Wiley Mac OS X Snow Leopard For Dummies
Contents
1. 2 Type a word or phrase in the Help menu s Search field Select any item that has a menu icon to its left such as the Secure Empty Trash item in Figure 1 7 The automatic visual cue an arrow appears pointing at that command in the appropriate menu 22 Part I Introducing Mac OS X Snow Leopard The Basics Figure 1 7 If you choose an item with a menu icon an arrow points to that item in context Mice File Edit View Go Window DOJ E About Finder Preferences Menu items Empty Trash Empty Trash CEA M Tait love to Tras Secure Empty Trash ed 7 Help Topics Removing files and folders from Services gt Ifthe Trash contains folders of r Preventing deleted files from bei Shortcuts for working with items Increasing disk space Conserving iDisk storage space Locking documents Using an ExpressCard with a por Ifthe speech feedback window d Transferring files between two c Show All Help Topics Although you don t have to be connected to the Internet to use Mac Help you do need an Internet connection to get the most out of it Chapter 9 can help you set up an Internet connection if you don t have one That s because OS X installs only certain help articles on your hard drive If you ask a question that those articles don t answer Mac Help connects to Apple s Web site and downloads the answer assuming2. remains open until you click something else Go ahead and give it a try I ll wait Not Just a Geatles Movie Help and the Help Menu One of the best features about all Macs is the excellent built in help and Mac OS X doesn t cheat you on that legacy This system has online help in abun dance When you have a question about how to do something the Mac Help Center is the first place you should visit after this book of course 20 Part I Introducing Mac OS X Snow Leopard The Basics Clicking the Help menu reveals the Search Help field at the top of the menu and the Mac Help item which opens the Mac Help window as shown in Figure 1 5 Finder File Edit View Go Window Mac Help Index i Mac Help Learn the basics about your Mac SOLVING PROBLEMS New to the Mac Start here Problems with connecting to the Internet Learn about your computer s devices Get to know the display keyboard mouse and other devices More topics vironment and learn about the Other resources www apple com Pray music organize your photos and watch movies and videos Network share and go online Set up and use a network share reso SS browse the web urees and Figure 1 5 Mac Help is nothing if not helpful The keyboard shortcut for Help appears on the Help menu as 3 but you really need to press 4 8 to open Help through the keyboard Just so you know this is the only shortcut I can th
3. that you have an active Internet connection These answers are the Support Articles denoted by a plus sign as shown in the lower part of the window in Figure 1 6 earlier in this chapter Click one of these entries and Help Viewer retrieves the text over the Internet Although this can sometimes be inconvenient it s also quite smart This way Apple can update the Help system at any time without requiring any action from you Furthermore after you ve asked a question and Mac Help has grabbed the answer from the Apple Web site the answer remains on your hard drive forever If you ask for it again even at a later date your computer won t have to download it from the Apple Web site again
4. Chapter 1 Mac OS X Snow Leopard 101 Prerequisites None In This Chapter Understanding what an operating system is and is not Turning on your Mac Getting to know the startup process Turning off your Mac Avoiding major Mac mistakes Pointing clicking dragging and other uses for your mouse Getting help from your Mac ongratulate yourself on choosing Mac OS X which stands for Macintosh Operating System X that s the Roman numeral fen not the letter X pronounced fen not ex You made a smart move because you scored more than just an operating system upgrade Mac OS X Snow Leopard includes several new features to make using your Mac easier and dozens of improve ments that help you do more work in less time In this chapter I start at the very beginning and talk about Mac OS X in mostly abstract terms then I move on to explain what you need to know to use Mac OS X Snow Leopard successfully If you ve been using Mac OS X for a while some of the information in this chapter might seem hauntingly familiar some features that I describe haven t changed from earlier versions of Mac OS X But if you decide to skip this chapter because you think you have all the new stuff figured out I assure you that you ll miss at least a couple of things that Apple didn t bother to tell you as if you read every word in Mac OS X Help the only user manual Apple provides anyway Tantalized Let s rock 0 Part I Introducing Mac OS
