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Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Yosemite Edition
book

Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Yosemite Edition

by David Pogue
January 2015
Beginner
812 pages
28h 43m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Yosemite Edition

Sound

Using the panes of the Sound pane, you can configure the sound system of your Mac in any of several ways.

Tip

Here’s a quick way to jump directly to the Sound pane of System Preferences—from the keyboard, without ever having to open System Preferences or click Sound. Just press Option as you tap the , , or key on the top row of your Apple keyboard.

Sound Effects Tab

“Sound effects” means error beeps—the sound you hear when the Mac wants your attention, or when you click someplace you shouldn’t.

Just click the sound of your choice to make it your default system beep. Most of the canned choices here are funny and clever, yet subdued enough to be practical as alert sounds (Figure 17-16).

The other controls on the Sound Effects pane include these:

  • Play sound effects through: Intriguingly enough, in Yosemite, you can now specify one sound source (a speaker or headset) for most sound playback—and a different one just for your error beeps. That’s the one you specify with this pop-up menu.

  • Alert volume. The main volume slider for your Mac is the “Output volume” slider at the bottom of the Sound pane. The “Alert volume” slider is just for error beeps; Apple was kind enough to let you adjust the ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781491948088Errata Page