10 Tips for a Better Finder Experience

by Josh Johnson 

 

The Finder app is arguably the most central element of the OS X user experience. It lies at the very heart of nearly everything you do. In light of this, you should learn to make the most of it! Follow along as we go over ten awesome tips for improving your Finder use. We'll cover everything from adding tabs to hidden shortcuts.

1. Add Tabs

The single most important feature for managing your Finder windows is tabs. There's a little problem with this though: Finder doesn't have tabs. If you're waiting for a fancy Terminal command to remedy the problem, you're out of luck. The feature simply isn't there.

The single most important feature for managing your Finder windows is tabs.

Nearly anyone can instantly see the benefit of having web-browser-like tabs for file navigation, at least anyone but but the good folks at Apple. We've all been begging for this feature for years, but these pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Maybe they're too busy trying to figure out what to do with Ping.
Having tabs in a Finder window just makes good sense doesn't it? Who among us hasn't found ourselves juggling three Finder windows while wishing there were a better way to organize them?
The good news is that in lieu of a solution from Apple, there are two really solid third party methods for achieving true enlightenment through tabbed browsing.

TotalFinder

TotalFinder is hands down the most seamless way to implement tabs in Finder. The best (and perhaps worst) part about TotalFinder is that it actually replaces your current Finder app (in functionality only, not literally).

TotalFinder is hands down the most seamless way to implement tabs in Finder.

What this means is that your Finder will be exactly where it's always been. All your shortcuts and normal methods will work perfectly, the main difference is that you'll now have tabs! These tabs look, feel and act just like those found in Chrome, so you'll feel right at home using them.

TotalFinder

The implementation here sounds scary, but it's actually quite well done. In truth, your original Finder application is left 100% intact and you can always return to it by restarting the Finder. That means in the event that TotalFinder bugs out or stops working (I've used it for years with no issues), you can quickly revert to the old school Finder that you know and love.
TotalFinder throws in a few more optional tweaks and additional settings as well, but the tab functionality is really the main feature.

Path Finder

Unlike TotalFinder, which seeks to replace Finder and largely keep it unchanged aside from the tabs, Path Finder is really a completely separate file browser. It looks and acts a lot like Finder, but with a ton of added functionality.

Path Finder 6

Tabs, split views, additional sidebars, tags, batch renaming; you name it, Path Finder has it. If you're just looking for tabbed Finder windows, go with TotalFinder. If you're looking for a completely revamped file browsing experience, Path Finder is your app.
Also, since it's a standalone app that's completely separate from Finder, there's no worry about it feeling hacky.

2. Use Labels Selectively

Labels are a Finder feature that many users never even touch. Once you do begin experimenting them, it's easy to go overboard and label everything, which can make for an ugly, cluttered experience that will probably have you back to running label free in a week.

Overuse of labels kills their effectiveness

The trick to using labels is to do it intentionally and selectively. First, decide on your own mental meanings for a few different colors. For instance, if you're a designer, you might label folders for current projects green and those for past projects gray.

The trick to using labels is to do it intentionally and selectively.

Once you've got a few colors figured out, then it's time to consider how you want to use labels. It's far too work intensive to apply and maintain different statuses for every file, so you should decide on a few scenarios where they will be genuinely helpful.

Your eyes should shoot straight to the labelled item.

For instance, I often use labels to draw attention to a single folder or file. If I have a large group of folders in the same directory but find myself continually referring to one above the others, I'll apply a quick label to make that folder stand out from the rest. This saves me a second or so of browsing each time I want to use that folder because it's so clearly differentiated.
Ultimately, my advice is to construct your own simple system for using labels and set a goal of two weeks for the trial run. After that, you can decide whether it's something that has really helped or simply added extra work to your file browsing experience.

3. Use an Efficient Layout

Finder has lots of different ways to view files, almost none of which are necessarily bad, they're just good for different things. Which layout is "best" depends entirely upon the specific browsing scenario and its worth the time to think through which is ideal for certain tasks.

The tip here is to let go of your tendency to choose a layout and stick with it.

For example, let's say you're browsing for something that's fairly deep into a folder hierarchy, meaning that instead of merely sitting on your desktop, it's nestled a good 5-10 folders in.
In this scenario, the column view mode is going to be your best bet because it allows you to quickly jump through several directories. Like the list view, it's easy to browse and it reduces your effort by opening folders with single clicks rather than double clicks.

Column View is awesome for deep browsing

For the purpose we just outlined, an icon view would've been a horrible way to go. However, when I'm browsing through and editing a folder full of images, the icon view is much better suited for my workflow. The grid layout maximizes space efficiency and I can change the icon size to be nice and large for easy previewing.

Icon view is perfect for previewing images.

The tip here is to let go of your tendency to choose a layout and stick with it. Make sure you constantly evolve to the situation and take advantage of each view mode.

4. Sorting is Awesome

Sorting in Finder has been around for ages, but in the last few versions of OS X, it has really come into its prime with improved appearance of sorted folders.

If you haven't tried sorting in a while, it's time to take another look.

If you haven't tried sorting in a while, it's time to take another look. In many of the sorting modes, Apple has added categorizations and clear visual distinctions. For instance, when you sort by modified date, it used to be that the files simply lined up differently, but now they form clusters based on when they were last modified.

Sorted folders are really nicely organized.

As you can see, each cluster has some extra padding and a little header that tells you what's going on here. Similarly, if you choose to sort by file type, you'll see headers and clusters for each of the file types contained in that cluster.

Name Smart

By default, the sorting method for most folders is "none." However, Finder is still depending on a basic alphabetical presentation of the files. This can get a little strange in some cases if you want your folders presented in a very specific order that doesn't naturally mesh with the alphabetical or other sorting algorithms.

Always remember that you can pretty easily manipulate the alphabetical order if you name your folders with numbers.

Always remember that you can pretty easily manipulate the alphabetical order if you name your folders with numbers. For instance, my work folders are separated by month. I have folders named Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, etc. This helps me keep all of my projects organized.
Unfortunately, this naming convention wreaks havoc on the sort order (Apr comes before Jan), and using the modified or created sort methods don't help since I'm usually popping around from project to project.

Name with numbers to manipulate the order

The solution is simple, I begin the folder names with numbers that correspond to the order of the months: 1-Jan, 2-Feb, 3-Mar. Think about ways that you can manipulate the sort order of your folders to your benefit.

