Mac OS X Power Hound, Second Edition

Chapter 1. Designing Your World

Mac OS X may look “so good, you just want to lick it,” as Steve Jobs famously put it. The truth is, though, that the best stuff is under the hood. The incredibly stable Unix core multitasks like a pro and opens up a world of software previously unavailable to Mac fans.

This OS is unlike anything that came before, which has tripped up more than one computer veteran. But the time you invest learning Mac OS X will gain you boatloads of speed and efficiency. Just keep an open mind—think “Zen and the Art of Computing.”

Startup and Shutdown

You won’t get far with your Mac (or this book) until your Mac is turned on. But even that simple act, as it turns out, has a few nuances worth learning.

Keyboard Login

The dialog box shown in Figure 1-1 greets millions of Mac mavens every morning. It’s the login dialog box, which you use to identify yourself and instruct the Mac to display your files, desktop picture, and settings while hiding everyone else’s. (More on this accounts system in Chapter 5.)

You can save some mousing around by navigating this box with the keyboard. For example, select your name from the list by typing your first initial (or the first couple of letters, if the list is long). As you do so, the highlight bar moves down the list, matching what you type. When the name you want is highlighted, press the Return or Enter key, type the password, and then hit Return again.

Tip

If you hold down Shift when you select your account’s name, the window will ...