5. X Snow Leopard The Basics NING RY If you re about to upgrade to Snow Leopard from an earlier version of Mac OS X I feel obliged to mention a major pitfall to avoid One very specific misplaced click done while installing your new OS could erase every file on your hard drive The appendix describes this situation in full and loving detail and it contains other important information about installing Snow Leopard that can make upgrading a more pleasant experience Gnawing to the Core of OS X The operating system that is the OS in Mac OS X is what makes a Mac a Mac Without it your Mac is a pile of silicon and circuits no smarter than a toaster So what does an operating system do you ask Good question The short answer is that an operating system controls the basic and most important functions of your computer In the case of Mac OS X and your Mac the operating system 1 Manages memory 1 Controls how windows icons and menus work 1 Keeps track of files 1 Manages networking Y Does housekeeping No kidding Other forms of software such as word processors and Web browsers rely on the operating system to create and maintain the environment in which they work their magic When you create a memo for example the word processor provides the tools for you to type and format the information In the background the operating system is the muscle for the word processor performing crucial functions such as th
6. bad just look in the manual or booklet that came with your Mac It s at least one thing that the documentation always covers These days most Macs have a power on button near the keyboard notebooks or the back side iMacs It usually looks like the little circle thingie you see in the margin Don t bother choosing Help Mac Help which opens the Help Viewer program because it can t tell you where the switch is Although the Help program is good for finding out a lot of things the location of the power switch isn t among them Of course if you haven t found the switch and turned on the Mac you can t access Help anyway D oh What you should see on startup When you finally do turn on your Macintosh you set in motion a sophisticated and complex series of events that culminates in the loading of Mac OS X and the appearance of the Mac OS X Desktop After a small bit of whirring EEE Figure 1 1 This is what you ll see if everything is fine and dandy when you turn your Mac on a ar Chapter 1 Mac OS X Snow Leopard 101 Prerequisites None 13 buzzing and flashing meaning that the operating system is loading OS X first tests all your hardware slots ports disks random access memory RAM and so on If everything passes you hear a pleasing musical tone and see the tasteful gray Apple logo in the middle of your screen along with a small spinning pinwheel cursor somewhere on the screen Both ar
7. contains a hard drive that spins at 4 200 revolutions per minute rpm or more A jolt to a hard drive while it s reading or writing a file can cause the head to crash into the disk which can render many or all files on it unrecoverable Ouch Y Don t forget to back up your data If the stuff on your hard drive means anything to you you must back it up Not maybe You must Even if your most important file is your last saved game of Call of Duty 2 you still need to realize how important it is to back up your files Fortunately Mac OS X Snow Leopard includes an awesome backup utility called Time Machine Unfortunately you need either an external hard drive or an Apple Time Capsule device to take advantage of it So I beg you Please read Chapter 17 now and find out how to back up before something hor rible happens to your valuable data I strongly recommend that you read Chapter 17 sooner rather than later preferably before you do any significant work on your Mac Dr Macintosh says There are only two kinds of Mac users those who have never lost data and those who will Which kind do you want to be 18 Part I Introducing Mac OS X Snow Leopard The Basics Don t kiss your monitor while wearing stuff on your lips For obvious rea sons Use a soft cloth and or OmniCleanz display cleaning solution 1 love the stuff made by RadTech www radtech us to clean your display Point and click boot camp Are you new
8. ducing Mac OS X Snow Leopard The Basics PCS Figure 1 2 The Mac OS X Desktop after a brand spanking new installation of OS X If your computer is under warranty dial 1 800 SOS APPL and a customer service person can tell you what to do Before you do anything though skip ahead to Chapter 19 It s entirely possible that one of the sugges tions there can get you back on track without your having to spend even a moment on hold Prohibitory sign formerly known as the flashing question mark disk Most users eventually encounter the prohibitory sign shown in the left margin which replaced the flashing question mark on a disk icon and flashing folder icon back in Mac OS X Jaguar This icon means your Mac can t find a startup disk hard drive network server or DVD ROM con taining a valid Macintosh operating system See Chapter 19 for ways you can try to ease your Mac s ills Y Kernel panic You shouldn t see this very often but you might occasion ally see a block of text in four languages including English as shown in Figure 1 3 This means that your Mac has experienced a kernel panic the most severe type of system crash If you restart your Mac and see this message again look in Chapter 19 for a myriad of possible cures for all kinds of ailments including this one 15 Chapter 1 Mac OS X Snow Leopard 101 Prerequisites None Figure 1 3 You need to restart your computer Hold down t
