Macs All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer Tech))

819 Pages·2008·16.73 MB·English

by  Wallace Wang

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Macs
ALL-IN-ONE DESK REFERENCE
FOR
DUMmIES
‰
by Wally Wang
01_169575 ffirs.qxp 1/18/08 11:34 PM Page ii
Macs All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies®
Published by
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2008 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as per-
mitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written
permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the
Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone].
Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing,
Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, [phone], fax [phone], or online at
http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Trademarks:Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the
Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, and related trade
dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United
States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the
property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor
mentioned in this book.
LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS
OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND
SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS.
THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS
SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING,
OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPE-
TENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE
FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS
WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE
AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR
RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN
THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT
IS READ.
For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care
Department within the U.S. at 800-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax [phone].
For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may
not be available in electronic books.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008920769
ISBN: 978-0-470-16957-5
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
01_169575 ffirs.qxp 1/18/08 11:34 PM Page i
Macs
ALL-IN-ONE DESK REFERENCE
FOR
DUMmIES
‰
by Wally Wang
01_169575 ffirs.qxp 1/18/08 11:34 PM Page ii
Macs All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies®
Published by
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2008 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as per-
mitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written
permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the
Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone].
Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing,
Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, [phone], fax [phone], or online at
http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Trademarks:Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the
Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, and related trade
dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United
States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the
property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor
mentioned in this book.
LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS
OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND
SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS.
THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS
SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING,
OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPE-
TENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE
FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS
WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE
AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR
RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN
THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT
IS READ.
For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care
Department within the U.S. at 800-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax [phone].
For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may
not be available in electronic books.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008920769
ISBN: 978-0-470-16957-5
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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About the Author
I might as well use this space to tell you about myself on the off chance that
anyone actually reads it. After suffering through post-traumatic stress disorder
after working for General Dynamics for 1.5 years and Cubic Corporation for
another 2 years (where I can count my contributions to making the world a
better place on one amputated, missing finger), I soon fled the world of
Department of Defense contractors to the sanctuary of the personal computer
market, where I was fortunate enough to make a living writing computer
magazine articles and books.
I’ve written several dozen computer books, most of which are out of print
(unless someone still wants a book teaching them about the joys of Turbo
Pascal programming or how to write macros in WordPerfect 5.0 for DOS). While
spending most of my adult life covering the rise and fall of the computer indus-
try, I noticed a pattern. Every computer company that was the leader in its field
would eventually mess up by failing to update its product for several years and
then finally churn out a shoddy update that drove their customers en masse to
a rival, thereby turning the rival into the new leader of that particular category.
This happened when WordStar failed to update its word processor for four
years and finally cranked out an incompatible version (called WordStar 2000)
that everyone hated, thereby causing people to flock to WordPerfect instead.
WordPerfect promptly fumbled the ball when it failed to update its product to
run on Windows, which let Microsoft Word take over from there.
The same situation occurred again in the database market when dBASE
took too long to issue an update and when it did, the update turned out to
be the buggy dBASE IV that everyone hated, which caused everyone to switch
to Paradox. Like WordPerfect, Paradox fumbled the ball by not creating a
Windows version, which allowed Microsoft Access to take over the database
market.
That’s when I noticed that Microsoft was fumbling the ball in the operating
system market. After failing to update its operating system for five years, it
promptly issued a buggy (like dBASE IV) and incompatible (like WordStar 2000)
version dubbed Vista. One look at Vista made me realize that history was about
to repeat itself and Vista would soon be the main reason people would crown
a new leader in the operating system category. After ruling out competitors like
Linux, I realized that the next leader of the personal computer market could
only be Mac OS X.
So that’s when I became a complete Mac user, dumping Windows XP (and
my free copy of Vista) in favor of learning and mastering the Macintosh. That’s
who I am today: a devoted Mac user who has realized that the Mac is the
