Chapter 1 Mac OS X Tiger 101 (Prerequisites: None)
Contents
1. see Chapter 15 where I show you how to troubleshoot your system Next you may or may not see the Mac OS X login screen where you enter your name and password If you do press the Enter or Return key after you type your name and password of course and away you go If you don t want to have to type your name and password every time you start or restart your Mac or even if you do check out Chapter 13 for the scoop on how to turn the login screen on or off Either way the Desktop soon materializes before your eyes If you haven t customized configured or tinkered with your Desktop it should look something like Figure 1 2 Now is a good time to take a moment for positive thoughts about the person who convinced you that you wanted a Mac That person was right 16 Part I Introducing Mac OS X Tiger Finder File Edit View Go Window Help 4 Tue 1 28PM VirginAccount ane virgin A lt E m te C Network lt z A BD macintosh Ho Rr i eo g GM Desktop Desktop Documents Library Movies AX Applications a lt aim R 7 9 Documents o ab ee E Figure 1 2 ii Movies Ss The Mac OS amp music Music Pictures Public Sites X Desktop E Pictures after a oe 8 items 16 7 GB available A brand spanking new installation of OSX z A e 1L a 1 Sad Mac If any of your hardware fails when it s tested you could see a black or gray screen that may or may not2. and all that other cool stuff Just to make things confusing the background you see on your screen the backdrop behind your hard drive icon and open windows is also called the Desktop In this book I refer to the Finder as the Finder which I discuss in Chapters 4 and 5 When I say Desktop I m talking about the back ground behind your windows and Dock Got it The Desktop is convenient and fast Put stuff there Check out the default Mac Desktop for OS X in Figure 1 4 The Desktop is the center of your Mac OS experience so before I go any far ther here s a quick description of its most prominent features 1 Desktop The Desktop is the area behind the windows and the Dock where your hard drive icon ordinarily lives The Desktop isn t a window yet it acts like one Like a folder window or drive window the Desktop can contain icons But unlike most windows which require a bit of navigation to get to the Desktop is a great place for things you use a lot such as fold ers applications or particular documents The next section discusses the default icons you see on the Desktop when you first load up OS X 1 Dock The Dock is the Finder s main navigation shortcut tool It makes getting to frequently used icons easy even when you have a screen full of windows Like the Desktop the Dock is a great place for things you use a lot such as folders applications or particular documents Besides putting your frequently u
3. in inexpensive surge protectors A good jolt of lightning will fry the surge protector right along with your computer as well as pos sibly frying your modem printer and anything else plugged into it Some surge protectors can withstand most lightning strikes but these war riors aren t the cheapies that you buy at your local computer emporium Unplugging your Mac from the wall during electrical storms is safer and less expensive Don t forget to unplug your external modem network hubs printers or other hardware that plugs into the wall as well light ning can fry them too Y Don t jostle bump shake kick throw dribble or punt your Mac especially while it s running Your Mac contains a hard drive that spins at 4 200 revolutions per minute rpm or more A jolt to a hard drive while it s reading or writing a file can cause the head to crash into the disk which can render many or all files on it unrecoverable Ouch 1 Don t forget to back up your data I beg you Please read Chapter 8 now before something horrible happens to your valuable data If the stuff on your hard drive means anything to you you must back it up Not maybe You must Even if your most important file is your last saved game of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 you still need to realize how important it is to back up your files In Chapter 8 I discuss how to back up your files and I strongly recom mend that you read Chapter 8 sooner rather than
4. of the power switch isn t among them Of course if you haven t found the switch and turned on the Mac you can t access Help anyway D oh as Figure 1 1 No more smiley Mac or multicolored beach ball Cursors at startup These are their OS X replace ments aT Chapter 1 Mac OS X Tiger 101 Prerequisites None 15 What you should see on startup When you finally do turn on your Macintosh you set in motion a sophisticated and complex series of events that culminates in the loading of Mac OS X and the appearance of the Mac OS X Desktop After a small bit of whirring buzzing and flashing meaning that the operating system is loading OS X first tests all your hardware slots ports disks random access memory RAM and so on If everything passes you hear a pleasing musical tone and see the tasteful gray Apple logo in the middle of your screen along with a small spinning pinwheel cursor somewhere on the screen Both are shown in Figure 1 1 Ale aw 1 Everything is fine and dandy Next you see the soothing graphite Apple logo the words Mac OS X and a status indicator with messages that tell you the Mac is going through its normal startup motions Makes you feel kind of warm and fuzzy doesn t it If all this fanfare shows up on screen Mac OS X is loading properly In the unlikely event that you don t see the gray Apple logo the soothing messages and or the familiar Desktop