9. e following Providing the mechanism for drawing and moving the on screen window in which you write the memo 1 Keeping track of a file when you save it YY Helping the word processor create drop down menus and dialogs for you to interact with 1 Communicating with other programs v And much much more stuff that only geeks could care about 11 Chapter 1 Mac OS X Snow Leopard 101 Prerequisites None So armed with a little background in operating systems take a gander at the next section before you do anything else with your Mac One last thing As I mention in the introduction I m only repeating it here in case you normally don t read introductions Mac OS X Snow Leopard comes with more than 50 applications And though I d love to tell you all about each and every one I have only so many pages at my disposal If you need more info on the programs I don t cover may I again recommend Mac OS X Snow Leopard All in One For Dummies written by Mark L Chambers iLife All in One For Dummies written by my old friends Tony Bove and Cheryl Rhodes or iMovie amp iDVD 09 For Dummies by the technical editor of this very book Dennis Cohen and his brother Michael all three titles are from Wiley The Mac advantage Most of the world s personal computers use Microsoft Windows But you re among the lucky few to have a computer with an operating system that s intuitive easy to use and dare say fun If
10. e shown in Figure 1 1 we Ww Here are the things that might happen when you power up your Mac Everything is fine and dandy Next you might or might not see the Mac OS X login screen where you enter your name and password If you do press Return or Enter after you type your name and password of course and away you go If you don t want to have to type your name and password every time you start or restart your Mac or even if you do check out Chapter 16 for the scoop on how to turn the login screen on or off Either way the Desktop soon materializes before your eyes If you haven t customized configured or tinkered with your Desktop it should look pretty much like Figure 1 2 Now is a good time to take a moment for positive thoughts about the person who convinced you that you wanted a Mac That person was right Blue black gray screen of death If any of your hardware fails when it s tested you might see a blue black or gray screen Some older Macs played the sound of a horrible car wreck instead of the chimes complete with crying tires and busting glass It was exception ally unnerving which might be why Apple doesn t use it anymore The fact that something went wrong is no reflection on your prowess as a Macintosh user Something is broken and your Mac may need repairs If this is happening to you right now check out Chapter 19 to try to get your Mac well again 14 Part I Intro
11. he Power button what you re If this is for several seconds or press the Restart button Veuillez red marrer votre ordinateur Maintenez la touche de d marrage enfonc e pendant plusieurs secondes ou bien appuyez sur le bouton de r initialis ation seeing things are definitely Sie mussen Ihren Computer neu starten Halten Sie dazu die Einschalttaste einige Sekunden gedr ckt oder drucken Sie die Neustart Taste IY Ea FEMEDITSOHRMSOKF RI VEROM L not fine and BUSH Ueto hRIveRBLT lt Kal dandy EE ar f How do you know which version of the Mac OS your computer has Simple 1 Choose About This Mac from the menu the menu with the symbol in the upper left corner of the menu bar The About This Mac window pops up on your screen as shown in Figure 1 4 The version you re running appears just below Mac OS X in the center of the window Version 10 6 is the release we know as Snow Leopard Puma and 10 0 as Cheetah If you re curious or just want to impress your friends Mac OS X version 10 5 was known as Leopard 10 4 as Tiger 10 3 as Panther 10 2 as Jaguar 10 1 as The legend of boot Bootthis Bootthat booted my Mac and or Did it boot and so on Talking about com puters for long without hearing the bootword is nearly impossible But why boot Why not shoe or shirt or even shazam Back in the very olden days say 1958 or a little earlier star
12. ight click and avoid having to hold down lt the Control key I use the five button Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3 0 and recommend it highly 1 Drag Dragging something usually means you have to click it first and hold down the mouse button Then you move the mouse on your desk or mouse pad so the cursor and whatever you select move across the screen The combination of holding down the button and dragging the mouse is usually referred to as click and drag Choosing an item from a menu To get to Mac OS menu commands you must first open a menu and then pick the option you want Point at the name of the menu you want with your cursor press the mouse button down and then drag downward until you select the command you want When the command is highlighted finish selecting by letting go of the mouse button ay If you re a longtime Mac user you probably hold down the mouse button the whole time between clicking the name of the menu and selecting the command you want You can still do it that way but you can also click the menu name to open it release the mouse button drag down to the item you want to select and then click again In other words OS X menus stay open after you click them even if you re not holding down the mouse button After you click a menu to open it you can even type the first letter or letters of the item to select it and then execute that item by pressing the Spacebar or the Return or Enter key A menu
