• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

* * *

Tip: Too Much of a Good Thing

Spaces are exciting when you first start using them, especially if you do several types of work on your Mac. How about a Space for work, with project folders open and Mail running? Or one for web surfing, with your browser and iChat open? Or even a minimalist Space with nothing at all open? For efficiency’s sake, don’t set up more Spaces than you’re actually going to use. With too many Spaces, it becomes too hard to remember what’s where.

* * *

Setting Basic System Preferences

You can’t customize everything about your Mac, but you can get darn close (for more customization techniques, turn to Chapter 5). Here’s a look at the most basic preferences you’ll want to set on a new Mac.

Choose Apple menu, System Preferences.

Click General to display the Appearance preferences.

Choose colors from the Appearance pop-up menu (for scrollbars, buttons, and menus) and the Highlight Color pop-up menu (for selected text and objects in list view).

Click a radio button to choose whether scrollbars always appear or only when they’re needed. The Automatically setting makes the choice for you based on what kind of mouse or trackpad you use.

* * *

Note: Blue Versus Graphite

Your Appearance color preference starts out set to Blue. If you switch it to Graphite, all your dialog box buttons, menu highlights, and window components turn graphite gray. The only problem you might encounter with that setting is that the Close, Minimize, and Maximize buttons—normally red, yellow, and green, respectively—also turn gray. You can still tell them apart by placing the cursor over them; an X appears in the Close button, a minus sign in the Minimize button, and a plus sign in the Maximize button.

* * *

Click a radio button to choose how far clicking in the scrollbar scrolls the window.

Choose the number of recently used applications and documents that will appear in the Apple menu.

Choose a font smoothing size from the pop-up menus.

Choose System Preferences, Quit System Preferences to apply your changes.

* * *

Tip: Scroll, Scroll, Scroll Your Window

Here’s how the scrollbar settings work: Jump to the next page moves the view up or down one screen when you click in the scrollbar. With long documents, you might prefer Jump to the spot that’s clicked, which moves the view to the location within the document that approximates the location of your click. In other words, click halfway down the scrollbar to see the document’s midpoint. These settings apply within both application windows and folder windows in the Finder.

* * *

Setting Up Your Connection

To set up your Internet connection, you’ll need to find out a few things from your Internet service provider (ISP): your login name and password, possibly the ISP’s DNS (Domain Name System) server addresses, and definitely the preferred configuration method.

Choose Apple menu, System Preferences.

Click the Network button to see your connection settings.

Choose your connection type from the column at the left of the window.

Choose your ISP’s configuration method from the Configure pop-up menu: usually Using PPP for phone modems, Manually for LAN connections, or Using DHCP for cable and DSL modems.

* * *

Note: Talk to Me

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is the language in which your Mac communicates with the other computers on the Internet. The choices in the Configure IPv4 menu are different ways of setting up a TCP/IP connection. PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) is used for phone line connections, and DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) is used for broadband connections and internal networks. If your ISP doesn’t use DHCP, you need to enter settings manually.

* * *

If your configuration method is Manually, enter your IP address, the subnet mask, and the router address for your network.

If the field is blank, enter your ISP’s DNS server in the DNS Server field.

* * *

Note: