Skip to main content

10 Useful OS X Tips and Tricks

By Guest Author
This is a guest post by Mariana Ashley about some useful OS tips.
For the most part, there are two types of computer users: Mac users and Windows users. Sure, there are other operating systems available, but for the most part we each own either a windows machine or an apple machine. In a previous post, Siju George presented 16 Useful Windows 7 Tips and Tricks. These tips are immensely useful for regular Windows users and for Mac users who are less comfortable handling a Windows machine. Because computer use is so fundamental to our society today, knowing the basics of both the Windows operating system and OS X (the Mac operating system) is essential. The following is a list of 10 basic tips and tricks for using OS X:


1. Right click on an open PDF in Safari (the web browser that comes with Macs) to get a context menu which includes the option to open the PDF in Preview.

2. Pressing Command and Q at the same time will close all applications when command-tabbing. This is the fastest way to close several applications at one time.


3. Macs with remote controls can be put to sleep by holding down the play button on the remote. While this is not applicable to all Mac computers, it can be extremely helpful for Mac laptops that do come with remote controls. For example, you can use your computer as a reading light and then turn it off with the remote control, instead of having to stand up when you want to go to
sleep.


4. If you triple click on a portion of text in your word processor, the whole paragraph is selected.

5. In order to select a block of text, click the start position, then hit Shift and click the end position. What is particularly interesting about this tip is that it works in more areas than just your word processor. This combination of commands also works with non editable text, such as
text from a webpage or PDF. This technique is immensely quicker than clicking a dragging to select text.

6. Pressing Command, Shift and then 4 will capture a selection of the screen for a screenprint. Pressing Command, Shift and then 3 will capture the entire screen in a screenprint. While most people using Macs know how to screenprint on them, many do not know that by pressing the Spacebar, you can toggle between selection mode and select whole window mode.

7. In Safari, pressing Command, Shift and then clicking a link will open that webpage in a new tab and immediately displays the page.

8. There are several tricks that the Option key offers on Macs that many do not know about. For example, holding down the Option key and clicking the minimize button will minimize all the windows in the application.



9. By clicking Option and then clicking on the minimized windows, you will restore all the windows for that application.

10. If you hold the Option key and then click the close tab icon in Safari, it will close all other tabs in the browser. Obviously, this command could have some dire consequences if used accidentally. Be careful.

Hopefully these 10 tips can help the Mac newbie get the hang of some of the operating system's shortcuts. Being fluent or at least comfortable using both the Windows operating system and the Mac operating system is invaluable in today's tech savvy world.

By-line:

Mariana Ashley is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online college. She loves receiving reader feedback, which can be directed to mariana.ashley031 @gmail.com.

Technology Blog
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

iPhone sales help fuel worldwide smartphone numbers

By Guest Author
There are nearly 150 million smartphones out there in the world, according to new figures. Thanks to record breaking sales figures by Apple for the iPhone 4S by the end of 2011 there was almost a 50% increase in the number of devices up on the previous year. The research by Gartner Inc. claims the figures rose during the final quarter of 2011 thanks to the 30 million plus iPhone 4S' sold by Apple. The results led to Apple becoming the third largest vendor of mobile phones in the world. They also became the top smartphone vendor, with nearly a quarter of global sales in the fourth quarter. Over the rest of 2011, Apple took a fifth of the share of the smartphone market. The UK and wider Western Europe along with North America were the driving forces for the figures, says Gartner. Up until the launch of the iPhone 4S sales were a little slow. Suddenly the spiked as we all ran out to buy the new device. Worldwide, mobile device sales figures reached 476.5 million in the fourth q...
Post a Comment
Read more

3 Things to Avoid as a Motivational Speaker

By Guest Author
Motivational speakers deliver at least hour-long speeches about positive thinking and how to better yourself and the people around you. These messages often apply to a wide variety of settings, whether at home, at work, or even at a personal level. If you're ever planning on becoming a motivational speaker, there are a lot of things that you should avoid. Here are the three of the most common ones.
Post a Comment
Read more

Yahoo invisible detector – insights on a new online service

By Guest Author
This is a guest article by Iulian about leading Yahoo Invisible detector service http://www.detectinvisible.com/ . There are several online businesses which are basically ruling the online industry, and one of them is Yahoo. Founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo in Santa Clara, California, Yahoo! started to grow significantly over the years, now having millions of users all over the world. One of the most widespread products of Yahoo is Yahoo Mail and Messenger. Over time yahoo messenger had become a habit for millions and soon they’ve introduced the possibility to become invisible for other users. It was obvious that a whole new kind of service appeared online, that of yahoo invisible detector. The yahoo invisible detector as an online service first appeared when yahoo was at protocol 13, now being at protocol 17, and at first there were several websites offering their services in order for you to find out which buddy of yours is hiding. Unfortunately, as soon as yahoo star...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Concepts of Social Networking in Today's World

By Guest Author
In today’s high tech world, networking occurs as much on computers as in “real life” social situations. Social media has opened up a vast new frontier for people to connect with others. Before the advent of social media, people generally networked at social gatherings like mixers, fundraising galas and similar events. Of course, such “face-to-face” networking is still important and common, but social media allows possibilities that did not exist before. One of the problems with older networking models is that often the same people showed up at all the events. The percentage of the population that is active in community events tends to be rather low. On the other hand, almost everyone these days uses social media. Vast reach of social networking According to the latest stats, Facebook alone has more than 900 million active users worldwide with the number continuing to grow. Twitter and Google+ also have large numbers of active users that cross all demographic categories. ...
Post a Comment
Read more