Mac OS X Hacks

Chapter 2. Startup

Hacks #13-17

As you stare admiringly at that elegant white-on-gray Apple logo and are mesmerized by that spiraling progress spinner, you may notice the quiet ticking, grinding, and plinking emanating from your Mac’s innards. Before fading to a brilliant blue and filling your screen with colorful icons and that familiar menu bar, there’s an awful lot going on behind the scenes to bring your Mac to life.

And it isn’t all that pretty.

This chapter takes a peek beneath the surface at just what’s making all that noise. We’ll show you how to boot from another device, turn your Mac into a FireWire hard drive, get OS X running on that old Power Mac in your closet, and lock up your Mac good and tight so that only those with the right key can get to your stuff.