5. Set a Default Folder

This is such a simple trick that saves you a ton of time, and yet I honestly never even thought to do it until recently, and I've been on a Mac since OS 9.
Basically, the general idea is that I work on my Mac all day every day, which means that when I open a Finder window, odds are I'm going to be navigating to my "Work" folder. I always keep this in my sidebar, but even then it's a whole click away every single time. Setting up a default folder though makes it so that that I'm already in my work folder whenever I launch a new window. Simple, but extremely convenient.

Sorted folders are really nicely organized.

To set up a default folder, for to Finder>Preferences and change the "New Finder windows show" drop down menu to whatever folder you'd like to use. If it isn't shown by default, hit the "Other…" item on the bottom.

Default Folder X

Sure, setting a default folder in Finder preferences is handy, but if you really want to speed up your workflow, you should check out Default Folder X.

Default Folder X

This app dramatically improves the functionality of your open and save dialogs in OS X. You can use it to set a unique default folder for every single application. There are also all of these extra panels that pop up around a dialog that let you quickly access favorite and recently used folders as well as search tags and breeze quickly through a folder hierarchy.

This app dramatically improves the functionality of your open and save dialogs in OS X.

I always say that this is one utility that you have no idea you need until you try it. Use it for a week and you won't be able to get by without it.

6. Show the Path & Status Bars

Starting with Lion, Apple decided to simplify the look of Finder and strip out some of the clutter that they added in Snow Leopard. This is all well and good, but I actually used those features that they decided to turn off! Namely the Status Bar (shows free space, number of items in a folder, etc.) and the ability to see and interact with a file path.

The stripped Finder view

Fortunately, these features are still around, and they're only a click away if you know where to look. To bring back the Status Bar, go to View>Status Bar in the Finder menu. This also brings back that little icon size slider that's so useful. Similarly, to bring back the Path Bar, go to View>Path Bar.

With the Path and Status Bars turned on

7. Customize Your Toolbar

While you're messing around in the Finder View menu, you should also take a look at the various options available for customizing your toolbar in View>Customize Toolbar.

Customizing the toolbar

Here you'll find several extra buttons that you can simply drag into your toolbar for quick access. Virtually all of these features (Get Info, Delete, New Folder, etc.) can be accessed via keyboard shortcuts but if you're a new user you might find the buttons useful.

Toss in Anything You Want

Here's a great tip that you may not know about, outside of the Customize Toolbar dialog, you can still drag items to your toolbar. This works for pretty much anything: files, folders, even apps!

Did you know that you can put apps in your toolbar?

To do this, simply click and drag on an item that you want quick access to, and drop it right next to the search bar (on the left). This only works in this location, you can't drag items to other parts of the window (apart from the sidebar of course).

8. Use Smart Folders

We've got an entire article coming up dedicated to Smart Folders so I won't spend too much space on this, but you should know that Smart Folders are a stellar way to save time in Finder.

Smart Folders are a stellar way to save time in Finder.

Smart Folders are essentially saved Spotlight searches that can help you access the same information set again and again. For instance, if you set up a search to monitor any files that you've modified in the last seven days in your work folder, you can save that as a Smart Folder and throw it in your sidebar.

A Smart Folder in Action

This gives you a constantly updating folder that shows you what you've been working on recently. You can do this for browsing history, photos; anything you want.

9. Reacquaint Yourself with Quick Look

Quick Look has become such an integral part of the OS X experience that you likely use it all the time without even thinking about it. Select a file, hit space, and take a look. It's so easy and convenient!
The thing that's easy to forget is that Quick Look has some other really great features as well. For example, try selecting a bunch of images, then hit space bar. From here, there's a grid icon at the top left that will spread all of the images apart. Even better, hit the fullscreen icon at the top right and you'll be taken into an interactive slideshow without ever opening a single app!

Quick Look is great for looking at lots of files at once.

There are a couple of other ways to launch fullscreen mode as well. Try holding down Option while launching Quick Look to be taken right into a fullscreen preview. Alternatively, you can perform a pinch out gesture on your trackpad when viewing a file in Quick Look to see it in fullscreen.

Quick Look Plugins

To expand the functionality of Quick Look, be sure to check out a list of available plugins. These are great for adding previews for non-supported file types. The unfortunate part is that the good Quick Look plugins are almost all years old and not actively being developed, updated or distributed.

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10. Know Your Shortcuts

If you really want to be a master of Finder, you should make it a point to memorize the most helpful keyboard shortcuts. There are a ton of these, too many to list exhaustively here (check the File menu for the obvious ones). However, I will share some of my favorites below:

• Several folders can be accessed quickly via a shortcut. For instance, Command-Shift-U will take you to your Utilities folder and Command-Shift-A will launch your Applications folder. Also try Command-Shift-D for the Desktop, or just Command-D if you're in an Open/Save dialog.
• Command-T adds the selected item to your sidebar.
• Command and 1, 2, 3, or 4 changes your view mode.
• To have Finder intelligently merge the contents of two identically named folders, Option-Drag one into the same directory as the other. This will reveal the standard "Replace" dialog with a new option, "Merge".
• Command-Option-W or Option-Click the close button to close all Finder windows at once.
• When dragging a file to a new directory, you can hold it over a folder for a second to pop open that folder and proceed deeper into the hierarchy. To speed up this process, hit Space each time you come to a folder.
• Hold Option while browsing the Finder menu options to review hidden items.
• Use Command-Up and Command-Down to move through directories.
• Use the Left and Right arrows to collapse and expand folders in list view.
• Command-[ and Command-] move to the previous/next folder.

How Do You Use Finder?

There you have it. With these ten tips you should be well on your way to becoming a complete Finder guru. Now that you've seen my tips, it's time for you to chime in. What hidden features and shortcuts do you use regularly? Do you have any tips for new OS X users? Let us know!

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Get Organized with Reminders and Notes in Mountain Lion

by Julia Altermann 

 

After all the excitement of the past months, Mountain Lion is finally here and brings with it not only a plethora of new features and but also quite a few new apps. Let's take a look at the new Reminders and Notes apps, which might be somewhat familiar to you.

The iOS-ification of OS X

Users of Apple’s mobile devices will recognize that both Reminders and Notes are apps that are part of the default application suite on every iPhone and iPad.

Reminders and Notes have long been part of iOS

While in the past many elements of iOS have crept into the Mac operating system - namely style elements like the linen background or interface elements like popovers for downloads - this is the first time that apps have been transferred in their entirety.
Users benefit from the familiarity of the interfaces; whether the usage of a mobile application on a desktop computer is feasible remains to be seen. While it works quite well with both Reminders and Notes, as we will show in this article, the process begs the question as to how far Apple will actually take the unification of their different platforms. In light of the growing importance of iCloud and its syncing and storage capabilities it’s an interesting subject to ponder.