5. reading this section could save your Mac Even if you re an experienced Mac user you may want to read this section anyway Chances are you ll see at least a few things you may have forgotten and that may come in handy Turning the dang thing on Okay This is the big moment turning on your Mac Gaze at it longingly first and say something cheesy such as You re the most awesome computer I ve ever known If that doesn t turn on your Mac and it probably won t keep reading Apple in its infinite wisdom has manufactured Macs with power switches and buttons on every conceivable surface on the front side and back of the computer itself and even on the keyboard or monitor So if you don t know how to turn on your Mac don t feel bad just look in the manual or booklet that came with your Mac Some Macs including most older PowerBooks even hide the power button behind a little plastic door Because of the vast number of different configura tions I can t tell you where the switch is without devoting a whole chapter just to that topic Can you say b o o r r ring These days some Macs have a power on button on the keyboard if so it usu ally looks like the little circle thingie you see in the margin Don t bother choosing HelpMac Help which opens the Help Viewer pro gram because it can t tell you where the switch is either Although the Help program is good for learning a lot of things the location
6. this folder is that each user has an individual Desktop But I m getting ahead of myself You find out much more about Home users and all that jazz in upcoming chapters To move an item to the Desktop simply click its icon in any window and then without releasing the mouse button drag it out of the window and onto the Desktop then release the mouse button If you don t see a disk icon on your Desktop skip ahead to Chapter 3 where I discuss Finder Preferences That s where you can choose whether to see disks on your Desktop ar Y Hard drive icons The first icon you should get to know is the icon for your hard drive refer to Figure 1 4 You can usually find it on the upper right side of the desktop when you first start the Mac Look for the name Macintosh HD iMac HD or something like that unless you ve already renamed it I renamed my hard drive Ti gerDisk in Figure 1 5 There are two ways to rename your hard drive e Single click the icon s name When the name highlights as shown in the middle icon in Figure 1 5 type its new name P gt If you click directly on the icon instead of its name the icon will be selected but the name won t become highlighted for editing as shown in the icon on the right in Figure 1 5 or e Single click the icon itself press Return or Enter and then type in a new name for the drive 24 Part I Introducing Mac OS X Tiger A Figure 1 5 An unselected icon
7. your index finger to push the mouse button all the way down and then let go so it produces a satisfying click ing sound If you have one of the new optical Apple Pro mice you push down the whole thing to click Use a single click to highlight an icon press a button or activate a check box or window 1 Double click Click twice in rapid succession With a little practice you can perfect this technique in no time Use a double click to open a folder or to launch a file or application Control click Hold down the Control key while single clicking Control clicking is the same as right clicking on a Windows system and dis plays a menu called a contextual menu where you Control clicked In fact if you are blessed with a two or more button mouse I personally use the four button Kensington Expert Mouse Pro Trackball and rec ommend it highly you can right click and avoid having to hold down the Control key y Drag Dragging something usually means you have to click it first and hold the mouse button down Then you move the mouse on your desk or mouse pad so the cursor and whatever you select moves across the screen The combination of holding down the button and dragging the mouse it is usually referred to as click and drag 1 Press A press is half a click Instead of letting go of the mouse button to finish the click keep holding it down In most cases your next step is to drag the mouse somewhere say down a me
8. Chapter 1 Mac OS X Tiger 101 Prerequisites None In This Chapter Defining Mac OS X Tiger Finding help if you re a beginner Turning on your Mac Shutting down your Mac without getting chewed out by it Knowing what you should see when you turn on your Mac Taking a refresher course on using a mouse Touring the Desktop Sniffing out the default Desktop icons Beautifying your Desktop C ongratulate yourself on choosing Mac OS X which stands for Macintosh Operating System X that s the Roman numeral ten not the letter X pronounced ten not ex You made a smart move because you scored more than just an operating system upgrade Mac OS X version 10 4 Tiger includes dozens of new or improved features to make using your Mac easier as well as dozens more that help you do more work in less time Now you can use these new features to be more productive have fewer headaches reduce your cho lesterol level and fall in love with your Mac all over again In this chapter I start at the very beginning and talk about Mac OS X in mostly abstract terms After the basics are out of the way I get right down to the real nitty gritty about the Mac OS X Desktop the place where you start doing stuff with your Mac Those of you who ve been using Mac OS X for a while may find some of the information in this chapter hauntingly familiar some features that I describe haven t changed from earlier versions of Mac OS X Besides if you decide to s
