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