Reminders

Let’s start with a look at Reminders. If you are already using an iPhone or iPad, you will know that the app is meant to help you remember important things, ranging from a simple grocery list to prompting you for an action if you are at a specific location.
The very same idea has been transferred to the Mac, right down to the interface which closest resembles its iPad counterpart due to the larger screen size.

Creating a Reminder

Creating a reminder is as easy as typing into the large white space resembling a notepad or clicking the plus sign on the upper left; pressing enter will move you to the next line so you can quickly enter one todo or reminder after another.

Reminders for Mac in Mountain Lion

Sorting Reminders into Lists

Now, while this is comfortable, it’s not very neat. Work assignments are mixed with private tasks and create a mess. That’s where the left pane becomes interesting.
Above, you can see it only holds one item called Reminders. By clicking the plus button at the bottom of the pane you can add more lists to sort your items into.

Sorting reminders into lists helps keep the app clean

You can grab and drag list items into order as well as dragging reminders to different lists.

Now, that looks much better already. If you want to enter “focus mode”, clicking the very left button at the bottom of the pane will make it disappear, leaving you only with your reminder window. For those who work with a trackpad, you can swipe through the lists; all others can use the little dots at the bottom of the window to navigate.

Looking at your reminders only - navigation via gestures or the tiny dots at the bottom

Adding Additional Information to Reminders

Up to now, the app hasn’t shown its true power and it’s time we look at what makes it better than the average notepad. Reminders, by itself, implicates that you will be reminded, like an alarm will remind you to get up in the morning or hurry to the next office for a meeting. Apple’s app will do that for you as well.

Adding date based alarms to your reminders

By double-clicking one item, another window will appear and allow you access to various settings. Being reminded at a certain time and day is the most common option.

Assigning a priority will add red exclamation points at the beginning of each reminder.

If you have to repeat a task, for example, I need to be reminded every week to water my plants as to not buy new ones constantly, you can let Reminders handle that for you as well.

Using repeating reminders, so you only have to create a reminders once

Intelligent Date-Based Alarms

While using the little pop-up window to add information is nice, it’s cumbersome for those of us who are relying heavily on the keyboard to get stuff done and don’t like to resort to the mouse and trackpad often.
Also, I am somewhat spoiled by apps like Fantastical or QuickCal, which allow me to write “Remind me to pick up cat food today at 7pm” and then will create a reminder with today’s date and have an alarm go off at 7pm. They just understand what I’m trying to say.
Out of curiosity, I tried this with Reminders and to my big surprise, it works there too!

Telling Reminders what you want and seeing it understood is pretty awesome

Reminders will automatically convert day and time information to a date-based reminder.

Geofencing

By far, the most intriguing feature for me still is the ability to be reminded at specific locations. I know this has been part of iOS 5 since 2011, but I’m still amazed that I can be prompted for an action by simply leaving or arriving at a location.
So, geofencing simply means that you define a location, for example your work place, and then tell Reminders to alert you to buy groceries when you leave your office. The app will construct a virtual fence around a geographic location and know when you move in or out of it.
In Mountain Lion’s Reminders app you can define location based reminders as well. Different from the iOS 5-based reminders, you can add any location now to trigger an alarm, not just those associated with contacts in your address book (which really limited the usefulness of the mobile application).

Use locations to be reminded at a specific location to do something

In order to use location based reminders on your Mac, the app needs your permission to access your location.

As you can see, I will be reminded to do my shopping when I arrive at a specified location (my tram stop where I get off).

iCloud Syncing - Nothing Goes Without It

Now, location based reminders don’t make much sense on your Mac. After all, I wager to say that most of us don’t run around with an open MacBook, least an iMac. Of course, they will appear in the Notification Center, but that only makes sense with date-based reminders.
Here is where iCloud synchronization comes in: Everything you enter or change in Reminders for Mac is immediately synced to your iPhone and iPad.
Changes appear within 5–7 seconds (on my local WiFi network) and of course that works both ways: anything you add, delete or mark as complete on your mobile devices will sync back to your Mac.

All reminders are immediately synced between all devices connected to the same iCloud account

Verdict

Without iCloud synchronization, Reminders for Mac would only be a glorified todo list.

It becomes apparent that Apple steers its users more and more into the direction of cloud-based services. While there’s a lot to argue about safety of data and accessibility, when apps like Reminders just work, it’s truly magical.
The utility is nice as a stand-alone app on your desktop, but it will only truly show its entire potential when used on several devices.
For me, Reminders just became usable: on the iPhone and iPad, it had been cumbersome to create reminders due to excessive nesting of the options, forcing me to tap too many times to add an alarm or geofence. The latter is now a true feature, at last, not limiting you to locations connected to contacts.
The app will not replace Things or Omnifocus for hard-core GTD evangelists, but for the casual reminder and regular user, it’s a true alternative to the more powerful and complex apps out there.

Notes

With Notes, it’s pretty much the same as with Reminders, only that the Notes app has been on the iPhone ever since it came out. It’s not sophisticated or complex, it’s just an app to jot down something quickly.

Welcome Notes to OS X

For the Mac, there has been TextEdit for simple writing tasks, but then again, sharing content always forced you to first save it somewhere and then mail the file.
With Notes, you’ll have the same iCloud integration as with Reminders: everything will be synced pretty much immediately to your mobile devices and other Macs with the same iCloud ID.

As with reminders, sync of course works with Notes as well

Getting Real with Notes App

The look and feel of the Mac app again resembles its iPad sibling. There’s a list of all your notes in the left pane and the actual note taking takes place on a yellow legal pad. Apple went into great detail to establish the feeling of real notes with torn paper hinted at at the top of the app window and the brown, leathery top bar.

Lots of graphical detail for a note taking app

As with the notes, at the top right you can see when a note was created and creating a new note is as easy as clicking the plus button at the bottom left of the window.

Formatting - Or Not

One of the benefits of the Notes app is its lack of complicated settings and options. When you launch the app, all you see is the notes and the notepad. No distracting styles, colors or other fancy knickknacks to keep you from focusing on your writing (well, except the fancy colorful interface itself).
But if need be, you can apply basic styles to your text, such as bold or text size or even list styles. These styles will be transferred to your mobile devices, albeit not always in the same way.