9. disk hard drive network server or CD ROM containing a valid Macintosh operating system See Chapter 15 for ways you can try to ease your Mac s ills aX How do you know which version of the Mac OS your computer has Simple Just choose About This Mac from the menu that s the menu with the symbol in the upper left corner of the Finder menu bar The About This Mac window pops up on your screen as shown in Figure 1 3 The version you re running appears just below Mac OS X in the center of the window Click the More Info button to launch the System Profiler application which has much more information including processor speed bus speed number of proces sors caches installed memory networking storage devices and much more You can find more about this useful program in Chapter 11 About This Mac Mac OS X Figure 1 3 Software Update See which version of Mac OS X you re running Processor 800 MHz PowerPC G4 1 MB L3 cache Memory 1 G8 SDRAM More Info All Rights Re The legend of the boot Bootthis Bootthat booted my Mac and or Did it boot and so on Talking about com puters for long without hearing the bootword is nearly impossible But why boot Why not shoe or shirt or even shazam Back in the very olden days maybe the 1960s or a little earlier starting up a computer required you to toggle little manual switches on the front panel which began an internal p
10. display the dreaded Sad Mac icon shown in the left margin and or hear a far less pleasing musical chord in the key of F minor I believe known by Mac aficionados as the Chimes of Doom Some older Macs played the sound of a horrible car wreck instead of the chimes complete with crying tires and busting glass It was exception ally unnerving which may be why Apple doesn t use it anymore gener The fact that something went wrong is no reflection on your prowess as amp a Macintosh user Something inside your Mac is broken and it probably needs to go in for repairs usually to an Apple dealer If any of that s already happened to you check out Chapter 16 to try to get your Mac well again If your computer is under warranty dial 1 800 SOS APPL and a customer service person can tell you what to do Before you do anything though skip ahead to Chapter 15 It s entirely possible that one of the sugges tions there can get you back on track without you having to spend even a moment on hold 1 Prohibitory sign formerly known as the flashing question mark disk Although it s unlikely that you ll ever see the sad Mac most users even tually encounter the prohibitory sign shown in the left margin which replaced the flashing question mark on a disk icon and flashing folder 17 Chapter 1 Mac OS X Tiger 101 Prerequisites None icon back in OS X 10 2 Jaguar This icon means your Mac can t find a startup
11. e Edit View Go Window Help 4 Sun 1 21PM VirginAccount jews Wipers Doctor Mac Vind His UeGarage Vand 0 gt Z KOSRRORBHAs l8 Ra ES Ei a System Preferences Edit View Window Help 4 Sun 1 42 PM_VirginAccount ka 60o Desktop amp Screen Saver n p i CEA a z Vigas Desktop Screen Saver drmacandbandtxt Center EB z ne Pictures amp Apple images AA J Nature smd DectorMec et er Q i Abstract K i ma Solid Colors gt NS E Pictures Folder f dx ad e LA Pictures a JPEG J Choose Folder drmacandbandtxt tif rubberglaveiStockPhot ojpg N tha th fle FT fs i j a PDF j C Change picture every 30 minutes V Random order Smell the glove jewel smelitheglove tif insert paf rd JPEG theglove tif This IS SpinalTap 6 items 16 7 GB available VOSALORBEA oe 25 26 Part I Introducing Mac OS X Tiger avr There are at least two other ways to change your Desktop picture 1 Drag a picture file from the Finder onto the picture well the little rectan gular picture to the left of the picture s name drmacandbandtxt in Figure 1 7 or 1 Select the Choose Folder item in the list of folders on the left side of the Desktop amp Screen Saver System Preference pane and then select a folder using the standard Open File dialog That folder then appears in the list you can use any picture files it contains for your Deskt
12. kip this chapter just because you think you have all the new stuff figured out I assure you that you ll miss out on sarcasm 12 Part I Introducing Mac OS X Tiger NG O clever wordplay shortcuts awesome techniques a bad pun or two and some good advice on making the Desktop an easier place to be If that s not enough to convince you I also provide a bunch of stuff that Apple didn t bother to tell you as if you read every word in Mac OS X Help which is the only user manual Apple provides anyway Those of you who are about to upgrade to Mac OS X Tiger from an earlier ver sion of Mac OS in particular Mac OS 9 or a previous Mac OS X release such as Panther or Jaguar should read the Appendix right about now It con tains important information about installing Tiger that can make upgrading a more pleasant experience If you are about to upgrade to Tiger I feel obliged to mention a major pitfall to avoid One very specific misplaced click in the wrong place done while installing your new OS could erase every file on your hard drive The Appendix describes it So if you aren t running Tiger yet I urge you to read the Appendix before you install it could save your bacon To sum things up This chapter contains some important information that you need to know in order to use Mac OS X Tiger successfully If you re a total beginner to the Mac experience you should probably read every word in this chap
