Apple Mac OS X is slowly evolving to be a popular desktop operating system these days. About 7.6 percent of desktop computers around the world use Mac OS X. People switch to Mac due to a variety of reasons, such as high security, less maintenance, better support for multimedia and graphics, ability to run other OSes, etc. In this article are a few tweaks that will make it easy for you to use a Mac computer.
Making Your Mac Extra Secure
Top Things to Remember While Switching From PC to Macintosh
1 Desktop Widgets
You can add widgets to your Mac desktop easily. You can activate this feature from the command line. Just as Microsoft Windows, Macintosh has a command window known as the Terminal. Under Applications->Utilities folder, you will find the Terminal. After opening the Terminal, input the following command in order to enable desktop widgets:
“defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES”
Afterward, restart your Mac and drag any widget you want from the Dashboard to the desktop.
2 Mouse Configurations
Macintosh’s mouse and trackpad, unlike Windows’s, have only one button. So, it’s not really possible for you to right-click on them. In order to easily access the context menu on any app, you can tweak the Mac mouse for right-clicking. Click on the Apple menu and access System Preferences; click on View->Mouse. Here, enable the option “Secondary click” if it’s not enabled already and set how you want to right-click. There are other mouse options too, such as tracking speed, scroll direction, and zooming option.
3 Application Firewall
Mac provides you with a built-in firewall known as Application Firewall. This firewall is used to block certain applications from connecting to the Internet. You can get access to the Application Firewall from the System Preferences->Security Option. After unlocking the firewall, click on the Advanced button to change the firewall settings. Application Firewall lets you block or allow incoming connections to specific software. Digitally signed, trusted applications are allowed to communicate to the Internet by default.
4 Startup Programs
Just as in Windows, you can tweak which applications to start automatically at system start in a Mac. Go to System Preferences->Login Items. Here, you can add applications you want to be automatically opened at system start. Additionally, you can do the tweak from your dock. If the application icon appears on the dock, right-click it and select “Open at login”.
5 Mac Mission Control
Mission Control (previously known as Expose) is a nifty feature that lets you navigate through open applications in your Mac in a more efficient way. It lets you hide all windows or zoom them out. In order to see the active application window only, press Control+F3 (F10 on old keyboards); you will notice that only the active application window is highlighted, and everything else is darkened. If you press F3 on new Mac keyboards (F9 on old ones), you can get an overview of all open windows zoomed out. If you press Command+F3 (F11), you can hide all application windows in order to view the desktop. Mission Control can be customized to change the keyboard shortcuts or use a mouse gesture.
6 Multiple Desktops (Spaces)
It’s easy on a Mac to create multiple desktops. You can create as many as 16 desktops on Mac OS X Mavericks. This feature is an extension of Mission Control. Press F3 to access Mission Control and point your cursor at the top right-hand side of the screen; you will see a new desktop background thumbnail with a plus sign. Click on it and you will get a new desktop. Alternatively, you can click on the top right-hand side of an application window to create a new desktop for that application.
7 Finder Tweaks
Finder is the Mac counterpart of Windows Explorer. You can do a few tweaks on Finder in order to make it more efficient. You can add any folder to the Finder sidebar by selecting the folder and clicking File->Add to Sidebar. Finder can be further tweaked from the Finder->Preferences menu item. Several options can be set here, such as items to be shown in desktop, what to show in a new Finder window, spring-loaded folders, etc. You can customize the Finder toolbar to add more commands; simply right-click at the top and click “Customize Toolbar“.
Conclusion
Mac OS X is a highly customizable operating system. Availability of the command line makes the OS even more configurable. Some of these customizations make switching from a Windows computer to Macintosh quite a smooth experience.