Basic formatting is possible, but not all of it will be synced to other platforms

Inserting Media Files

It’s not just text you can add to your notes. You can insert images, audio clips or even videos right into your writing by simply dragging them in.

Notes also handles images and other media files pretty well

The benefit of this is of course that Notes gives you a more complete note taking experience: instead of having your text in one place and associated media in another, you can have everything in just one file.
On the downside, media will not be synced back to your iPhone or iPad - you’ll see a paper clip icon in the spot where a file should be, but the actual file will only be available on your Mac.
On the upside, when you share a note either via Messages or Mail, the media files will be attached in both cases.

When sharing notes via Messages or Mail, media files will be included

Organization of Notes

I don’t know if this feature was already part of Notes on iOS prior to the release of Mountain Lion, but I only discovered it now so forgive my excitement: you can organize your notes into folders! To do that, click one of the two icons on the bottom right of the left pane and another pane will appear.
You’ll have a default folder, “All iCloud”, which holds every single one of your notes (something Reminders could do with, too) and then folders created by you into which you can sort your notes individually.

Sort your notes into folders - a really neat feature

By right clicking into that very left pane or using the menu you can add new folders. I love that feature; it allows me to keep everything neat and tidy. And if you’re really looking for something, use the excellent search feature.

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Verdict

Notes is a solid stand-alone app, but it's iCloud features makes note-taking as easy as with Byword or iAWriter.

Notes is great as a stand-alone note taking app for the Mac. It’s easy to work with but offers additional features like formatting and media integration if you need it. The automatic iCloud sync to your mobile devices ensures that you are up-to-date wherever your are.
I think it’s better for casual note taking than TextEdit, but the rather flashy interface is also quite distracting; for users like me who love the simplicity of Byword and iAWriter, it’s almost too much to take.
Also, the lack of Markdown support is somewhat discouraging. I understand that Notes is aimed at casual users, but it wouldn’t have hurt to integrate some more advanced features.

Great Things Ahead for Mountain Lion Apps

That concludes our look at these two new apps in Mountain Lion, Apple’s new OS. I like both, though each has its own strengths and weaknesses. For myself, I think I will be using Reminders more often since it’s much more comfortable to create and edit them on the Mac than the iOS interface.
Overall, I’m curious to see what will come next, not just in terms of additional features for these two apps, but which apps (besides Messages) will also be ported to Mac and how the unification of the interfaces between the two platforms will progress.

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Dock 101: Setup and Basic Use

by Cameron Knight

 

If you're new to OS X, there are two central pieces of the operating system that you'll likely use every single time you do anything on your Mac: Finder and the dock. Today we'll teach you all about the latter: how to set up your dock, change the basic settings and use it to increase your file browsing productivity.

Tutorial

Dock 101: Setup and Basic Use

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Cut Through the Noise with Notification Center in Mountain Lion

by Robert Anthony 

 

Mountain Lion takes a lot of cues from its little brother iOS. One great feature that has made its way to Mountain Lion is Notification Center. Notification Center lives behind the right side of your screen and can be accessed from anywhere inside of Mountain Lion. Notifications work in much the same way as the iOS version, with some enhancements to be more practical on a desktop computer.

Notification Center will display a wide range of Notifications like email, Calendar events, missed FaceTime invites, Messages, Reminders and Social Media alerts like Twitter mentions and Direct Messages. Read on to learn how to navigate your way around Notification Center and how to set up the preferences.

Screencast

Watch the video for a quick overview of the methods in the article.

Viewing & Hiding Notification Center

There a few ways you can navigate in and out of Notification Center in Mountain Lion. It will only take you a few moments to get the hang of it with your mouse or with an Apple Magic Trackpad.
The three primary ways into Notification Center are as follows:

• Clicking the new Notifications Icon on the right side of the Menu Bar will slide your screen over to the left and reveal the Notification Center. Clicking the Notifications Icon again will slide the screen to the right and cover Notification Center back up. You can also just click anywhere inside of the screen when inside Notification Center to close it.
• If you have an Apple Magic Trackpad, there is also a swipe gesture that will give you access to Notification Center. This will also work if you are in an app in full screen mode, where the Menu Bar is not visible. If you swipe with two fingers on the right most side of the Trackpad, you will reveal Notification Center. Swiping two fingers to the right anywhere on the Trackpad will take you back to the desktop.
• Finally, hitting the Esc key while inside Notification Center will take you out as well.

If you swipe with two fingers on the right most side of the Trackpad, you will reveal Notification Center.

Notification Center Preferences

To set up Notification Center Preferences, you can click the little gears icon in the lower right corner which will take you into the Notification Center Preference Pane; or you can get to it by going to Apple > System Preferences > Notifications.

Clicking On The Gear icon Inside notification Center Will Take you To The Preferences Settings

The Notifications Preferences Pane is pretty straight forward: On the left side you have a list of every App that can use Notification Center. It's broken into two sections, In Notification Center, and if you scroll down to the bottom of the list, Not in Notification Center.

If you don't want an item to show inside Notification Center, you just simply click and drag it below the "Not In Notification Center"

If you don't want an item to show inside Notification Center, you just simply click and drag it below the "Not In Notification Center" area or uncheck the Show In Notification Center check box in the right side of the preferences window.

The Notifications Preferences Pane Is Divided Into Two Main Parts

You have two options for how Notifications are sorted inside of Notification Center; manually or by time. Manually will sort Notifications inside of Notification Center in the order that you have them here in the Preferences. You can change the order by clicking and dragging to arrange them.
Sorting Notifications by time will show them in chronological order inside of Notification Center regardless of the order in the Preference Pane.

Twitter

On the right side of the Preference Pane, you will see the various options for the selected application. The options are all the same for the most part, the major exception is that Twitter has an extra option here which will let you show or hide Notifications for Mentions and Direct Messages.

Twitter has an extra option here which will let you show or hide Notifications for Mentions and Direct Messages

You need to sign into Twitter inside of OS X in order to receive Notifications for Twitter by going to the System Preferences > Mail > Contacts and Calendars and signing into Twitter.

Alert Styles

There are three options for the alert style when you get a Notification, this is pretty much a mirror of how iOS Notifications work:

• You can have none, which will give you no alert, but will still show inside of Notification Center.
• Banners will give you an alert in the upper right hand of your screen and fly away after a few moments.
• Alerts require an action before they will go away, either dismissing the Alert or viewing the Alert.

