Macs For Dummies

Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 2 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go from Here 3 Part 1: Getting Started with Macs 5 Chapter 1: Adventuring into the Mac World 7 Mac-Spectacular Computing 7 Checking out shapes and sizes 8 Matching a Mac to your needs 8 Selecting handy peripherals 9 Communicating with Your Mac 9 It’s a GUI 9 With great tools for you 10 And output, too 10 Living the Essentials Life 10 Working with Work Stuff 11 Reaching Outside the Box 12 Getting online 12 Networking with or without wires 12 Staying Safe and Trouble-Free 12 Chapter 2: The Nuts and Bolts of Your Mac 13 Turning On and Tuning In Your Mac 14 Finding the On button 14 Getting credentials 14 Creating an identity 17 Sharing diagnostics data 17 Making acquaintances 17 Shutting down 18 Giving your Mac a nap 19 Mousing Around the Interface 19 Knowing your mouse type 20 Learning the basic mouse (or trackpad) moves 21 Knowing What’s Handy about the Keyboard 23 Finding the major functions 23 Pressing the keys to success 24 Taking a shortcut 25 Storing Stuff on the Hard Drive or SSD 27 Memory Essentials, or RAM On 28 Locating the Common Ports and Connectors 29 Adding everyday peripherals with USB 29 Meeting USB-C 30 FireWire: Pumping data through a bigger hose 30 Introducing Thunderbolt 31 Jacks of all trades 32 Chapter 3: Getting to the Core of the Apple 33 Navigating the Mac Desktop 33 Biting into the Apple menu 35 Finding icons and folders 36 Unlocking the Finder window 36 Getting a stunning view 38 Having a Quick Look 42 What’s Up, Dock? 43 What you’ll find on the dock 44 Loading up the dock 46 Docking the dock 47 Re-opening minimized windows 48 Stockpiling Stacks 48 Quitting time 50 A Gaggle of Freebie Programs 51 Staying organized 51 Tooling around for a reference 58 Chapter 4: Here a Mac, There a Mac, Everywhere a Mac Mac 61 Big Mac or Little Mac? 62 If a Desktop Is Your Poison 62 iMac 62 Mac mini 63 Mac Pro: A Mac with muscle 64 Going Mobile 64 MacBook Pro 65 MacBook Air 66 MacBook 67 Taming the Trackpad 68 Keeping Your Notebook Juiced 69 Part 2: Mac Daily Dealings 71 Chapter 5: Making the Mac Your Own 73 Establishing User Accounts 74 Ranking user accounts 74 Creating new accounts 75 Entering the Photo Booth 77 Taking a Photo Booth picture 78 Applying special effects 79 Admiring and sharing Photo Booth photos 80 Using Parental Controls: When Father (or Mother) Knows Best 81 The Lowdown on Logging In 83 And logging out 84 Pulling a fast one 84 Letting Someone Go 85 Changing Appearances 86 Altering buttons menus, and windows 86 Setting your wallpaper and screen saver 86 Choosing a screen saver 87 Tidying Up with Mission Control 89 Working on multiple desktops 91 Navigating application windows 92 Customizing Misson Control 92 Splitting Windows 93 Launching Launchpad 94 System Preferences: Choosing Priorities 95 Date and time 96 Displays 96 Sound 97 App Store 97 Accessibility 98 Chapter 6: El Capitan: No More Feline Fetish 99 Upgrading to El Capitan 99 Searching with Spotlight 100 Rummaging through your stuff 101 Intelligent searching 104 Searching your way 106 Using Smart Folders 106 Fiddling with Dashboard Widgets 108 Chapter 7: Handling All That Busy Work 109 Form and Function: The Essentials of Word Processing 110 Creating a document 111 Selecting text in a document 113 Dragging and dropping 115 Cutting and pasting 116 Changing the font 117 Formatting your document 121 Speaking what’s on your mind 125 Saving your work 125 Securing, copying, and otherwise managing your file 127 Tagging a File 127 Making Revisions 128 Taking Out the Trash 129 Never Mind: Retrieving What You’ve Tossed 130 Making an Alias 130 Chapter 8: Printing and Scanning 133 Choosing a Printer 134 