13. later preferably before you do any significant work on your Mac Dr Macintosh sez There are only two kinds of Mac users Those who have never lost data and those who will Which kind will you be Y Don t kiss your monitor while wearing stuff on your lips For obvious reasons Use a soft cloth and or the Klear Screen polish and wipes that Apple recommends if you need to clean your display 20 Part I Introducing Mac OS X Tiger Point and click boot camp Are you new to the Mac Just learning how to move the mouse around Now is a good time to go over some fundamental stuff that you need to know for just about everything you ll be doing on the Mac Spend a few minutes read ing this section and soon you ll be clicking double clicking pressing and pointing all over the place If you think you ve got the whole mousing thing pretty much figured out feel free to skip this section I ll catch you on the other side Still with me Good Now for some basic terminology 1 Point Before you can click or press anything you have to point to it Place your hand on your mouse and move it so that the cursor arrow is over the object you want like on top of an icon or a button Then click the mouse to select the object or double click it to run it if it s an appli cation or an icon that starts up an application You point and then you click point and click in computer lingo Click Also called single click Use
14. left an Sen _ ae icon with its a ae a i name ime selected ikanosi HD Tigeis CEANAL middle an icon that is selected right 1 Disk icons These appear on the Desktop by default When you insert a CD or DVD its icon appears on the Desktop just below your hard drive icon space permitting Picture This A Picture on Vour Desktop I d be remiss if I didn t mention that you can change the background picture of your Desktop In Figure 1 6 you can see my Desktop with a background picture I made to celebrate the release of the book before this one GarageBand For Dummies Wiley If you want a reminder of what the default Desktop background looks like refer to Figure 1 4 Here s how you can change your Desktop picture if you care to 1 From the Desktop choose System Preferences or click the System Preferences icon in the Dock The System Preferences window appears 2 Click the Desktop amp Screen Saver icon The Desktop amp Screen Saver Preferences pane appears as shown in Figure 1 7 3 Click on any picture in your Home Pictures folder I m clicking a picture called drmacandbandtxt in Figure 1 7 You can see it s one of the items in my Home Pictures folder which is also shown in Figure 1 7 gt Figure 1 6 My beautified Desktop a SSE Figure 1 7 Selecting a Desktop picture from my Home Pictures folder Chapter 1 Mac OS X Tiger 101 Prerequisites None Finder Fil
15. menus and dialogs for you to interact with Y Communicating with other programs 1 And much much more stuff that only geeks could care about So armed with a little background in operating systems take a gander at the next section before you do anything else with your Mac Don t let that UNIX stuff scare you It s there if you want it but if you don t want it or don t care like most of us you ll rarely even know it s there All you ll know is that your Mac just runs and runs and runs without crashing and crashing and crashing One last thing As I mention in the Introduction I m only repeating it for those of you who don t read Introductions Mac OS X Tiger comes with more than 50 applications And although I d love to tell you all about each and every one I can only tell you about the small handful of bundled applications The Mac advantage Most of the world s PCs use Windows You re among the lucky few to have a computer with an operating system that s intuitive easy to use and dare say fun If you don t believe me try using Windows for a day or two Go ahead You probably won t suffer any permanent damage In fact you ll really begin to appreciate how good you have it Feel free to hug your Mac Or give it a peck on the CD ROM drive slot just try not to get your tongue caught As someone once told me Claiming that the Macintosh is inferior to Windows because most people u