Below the alert style you have three checkbox options. The first allows you to show or not show an app inside of Notification Center (this is the same as dragging the app to the Not in Notification Center area to the left) and also set how many items will show inside of Notification Center for the particular app.
Checking Badge App Icons will show you a little red badge on the app icon with the number of alerts inside the badge just like in iOS. Finally, Play Sound will do just that and play a sound when a new Notification arrives on screen.
Other apps such as Mail and Calendars now have their own options for how Notifications are used inside the individual apps. For example. in the Mail Preferences under the General tab is a drop down for which emails you want to show Notifications for.

Some Apps Have Settings For Notifications Inside Their Specific Settings

• Inbox Only will show you all emails from all of your inboxes inside Mail.
• VIPs is a new label you can apply in Mail in Mountain Lion. Assigning a contact as a VIP will, in addition to giving that contact their own folder in the Mail favorites list, give them special priority in Notification Center.
• Contacts will show you Notifications only from email accounts that are assigned to someone in your contacts.
• All mailboxes which will show all email from all your mailboxes.

Conclusion

Notification Center is a great productivity enhancement tool inside of Mountain Lion. It allows you to quickly see what is going on in your digital world without pulling away from what you're doing.
It's probably a safe bet to assume that Notification Center is going to quickly replace other widely used notification utilities on the Mac once developers begin to incorporate Notifications into their apps.
I hope you're feeling more up to par using Notifications and Notification Center inside of OS X Mountain Lion, leave a comment below if you have any thoughts or questions.

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An In-Depth Look at Social Sharing in Mountain Lion

by Josh Johnson 

 

This tutorial will introduce the new sharing features in Mountain Lion and help you get set up to instantly share files, tweet, upload videos and more right from various built-in OS X utilities.

Sharing

It turns out that social media isn't the short-lived fad that countless e-prophets claimed that it would be. Over the past decade, social media has grown from a quirky past time to an integral part of the daily routine for millions of people around the globe.
With iOS, the stand-alone nature of each app required some new ideas for how content can be shown to your friends and acquaintances online. Thus the "share" button was born.

The symbol for sharing in iOS and OS X.

With Mountain Lion, the folks at Apple realized that the iOS quick sharing format would also be helpful on the desktop. Sure, you could go to Twitter.com, log in, and paste in a link, but wouldn't it be easier if you could do this directly from various parts of the operating system?
With Mountain Lion, you can do exactly that. Let's explore how.

Accounts

The first step that you'll want to take for sharing is to set up your various accounts in System Preferences. When you launch System Preferences, you'll see a row of icons labelled "Internet & Wireless."
From here, you'll be tempted to click on the "Sharing" button, which makes perfect sense right? That's really for local networking stuff though and dates way back to before social media even existed. Instead, you'll want to click on the "Mail, Contacts & Calendars" icon.

If you're thinking that this makes no sense because Twitter is really none of the above, you're right.

If you're thinking that this makes no sense because Twitter is really none of the above, you're right. Apple needs to rename this to something more generic such as "Accounts."

Click on Mail, Contacts & Calendars

Pushing aside the strange naming inconsistency, this Preference Pane is actually super helpful. It provides you with one easy place to set up all of your various accounts; from Gmail to AOL and beyond.
The three new options in this pane are some of your favorite social media sites: Twitter, Vimeo and Flickr.

Three new social media options in Mountain Lion.

Linking these services to OS X is super easy. Simply click on one, then type in your username and password. You can repeat this process multiple times if, like me, you have multiple accounts with these sites.

Just sign in to link OS X to your account.

What, No Facebook?

Obviously, OS X is missing a few major social media sites, Facebook and YouTube to name two. As for Facebook, sharing integration and notifications are in the works for this fall. With Google, it's a little more complicated given the ever-increasing tension between the two companies.
Hopefully, in the future everyone will learn to play nice and we'll begin to see this type of integration, but if Apple abandoning Google Maps on iOS is any indication, don't count on it.

Tip: Facebook integration is coming to Mountain Lion this fall.

Notification Center

The first place that you'll likely notice social media integration is the awesome new Notification Center. As soon as you slide the Notifications panel over from the right side of the screen, you'll see a "Click to Tweet" button.

Click to Tweet

This is awesome for all those times throughout the day when you think of a brilliant tweet but don't want to start down the massive time-sucking wormhole that is your Twitter feed.
Once you click the tweet button, you get a little window that looks like a sheet of notebook paper where you can choose your account, type your tweet, set your location, view your available characters, etc.

You can tweet right from Notification Center

Notice below the Tweet area that you can set up a third party Twitter client to work with Notification Center instead of the official Twitter client. I've been using the Tweetbot beta and it seems to integrate perfectly with notifications.

Tip: On your trackpad, swipe with two fingers from right to left, starting outside of the trackpad, to bring up Notification Center.

Managing Notifications

Whether you're using a third party client or the native Twitter support, you can set up how notifications work in the "Notifications" pane in System Preferences.

Twitter Notification Preferences

As you can see, this pane allows you to set your notification style, the number of recent notifications to be shown, the appearance of the badge icon, and the option of whether or not to play a sound for notifications.
The little "Options" button in the bottom right allows you to differentiate between notifications for Mentions and Direct Messages. Currently, this only seems to be present for the native Twitter functionality and not third party apps.

Safari

Perhaps the most important place that you'll find yourself sharing content is from Safari. As we browse the web, we're constantly finding content that we'd like to pass around and Safari 6 inside of Mountain Lion makes this easier than ever.
In Safari, the share button will typically appear to the left of the new Smart Search bar, but you can drag it to any position you like along the top if you hold down the Command key. To view the various sharing options, simply click the button.

Safari's Sharing Options

As you can see, there's more than sharing going on here. You first have two separate bookmarking options: Reading List, which is meant to be temporary, and Bookmark, which is conceptually a more permanent solution for saving a URL.
After this, you really get into the sharing options. You have a choice between sharing via Email, Messages and/or Twitter.

Email this Page

You might think that the email option will launch a new message with a link and a description, but what OS X does is much stranger than that.

Emailing a Web Page

As you can see, Mail attempts to grab the entire web page and embed it into a message. I personally think that this is borderline useless and would greatly prefer a simple link option.

I personally think that this is borderline useless and would greatly prefer a simple link option.

Message

If you click the "Message" button, a Share Sheet pops up automatically inserting the current link into the page. From here you can choose who to send it to and customize the message, complete with emoticons.

Sharing a link with Messages

Twitter

Clicking the Twitter button brings up a Share Sheet similar to the one that we saw in Notification Center. This time there's a fancy little thumbnail effect to indicate that a link to that page will also be present in addition to the text that you type in for the tweet.

