OS X Yosemite For Dummies

Chapter 22

Almost Ten Ways to Speed Up Your Mac Experience

This chapter is for speed demons only. At some time in their Mac lives, most users have wished that their machines would work faster — even if their Macs have multiple cores or processors. I can’t help you make your processors any faster, but here’s where I cover some ways to make your Mac at least seem faster. Better still, at least some of these tips won’t cost you one red cent.

Because this is a chapter is the infamous Part of Tens, the powers that be require the word ten in the chapter title. But try as I might, I couldn’t come up with ten ways to speed up your Mac. The nine tips that follow were the best I could do. So if you think of another great way (or two) to speed up your Mac, please send it to me at [e-mail]. If your suggestion is really good, I’ll include it in the next edition and give you full credit for thinking of it!

Use Those Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts (see Table 22-1 for a nice little list of the most useful ones) can make navigating your Mac a much faster experience compared with constantly using the mouse, offering these benefits:

• If you use keyboard shortcuts, your hands stay focused on the keyboard, reducing the amount of time that you remove your hand from the keyboard to fiddle with the mouse or trackpad.
• If you memorize keyboard shortcuts with your head, your ...