Chapter 1

Starting to Use Your Mac

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Identifying your Mac model

Bullet Powering on and off

Bullet Getting to know your Mac

Apple offers several different kinds of Macs, and understanding how your Mac is different from the others can help you navigate this book more quickly, gathering the information you need and skipping the rest. Before you can use your Mac, you have to start it up — which makes perfect sense — so we tell you how to do that. Now, get ready for the counterintuitive part: After you have your Mac up and running, you can just leave it on.

In this chapter, we cover current Mac models and how they’re different and alike, show you how to start and restart your Mac (and give you an idea of what goes on behind the scenes), and then tell you how to put it to sleep and shut it down completely. Sprinkled throughout this chapter is technical information about the various Mac models and what goes on inside that makes your Mac tick, but we make our explanations as clear and simple as possible. At the end of the chapter, we introduce you to Mac processors and show you how to find out precisely which features your Mac has.

Examining Different Mac Models

Apple’s Macintosh computer ...

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