Sharing a link with Twitter

My big complaint here is that just about every sharing extension and app that I've ever used automatically inserts the page title into a tweet, which saves you the trouble of typing it out manually. This feature is unfortunately not present in Safari's sharing features.

Finder

Mountain Lion goes beyond sharing links in with Safari, you can also share files right from Finder. Look for the sharing button to the left of the Spotlight search field.

Sharing a File with Finder

As you can see, there are a few more options here that we didn't see before, namely AirDrop and Flickr. It's interesting to note that the Sharing menu is actually adaptive. In the screenshot above, Flickr is present because I have a JPG selected, watch what happens when I select a video:

The Sharing menu adapts to your selection.

As you can see, Flickr has vanished and in its place is Vimeo, Mountain Lion's current and only choice for video sharing.

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Quick Look & Others

I've gone over the main places that you'll find yourself sharing from, but there are various other sharing buttons scattered around OS X as well such as the one in Quick Look:

You'll also find a sharing button in Quick Look.

The bottom line is, any time you want to share something with social media, a Mountain Lion Share Sheet will never be too far away. Always be on the lookout for that symbol or the word "share" in any application that you use.

Go Forth and Share

It seems that social media is here to stay and OS X Mountain Lion embraces that concept fully with a plethora of new sharing options.
Down the road, I'd really like to see these options open up to developers in a similar fashion to Notification Center. It would be nice if specific apps and services could provide support for their product while giving users the option to customize what does and doesn't show up in the share menu. To be honest, I don't see this happening though simply because of Apple's tendency to maintain control over these types of things.
Regardless, the new sharing features in Mountain Lion are definitely a step in the right direction. I'm already so used to them that I'd instantly miss them if they were gone.
What do you think? Are you happy about the new sharing features? What features and services are missing?

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Getting Intimate With Your System Preferences: Personal Settings

by Julia Altermann 

 

Today, we’ll take an in-depth look at the System Preferences. We’ll check out virtually every option and every checkbox so you’ll know where to tweak which settings. If you're a new user who still finds Macs a little intimidating, I think you will be surprised at just how easy it is to change things around.

Part 1 of 4- The Personal settings

At first glance it’s not necessarily apparent, but there’s a lot of power hidden in your System Preferences. We will cover everything there is and split up our in-depth look into several articles here on MacTuts+ to keep it manageable for you.
The first part will cover the section labeled “Personal”, where you can change everything from your desktop wallpaper to your language, date settings and security options.

The System Preferences

I do remember from my dark days - a.k.a. when I was a Windows user - that I never really felt comfortable tweaking settings. I did, mind you, but I usually messed something up while doing so.
The Settings in OSX on the other hand look friendly and each category is represented with a colorful icon.

Your Mac's System Preferences

The five sections each hold a different number of categories; the last section “Other” will only be visible if you actually have a third party application or service installed that lives in the preference pane.

Section: Personal

The “Personal” category holds eight different panes and deals mostly with configuring the user interface, from looks to language to security.

Category: General

The General Section has the most basic settings

As the name implies, the settings you can adjust here apply to pretty much everywhere in OS X. First off are Appearance and Highlight Color. Appearance offers the choice between blue and graphite. What it does is change the colors of the three tiny bubbles in the top left corner of every app window. By default, they are red, yellow and green. Switching to graphite takes the color out and leaves you with grey.

The color of the tiny bubbles on the top left of every window

The label “blue” is a little misleading here and I think something like “color” would make much more sense, but at least now you know.
The highlight color affects every selection you make: text in a word processor, the URL in your browser, an image from a website. Whenever you select anything, it will be highlighted.

Change the highlight color to something you like

There are nine preset colors for highlight colors, but you can pick your own if you select other at the bottom. If you’re more into pink or want to keep it neutral in silver, here’s the place to go.
Next up are the scroll bars and how you interact with them: since Lion, scroll bars have sort of vanished, which led to some confusion early on for switchers and still is the reason for despair among many new Mac users. Rest assured, the scroll bars are still there, you just can’t see them.

Settings for the scroll bars

The first setting in is called Show scrollbars automatically based on input device. You’ll see them if you’re using a mouse or the MacBook’s trackpad, for example. The next, When scrolling, means that the bars will appear - magically - when you start scrolling anywhere. And if you want to go old school, simply check Always and they’ll be there at all times.
Now, let’s assume you’re in a large Pages document or reading a long article in your browser. You quickly want to go to a specific spot. There are two options.

Jump to a certain position by clicking in the scroll bar

Either leave it at the default Jump to the next page, which will take you to another page by default. You will notice it in the browser - it will scroll down just the width of your display, even if it should have gone a lot further down compared to where you clicked.
Now, if you select Jump to the spot that’s clicked it will actually take you there immediately. Even if you keep the next box checked (“Use smooth scrolling”) it will be very fast and you’ll see virtually no animation.
I myself prefer the original setting, but if you happen to work in a large document, maybe your thesis or a documentation you have to throw together for work, the second setting might help you more in getting things done faster.
Another checkbox is de-activated by default: Double-click window’s title bar to minimize. Usually, you’d use the tiny yellow orb in the top left corner of an app’s window. If you’re like me and have trouble hitting it precisely, just check this option to have a much larger target area.
Mashed in here, even though it concerns a completely different area of a window, is the setting for the icon size within the sidebar.
You can chose from three settings - small, medium (default), and large - and those will affect the display in your Finder, for instance. If you have trouble discerning the icons, make them larger. If you put a lot of folders or locations in the sidebar for quick access, you can keep an eye on all of them by shrinking the icon size.

Effect of adjusting the icon size

Next up is a really neat feature that I’ll bet you a lot of experiences Mac users don’t know about and if they do, use too little. It’s called Number of recent items. Wondering what it does? Yeah, you should!
Take a look at your menu bar (the horizontal bar at the very top of your screen, it’s always there). See the Apple to the very left? Click it and then look for “Recent items” and move your cursor over it.

Did you know how useful "Recent Items" could be?

Amazing, isn’t it? All of us who have cursed under our breath (or more pronounced) about having to look for a file we just moved somewhere, maybe indadvertedly - we could’ve had it easy.
So, that’s what this setting is for. You can set something between none and fifty for documents, applications and servers.

