen. If you prefer to have the dock out of your way, you can set the dock to automatically hide.

I will address the last 3 groups of settings under the Personal category in the next post as we continue to explore the Mac OS X Systems Preferences. Please return soon for the next edition of Mac 101. You can also sign up for email delivery to receive new content from this blog in your Inbox.

Next Lesson:
Mac 101 - System Preferences: Personal Settings - Part 2

Mac 101 - System Preferences: Intro

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 | Mac 101, Tips | No Comments

I would like to introduce a new series of posts on this blog called Mac 101. This series will take you through different aspects of using the Mac. To begin I will explore the Systems Preferences. Mac is a personal computer. To make your Mac personal you need to know how to customize system settings. Through System Preferences you can adjust a variety of settings to make your Mac OS X look and function the way you’d like.

How do I find System Preferences?
System Preferences can be accessed in two ways. You should have a System Preferences icon sitting in your dock. You can also access System Preferences through the Apple icon in the menu bar at the top of the screen.

Overview
Before we dig deeper an overview of System Preference is in order. System Preferences is organized in five sections - Personal, Hardware, Internet & Network, System and Other. Each of these categories provides several groups of settings that can be adjusted to your liking. Through the next several Mac 101 lessons we will explore each category and the settings that are available for your modification. As an introduction, I will highlight the essential functions of each of the categories. As you explore along with me, I encourage you to make this a hands-on experience. The best way to learn your Mac is to take the mouse in hand and browse through the settings, folders and applications on your computer.

Personal Settings

In the Personal Category of the System Preferences you can adjust settings that will alter the general Appearance of the operating system, the functionality of Dashboard & Expose, the desktop background and screen saver. Further you can adjust the way the Dock functions and looks. Here is where you can set language preferences, security and Spotlight settings.

Hardware

In the Hardware category you can adjust settings that control the way they physical parts of the computer function, such as the display, optical drive, keyboard and mouse. You can also adjust settings for printer & fax, sound, Bluetooth and how your computer uses energy.

Internet & Network

In the Internet & Network category you can set preferences for .Mac, your network, QuickTime and sharing. For now I’ll leave it at that. Nice and short.

System

I think by now you’re catching on that for the most part these categories are well labeled. In the System category you have settings that alter the way the operating system functions. Here we can create and manage user accounts, set the time and date, tell the system when to check for updates and so on.

Other

This category is for all those settings that did not come with your Mac by default. As you can see I have three settings groups in this category on my computer. You may have a complete different set of settings in the Other category. This will depend on what system utilities you have installed on your Mac. I will discuss the settings that I have on my Mac later when we get to this category.

This should be enough for starters. In Part 2 of the Mac 101 series on System Preferences we will concentrate on the settings in the Personal category. Check back soon for the next installment of Mac 101 or subscribe to email delivery and receive new content from this blog in your inbox.

Next Lesson:
Mac 101 - System Preferences: Personal Settings - Part 1

Text Clippings. Storing Bits of Text.

Monday, August 20th, 2007 | Tips | No Comments

Mac OS X is known for its ease of use. One such feature that makes storing bits of text easy is called text clipping. I’ve mentioned this feature before in a list of drag-n-drop features. But I think its worth highlighting it again.

What’s the Use?
Most will find this feature helpful when surfing the web and reading online articles or blog posts. Say you come a cross a great quote or a piece of information that intrigues you. You have a couple of options, you can copy the text and paste it into TextEdit or another word processing program, or you can use the text clipping feature built right into Mac OS X.

How Does it Work?
Select the text you wish to store for future reference. Click on the selection and wait one second. Then drag the text onto the desktop. This creates a small file called, “text clipping.” You can open this file, copy and paste the text somewhere else, or keep it store in a folder.

It’s a handy feature when you need to quickly store short bits of text for use at a later time. In a similar way you can store links to web pages on your desktop or in a file. Highlight the URL and drag it a desired destination.