16. nu to choose a command or across the screen to move an object Choosing an item from a menu To get to Mac OS menu commands you must first open a menu and then pick the option you want Point at the name of the menu you want with your mouse cursor press your mouse ar Chapter 1 Mac OS X Tiger 101 Prerequisites None button down and then drag your mouse downward until you select the command you want When the command is highlighted finish selecting by letting go of the mouse button If you re a long time Mac user you probably hold down the mouse button the whole time between clicking the name of the menu and selecting the com mand you want You can still do it that way but you can also click once on the menu name to open it release the mouse button and then drag down to the item you want to select and then click again In other words OS X menus stay open for a few seconds after you click them even if you re not holding down the mouse button Go ahead and give it a try I ll wait Touring the Desktop MBER KV amp Just about everything you do on your Mac begins and ends with the Desktop This is where you manage files store documents launch programs adjust the way your Mac works and much more If you ever expect to master your Mac the first step is to master the Desktop Some folks use the terms Desktop and Finder interchangeably to refer to the total Macintosh environment you see icons windows menus
17. on On Apple Pro keyboards which don t have a Power key press Control Eject instead and then click the Shut Down button that appears or press the Return key which does the same thing Of course most of us have broken this rule several times without anything horrible happening but don t be lulled into a false sense of security Break the rules one time too many or under the wrong circumstances and your most important file will be toast The only times you should turn off your Mac without shutting down properly is if your screen is frozen or if you crash and you ve already tried everything else See Chapter 15 for what those every thing elses are A really stubborn crash doesn t happen often and less often under OS X than ever before but when it does turning your Mac off Eternally yours now Mac OS X is designed so you never have to shut it down You can configure it to sleep after a spec ified period of inactivity See Chapter 13 for more info on the Energy Saver features of OS X If you do so your Mac will consume very little electric ity when it s sleeping and will be ready to use just a few seconds after you awaken it by pressing any key or clicking the mouse On the other hand if you re not going to be using it for a few days you may want to shut it down anyway Note lf you leave your Mac on constantly and you re gone when a lightning storm or rolling blackout hits your Mac may ge
18. op picture avr If you don t know how to choose a folder that way look in Chapter 5 And for more info on using System Preferences check out Chapter 13
19. rocess that loaded the operating system The process became known as bootstrapping because if you toggled the right switches the computer would pull itself up by its boot straps This phrase didn t take long to trans mogrify into booting and finally to boot Over the years booting has come to mean turn ing on almost any computer or even a periph eral device such as a printer Some people also use it to refer to launching an application l booted Excel So the next time one of your gearhead friends says the b word ask whether he knows where the term comes from Then dazzle him with the depth and breadth of your not quite useful knowledge 18 Part I Introducing Mac OS X Tiger NG O gt Shutting down properly Turning off the power without shutting down your Mac properly is one of the worst things you can do to your poor Mac Shutting down your Mac improp erly can really screw up your hard drive scramble the contents of your most important files or both If a thunderstorm is rumbling nearby or if you re unfortunate enough to have rolling blackouts where you live you may really want to shut down your Mac See the next section where I briefly discuss lightning and your Mac To turn off your Mac always use the Shut Down command on the menu which I discuss in Chapter 3 or you can shut down in one of these kind and gentle ways 1 Press the Power key once and then click the Shut Down butt
20. se Windows is like saying that all other restaurants serve food that s inferior to McDonald s We may be a minority but we have the best most stable most modern all purpose operating system in the world and here s why UNIX on which Mac OS X is based is widely regarded as the best industrial strength operating system For now just know that being based on UNIX means that a Mac running OS X will crash less often than an older Mac or a Windows machine which means less downtime But perhaps the biggest advantage OS X has is that when an application crashes it doesn t crash your entire computer and you don t have to restart the thing to continue working 14 Part I Introducing Mac OS X Tiger essential to using Mac OS X Tiger If you need more info on the programs I don t cover may I again recommend Mac OS X Tiger All in One Desk Reference For Dummies written by Mark L Chambers or iLife 04 All in One Desk Reference For Dummies written by my old friends Tony Bove and Cheryl Rhodes both from Wiley A Safety Net for the Absolute Beginner Or Any User In this section I deal with the stuff that the manual that came with your Mac doesn t cover or doesn t cover in nearly enough detail If you re a first time Macintosh user please please read this section of the book carefully it could save your life Okay okay perhaps I m being overly dramatic What I mean to say is that