Fine tune the settings for recent items

Beneath those three drop downs you’ll spot an inconspicuous checkbox, which was part of a lot of controversy when Lion launched. Restore windows is part of Lion’s Resume feature. In short, it saves the state of a document or window when you quit an app or shut down your Mac.
Say you’ve opened a PDF document in Preview, shut down your Mac and then re-opened Preview. It will launch that same document, even if you quit Preview before shut-down. Now, that feature has its benefits - if your battery gives out on your MacBook, if you had to leave your work space hastily and somebody shut the Mac down - you won’t lose your work, you don’t even need to save it. It will be done for you. That’s incredibly convenient for a lot of users, especially those who are not so tech-savvy (yes, I’m looking at you, mom).
If you, for whatever reason, loathe the feature or need to disable it, here’s the place to do it. Just make sure you do it before you get used to the convenience of not having to save anything.

Tip: Do not confuse this with another setting that appears in your shut down screen called “Reopen windows when logging back in”. This one will remember which windows and apps were open when you shut down; the “Restore windows” will remember the content.

The last two settings concern the display of fonts. The smoothing will make the edges on some font faces smoother, thereby easier to read. You can disable this for small font sizes because they can become too hard to read.

Change the font smoothing options if the defaults don't work for you

Category: Desktop & Screensaver

I guess this is the screen most of you will know since most Mac users change their desktop wallpaper at one time or another. To the left, you can see a pane where you set the source of the wallpapers and the content of those folders is displayed to the right.

Set a nice wallpaper for your desktop background

By default, you will see the “Apple” folder, iPhoto and your default “Pictures” folder. If you click the little plus sign at the bottom of the left pane, you can add any other folder where you stored images.
If you selected an image that is not exactly the resolution of your screen, a drop down option-list will appear.

Adjust the display of wallpapers smaller or bigger than your screen resolution

It will let you select between different settings. Experiment to see the different effects and find the look that you like most.
Below the image preview, there are two checkboxes, the first one labeled Change picture. Once you select it, the drop down next to it will be activated.

Create a background slideshow from your images

In effect, it will create a slideshow of all the images in your currently selected folder and change the images by way of fading in the time-interval you selected. Check “Random Order” and be surprised.
In the Screen Saver tab you can - as the name suggests - change your screen saver. There are quite a few to chose from; additionally pictures and events, faces and places from your iPhoto library can be used for a slideshow.

Set and adjust your screensaver

You can randomize them, add a clock display and show them on the main screen only, meaning that secondary displays won't be affected. Depending on the saver selected, there might be additional options.
Through a slider you can set a time when your screen saver should activate; if your display will go to sleep prior to that, you'll get a warning. The button Hot Corners will be explained a little further down.

Category: Dock

The dock is the bar which is, by default, located at the bottom of your Mac’s screen and which holds all open applications. You can adjust it here.

Tweak your Dock

The size obviously controls the dimension of the dock - if you have a lot of items living in there, you might want to go for smaller. If you only have a handful of apps, go for larger.
The Magnification setting controls how much the items in the dock will grow when you move your mouse over them. That’s pretty much a setting that will differ with the taste of every user.

Magnify your dock items

If you don’t want to have your dock at the bottom of the screen but rather at the left or right (maybe those coming from Windows?), use the Position on screen option.

For fun, hold Shift when clicking the yellow minimize button – it will create slow motion effect.

If you are just annoyed by your dock being present all the time and stealing valuable screen space, jump to the checkboxes at the bottom and make sure Automatically hide and show dock is selected.
If you are not using the dock, it will disappear, but the moment you move your mouse cursor to the bottom (or right and left) of your screen, it will appear again, overlaying whatever reaches to the bottom of your screen.
We left out one setting above which controls the effect with which windows are minimized. By default, the Genie effect is used. Hit the yellow button in any window (top left) and you’ll see how the window becomes less wide at the bottom and is sucked down.
For fun, hold Control when clicking the yellow minimize button - it will create slow motion effect. The alternative is the Scale effect, which simply scales the window down; I personally don’t like it as much, it’s too much fun to watch the Genie effect.
If you’re low on dock space, the Minimize windows into application icon will prevent open, but minimized app windows to clutter your dock. The downside: You won’t see your active windows at first glance.

Minimize windows separately into the dock or into their respective app icon

Animate opening applications will simply add a bounce effect to the icons in the dock while the application is loaded. I had to check that several times - on my new MacBook Air with its SSD it’s almost non visible since apps launch incredibly fast.
Show indicator lights for open applications will add a tiny glowing dot beneath open applications, making it easier for you to see at once if you’ve started an app already.

Category: Mission Control

Mission control gives you an overview of all your open windows, thumbnails of your full-screen applications, and Dashboard, all arranged in a unified way.

If you’ve ever been annoyed by the Dashboard having it’s own space - if you don’t use it or if you sick of seeing it every time you cycle through full screen app windows - simply uncheck the option here.

Tweak your Mission Control settings

To bring up the dashboard anyway, either use the F12 key or on a MacBook, fn+F12.
The next setting might delight the control freaks: Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use does what it says, but if you want your spaces to be in a specific order, disabling this setting will let you take back control.

Arrange your spaces manually or automatically

The last option, When switching to an application… will simply cause you to jump to any open window of that app, no matter in which space it’s in. Disabling it, well, it’s rather confusing. You will have access to applications, but you won’t jump the app’s open windows. To be honest, I can’t think of why you would want that; it will force you to cycle through your spaces manually.
The options summarized in Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts allow you to control certain actions from your keyboard.

Set keyboard shortcuts for actions

There is a wealth of options and you can set the shortcuts you like best and can remember easiest. In effect, you can mimic gesture-behavior with keystrokes; if you’re on an iMac without a trackpad, this will enable you to access Mission Control etc. quickly.
Don’t overlook the inconspicuous button labeled Hot Corners… at the bottom of the window.
It allows you to assign actions to the four corners of your screen. In my example, moving my mouse cursor the the top left will put my display to sleep. You can select a number of options from the drop-down menu for every corner. Leaving it blank will deactivate the corner.

Assign actions to corners of your screen

Category: Language & Text

One of the best things about OS X is the ease with which you can switch your system language. Your Mac comes pre-installed with lots of different languages. Simply drag the one you want to top and boom - your Mac will speak Russian, Spanish or German immediately.

Did you know your Mac spoke a lot of different languages?

If what you’re looking for isn’t there or the list is too stuffed for your taste, hit the Edit List button at the bottom. Here you can select which languages will be shown in the main list.