13. ink of where the menu doesn t display an up arrow 4 88 to let you know you need to press Shift You can find out much more about keyboard shortcuts in Chapter 2 To use Mac Help simply type a word or phrase into the text field at the top right and then press Return or Enter In a few seconds your Mac provides you one or more articles to read which theoretically are related to your question Usually For example if you type menus and press Return you get 15 different help topics as shown in Figure 1 6 a Figure 1 6 You have questions Mac has answers ti Chapter 1 Mac OS X Snow Leopard 101 Prerequisites None 2 ano Mac Help er L fa menus Help Topics me E E About application menus Key symbols Changing the language shown in menus and messages Changing button and highlight colors Shortcuts for menus The menu bar Menu basics If a menu doesn t appear in the correct language P to use applications i Personal preferences Shortcuts for Front Row Using a Mighty Mouse If you can t use a menu item Manually feeding the paper when you print Changing a certificate s trust settings Support Articles Pro applications on PowerPC computers may quit unexpectedly on launch or PN OE ER SE Sn ae Se ne Cae ee Found 15 Help Topics 7 Support Articles Now here s a cool feature I like to call automatic visual help cues Here s how they work 1
14. ng and will usually be ready to use by pressing any key or clicking the mouse in less than a minute On the other hand if you re not going to be using it for a few days you might want to shut it down anyway Note lf you leave your Mac on constantly and you re gone when a lightning storm or rolling blackout hits your Mac might get wasted So be sure you have adequate protection say a decent surge protector designed specifically for computers if you decide to leave your Mac on and unattended for long periods See the section A few things you should definitely NOT do with your Mac elsewhere in this chapter for more info on lightning and your Mac Frankly if plan to be away from mine for more than a day usually shut it down just in case But because OS X is designed to run 24 7 don t shut it down at night unless the night happens to be dark and stormy Chapter 1 Mac OS X Snow Leopard 101 Prerequisites None 9 1 Double click Click twice in rapid succession With a little practice you can perfect this technique in no time Use a double click to open a folder or to launch a file or application 1 Control click Hold down the Control key while single clicking Control clicking is the same as right clicking a Windows system and displays a menu called a contextual menu where you Control clicked In fact if you re blessed with a two or more button mouse such as the Apple Mighty Mouse you can r
15. ore but when it does forcing your Mac to turn off and then back on might be the only solution A few things you should definitely NOT do with your Mac In this section I cover the bad stuff that can happen to your computer if you do the wrong things with it If something bad has already happened to you I know I m beginning to sound like a broken record see Chapter 19 Y Don t unplug your Mac when it s turned on Very bad things can happen such as having your operating system break See the preceding section where I discuss shutting down your system properly Don t use your Mac when lightning is near Here s a simple life equa tion for you Mac lightning dead Mac Nuff said Oh and don t place much faith in inexpensive surge protectors A good jolt of lightning will fry the surge protector right along with your computer as well as pos sibly frying your modem printer and anything else plugged into it Some surge protectors can withstand most lightning strikes but those war riors aren t the cheapies that you buy at your local computer emporium Unplugging your Mac from the wall during electrical storms is safer and less expensive Don t forget to unplug your external modem network hubs printers and other hardware that plugs into the wall as well lightning can fry them too Y Don t jostle bump shake kick throw dribble or punt your Mac especially while it s running Your Mac
16. the worst things you can do to your poor Mac Shutting down your Mac improp erly can really screw up your hard drive scramble the contents of your most important files or both If a thunderstorm is rumbling nearby or you re unfortunate enough to have rolling blackouts where you live you might really want to shut down your Mac See the next section where I briefly discuss lightning and your Mac To turn off your Mac always use the Shut Down command on the menu which I discuss in Chapter 4 or shut down in one of these kind and gentle ways 1 Press the Power key once and then click the Shut Down button 1 On keyboards that don t have a Power key press Control Eject instead and then click the Shut Down button that appears or press the Return key which does the same thing Of course most Mac users have broken this rule several times without any thing horrible happening but don t be lulled into a false sense of security Break the rules one time too many or under the wrong circumstances and your most important file will be toast The only time you should turn off your Mac without shutting down properly is when your screen is frozen or when your system crashed and you ve already tried everything else See Chapter 19 Chapter 1 Mac OS X Snow Leopard 101 Prerequisites None 7 for what those everything elses are A really stubborn crash doesn t happen often and less often under OS X than ever bef
