OS X Mountain Lion: The Missing Manual

Getting into OS X

When you first turn on a Mac running OS X 10.8, an Apple logo greets you, soon followed by an animated, rotating “Please wait” gear cursor—and then you’re in. No progress bar, no red tape.

Logging In

What happens next depends on whether you’re the Mac’s sole proprietor or have to share it with other people in an office, school, or household.

• If it’s your own Mac, and you’ve already been through the setup process described in Appendix A, no big deal. You arrive at the OS X desktop.

• If it’s a shared Mac, you may encounter the newly redesigned login screen, shown in Figure 1-1. It’s like a portrait gallery, set against a handsome piece of dark gray linen. Click your icon.

  If the Mac asks for your password, type it and then click Log In (or press Return). You arrive at the desktop.

Note

The very first time you run Mountain Lion, you get a huge Scrolling in Mountain Lion warning window. Apple wants to draw your attention to the new drag-up-to-scroll-up behavior of a fresh Mountain Lion installation, which freaks out a lot of baffled customers. For details on this whole reversed-scrolling business (and how to turn it off), see Full-Screen Apps, Mission Control.

Chapter 13 offers much more on this business of user accounts and logging in.

Note

In certain especially paranoid workplaces, you may not see the rogue’s gallery shown in Figure 1-1. You may just get two text boxes, where you’re supposed to type in your name and password. Without even the icons of known account holders, ...