Shutting down your Mac is fairly easy. Simply click upon the Apple logo in the upper left corner of your screen. In the menu that appears, click ‘Shut Down’. However you may want to let your Mac sleep instead of shutting it down completly. It’s energy consumption is at a minimal level and the great benefit is that your Mac is rady to serve your need again in an instand. This ‘Sleep’ option is located at the same menu as the ‘Shut Down’ option is.

If you own a Macbook (MacBook, MacBook Pro or MacBook Air) you can let you Mac get to sleep by closing the screen. It will resume again as soon as you open the screen again. On a Desktop Mac, our Mac will resume as soon as you move the mouse or touch a key on the keyboard.

Alternatively you also can put you Mac to sleep (any Mac, Desktop or Laptop) via a keyboard combination. Simply press the buttons ‘CTRL and Eject’ and a menu will appear. Usually the ‘Shut Down’ button is colered blue. Hit enter if you want to shutdown. If you want to use the Sleep option, click the ‘Sleep’ button.

Full keyboard access
As you may have noticed by now, I like to use a lot of keyboard shotcuts when at work. By default, Apple does not allow this for all windows or dialog windows. When you active ‘Full Keyboard Access’ via the ‘System Preferences’ you are able to use the Tab key to select other buttons by use of your keyboard instead of by using your mouse.

If ‘Full Keyboard Access’ is activated, you’ll be able to select the ‘Sleep’ button by pressing the ‘Tab’ key of your keyboard. Apple uses a blue border for indicating that a button is selected. Hit the spacebar in order to use that button. Remember that the ‘Enter’ key is linked to the completely blue button.

Apple continues to update its core operating system (OS X) very regularly. Via the use of software updates Apple adds functions, fixes bugs and/or security leaks. You can easily check if there are any software updates for your own system by clicking the Apple-icon in the upper left corner of your desktop.
The second item on the menu is ‘Software Update’. Simply click this items to start the Software update checking program.

When the check is finished, a window will appear to indicate if there are updates for your system.  You can choose to run all the updates, or you might want to see which updates there are. If you want to see al list of update, click the ‘Show details’ button.

In the following window a list is produced with all the available updates. You can always decide which updates you want to run at that time by checking or unchecking  each update. Note that some updates may require to reboot your system. In indicator icon is present for such updates.

In the menu listed in the image in this post you’ll also find an item called ‘System Preferences’. In the System Preferences you will also find options for Software Updates to run daily, weekly or monthly. I’ll spent some time on the ‘System Preferences’ pane at a later moment.

In all my years on Windows I’ve never seen a function like ‘Quick look’. Quick Look lets you take a detailed preview of almost every file you’ll encounter in the Finder. You can use this when you’re in the Finder looking through files, images, documents or movies. Whenever an item is selected / highlighted in the Finder, you can push the spacebar on your keyboard to quickly open a preview of that file. In the example below the PDF file ‘About Stacks’ is selected.

This allows you to quickly determine if you’ve got the right document or that you need to look further. To close this preview, simply push the ‘Esc’ button on your keyboard.
If you’ve got the right document. You can open it in the proper program in two ways: you can double click it to you can push Cmd+arrow down. Both methods will open the file in its assigned program.

Whenever you’re in a program, you might want to use the program by clicking on the red dot () in the upper left corner of the program window. On Windows based machines this actually ends the program. On OS X this only closes the active window.

If you really want to end the running program, click the program’s name in the menubar. In this example I’ve clicked to end Safari. In the menu that appears you can click ‘Quit Safari’ to end it. You’ll find it at the bottom of this menu.

You also might want to use a keyboard shortcut to end a program. Cmd + Q closes or ends the active program. Using keyboard shortcuts is very easy and you will work a lot quicker if you learn some of these by heart.

Cmd + W closes an active program window.

Your Apple Computer will connect to the internet very easily. It doesn’t really matter if it is by cable or wireless, it will connect easily and it will detect most of its settings automatically.