17. there if you want it but if you don t want it or don t care like most of us you ll rarely even know it s there All you ll know is that your Mac just runs and runs and runs without crashing and crashing and crashing 2 Part I Introducing Mac OS X Snow Leopard The Basics A Safety Net for the Absolute Beginner Or Any User In the following sections I deal with the stuff that the manual that came with your Mac doesn t cover or doesn t cover in nearly enough detail If you re a first time Macintosh user please please read this section of the book carefully it could save your life Okay okay perhaps I m being overly dramatic What I mean to say is that reading this section could save your Mac Even if you re an experienced Mac user you might want to read this section anyway Chances are good that you ll see at least a few things you might have forgotten that might come in handy Turning the dang thing on Okay This is the big moment turning on your Mac Gaze at it longingly first and say something cheesy such as You re the most awesome computer I ve ever known If that doesn t turn on your Mac and it probably won t keep reading Apple in its infinite wisdom has manufactured Macs with power buttons on every conceivable surface on the front side and back of the computer itself and even on the keyboard or monitor So if you don t know how to turn on your Mac don t feel
18. ting up a computer required you to toggle little manual switches on the front panel which began an internal process that loaded the operating system The process became known as bootstrapping because if you toggled the right switches the computer would pull itself up by its bootstraps This phrase didn t take long to transmogrify into booting and finally to boot Over the years booting has come to mean turn ing on almost any computer or even a periph eral device such as a printer Some people also use it to refer to launching an application booted Excel So the next time one of your gearhead friends says the b word ask whether he knows where the term comes from Then dazzle him with the depth and breadth of your not quite useful knowledge 16 Part I Introducing Mac OS X Snow Leopard The Basics DEN Figure 1 4 See which version of Mac OS X you re running A 2 Click the More Info button to launch the System Profiler application This app shows you much more information including bus speed number of processors caches installed memory networking storage devices and much more You can find more about this useful program in Chapter 18 a About This Mac Mac OS X Software Update Processor 2 4 GHz intel Core 2 Duo Memory 2 G8 1067 MHz DDR3 More Info M and 1983 2009 Ap Shutting down properly Turning off the power without shutting down your Mac properly is one of
19. to the Mac Just figuring out how to move the mouse around Now is a good time to go over some fundamental stuff that you need to know for just about everything you ll be doing on the Mac Spend a few minutes reading this section and soon you ll be clicking double clicking pressing and pointing all over the place If you think you have the whole mousing thing pretty much figured out feel free to skip this section I ll catch you on the other side Still with me Good Now for some basic terminology Point Before you can click or press anything you have to point to it Place your hand on your mouse and move it so that the cursor arrow is over the object you want like on top of an icon or a button 1 Click Also called single click Use your index finger to push the mouse button all the way down and then let go so the button produces a satis fying clicking sound If you have one of the new optical Apple Pro mice you push down the whole thing to click Use a single click to highlight an icon press a button or activate a check box or window In other words first you point and then you click point and click in computer lingo Eternally yours now Mac OS X is designed so you never have to shut it down You can configure it to sleep after a specified period of inactivity See Chapter 16 for more info on the Energy Saver features of OS X If you do so your Mac will consume very little electricity when it s sleepi
20. you don t believe me try using Windows for a day or two Go ahead You prob ably won t suffer any permanent damage In fact you ll really begin to appreciate how good you have it Feel free to hug your Mac Or give ita peck on the disc drive slot just try not to get your tongue caught As someone once told me Claiming that the Macintosh is inferior to Windows because most people use Windows is like saying that all other restaurants serve food that s inferior to McDonald s We might be a minority but Mac users have the best most stable most modern all purpose operating system in the world and here s why UNIX on which Mac OS X is based is widely regarded as the best industrial strength operating system on the planet For now just know that being based on UNIX means that a Mac running OS X will crash less often than an older Mac or a Windows machine which means less downtime And being UNIX based also means far fewer viruses and malicious software But perhaps the biggest advantage OS X has is that when an application crashes it doesn t crash your entire computer and you don t have to restart the whole computer to continue working By the way with the advent of Intel powered Macs a few years ago you can now run Windows natively That s right you can now install and run Microsoft Windows on any Mac powered by an Intel processor as described in Chapter 16 Don t let that UNIX stuff scare you It s
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