Inkjets 134 Lasers 135 All-in-ones 135 Connecting and Activating a Printer 136 Ready, Set, Print 136 Printing it your way 139 Previewing your print 140 When Printers Stop Printing 141 Running out of ink or toner 141 Running out of paper 141 Hooking Up a Scanner 142 Part 3: Rocketing Into Cyberspace 143 Chapter 9: Stairway to the Internet 145 Dialing In 146 Taking the Broadband Express 146 DSL, cable 147 Always on, always connected 148 Let Me In 148 Going on a Safari 149 Just browsing 149 Smart addressing 151 Clicking links 151 Using bookmarks 153 Pinning websites 154 Employing the tools of the trade in Safari 155 Chapter 10: Delivering the Goods on Email 167 Understanding Email 168 Setting Up a New Email Account 168 Before You Click Send 170 Addressing your missive 170 Composing messages 172 Choosing stationery 173 Saving drafts 174 Attaching files 174 Attaching large files 175 Spell checking 177 Signing off with a signature 177 Managing the Flood of Incoming Mail 178 Choosing what to read 179 Replying to messages 179 Organizing Mail by conversation 180 Picking VIPs 180 Opening mail from strangers 181 Junking the junk 182 Avoiding spam 183 Setting the rules 183 Building Smart Mailboxes 184 Searching mail 185 Opening attachments 186 Marking up attachments 186 Making the Most of Your Mail 187 Chapter 11: Schmoozing, Shopping, and Moving in Cyberspace 191 Messaging with the Messages App 192 Getting started with the Messages app 193 Hey, buddy 194 Chatting 198 Seeing is believing; hearing, too 200 Screen sharing 201 Face Time for FaceTime 202 Getting started with FaceTime 202 Making a FaceTime call 203 Receiving a FaceTime call 204 Doing more FaceTime tricks 204 Social Networking 205 Facebook 206 LinkedIn and others 207 Twitter 208 Buying Stuff Online: The Mac App Store 209 Finding apps 210 Figuring out whether an app is worth it 211 Making a purchase 211 Read All About It: iBooks 212 Finding something to read 212 Reading a book 214 Mapping Your Way Around 217 Showing Your Game Face 219 hapter 12: Mounting a Defense Strategy 221 The Truth about Internet Security 221 Spies in our midst 222 Gone phishing 223 Firewalls 224 FileVault 225 Password Management: The Key to Keychains 227 Logging In and Logging Out 228 Restricting App Downloads 229 Hiding Your Mac’s Whereabouts 229 Securing Your Privacy 230 Find My Mac 230 Entering a Time Machine 232 Setting up Time Machine 232 Going back in time 233 Part 4: Getting An Ilife 237 Chapter 13: Living in an iTunes Nation 239 iTunes: The Great Mac Jukebox 240 Tuning in to the iTunes interface 240 Controlling the controls 241 Managing Your Music 243 Ripping audio CDs 243 Importing other ditties 245 Adding music from iCloud 245 iTunes Match 246 Creating playlists 247 When playlists get smart 248 When playlists get even smarter 250 Genius Mixes 251 Up Next 252 MiniPlayer 253 Loading tunes onto a portable device 253 Burning audio CDs 254 Tuning In to Internet Radio 255 Apple Music 256 Finding Music (and More) Online 258 Seeking online music recommendations 259 The search for great music continues 261 When you’re ready to buy 261 Allowances and gifts 262 Sharing music with other computers 263 iTunes: More Than Just Music 264 Reading books 264 Listening to audiobooks 264 Capturing podcasts 264 Catching up on Mad Men and Game of Thrones 265 Buying and renting movies 265 App Store 266 iTunes U 266 Chapter 14: Taking a Photos Close-Up 267 Getting Pictures into the Computer 268 Connecting a digital camera or iOS mobile device 268 Importing images from other sources 269 Demystifying iCloud images 270 Finding and Organizing Images 271 Seeing everything in Photos view 274 Choosing albums 274 Displaying the sidebar 275 Using the Search field 276 Facing everyone in Faces view 276 