Macs For Dummies

Edward C. Baig is the personal technology columnist for USA Today, where he reviews the latest gadgets and reports on tech trends. Ed is the author of the previous edition of Macs For Dummies and coauthor of iPhone For Dummies and iPad 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