Mac OS X Tutorial 10.8 Mountain Lion 1 TIPS FOR USING OS X 10.8 MOUNTAIN LION LAUNCHPAD Launchpad is an application launcher first introduced in OS X 10.7 Lion and improved upon in Mountain Lion. Launchpad is designed to resemble the SpringBoard interface in ios. By default, the function key F4 on your keyboard will activate Launchpad. In Mountain Lion, you can search for applications via the search field present at the top of the Launchpad screen. The behaviors of Launchpad essentially mirrors the behavior of SpringBoard in ios on an iphone or ipad: Launchpad in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion To rearrange app icons: Click and drag the app to its new location. To move apps to the next or previous page: Click and drag the app to the left or right edge of the screen. When the next page of apps appears, drag the app to its new location on that page. To add an app to your Dock: Click and drag the app onto the Dock. To create a folder for apps: Drag one app s icon on top of another app s icon to create a folder. To add an app to a folder: Drag the app onto that folder to add it. To move an app out of a folder: Click the folder to open it, and drag the app out of the folder. To change a folder s name: Click to open the folder, click the current name, and then type a new name. Home screen SpringBoard in ios 7 To uninstalled apps: Click an app s icon, but don t release the mouse button until all the icons begin to wiggle. Apps that can be uninstalled display a Delete button (X in a circle); click to uninstall the app. Press Esc to stop the wiggling.
Mac OS X Tutorial 10.8 Mountain Lion 2 NOTIFICATION CENTRE Notification Centre, first introduced in 10.7 Lion, provides an overview of alerts from applications. There are three types of notifications: banners, alerts, and badges. Banners are displayed for a short period of time in the upper right corner of the Mac's screen, and then slide off to the right. Alerts are the same as banners, but will not disappear from the screen until the user takes action. Badges are red icons that are displayed on an application's icon in the Dock. They indicate the number of items available for the application, like in Mail (e.g. on the left would indicate 6 unread messages to be viewed). Notification Center can be accessed by clicking the icon in the right corner of the menu bar. When open, the user can click a button to tweet, post status updates to Facebook, or view all notifications in the sidebar pane. Swiping (on a laptop) or scrolling up will reveal the option to disable Notification Center. Many settings of Notification Center can be customized under the "Notifications" pane in System Preferences. Each application can have three ways to display notifications: none, banners, and alerts. QUICKLY SWITCH BETWEEN OPEN APPLICATIONS Hold down the Command key and press the Tab key (Command-Tab). Mac OS X immediately displays a mini-dock with icons for each of your open applications. At the left side of the mini- Dock, you ll see the icon for your current application. Next to it, you ll find the icon for the application you last used. Each time you press the Tab key (without releasing the Command key), you can cycle through your open applications. TIP: You can also use the Left and Right arrow keys to navigate your open applications. You can also use your mouse or trackpad to select the application you want to switch to.
Mac OS X Tutorial 10.8 Mountain Lion 3 MISSION CONTROL Mission Control, formerly Exposé in older versions of OS X, is another way you can quickly switch between open applications. Unlike Exposé, Mission Control not only shows all your applications that are open but also groups open windows or documents from each application. Activate Mission control by pressing the function key F3 (default key). You can then select which application or window you want to switch to by selecting it using your mouse or trackpad. If you have Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys enabled under System Preferences > Keyboard then Mission Control can be accessed using the F10 key instead, which is the default function key for Exposé. You can also access Dashboard by activating Mission Control. NATURAL SCROLLING AND RIGHT CLICK BUTTON Apple introduced Natural Scrolling in OS X 10.7 Lion, and it continues as a default in 10.8 Mountain Lion. Natural Scrolling mirrors the behavior of scrolling found in ios on an iphone or ipad. If you prefer the old way of scrolling, you can turn Natural Scrolling off by opening System Preferences > Mouse and deselecting the option for Scroll Direction. You can also activate Secondary, or Right click on you mouse here, by selecting this option directly below the Scroll direction. Activating the Right click on your mouse will allow access to contextual menus within applications and on the desktop in Finder.