To connect to a wireless network, simply click upon that small radar-like icon in the upper right corner of you desktop. The drop down will show you all available wireless networks in your neighborhood. If you’ve found the one you want to use, simply click it. If necessary you will be prompted for a password.

If you’d to have more settings, or if you want to see your cable connection, click upon ‘Open network preferences’.

For 7 years now I’ve used Mac’s almost exclusively. I started out with a used iMac, the first generation with that Lime colored backpanel. After that I kinda had to used Windows for a while because of my work. But I fell in love with the Mac Mini and it kinda snowballed from then on. Currently I’m using a iMac 24″ and a MacBoor Air late 2011.
I’ve always been very enthusiastic about the way OS X works and that has lead to the fact that I’ve introduced serveral people around me that are now using Apple machines in their daily routine instead of using Windows based machines.

Since I was the one introducing them to this platform, people tend to come to me for some general aid in working with OS X. And of course, there have been several very specific questions in that time. This kinda lead me to think that there are more people out there that will benefit from a online course in Apple’s OS X.

This online course in Apple’s OSX will be a work in progress. I’ll first want to pay attention to the basics in using OS X. This is a list of things I want to get into:
- the Finder
- the Desktop
- the Dock
- the Preferences Pane
- Users
- Networking (Wifi, AirDrop, Thunderbolt, FireWire etc.)
- Security
- Software (which will hold subcategories)
- Switchers (new users to OS X)
- Problems

This is quite a list and at this point I’d like to mention that within problems I do not want to built a forum in which people can post each problem when they run into one. But there are plenty of problems that a very general in their origine and solution. These problems are the one’s I’d like to point out.

If you have any suggestion, please use the comments to bring them to my attention.

Kind regards,

Gert

For ages I’ve been fiddling about with my iPhone and my Mac Mini in order to get one to work with the other. I wanted to use Apple Remote to control my iTunes library upon my Mini. But I never got it to work seamlessly. Untill now. None of the pages I’ve visited told me the ultimate trick. Or at least, it didn’t point it out very specificly.

And what’s worse, I never thought it myself. It is so very obvious. The connection between the two works most stable if both products use the same WIRELESS network connection. While this seems logical, I have been able to connect the two while my Mac Mini only uses the wired connection to my netwerk. I never configured it to connect wirelessly. And this is the exact trick! While other Apps work perfectly regardless of the connection used, Apple’s Remote does seam funrable

Make sure the computer you want to be able to control with Apple’s Remote is (also) connected to your network wirelessly. Otherwise, it will probably connect but does so very, very unreliable. While it also seems obvious, make sure both the mac computer and the iPhone/iPod connect to the same wireless network. Nowadays those networks seem a dime a dozen.

Good luck!

When you first startup your Mac, and you’ve finished the startup-process in which you’ve been asked for an account name, your internet connection and some other questions you’ll end up at the default desktop of OS X (click to enlarge). The default desktop consists of the Apple Menu at the top left in the Menu bar, several status settings at the top right off the Menu bar and the Dock at the bottom centre.

The Dock items shown in this example may be different compared to your own. But the Dock is usually where you’re programs are located. I’ve pointed out the Trash can bcause that is one you’ll use often. As well as the Finder at the left hand side of the Dock.

Scrolling and iCloud
Before you’ve ended up at the desktop you might have gotten two pop-up screens: one for the way you’re scrolling in OS X Lion (10.7) and one about iCloud. Scrolling is pretty self-explanatory since it shows a movie in which it is explained. iCloud is a service provided by Apple that will allow you to create e-mail, sync you’re music using iTunes and much, much more. I will get back to iCloud in a different posting. I’ve been using it since the beginning and it comes in very handy for me as a small business owner.

