OS X Mavericks For Dummies

483 Pages·2013·38.171 MB·English

by  Bob LeVitus

OS X ®
Mavericks
by Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus
OS X® Mavericks For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013948029
ISBN: 978-1-118-69188-5 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-70762-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-70749-4 (ebk)
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents at a Glance
Introduction ................................................................ 1
Part I: Getting Started with OS X Mavericks .................. 7
Chapter 1: OS X Mavericks 101 (Prerequisites: None) ..................................................9
Chapter 2: The Desktop and Windows and Menus (Oh My!) .....................................23
Chapter 3: Have It Your Way ..........................................................................................47
Chapter 4: What’s Up, Dock? ..........................................................................................73
Chapter 5: The Finder and Its Desktop .........................................................................93
Part II: Mavericks Taming (Or “Organization
for Smart People”) .................................................. 127
Chapter 6: The Care and Feeding of Files and Folders..............................................129
Chapter 7: Four Terrific Timesaving Tools .................................................................171
Chapter 8: Dealing with Disks ......................................................................................195
Chapter 9: Organizing Your Life ...................................................................................199
Part III: Do Unto Mavericks: Getting Things Done ...... 215
Chapter 10: (Inter)Networking .....................................................................................217
Chapter 11: Communications Made Easy ...................................................................233
Chapter 12: The Musical Mac .......................................................................................269
Chapter 13: The Multimedia Mac .................................................................................287
Chapter 14: Words and Letters ....................................................................................303
Part IV: Mastering Your Mavericks ............................ 313
Chapter 15: Publish or Perish: The Fail-Safe Guide to Printing................................315
Chapter 16: Sharing Your Mac and Liking It ...............................................................331
Chapter 17: Features for the Way You Work ..............................................................365
Part V: The Care and Feeding of Your Mavericks ........ 387
Chapter 18: Safety First: Backups and Other Security Issues ..................................389
Chapter 19: Utility Chest ...............................................................................................405
Chapter 20: Troubleshooting OS X ..............................................................................417
Part VI: The Part of Tens .......................................... 427
Chapter 21: Almost Ten Ways to Speed Up Your Mac Experience .........................429
Chapter 22: Ten (Or So) Great Websites for Mac Freaks ..........................................439
Index ...................................................................... 447
Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................. 1
About This Book ..............................................................................................1
Conventions Used in This Book .....................................................................2
Foolish Assumptions .......................................................................................3
Beyond the Book .............................................................................................3
Icons Used in This Book .................................................................................4
Where to Go from Here ...................................................................................4
Part I: Getting Started with OS X Mavericks ................... 7
Chapter 1: OS X Mavericks 101 (Prerequisites: None) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Gnawing to the Core of OS X ........................................................................10
A Safety Net for the Absolute Beginner (Or Any User) .............................12
Turning the dang thing on ..................................................................12
What you should see on startup ........................................................12
Shutting down properly ......................................................................16
A few things you should definitely NOT do with your Mac ............17
Point-and-click boot camp ..................................................................18
Not Just a Beatles Movie: Help and the Help Menu ..................................20
Chapter 2: The Desktop and Windows and Menus (Oh My!) . . . . . . . . 23
Touring the Finder and Its Desktop ............................................................24
Anatomy of a Window ...................................................................................26
Top o’ the window to ya!.....................................................................28
A scroll new world ...............................................................................29
(Hyper)Active windows ......................................................................31
Dialog Dealie-Boppers ...................................................................................32
Working with Windows .................................................................................33
Opening and closing windows ...........................................................34
Resizing windows and window panes ...............................................34
Moving windows ..................................................................................35
Shuffling windows ................................................................................36
Menu Basics ...................................................................................................38
The ever-changing menu bar ..............................................................38
Shortcut menus: They’re sooo contextual . . . .................................39
Recognizing disabled options ............................................................40
Navigating submenus ..........................................................................41
Underneath the Apple menu tree ......................................................42
Using keyboard shortcut commands ................................................44
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OS X Mavericks For Dummies
Chapter 3: Have It Your Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Introducing System Preferences ..................................................................47
Putting a Picture on the Desktop .................................................................50
Setting Up a Screen Saver .............................................................................52
Putting Widgets on the Dashboard .............................................................53
Translation............................................................................................56
Flight Tracker .......................................................................................57
Giving Buttons, Menus, and Windows a Makeover ...................................58
Adjusting the Keyboard, Mouse, Trackpad, and Other Hardware ..........61
Keyboard ...............................................................................................61
Mouse ....................................................................................................67
Bluetooth ..............................................................................................68
Trackpad (notebooks and desktops with a Magic Trackpad) .......69
Styling Your Sound ........................................................................................71
Changing sound effects .......................................................................71
Choosing output and input options ..................................................72
Chapter 4: What’s Up, Dock? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
A Quick Introduction to Your Dock .............................................................74
The default icons of the Dock ............................................................74
Trash talkin’ ..........................................................................................77
Opening application menus in the Dock ...........................................79
Reading Dock icon body language .....................................................81
Opening files from the Dock ...............................................................82
Customizing Your Dock ................................................................................82
Adding Dock icons ...............................................................................83
Removing an icon from the Dock .......................................................84
