Mac OS Hints
Introducing the Apple menu
No matter what application you’re in, a small blue apple sits at the top left corner of your screen. More than just a reminder that you’re using an Apple computer, this icon contains a menu with a number of useful commands. Here’s a brief summary of what you’ll find in the Apple menu:
About This Mac Choose this menu item to see a window of information about your machine, including the version of OS X that you’re running, as well as RAM and CPU information. Click on the More Info button to run the System Profiler, which will give you a full report about the hardware and software on your machine. All this information is handy during a tech-support call.
Software Update Choose this menu item to launch Software Update and search for updates to the system itself, as well as Apple applications.
Mac OS X Software This menu item opens your Web browser to a page on Apple’s site that lists a huge collection of downloadable OS X programs.
System Preferences Select this item to open the System Preferences application. From here, you can control most of the high-level settings on your Mac: for example, the date and time or your network settings. For you Windows expatriates out there, System Preferences is equivalent to Windows’ Control Panel.
Dock Quickly access many aspects of the Dock’s behavior from here. Use the submenus to hide or show the Dock, turn its zoom effect on or off, or move the Dock to a different part of your screen.
Location If you frequently take your Mac from one spot to another, the Location menu lets you choose a predefined location, which lets you control settings for the Ethernet port, modem port, and AirPort card. (The Automatic setting works well for most people.)
Recent Items Forgot where you put a file? This menu item reveals a list of recently used applications, documents, and (in Tiger) servers. Control the length of each list by opening the Appearance preference pane and changing the settings under the Number Of Recent Items section.
Force Quit If an application seems “stuck,” switch to a responsive application and select this menu item. You’ll see a dialog box that lets you force the troublesome program to quit. If you hold down the shift key when you access the menu, the item will change to Force Quit Program Name, with the name of the current program.
Sleep Select this item to put your system directly to sleep (without having to confirm your decision in a dialog box).
Restart Choose this item to restart your Mac. To skip the confirmation dialog box that appears by default and restart immediately, hold down the option key and then choose the menu item. (Notice that the ellipsis disappears from the menu item’s full name—Restart . . . —when you hold down the option key).
Shut Down Choose this option to shut down your Mac. As with the Restart item, press option and then choose this item to shut down instantly.
Log Out Select this item to log out from your account. As with the previous two commands, hold down the option key and then choose this menu item to skip the confirmation dialog box. Or for a superfast way to log out, use the keyboard shortcut that displays in the menu when you hold down the option key: Command-shift-option-Q.
Make your login window informative
When you log in to—or start up—your Mac, you usually see its name below the large silver Apple logo, along with the words Mac OS X. But when Apple updated OS X to version 10.4.3, it quietly made this information line much more useful.
Now you can click on your machine’s name, and the OS X version number will appear. Click on it again, and you’ll see the OS X build number. Keep clicking, and you’ll see your Mac’s serial number, the Mac’s IP address, the status of any network account (directory services), and, finally, the current date and time. (See a brief movie of what this looks like.) All of this information is especially useful when you—or tech support—are trying to troubleshoot a system.
But what if you’d like to change the piece of information that shows first? I, for one, prefer to see the date rather than my computer’s name. Change the display to Date, however, and the next time you log in, it will be back to the machine’s name. As with so many things, all it takes is a little work in Terminal (/Applications/Utilities) to make a permanent change.
Open Terminal and type this command, or copy it (please note that the following is one long line with no breaks):
defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfo
Do not press return yet. Instead, press the space bar after AdminHostInfo , and then type one of these words:
• HostName , to show the default display
• SystemVersion , to show the OS X version number
• SystemBuild , to show the OS X build number
• SerialNumber , to show the OS X serial number
• IPAddress , to show the Mac’s IP address
• DSStatus , to show the networked account info
• Time , to show the date and time
After adding the word for the data you wish to display, press return. To show the date and time by default, for instance, here’s the full command:
defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfo Time
The next time your login window appears, your newly chosen default will be the first thing you see.