The Dock
This is an array of icons which represent a variaty of programs. By default the Dock has the following set of programs:
- Finder: this program runs the Desktop, the contents of your harddisk(s) and your Mac’s folderstructure.
- Launchpad: this is a iPhone/iPad like interface in which all your Mac’s programs are displayed.
- Mission control: this will give you an overview of all you open windows and programs. It makes it very easy to navigate to certain windows.
- App Store: just like the iTunes Store, this is a place where you can browse and search for programs.
- Mail: Apple OS X’s default e-mailclient.
- Safari: Apple OS X’s default browser.
- FaceTime: chat program, met (of zonder) beeld.
- Addressbook: address databaseprogram
- iCal: calender and agenda
- iTunes: Apple’s default program to manage, store, buy all kinds of media
- Photobooth: a very fun program to take pictures in all kinds of settings or with funny effects
- iPhoto: -open, -bewerk- en -opslagprogramma voor je digitale foto’s en videootjes.
- System preferences: will be discussed in another section/post.
- Documents: this is a shortcut to you Documents folder.
- Downloads: this is a shortcut to you Downloads folder.
- Trash can: all the stuff you don’t want anymore.
If there is a blue-ish light beneath a program in the Dock, that means that that program is currently in use.

The Apple Menu (Menubar)
By default, with no other program running you will see the menu items of the Finder (Finder, File, Edit, View, Go, Window, Help). As soon as you open another program or switch to one the appropiate menu will appear at this position in order for you to work with that program. If you were used to Windows, one could close a running program simply by closing the program window. Of course you are able to close program windows in OS X, but that will not shut down the program. You’ll have to that via the Program menu or via the keyboard (CMD + Q).

Menubar (righthand side)
At the top right of your screen there are several items. By default you’ll find (from right to left): Spotlight, Current User, Sound level, Date/Time, Bluetooth, Time Machine, Wifi. I will go deeper into each of these in other parts of this course. But the items at this position may get altered when you install more programs.

In March 2006 I kinda officially switched to the mac. After working upon Windows based machines for over a decade (I really started with Windows ’95 although having worked with DOS versions before), the switch to OS X really felt as a fresh breeze! Not because of Windows, but because of OS X and the way it worked/works.

Before March 2006 I bought an Mac Mini because I wanted to be able to test my websites and web-based applications on both platforms and browsers. The Mac Mini gave me an insight into what working with OS X would be like. Most programs I worked with upon Windows were available for Mac. And in case they weren’t, I was able to find some fine replacements (I’ll post a list of programs for both sides later on).
The Mac Mini’s performance in comparison with my Windows PC was the only reason I didn’t made the switch earlier. My Windows clone was quite a bit faster. The decision to switch completely was kinda made for me. If I was to run Windows Vista to it’s full capacity I would have to upgrade my PC or even buy a complete new one. And since I rather wanted a Apple with OS X, I decided to switch completely.

The Mac I bought was an Macbook Pro 15 inch. This because I was working at client’s offices more and more, so the flexibility of an laptop was necessary. The Mac Mini (G4) became a beautifull media centre on with I’m able to watch the internet in the living room.

Switching to OS X was very easy. If I would have know I would have done it much earlier….

No no, I my not giving away free computers randomly. Or even regularly. I just decided that having 4 computers personally is more than enough. To much even. While I ran Windows upon my Intel Macs (Macbook Pro and iMac) I still had an ugly grey PC case below my desk. Occasionally I bummed my knee or foot against it, It disappeared beneath a pile of papers, it got attacked by a virus so I had to do a complete re-install of Windows XP SP2. But it still worked fine whenever I needed it. 

But since I became more enthusiastic about working in an clean work environment I decided to get rid of that computer. The same day I decided to do so, I spoke to my brother. He wanted to buy another PC because his was becoming sluggish and old. Et voilá! My kind of retired workhorse found a new home. And as of today my home is completely run by Apple computers. Me like! 

Of course a can’t get rid of Windows forever. Since I develop web-based applications I will continue to have a need for Windows and it’s IE versions.