Mac OS X Tutorial 10.8 Mountain Lion 4 DISK UTILITY REPAIRING PERMISSIONS You can use Repair Permissions if you experience a problem with an application, such as an application not launching, starting up very slowly, or having one of its plug-ins refuse to work. Permission problems can also cause your Mac to take longer than usual to start up or shut down. In Disk Utility panel on the left, select the name of your Mac OS X Drive, not the actual Hard Drive listed above. To initiate: Launch Disk Utility, located at /Applications/ Utilities/. Select the First Aid tab. In the panel on the left, select a drive you wish to run Repair Permissions on (the drive must contain a bootable copy of OS X). Click the Repair Disk Permissions button. If you see the following: Warning: SUID file System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/AR DAgent has been modified and will not be repaired, you can safely ignore it. Disk Utility repairs the permissions for files installed by the Mac OS X Installer, Software Update, or an Apple software installer. It doesn t repair permissions for your documents, your home folder, or most third-party applications unless they were installed via the Mac App Store. icloud SET-UP icloud is Apple s cloud service that syncs certain data, such as calendars and contacts, on an ios device with a Mac running OS X Lion or Mountain Lion, or vice-versa. To sign up for an icloud account, you must be using a device capable of using icloud. The reason is you have to be using at least one Apple device that s icloud compatible. If you re running OS X Lion or Mountain Lion then you can sign up very easily through System Preferences and then select icloud under the Internet & Wireless pane.
Mac OS X Tutorial 10.8 Mountain Lion 5 icloud SET-UP CONTINUED Signing up to icloud requires an Apple ID. If you ve ever purchased anything from the App Store or itunes store, you already have an Apple ID. Simply sign in with your existing Apple ID information (this will be the email address and password you use for making itunes or app purchases) and you ll be prompted to create a new icloud account. If you do not have an Apple ID, you can create one by clicking the link below the user ID field on the prompt screen. Follow the instructions on creating an account. Once you have either signed in or created a new account, you ll be prompted if you d like to use icloud s services as well as Find My Mac. If you are using a Mac laptop it s a good idea to have Find My Mac selected. Here is a list of what icloud can sync between Apple devices: Contacts Calendars and Reminders Notes Safari Bookmarks, Tabs and Reading List Photo Stream Documents in the Cloud Back to My Mac Find My Mac SECURITY Built into OS X Lion and Mountain Lion is a security feature called Gatekeeper, which let Mac users select the specific sources from which they're able to download and install apps. By default, the preference is set to Mac App Store for allowable downloaded install. You can change this by opening System Preferences and select Security & Privacy setting under the Personal pane. You may have to unlock to make changes click the lock symbol in the lower-left corner and you will be prompted to type in your Admin password (the one you created when you set-up your Mac). A good rule of thumb would be to leave it on Mac App Store and identified developers as a default and only change it to Anywhere when you want to install an app you trust and isn t identified with Apple. Once you have installed the app, change the setting back. You should also select Disable automatic login option as well, especially if you use a MacBook, MacBook Pro or MacBook Air.
Mac OS X Tutorial 10.8 Mountain Lion 6 USER SECURITY To further make you Mac more secure, you should disable the following options: Guest User & Automatic Login. Open System Preferences and select Users & Groups under the System pane. Click on Login Options and then select Guest User from the left panel. Deselect the option to Allow guests to log into this computer. Select your User account from the left panel and ensure that Automatic login is off. Ensure that Show password hints is deselected. Admin Account vs. User Account: An administrator account has elevated privilege levels that allow the user to make many changes to the way the Mac operates. A User Account has limited privilege levels and usually cannot make changes. It s more secure to use a standard User Account for everyday use and then login to an Admin account when you need to make changes to the system. A good security tip to remember is this: if you are prompted to type in your Admin password and you did not initiate any action that would require this, DO NOT TYPE IN YOUR PASSWORD, especially if this happens when you are surfing the web. If you are installing an application, changing a system preference, or updating an application via Mac App Store, OS X will require you authenticate by typing in your admin password. COMMON KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS There are no known viruses for Mac OS X, however there are trojans that could affect your system. OS X has built in security to detect many trojans and vulnerabilities in Java and Flash. Trojans are usually disguised as updates or applications such as Adobe Flash player and Java updates. If you do not require either of these for your daily work, its a good idea to disable both within Safari. You can do so by opening Safari, and choosing Preferences... under the Safari menu. Click on Security panel to make changes. + O = Open + W = Close Window + P = Print + C = Copy + X = Cut + V = Paste + Q = Quit + Z = Undo + A = Select All + S = Save
Mac OS X Tutorial 10.8 Mountain Lion 7 AIRPLAY A new AirPlay icon appears in the menu bar of Macs running Mountain Lion that allows you to select your Apple TV and mirror your display on your TV, allowing you to show a web page, a presentation or pictures from you iphoto library. SAFARI HISTORY Pressing and holding on the back button in Safari will display your browsing history for the particular tab you are currently in. It s a quick way to get back to a previous page.