Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, El Capitan Edition

Switching Locations

If you travel with a laptop, you may find yourself frequently opening up System Preferences→Network so you can switch between Internet settings: Ethernet at the office, Wi-Fi at home.

The simple solution is the →Location submenu, which appears once you’ve set up more than one location. As Figure 10-6 illustrates, all you have to do is tell it where you are. OS X handles the details of switching Internet connections.

Creating a New Location

To create a location, which a set of memorized settings, open System Preferences, click Network, and then choose Edit Locations from the Location pop-up menu. Continue as shown in Figure 10-6 at bottom.

Tip

You can use the commands in the menu to rename or duplicate a location.

When you click Done, you return to the Network panel. Take this opportunity to set up the kind of Internet connection you use at the corresponding location, just as described on the first pages of this chapter.

If you travel regularly, you can build a list of locations, each of which “knows” the way you like to get online in each city you visit.

A key part of making a new location is putting the various Internet connection types (Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Modem, Bluetooth) into the correct order. Your connections will be slightly quicker if you give the modem connection ...