Resizing the Dock .................................................................................86
What should you put in YOUR Dock? ................................................87
Setting your Dock preferences ...........................................................88
Chapter 5: The Finder and Its Desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Introducing the Finder and Its Minions: The Desktop and Icons ............93
Introducing the Desktop .....................................................................94
Bellying up to the toolbar ...................................................................96
Figuring out what an icon is ...............................................................99
Identifying your Finder icons in the wild ........................................100
Aliases: Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread ..............................................102
Creating aliases ..................................................................................103
Deleting aliases ..................................................................................105
Hunting down an alias’s parent........................................................105
The View(s) from a Window .......................................................................105
Moving through folders fast in Column view .................................106
Perusing in Icon view ........................................................................107
Listless? Try touring folders in List view ........................................109
You gotta go with the flow ................................................................111
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Table of Contents
Finder on the Menu .....................................................................................112
The actual Finder menu ....................................................................112
Like a road map: The current folder’s pop-up menu ....................115
Going places with the Go menu .......................................................116
Customizing Finder Windows ....................................................................118
Adding folders to the Sidebar ..........................................................118
Setting Finder preferences ................................................................119
Digging for Icon Data in the Info Window .................................................123
Part II: Mavericks Taming (Or “Organization
for Smart People”) ................................................... 127
Chapter 6: The Care and Feeding of Files and Folders . . . . . . . . . . . .129
Understanding the OS X Folder Structure ................................................130
Understanding nested folders ..........................................................131
From the top: The Computer folder ................................................132
Peeking into the Applications folder ...............................................133
Finding fonts (and more) in the public Library folder ..................133
Let it be: The System folder ..............................................................135
The usability of the Users folder .....................................................136
There’s no place like Home ..............................................................136
Your personal Library card ..............................................................138
Saving Your Document Before It’s Too Late ............................................140
Stepping through a basic Save .........................................................141
Save As versus Duplicate: Different names for same result .........146
Open Sez Me .................................................................................................149
With drag-and-drop ...........................................................................150
With a Quick Look ..............................................................................150
When your Mac can’t open a file......................................................151
With the application of your choice ................................................152
Organizing Your Stuff in Folders ................................................................155
Files versus folders ............................................................................155
Organizing your stuff with subfolders.............................................156
Creating new folders..........................................................................159
Navigating with spring-loaded folders ............................................159
Smart Folders .....................................................................................160
Shuffling Around Files and Folders ...........................................................163
Comprehending the Clipboard.........................................................163
Copying files and folders ..................................................................164
Pasting from the Clipboard ..............................................................165
Moving files and folders ....................................................................166
Selecting multiple icons ....................................................................167
Playing the icon name game: Renaming icons ...............................168
Compressing files ...............................................................................169
Getting rid of icons ............................................................................169
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OS X Mavericks For Dummies
Chapter 7: Four Terrific Timesaving Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
With a Quick Look .......................................................................................171
Share and share alike with the Share menu ...................................173
Slide into Slideshow (full-screen) mode .........................................174
Spotlight on Finding Files and Folders Faster ..........................................175
Using the Search box in Finder windows ........................................175
Using the Spotlight menu and window ...........................................178
Finding files by other attributes.......................................................179
Exposé Yourself to Mission Control ..........................................................181
The Mission Control pane: It’s painless ..........................................182
Hot corners! ........................................................................................184
Spaces from 30,000 feet (an overview) ...........................................185
Getting around in space(s) ...............................................................189
Launchpad: The Place for Applications ....................................................191
Customizing Your Launchpad ....................................................................192
Chapter 8: Dealing with Disks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Comprehending Disks .................................................................................196
Some disks need to be formatted first ............................................196
Moving and copying between disks ................................................197
Surprise: Your PC Disks Work, Too! ..........................................................198
Chapter 9: Organizing Your Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Keeping Track with Calendar .....................................................................200
Navigating Calendar views................................................................200
Creating calendars .............................................................................202
Grouping calendars ...........................................................................203
Deleting a calendar or group ............................................................204
Creating and managing events .........................................................205
Reminders: Protection Against Forgetting ...............................................208
Getting started with Reminders .......................................................208
To do or not to do: Setting reminders.............................................210
Everything you need to know about the Notification Center .......211
Use Notes for Making Notes .......................................................................212
Part III: Do Unto Mavericks: Getting Things Done ....... 215
Chapter 10: (Inter)Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Getting Connected to the Internet .............................................................218
Setting up your modem .....................................................................218
Your Internet service provider and you .........................................219
Plugging in your Internet-connection settings ...............................219
Browsing the web with Safari .....................................................................221
Navigating with the toolbar buttons ...............................................222
Bookmarking your favorite pages ....................................................224