Read OS X Mountain Lion Pocket Guide Online
Authors: Chris Seibold
Tags: #COMPUTERS / Operating Systems / Macintosh
OS X Mountain Lion Pocket Guide (6 page)
A lot happens between when you start up your Mac and when you shut
it down. The time you spend in OS X will be more pleasant and productive
if you learn where everything is. The logical place to start the tour is
at the top of your screen.
The menu bar spans the top of your monitor (if you use
multiple monitors, you can choose which one the menu bar shows up on
using the Displays preference pane). The left side of the bar provides
access to commonly used commands, and the right side is reserved for
menu extras (see
Menu extras
), Spotlight (the
magnifying glass icon), and (brand-new to Mountain Lion) the
Notification Center (the banners icon). Every Mac user’s menu bar is
likely to look a little different, depending on what’s installed and how
the Mac is configured. A typical menu bar is shown in
Figure 3-2
.
Figure 3-2. A typical menu bar
If you haven’t used Lion, then Mountain Lion’s Full
Screen feature will be new to you. Full Screen applications use your
entire screen—even the pixels used by the menu bar—to let you get the
most out of the app. The menu bar isn’t gone when you’re using full
screen apps, it’s only hiding. To get the menu bar back, just move
your cursor to the top of the screen, and the bar will
reappear.
Here’s what you’ll find in the menu bar, from left to
right:
The Apple menu (
)The Application menu
A set of application-related menus
Menu extras
Spotlight
Notification Center
Hate the translucency of the menu bar? You can turn the
bar solid gray by selecting→
System
Preferences
→
Desktop & Screen
Saver
→
Desktop, and then unchecking the
“Translucent menu bar” box.
No matter which application you’re using, the options in
themenu are always the same (
Figure 3-3
).
Figure 3-3. Mountain Lion’s Apple menu
Here’s what eachmenu item does:
- About This Mac
Pops up a window giving you a quick overview of your
machine: the version of OS X it’s running, the processor it has,
and the amount of RAM that’s installed. There are three things
you can click in this window:Click the version number (such as 10.8) to
cycle through the build number of OS X and the serial number
of your Mac. (It’s not unusual to need this info when
getting support over the phone.)Click Software Update to launch the App Store and see
what updates are waiting for you.Click More Info to open the System Information
window, which has a tab that gives you an overview of your
Mac, and ones that tell you (in a cool graphic fashion)
about Displays, Storage (drives attached to your Mac), and
Memory (how much you have installed and in which slot).
You’ll also find tabs for Support (a good starting point
when you’re problem solving) and Service, which lets you
check your warranty status and gives you a chance to buy
AppleCare (Apple’s extended warranty service).
- Software Update
Software Update has been upgraded in Mountain
Lion. When you click Software Update, you won’t see a blue bar
crawling across your screen like in previous versions of OS X. Instead, the App Store
launches, and you’ll be notified of any updates for Apple
software and apps you’ve purchased from the App Store.NoteIt’s easy to get too reliant on the Software Update
feature, but it’s important to remember that running Software
Update doesn’t help with software that you didn’t purchase via
the App Store. So, for example, if you’re using a copy of Word
2011 that you downloaded from Microsoft’s website, you’ll have
to go to its site to check for updates instead.- App Store
Launches the Mac App Store, where you can look for new
applications, check for updates to ones you already have, and so
on.- System Preferences
Launches System Preferences, which is covered in detail in
Chapter 5
.- Dock
Opens a menu that lets you quickly configure your Dock:
Turn Hiding On, Turn Magnification On, and three Dock
positioning options (you can put it anywhere but the top of your
screen). The Dock Preferences option, not surprisingly, opens
the Dock preference pane. For more info, see
Dock
.- Recent Items
Displays a menu showing your 10 most recently used
applications, documents, and servers. You can change the number
of items displayed here by going to System Preferences
→
General, and then adjusting the “Recent
items” setting.- Force Quit
Forces stubborn applications to quit. For more on this
command, see the section
Misbehaving Applications
.- Sleep
Puts your Mac into sleep mode, a low-power mode that
preserves what you were doing before you put your machine to sleep. When you wake it
up, everything will be just as you left it. To wake a sleeping
Mac, just press a key or move the mouse. You can set your Mac to
automatically sleep after a period of inactivity by using the
Energy Saver preference pane; see
Energy Saver
.- Restart
Makes your Mac shut down and then immediately
reboot and go through the entire startup process. You’ll be
asked to confirm that you really want to restart your Mac.
Unless you click Cancel, your Mac will restart one minute after
you select this menu option.- Shut Down
Powers your Mac down. It’ll stay shut down until you press
the power button, unless you’ve set a time for your Mac to
auto-start in the Energy Saver preference pane (see
Energy Saver
).- Log Out
Logs you out of your user account. The next person who
uses your Mac will have to log in.
Many items in themenu have ellipses (...) after them. These
indicate that a confirmation dialog box will appear if you select
that option. If you want to restart, shut down, or log out
without
seeing the dialog box, hold the Option
key while selecting the action of your choice from themenu.