OSX Archives | Photoshop Plaza

If you just got your new iMac or MacBook you should do a few things, change some preferences, that makes life a lot more fun.
Don’t ask why, just do it 😃
So, don’t be affraid, nothing will harm your computer, all settings can be changed back again.
Even if you own you’re Mac for a while it is advisable to follow these settings to set up your Mac.

Make the Dock disappear

1. Open system preferences (Click on the top left apple and the second item is System preferences…)
2. go to Dock
3. Check Magnification
4. Set the slider to Max
5. Check Automaticaly hide and show the Dock
The Dock is that bar at the bottom of you’re screen where you can select a program to work with. At default it is visible all the time, taking precious space of you’re screen.
After the actions the Dock only pops up when you move you’re mouse cursor to the bottom of the screen.

Let the Dock disappear to make more space on your screen

Always show scroll bars

1. Open system preferences (Click on the top left apple and the second item is System preferences…)
2. go to General
3. Right to Show scroll bars check Always
When you only use a trackpad and scroll with the two finger gesture, you can skip this one. But if you work with a mouse or pen you want this set to always so you can always see where to scroll.

This way you'll never have to search for the scroll bars — This way you’ll never have to search for the scroll bars

Every mouse has a right mouse button

1. Open system preferences (Click on the top left apple and the second item is System preferences…)
2. go to Mouse
3. Choose Secondary Button for the right button
4. Increase the Tracking Speed to the second to last
By default the right mouse button is set to primary. Why? It’s something Apple-ish, don’t think about it.

Make your right mouse button the secondary one

Let Finder inform you better!

1. Open Finder
2. Check View > Show Path Bar
3. Check View > Show Satus Bar
Now, when you klik on a document or folder, at the bottom of the Finder window you can see where ‘you are’, the path to that document or folder.
And you can see how many items there are, how many items are selected and how much free space you have available. You don’t want to miss that do you?

Show Path Bar and Status bar in Finder so you know where you are in the file system and you can see how much space is left on you're disk — Show Path Bar and Status bar in Finder so you know where you are in the file system and you can see how much space is left on you’re disk. Notice that when you click on the word Show it’s replaced by the word Hide.

Show Status Bar and Show Path — 1. You can see where you are in the tree of your file system. You can double-click on a folder in the path to go to that folder. 2. See how many files there are in the active folder, and how many files you have selected (if so). And notice you can see how much space there is left on your disk drive.

What day is it today?

1. Klik on the clock at the right top of the screen
2. And click open Date & Time Preferences
3. Check Show Date
Now you always know what day it is today!

Clean up you’re Dock

1. Move you’re mouse to the bottom of the screen until the Dock pops up
2. Do you see an Icon of a program you never use? Click and drag that icon out of the Dock until a label ‘Remove’ pops up, then release the mouse.

Clean up you’re Desktop

1. Right-click anywhere on you’re desktop and choose Sort by Name

Make surfing more fun

1. Open Safari
2. In the adress field enter google.com and press Return
3. Go to Safari>Preferences
4. In the General tab
5. Fill in as follows:
Safari opens in A new window
New windows open with Homepage
New tabs open with Homepage
6. Find the button that says ‘Set to Current Page’ and click on it
7. Close the Preferences
8. Right-click on the upper Toolbar (there where the address field is located) and choose Customise Toolbar…
9. Find the little House and drag it into the Toolbar, left from the address field
10. Click Done
Now you can ‘go home’ by clicking on the little house icon

Never search for the Google search page but make it your homepage.

If you have any other suggestion to set up a new Mac, please leave a comment.

Category: OSX

Set up your new Mac