OS X secrets revealed

• Article 72 of 89
• MacFormat, July 2009

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12 Back to My Mac
If you did buy a MobileMe subscription and the gods of computer are looking favourably on you, Back To My Mac lets you connect back to your home Mac if you’ve left it on, from any other Leopard-equipped Mac you happen to be working on. You’ll need to Start it in the Back to My Mac tab of the MobileMe Systems Preferences pane first, and configure the Mac you’re on with your MobileMe account details. But once you do, if everything’s working fine, you should be able to see your Mac appear in the list of devices in the Finder’s sidebars and either grab files from it or take it over to make it do whatever you want.

13 Keyboard shortcuts
Over time, you’ll become proficient with your Mac and instead of using its menus for functions, you’ll learn keyboard shortcuts that you can press instead to activate menu options. But if you don’t like the shortcuts, you can change them, not just in OS X’s bundled applications but in any other application on your Mac. Locate the Keyboard & Mouse System Preferences pane, select the Keyboard Shortcuts tab and you’ll see a list of all the existing shortcuts. Double click on a shortcut to change it or click on the checkbox next to it to deactivate it. You can add new shortcuts by clicking on the + sign in the window, selecting an application and then choose the menu command to add a shortcut to.

14 Universal access
If you have a disability, Universal access, available in the System Preferences, will make your Mac far easier to use. As well as providing access to VoiceOver, which is also in the Utilities folder and reads out the Mac’s screen contents for those who have trouble seeing the Mac’s display, it also makes the Mac’s screen easier to read by changing the contrast and makes the keyboard and mouse easier to use. If you’re deaf or simply work in an environment where constant beeps would be irritating, you can use the Hearing tab to make the screen flash whenever there’s an alert.

15 Voice control
Amazing though it may seem, you can control your Mac using your voice. The Speech System Preferences pane lets you activate this feature. Then, depending on how you’ve set it, by pressing a key to let the Mac know you’re talking to it, you can give it orders. The orders you can give it are called ‘Speakable Items’ and you can see a list of them by clicking on the Commands tab then clicking on the Open Speakable Items Folder. Your Mac can’t work miracles though, so you will need to train it to recognise your voice. It’ll also help to use a microphone if you can.

Once you’ve got Speech working well for you, you can expand it to include even more sophisticated controls, by enabling the “Front Window” and “Menu Bar” command sets so you can trigger menu options using your voice.

16 Create an Airport network
If you want to link two computers together and don’t have any cables and there’s no WiFi network nearby, you can make your own network instead. Simply go to the Airport menubar item, click ‘Create Network…’, accept the default settings and click OK. Now any other WiFi equipped computer will be able to see your Mac’s network, join it and you can use it as you would any other network for sharing files, printers and so on.

17 Terminal
Housed underneath OS X is the power of Unix. If you know your ‘awk’ from your ‘grep’, you can use Terminal in the Utility folder to really take charge of what’s under the Mac’s bonnet

18 Zooming
Having trouble reading the screen? You can zoom in and out by holding down the Ctrl key and using two fingers on the trackpad or using the trackball on a Mighty Mouse.

19 International
Although you may not need to run any of your applications in a foreign language, the International System Preferences pane still has some useful functions for monoglots. Formats lets your Mac what languages you prefer and although it’s not on the list – you’ll need to click on the Edit List button to add it – British English is one option and you can drag it to the top of the list. By default, OS X’s built-in spelling and grammar checker uses these preferences so changing this will ensure your spelling remains on the right side of the Atlantic. But the Input Menu tab also provides a way to help those who haven’t yet mastered every single key press on their keyboard. As well as giving you a way to switch between the keyboards for different languages, the available layouts include a Character Palette for embedding rare characters in documents and a Keyboard viewer for seeing what happens when click a particular key. The International menu can give you access to a keyboard viewer as well as a palette of hard to find characters

20 Securing your Mac
Keeping your Mac secure against sneak thieves can be very easy, thanks to OS X’s built in functions, such as FileVault and Keychain – although you’re going to have to decide on how much inconvenience you feel like putting yourself through. There are some features of the Security System Preferences pane that are no-brainers if you’re worried about people playing with your Mac’s settings while you’re away, and you don’t mind having to enter passwords now and again. Requiring a password to wake a computer from sleep or a screen saver should be your first move and since anyone can press Command/Apple, Ctrl and the Power keys to restart your Mac instantly, disabling automatic login will prevent them getting in that way. Other options, especially ‘Use secure virtual memory’ are for the more paranoid but are worth considering.

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