21. sed icons at your fingertips it s almost infi nitely customizable too read more about it in Chapter 2 21 22 Part I Introducing Mac OS X Tiger Finder menus Finder window Menu Bar clock Apple menu Menu bar Volume Status menu Hard Disk icon Finder Fite Edit View Go Window Help lt 4 Tue 1 31PM VirginAccount ecard nhecesctt eB KaKa I Macintosh HD fo lt gt fahs olf a nerwork l Ax it ii Desktop ES 2a Applications Library B viran A Applications EEE i _ 3 Documents A f iy Movies 4 i aa amp music system Users Figure 1 4 pres The default 4 items 16 7 G8 available Mac OS X Finder and Desktop A x i HOEZO lF The Desktop Dock i If you used an earlier version of Mac OS think of the Dock as the OS X version of the Apple menu in Mac OS versions of the past Yes the OS X Finder does have an Apple menu but it doesn t work at all like the Apple menu in earlier versions of Mac OS See Chapter 3 for more info on the Apple menu Icons cons are the little pictures you see in your windows and even on your Desktop Most icons are containers that hold things you work with on your Mac such as programs and documents which are also repre sented by you guessed it icons In Chapter 2 I cover icons in detail and the next section discusses the icons you see on the OS X Desktop when you first boot up your Mac 1 Aliases Use aliases of things tha
22. t wasted So be sure you have adequate protection say a decent surge protector designed specifically for com puters if you decide to leave your Mac on and unattended for long periods See the section A few things you should definitely NOT do with your Mac elsewhere in this chapter for more info on lightning and your Mac Frankly if plan to be away from mine for more than a day usually shut it down just in case But because OS X is designed to run 24 7 don t shut it down at night unless it s dark and stormy Chapter 1 Mac OS X Tiger 101 Prerequisites None 9 and then back on may be the only solution Sometimes even that doesn t work and you may have to unplug the computer from the power outlet wait a moment or two and then plug it back in to get it to reboot A few things you should definitely NOT do with your Mac In this section I deal with the bad stuff that can happen to your computer if you do the wrong things with it If something bad has already happened to you I know I m beginning to sound like a broken record see Chapter 15 Y Don t unplug your Mac when it s turned on Very bad things can happen such as having your operating system break See the preceding section where I discuss shutting your system down properly Don t use your Mac when lightning is near Here s a simple life equa tion for you Mac lightning dead Mac Nuff said Oh and don t place much faith
23. t you use often so you can keep the originals tucked away in one of your perfectly organized folders Check out aliases in Chapter 2 Windows Opening most icons by double clicking them makes a window appear Windows in the Finder show you the contents of hard drive and folder icons and windows in applications usually show you Chapter 1 Mac OS X Tiger 101 Prerequisites None 23 the contents of your documents For the full scoop on Tiger windows which are very different from Mac windows in previous OS releases check out Chapter 3 Y Menus Menus let you choose to do things such as create new folders duplicate files cut copy or paste text and so on Find out all about them in Chapter 3 A If all these new terms such as alias Dock and so on seem strange to you don t worry I explain them all in detail in the rest of Part I Sniffing Out the Default Desktop Icons Icons on the Desktop behave the same as icons in a window You move them and copy them just like you would an icon in a window The only difference is that Desktop items aren t in a window They re on the Desktop which makes them more convenient to use Actually if you look at your Home directory click the Home button on any Finder window toolbar or use the shortcut Shift H to open a window dis playing Home you see a folder named Desktop which contains the same icons you place on the Desktop but not the hard drive icons The reason for
24. ter Even if you re past the beginner stage you may want to skim these sections anyway to refresh your memory Tantalized Let s rock Gnawing to the Core of OSX Along with the code in its read only memory ROM the operating system that is the OS in Mac OS X is what makes a Mac a Mac Without it your Mac is a pile of silicon and circuits no smarter than a toaster So what does an operating system do you ask Good question The short answer is that an operating system controls the basic and most important functions of your computer In the case of Mac OS X and your Mac the oper ating system 1 Manages memory Controls how windows icons and menus work 1 Keeps track of files 1 Manages networking Y Does housekeeping No kidding Other forms of software such as word processors and Web browsers rely on the operating system to create and maintain the environment in which that Chapter 1 Mac OS X Tiger 101 Prerequisites None software works its magic When you create a memo for example the word processor provides the tools for you to type and format the information In the background the operating system is the muscle for the word processor performing crucial functions such as the following Providing the mechanism for drawing and moving the on screen window in which you write the memo Y Keeping track of a file when you save it lt r YY Helping the word processor create drop down
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search