Thanks Rob Griffiths and the Mac OS X Hints Web site
Source: http://www.macosxhints.com/
No matter what application you’re in, a small blue apple sits at the top left corner of your screen. More than just a reminder that you’re using an Apple computer, this icon contains a menu with a number of useful commands. Here’s a brief summary of what you’ll find in the Apple menu:
About This Mac Choose this menu item to see a window of information about your machine, including the version of OS X that you’re running, as well as RAM and CPU information. Click on the More Info button to run the System Profiler, which will give you a full report about the hardware and software on your machine. All this information is handy during a tech-support call.
Software Update Choose this menu item to launch Software Update and search for updates to the system itself, as well as Apple applications.
Mac OS X Software This menu item opens your Web browser to a page on Apple’s site that lists a huge collection of downloadable OS X programs.
System Preferences Select this item to open the System Preferences application. From here, you can control most of the high-level settings on your Mac: for example, the date and time or your network settings. For you Windows expatriates out there, System Preferences is equivalent to Windows’ Control Panel.
Dock Quickly access many aspects of the Dock’s behavior from here. Use the submenus to hide or show the Dock, turn its zoom effect on or off, or move the Dock to a different part of your screen.
Location If you frequently take your Mac from one spot to another, the Location menu lets you choose a predefined location, which lets you control settings for the Ethernet port, modem port, and AirPort card. (The Automatic setting works well for most people.)
Recent Items Forgot where you put a file? This menu item reveals a list of recently used applications, documents, and (in Tiger) servers. Control the length of each list by opening the Appearance preference pane and changing the settings under the Number Of Recent Items section.
Force Quit If an application seems “stuck,” switch to a responsive application and select this menu item. You’ll see a dialog box that lets you force the troublesome program to quit. If you hold down the shift key when you access the menu, the item will change to Force Quit Program Name, with the name of the current program.
Sleep Select this item to put your system directly to sleep (without having to confirm your decision in a dialog box).
Restart Choose this item to restart your Mac. To skip the confirmation dialog box that appears by default and restart immediately, hold down the option key and then choose the menu item. (Notice that the ellipsis disappears from the menu item’s full name—Restart . . . —when you hold down the option key).
Shut Down Choose this option to shut down your Mac. As with the Restart item, press option and then choose this item to shut down instantly.
Log Out Select this item to log out from your account. As with the previous two commands, hold down the option key and then choose this menu item to skip the confirmation dialog box. Or for a superfast way to log out, use the keyboard shortcut that displays in the menu when you hold down the option key: Command-shift-option-Q.
Make your login window informative
When you log in to—or start up—your Mac, you usually see its name below the large silver Apple logo, along with the words Mac OS X. But when Apple updated OS X to version 10.4.3, it quietly made this information line much more useful.
Now you can click on your machine’s name, and the OS X version number will appear. Click on it again, and you’ll see the OS X build number. Keep clicking, and you’ll see your Mac’s serial number, the Mac’s IP address, the status of any network account (directory services), and, finally, the current date and time. (See a brief movie of what this looks like.) All of this information is especially useful when you—or tech support—are trying to troubleshoot a system.
But what if you’d like to change the piece of information that shows first? I, for one, prefer to see the date rather than my computer’s name. Change the display to Date, however, and the next time you log in, it will be back to the machine’s name. As with so many things, all it takes is a little work in Terminal (/Applications/Utilities) to make a permanent change.
Open Terminal and type this command, or copy it (please note that the following is one long line with no breaks):
defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfo
Do not press return yet. Instead, press the space bar after AdminHostInfo , and then type one of these words:
• HostName , to show the default display
• SystemVersion , to show the OS X version number
• SystemBuild , to show the OS X build number
• SerialNumber , to show the OS X serial number
• IPAddress , to show the Mac’s IP address
• DSStatus , to show the networked account info
• Time , to show the date and time
After adding the word for the data you wish to display, press return. To show the date and time by default, for instance, here’s the full command:
defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfo Time
The next time your login window appears, your newly chosen default will be the first thing you see.
Thanks Rob Griffiths and the Mac OS X Hints Web site
Source: http://www.macosxhints.com/
posted by arkietechs at 9:01 AM
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