future of the personal computer market because the Mac is reliable, easy to
use, and most importantly, fun to use as well. Not that anyone cares what
I think, though.
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to all those long-suffering Windows users who have
switched over to the Mac and discovered that it’s possible to buy and use
a computer that actually works.
Author’s Acknowledgments
This book could never have been written without the invention of the print-
ing press, so thank you, Johannes Gutenberg! On a more contemporary level,
a big thanks goes out to Bill Gladstone and Margot Hutchison at Waterside
Productions. Of course, if they weren’t my agents, they would have just
gotten someone else to write this book and you’d see a different name
plastered across the cover.
Another big round of thanks goes to the whole, happy crew at Wiley
Publishing for turning this project into reality: Bob Woerner for entrusting
me with the massive Mac tome you have in your hands; Paul Levesque for
keeping this whole project together; Dennis Cohen for helping me make the
transition from the world of Windows to the much better world of the Mac;
and Virginia Sanders for editing, revising, and correcting what I wrote so
I don’t wind up looking like an idiot.
I also want to acknowledge all the stand-up comedians I’ve met, who
have made those horrible crowds at comedy clubs more bearable: Darrell
Joyce (http://darrelljoyce.com), Leo “the Man, the Myth, the Legend”
Fontaine, Chris Clobber, Bob Zany (www.bobzany.com), Russ Rivas (http://
russrivas.com), Don Learned, Dante, and Dobie “The Uranus King”
Maxwell. Another round of thanks goes to Steve Schirripa (who appeared
in HBO’s hit show The Sopranos) for giving me my break in performing
at the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, one of the few old-time casinos
left that the demolition crews haven’t imploded (yet).
I’d also like to acknowledge the animals in my life who have played such a
large role in forcing me to buy paper towels, liquid cleaners, and air freshen-
ers: Bo, Scraps, Tasha, and Nuit (my cats) and Ollie and Loons (two birds
who live with my sister because if they lived with me, they would have long
ago become meals for Bo, Scraps, Tasha, or Nuit).
Finally, I’d like to acknowledge Cassandra (my wife) and Jordan (my son) for
putting up with my long hours and my insistence that everyone dump their
Windows XP PCs right away (an easy decision since they never worked right
anyway) and migrate completely to the Mac.
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Publisher’s Acknowledgments
We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form
located at www.dummies.com/register/.
Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:
Acquisitions and Editorial Composition Services
Senior Project Editor:Paul Levesque Project Coordinator: Kristie Rees
Acquisitions Editor:Bob Woerner Layout and Graphics: Claudia Bell,
Stacie Brooks, Karl Byers, Reuben W. Davis,
Copy Editor:Virginia Sanders
Melissa K. Jester, Barbara Moore,
Technical Editor:Dennis Cohen Ronald Terry, Christine Williams
Editorial Manager:Leah Cameron Proofreaders: Christopher M. Jones,
Editorial Assistant:Amanda Foxworth Jessica Kramer
Sr. Editorial Assistant:Cherie Case Indexer: Broccoli Information Management
Cartoons:Rich Tennant Anniversary Logo Design:Richard Pacifico
(www.the5thwave.com)
Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies
Richard Swadley,Vice President and Executive Group Publisher
Andy Cummings,Vice President and Publisher
Mary Bednarek,Executive Acquisitions Director
Mary C. Corder,Editorial Director
Publishing for Consumer Dummies
Diane Graves Steele,Vice President and Publisher
Joyce Pepple,Acquisitions Director
Composition Services
Gerry Fahey,Vice President of Production Services
Debbie Stailey,Director of Composition Services
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Contents at a Glance
Introduction.................................................................1
Book I: Mac Basics.......................................................7
Chapter 1: Getting to Know Your Mac.............................................................................9
Chapter 2: Starting Up, Sleeping, and Shutting Down..................................................15
Chapter 3: Getting Acquainted with the Mac User Interface......................................25
Chapter 4: Running Programs.........................................................................................55
Chapter 5: Installing and Uninstalling Software...........................................................77
Chapter 6: Managing Files and Folders..........................................................................93
Chapter 7: Customizing Your Mac................................................................................129
Chapter 8: Accessibility Features of the Macintosh..................................................153
Chapter 9: Maintenance and Troubleshooting...........................................................167
Book II: Photos, Music, and Movies............................181
Chapter 1: Playing with Audio......................................................................................183
Chapter 2: Playing with Pictures..................................................................................205
Chapter 3: Watching Videos on a Mac.........................................................................223
Chapter 4: Using Front Row for Movies, Music, and Photos....................................239
Book III: Browsing the Internet..................................255
Chapter 1: Browsing the Internet.................................................................................257
Chapter 2: Sending and Receiving E-Mail....................................................................291
Chapter 3: Chatting in Real Time..................................................................................319
Chapter 4: Security for Your Mac.................................................................................335
Chapter 5: Setting Up Your Own Web Site...................................................................359
Book IV: Working with iLife and iWork ......................371
Chapter 1: Storing Memories with iPhoto...................................................................373
Chapter 2: Using iMovie.................................................................................................401
Chapter 3: Using iDVD...................................................................................................425
Chapter 4: Creating Web Sites with iWeb....................................................................443
Chapter 5: Using GarageBand.......................................................................................459
Chapter 6: Writing and Publishing with Pages ..........................................................481
Chapter 7: Making Presentations with Keynote.........................................................509
Chapter 8: Doing Calculations with Numbers.............................................................535