Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition

378 switching to the mac: the missing manual

• Play feedback when volume keys are pressed. Most Mac keyboards have little

speaker icons that, when pressed, adjust the overall volume louder or softer. Each

time you press one of these keys, the Mac beeps to help you gauge the current

speaker level.

That’s all fine when you’re working at home. But more than one person has been

humiliated in an important meeting when the Mac made a sudden, inappropri-

ately loud sonic outburst—only to amplify that embarrassment by furiously and

repeatedly pressing the volume-down key, beeping all the way.

If you turn off this checkbox, the Mac won’t make any sound at all as you adjust its

volume. Instead, you’ll see only a visual representation of the steadily decreasing

(or increasing) volume level.

Tip: This System Preferences pane is another one that offers a “Show in menu bar” option at the bottom.

It installs a volume control right in your menu bar, making the volume control instantly accessible from any

program.

Output Tab

“Output” means speakers or headphones. For 99 percent of the Mac-using community,

this pane offers nothing useful except the Balance slider, with which you can set the

balance between your Mac’s left and right stereo speakers.

Input Tab

This panel lets you specify which microphone you want the Mac to “listen to,” if, in-

deed, you have more than one connected. It also lets you ...