Mapping photos in Places view 279 Assigning keywords 280 Placing your work in albums 281 Creating a Smart Album for photos 282 Enjoying a Split view 283 Enjoying Full Screen view 284 Something to hide 284 Touching Up Your Photos 284 Enhancing an image 285 Rotating an image 285 Cropping an image 285 Applying filters 287 Adjusting adjustments 287 Repairing blemishes 287 Reducing red-eye 288 Extensions 288 Admiring and Sharing Pictures 288 Creating slideshows 289 Sharing pictures 291 Booking them 291 Cards and calendars 292 Ordering prints 292 iCloud Photo Sharing 292 Chapter 15: iMovie and GarageBand: The Show Must Go On 295 Touring the iMovie Interface 296 Shooting Your Oscar Winner 297 From Here to Eternity: Camcorder to iMovie 298 Importing videos from other destinations 298 Using an iSight, FaceTime, or other camera to record directly to iMovie 299 Mastering Postproduction 299 Staging events 300 Milking the skimming feature 300 Playing around with playback 301 Working with video 302 Marking video 302 Cropping video 302 Improving the sound 304 Turning Your Clips into a Movie 305 Pick a theme, any theme 305 Movie trailers 306 Adding music or sound effects 308 Recording a voiceover 309 The cutting-room floor 310 Adding transitions between clips 310 Adding titles 311 Adding photos to a movie 312 Making further adjustments 313 Sharing Your Blockbuster 314 QuickTime Marks the Spot 315 Making a quick QuickTime movie 315 Shortening the QuickTime movie 315 Forming a GarageBand 316 Keeping on track(s) 319 Connecting external instruments 321 Beating the GarageBand drums 322 Getting loopy 322 Building an arrangement 324 Multitake recording 324 Staying in the groove 325 Learning to Play 325 Sharing Music Projects 326 Part 5: the Creepy Geeky Section 329 Chapter 16: Networking Madness 331 Networking Done Right 331 The wired way 332 Cutting the cord 332 Landing safely at the AirPort 333 Boarding the AirPort Express 334 AirPlay 334 AirPlay Mirroring 335 Testing your network 336 Let’s Share 336 AirDrop 337 Handoff 338 Brushing Up on Bluetooth 339 Getting discovered 340 Pairing off 341 Back to My Mac 341 Chapter 17: Handling Trouble in Paradise 343 A Cranky Computer 344 A Frozen Computer or Program 345 Force Quit 345 When a program quits on you 346 Forcing a restart 347 Safe boot 347 Disk Utility 347 Get S.M.A.R.T 348 Startup Problems 348 Reinstalling OS X 349 Common Fixes for Other Problems 350 A jumpy mouse 351 A clueless keyboard 351 A stuck CD 352 My Mac can no longer tell time 352 Kernel clink 352 SOS for DNS 353 Curing the trash-can blues 353 Useful Routine Maintenance 353 Purge unnecessary files and programs 354 Backing up your treasures 354 Updating software 354 Summoning Outside Help 355 Third-party software 355 AppleCare 356 Consulting Einstein 356 Help, I need somebody 357 Chapter 18: Surviving in a Windows World 359 What the Mac and Windows Have in Common 360 Making the Switch 360 Help from Apple 361 Burning a disc 361 External hard drives 361 Using an existing network 361 The KVM switch 362 Enlisting in Boot Camp 362 Basic training 363 Switching operating systems 365 A Parallels (and Fusion) Universe 365 Part 6: the Part of Tens 367 Chapter 19: Ten Indispensable Mac Websites 369 AppleInsider 370 Cult of Mac 370 MacFixIt (CNET) 370 MacRumors 370 MacSurfer’s Headline News 371 Macworld 371 9to5Mac 371 Other World Computing 372 VersionTracker 372 Last but Not Least, Apple.com 372 Chapter 20: Ten Things to Leave You With 373 Remote Software Installation 374 If Math Moves You 375 Make or Receive a Call 375 Zip It in the Bud 376 Family Sharing 376 Screen Capture (Stills and Video) 377 Get Transit Directions 378 Would You Like to Play a Game of Chess? 379 Using the Mac for Work 380 Speech Recognition 381 Index 383