macOS High Sierra For Dummies

Bob LeVitus

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119417156
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencia de la computación
• Subtopic: Sistemas operativos

Work, play, connect, and share with the ultimate tour to macOS 'X'

macOS 'X' For Dummies is the ultimate tour guide to the Mac operating system, written by Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus himself! Whether you're upgrading your trusty old MacBook or venturing into new territory for the very first time, this easy to use guide will get you up and running quickly. It's all here: navigation, preferences, file management, networking, music and movies, and so much more. From the absolute basics to advanced techniques, this book shows you everything you need to know to turn your Mac into an extension of your brain. Concerned about security? Need to troubleshoot an issue? Want to make your Mac perform even better? Let Dr. Mac walk you through it with clear explanations and a little bit of humor. Read this book beginning-to-end for a complete tutorial, or dip in and out as needed when things take an unexpected turn; if you have macOS questions, Dr. Mac has the answers you need.

macOS has powered Macs since 2001. Each free annual update improves the system's functionality, and typically offers a few new tools and fixes old issues. If you need to learn your way around this year's update quickly, easily, and thoroughly, this book is for you.

• Get organized and find your way around the interface
• Customize your Mac's look, "feel, " and behavior
• Get connected, get online, and into the cloud
• Access your movies and music, back up your data, and more!

Famous for its reliability and usability, macOS offers the sort of streamlined tools and operations you won't find anywhere else. macOS 'X' For Dummies helps you discover just how much your Mac can do for you.

Part 1

macOS Basics

IN THIS PART …

Find the most basic of basics, including how to turn on your Mac.

Get a gentle introduction to Finder and its desktop.

Make the dock work harder for you.

Find everything you need to know about High Sierra’s windows, icons, and menus (oh my)!

Get all the bad puns and wisecracks you’ve come to expect.

Discover a plethora of Finder tips and tricks to make life with High Sierra even easier (and more fulfilling).

Chapter 1

macOS High Sierra 101 (Prerequisites: None)

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding what an operating system is and is not

Turning on your Mac

Getting to know the startup process

Turning off your Mac

Avoiding major Mac mistakes

Pointing, clicking, dragging, and other uses for your mouse

Getting help from your Mac

Congratulate yourself on choosing macOS High Sierra 10.13, the 14th release of the venerable operating system (OS) formerly known as OS X. Congratulate yourself for scoring more than just an OS upgrade. See, macOS High Sierra includes a few new features that make using your Mac even easier, plus hundreds of tweaks to help you do more work in less time.

In this chapter, I start at the very beginning and talk about macOS in mostly abstract terms; then I move on to explain what you need to know to use macOS High Sierra successfully.

If you’ve been using macOS (formerly OS X) for a while, most of the information in this chapter may seem hauntingly familiar; a number of features that I describe haven’t changed in years. But if you decide to skip this chapter because you think you have all the new stuff figured out, I assure you that you’ll miss at least a couple of things that Apple didn’t bother to tell you (as if you read every word in macOS Help — the only user manual Apple provides — anyway!).

Tantalized? Let’s rock.

Gnawing to the Core of macOS

The operating system (that is, the OS part of macOS) is what makes your Mac a Mac. Without it, your Mac is nothing but 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 OS controls the basic and most important functions of your computer. In the case of macOS and your Mac, the operating system

• Manages memory
• Controls how windows, icons, and menus work
• Keeps track of files
• Manages networking and security
• Does housekeeping (No kidding!)

Other forms of software, such as word processors and web browsers, rely on the OS to create and maintain the environment in which they work their magic. When you create a memo, for example, the word processor provides the tools for you to type and format the information and save it in a file. In the background, the OS is the muscle for the word processor, performing the following crucial functions:

• Providing the mechanism for drawing and moving the onscreen window in which you write the memo
• Keeping track of the file when you save it
• Helping the word processor create drop-down menus and dialogs for you to interact with
• Communicating with other programs
• 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.

One last thing: As I mention in this book’s Introduction (I’m repeating it here in case you normally don’t read introductions), macOS High Sierra comes with more than 50 applications in its Applications folder. Although I’d love to tell you all about each and every one, I have only so many pages at my disposal.

THE MAC ADVANTAGE

Most of the world’s personal computers use Microsoft Windows (although more and more people are switching to the Mac). But you’re among the lucky few to have a computer with an OS that’s intuitive, easy to use, and (dare I 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 mouse or trackpad.

As someone once told me, “Claiming that macOS is inferior to Windows because more people use Windows is like saying that all other restaurants serve food that’s inferior to McDonald’s.”

We might be a minority, but Mac users have the best, most stable, most modern all-purpose operating system in the world, and here’s why: Unix, on which macOS is based, is widely regarded as the best industrial-strength operating system on the planet. For now, just know that being based on Unix means that a Mac running macOS will crash less often than an older (pre-OS X) Mac or most Windows machines, which means less downtime. Being Unix-based also means getting far fewer viruses and encounters with malicious software. But perhaps the biggest advantage macOS has is that when an application crashes, it doesn’t crash your entire computer, and you don’t have to restart the computer to continue working.

By the way, since the advent of Intel-powered Macs more than a decade ago, you can run Windows natively also on any Mac powered by an Intel processor, as I describe in Chapter 20. Note that the opposite isn’t true: You can run Windows on your Mac if you care to, but you cannot run macOS on a Dell...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Part 1: macOS Basics
• Part 2: How Stuff Works
• Part 3: Getting Things Done
• Part 4: Getting Along with Others
• Part 5: Getting Creative
• Part 6: Care and Feeding
• Part 7: The Part of Tens
• About the Author
• Advertisement Page
• Connect with Dummies
• End User License Agreement