You’re comfortable with your Mac by now; you’ve learned some terminology and you’ve found some shortcuts. But every time there’s an upgrade to your system there are changes to explore. (Remember to click on the illustrations to enlarge. Then do Esc. to go back.)
Let’s look at your Apple Menu. Go to the top menu bar, clear to the left side. Click on the tiny apple.
Click on About This Mac. Now click on More Info . . .
Up comes a box with headings: Overview, Displays, Storage, Memory and on the far right side is Support and Service.
Displays brings up the name, size and graphics info, and you can click to bring up User Manual. You can also do Displays Preferences where you can adjust brightness, resolution, rotation, and AirPlay Mirroring. Under Color you have profile info that you can open and also calibrate.
Storage brings up colorful graphs showing how much memory is used on your HD: audio, movies, photos, apps, backups, and other. It shows how much free memory you have out of the total available.
If you have a separate device for your Time Machine here is where you see how much memory is being used for those same categories, and it also posts how much free memory is available.
The SuperDrive is shown and lists Disc formats that can be written, such as CD-R, CD-RW.
Go back to Overview. Click On Memory and it tells you how many memory slots you have, each of which accepts which memory modules, and will say if all memory slots are currently in use. In small type under that you can click where it says Memory Upgrade instructions.
On the right hand side of About this Mac is Support. Click to bring up OS X Resources, Help center, OS X Support. Under Macintosh Resources you can click to go to User Manual, Specifications, and Hardware Support.
On the far right hand side of About This Mac click Service. It tells about the limited warranty, & the complimentary telephone technical support. It tells about the AppleCare Protection Plan. It says that even if your coverage has expired you may still be able to pay for any repairs you need through an Apple-authorized technician. Here you can click to check your service and support coverage status, and your service and repair options.
Depending on your Mac and the system you’re using this will vary. I’ve got 10.8.5.
Back to the little apple on the main menu. You can rearrange Dock. Do you use Recent Items as a handy way to find where you recently were? October issue of Macworld magazine tells that you can hold down the Command key to get some other choices. Also, here’s Force Quit.
Under File you can choose Quick Look.
Under Edit you can choose Start Dictation, or use fn fn (the function key).
Under View you can do Clean Up, Sort by, and Show View Options.
Under Go, there’s a list of your recently created folders.
Under Help, is where we’ve probably all gone, at sometime or other. Helpful links there.
Look at the other items along that very top menu bar. There’s DropBox, the icon for the Time Machine backup, day and time, and the very last is Notifications.
On the top, far right hand side click on the magnifying glass icon. That brings up Spotlight which does your search. Type in a word or phrase and your smart little computer brings up a list of possibilities for you to check for the one thing you want. As you bring your cursor down the list a tiny image of the page will show up. But where is that document? Click on Command and the R to bring it up in its folder.
Just for fun I typed in cow. One of the documents listed brought up a picture of a cow with our son Peter. Doing Command R opened it, showing me where it was found.
Spotlight’s list that appears has Top Hit, Documents, PDF Documents, Images, Messages that mention “cow,” Presentations, Look Up brings your word up in the Dictionary, and finally Web Searches and Spotlight Preferences.
Here’s a shortcut that’s really handy: In Pages: Command + Z puts back in what you accidentally deleted when you did Command X, instead of doing Command C to copy!
Last, but not least, do you use “hot corners” also known as Active Screen Corners? Go to System Preferences on the Dock, click on Desktop & Screen Saver. In Screen Saver you can choose hot corners and slideshows. You also choose how soon the slides should start. When you drag your cursor to one of the corners of the screen the slideshow will begin to entertain you. Moving the cursor away from the corner brings back your normal view of your desktop.
You’ll discover shortcuts that you’ll be happy to use. You’ll also discover methods that you might not need or use now, but it’s good to keep learning.
That’s the fun of Mac. : )
This is today's PMUG handout for 10-19-13. Hope to see you at our next meeting.
from ELAINE HARDT