Wednesday, 30 October 2013
Friday, 18 October 2013
Amazing tricks to learn on your Mac OS
1. Endless keyboard shortcuts
The mouse
is great and all, but don't be afraid to favour keyboard shortcuts
instead of a series of clicks (don't worry, it won't get jealous).
The developers have put in tons of keyboard shortcuts that will help
you save time, and here's the best part: you can create your own
custom ones too, for any of your commonly used menu options. Just go
to System Preferences > Keyboard > Application Shortcuts and
then pick your own selection of keys to replace the tiresome journey
the cursor would have otherwise made.
2. Everything ready at log-in
Everyone's
got their own set of 'evergreen' apps – those that are constantly
open whenever they fire up their Mac, regardless of the activity they
might have planned. Wouldn't it be great if said selection of apps
automatically opened every time you switched on your computer? You
can guess where this is going, can't you? That's right, the options
await at System Preferences: select yourself from Accounts, and then
visit Login Items.
3. Connect to the internet through your iPhone
Got an
iPhone to accompany your Mac? Your mobile device comes with a feature
that enables it to share its 3G or 4G mobile broadband connection
with other devices (though this must be allowed by your network
operator), making it perfect for getting your Mac online wherever you
are. You can share the signal through Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB. First
turn on the iPhone's Personal Hotspot option in Settings. Then you
can either pair them both over Bluetooth, manually connect them using
a USB or select the Wi-Fi network created by the iPhone in the Mac's
Wi-Fi options and enter the password.
4. Sign here, here and here
There's
no need to feel restricted while using a Mac. Need to add a signature
to an important document? Not a problem: in OS X 10.7 and later you
can do exactly that using Preview. Within Preview's Preferences, go
to the Signatures tab and then click on the +. Scrawl your name in
black ink on white paper, hold it up to your Mac's webcam, line it up
and click Accept. Make sure you save it so you can use it again in
the future, whether it's for writing letters or answering fanmail…
5. Record screencasts
Question:
what's the best way to record a problem you're experiencing on screen
or to make an instructional video demonstrating the use of an app?
Answer: record a video of your screen – after all, that'd be the
most useful if you were on the receiving end, right? You can do so
through QuickTime Player. In File > New Screen Recording you can
chose the audio source and even whether or not to include the mouse
clicks in the recording! To neaten any rough edges, you can tweak it
in iMovie, and then upload it to YouTube or AirDrop it to say, a
relative's Mac.
6. See the hidden options
It can be
infuriating when trying to locate the right menu path, but not on the
Mac's watch. Holding down the Alt key on your keyboard actually lets
you get to more options in the menu bar, as well as in the menus
themselves. It's a neat little time-saver; for menu options with
ellipses for example, holding down Alt and then clicking them
bypasses the dialogue that would have otherwise appeared and executes
the command directly.
7. Restrict what someone can do – and when
With
great power… well, we all know how that one ended. Yes, the Mac is
incredibly powerful, but in the hands of younger children it can
become a dangerous tool. It will relieve parents no end to see that
the Parental Controls in OS X are simple to configure, and the range
of options are pleasing to boot. Among others you can limit underage
access and also computer usage to x amount per day, set a 'bedtime'
setting that signifies the end of a browsing session and limit the
functions of Finder.
8. Type exotic characters
Okay,
we're just showing off, now! We're not just talking about an
über-sized fry-up in a café here – accents and umlauts are
bog-standard practice for any operating system. What we're getting it
us the power of Emoji, the fun little characters available in OS X
10.7 and later. Take note though, that while you'll be able to enjoy
these Japanese-originated smileys and other such animals and symbols
on your screen, they're not entirely compatible on a cross-platform
scale. Well, your pals will just have to get a Mac to read your coded
messages then, won't they?
9. Quickly type out common phrases
In a
similar vein to creating command shortcuts, you can do the same with
words or even phrases, whether that's a particular piece of unicode
or an email address. Just go to the Text tab of the Language &
Text pane of System Preferences and click the + to add a shortcut and
what it equates to. Don't worry: these are all perfectly editable
once saved too, so you can delete that YOLO one in case your friends
use your Mac…
10. Run Windows
Yep. It
might seem nutty to want the old enemy running when you've got a
perfectly lovely OS system, but perhaps you might want to play the
latest games or run some niche piece of software that has no current
Mac equivalent. You can either run Windows 7 or Windows
8 alongside OS X with a virtualisation app such as VMware
Fusuion, Parallels Desktop or VirtualBox, or partition your hard disk
to install Windows on to run it full-bore on your hardware using Boot
Camp Assistant (in your Utilities folder). Just be grateful we didn't
chuck a paneful pun in there to keep you on your toes…
These are
just a fraction of the handy tricks that the Mac is capable of, mind:
MacFormat has showcased a whopping 50 of them in its September issue.
And the best news is that you can read the rest of them – along
with the rest of the magazine – for free! All you have to do to
grab the latest issue is get a trial MacFormat subscription to the
app edition – visitmacformat.com/ipad to discover tons more
brilliant tips from the world of Apple.
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