Check the list for even more languages

It seems, though, that the newest generation Mac have lost the Klingon language. My 2006 Mac actually came with a preset for that. Too bad for the geeks out there.
The other setting in this tab, Order for sorted lists, will affect how items are sorted in the finder. Usually, they are sorted by name or date or another characteristic, but if you select a language here, it can influence the “by name” sorting in the Finder.
The next tab, Text, deals with manipulating and correcting text. There are number of presets for text substitution.

Text and symbol substitution to quickly insert symbols or correct regular typos

So, instead of searching forever for the copyright symbol, simply use the available substitution (c). Have a typo you make often and want automatically corrected, for example the popular “teh” instead of “the”?
Simply hit the plus sign beneath the list and enter the misspelled word and the correct replacement.

Add your own subsitutions

It doesn’t work for you? Keep in mind that you can't use this everywhere by default, but have to enable it for many applications. Unfortunately, it doesn’t say this anywhere, which can be pretty confusing. In Pages, for example, go into the application settings and to the tab Auto-Corrections and check the last check box. In most other apps, you have to go to the Edit menu –> Substitutions and select Text Replacement.

Activate text substitution in any app

Back to our system setting: The checkbox Correct spelling automatically does what it says and Spelling can either be set to a specific language or you’ll let your Mac figure it out along the way (for people who write in more than one language, leave it at the default, it’s pretty good).

Chose a language for the spell check

Word Break will affect how a word is highlighted when it’s double clicked. There seems to be some specifics in certain languages; you can adjust the setting here if you’re not happy with the default. I haven’t really noticed any difference though.
Last, Smart Quotes are also something that differs between languages and purposes. Writers will need different quotes than programmers. In the English language, different quotes are used than in German. If you’ve ever wondered how you can finally set the ones you like, there you go.

You need different quotes? Here you go.

The Formats tab is a pretty important one, but usually you won’t have to do anything here. When you set up your Mac for the very first time, you’ll be asked to select the region you’re from and your system language. Based on those information, the defaults are set.

Adjust date, time and number formats throughout the OS

You should not make any changes here unless you are absolutely sure what you’re doing! You can mess up pretty badly; my mom managed to create her own time zone and calendar and was stuck on 2 February 2012 for about a month until I visited her and figured out what she’d done (and she still denies it).
For all non-western users, the Dates options will allow to select a different type of calendar.

Interesting. Different calendars have different years.

You can actually try that safely; it’s fun to see in which year those other cultures live. Also, if you’d prefer your week to not start on a Monday, change it here.
If you know what you’re doing, hit the Customize button and create a custom date format. There are some presets which will help you understand just what goes where.

Create a new date format, if you dare

The Times section allows you to change the time format, but not the time itself (there’s another setting for that).

As with the date, you can also create a new time format

Numbers is a preset that depends on your language setting; if you are like me using a different language from the region your are in, it may be that those settings are not what you need. For example, the decimal and thousand separator are reversed in Germany compared to the United States. Since I’ve selected English as my system language, it always presents me with the wrong separators (try prepping your taxes in a Numbers file - it will drive you nuts). This is the place to adjust the setting.

Adjust the number and currency separators

At the very bottom, you can select the applicable Currency and Measurement units, depending on where you live.

Currency change or need a new measurement unit?

The last tab deals with Input Sources. Obviously, you have your keyboard, but what if you need a different layout from the physical one? Many German programmers, for example, prefer the US keyboard layout because a lot of special characters needed for coding are more easily accessible. And a lot of professional writers will prefer the DVORAK layout because it allows for even faster typing.

Need another keyboard layout. There a few to chose from

You can select the keyboard layout you want here, but you of course you have to know it because it will not change the labeling of your actual keys.
If you need special characters often, you can have the Keyboard & Character Viewer shown in the menu bar (for you heavy users of emoticons, this is great!)

This is what the character viewer can do for you

Category: Security & Privacy

Be aware: If you want to make any changes in this category, you need to unlock the settings by clicking on the lock icon in the lower left and entering your password.
Here are some settings that will allow you to keep your data safer. The General tab alone is pretty nifty, even if you don’t see it at first. If you’ve said a login password for a user, you can change it here.

General security settings

If you are using your Mac at home alone, you might want to uncheck the Require password for sleep… box - it will just annoy you after a while. If you carry your Mac with you, you should leave this box checked and set a time of your liking after which you’ll be prompted to provide your credentials.
Show a message… is actually something pretty useful - or funny, depending on your intentions. Imagine forgetting your Mac in a Starbucks or some other place. Thanks to your password, someone who finds it cannot log in, but also not find out how to return it to you since they don’t get any information about you.
Setting a Lock Message may help in this case: you can enter your contact information (name, email, phone number), promise a reward. Or, if you want to mess with your colleagues at work, set a funny saying or quote to pull their leg.

Enter a lock message to either inform or amuse

Disabling automatic login means that you have to enter your password every time you wake your Mac from sleep or power it up. Again, if you are only using it at home alone, you might not need it. As soon as others have access to your Mac or you carry it with you, you should make sure this box is checked.
At the bottom of this window you can access advanced settings. It’s pretty self-explanatory.

Advanced security settings

The most noticeable setting I bet most of you didn’t know about is the last one: Disable restarting Safari when screen is locked. So, let’s assume you might have been browsing for a birthday present for your significant other, who suddenly appeared. You quickly close your Mac, but then have to log in with the significant other still hovering around. How can you make sure he or she won’t see anything? Well, with this setting Safari won’t be visible when you start up again, even if it was open last.
FileVault is up next. That’s an entire chapter onto itself and we will cover it separately here on MacTuts+ because it’s much to complex to just summarize it here in a few sentences. If you want to use FileVault, here’s the place to activate it.

Enable FileVault

Firewall manages the incoming connections to your computer. By turning it on, you can prevent unauthorized access by apps and other services.

Activate your Firewall

There are some settings which allow you to tweak the standard “On” feature. If you opt for Block all incoming connections, pretty much everything won’t be allowed. The downside is that File Sharing and Screen Sharing (from the Sharing preferences) won’t work either.
If you want to fine-tune which applications are allowed incoming connections, you can add them in the next window and set the status to their “Allow” or “Deny”.

Tweak your firewall settings

The “signed” software mentioned in the next checkbox are apps that have a valid certificate (by some authority recognized by Apple) and which will be allowed automatically without you having to validate them manually.
The Stealth Mode will basically force your Mac to play dead to probing requests like Pings. If you have no idea what this means, don’t worry about it. The default settings are pretty safe.
Last up is the Privacy tab. There are two features in there: you can opt in to Send diagnostic & usage data to Apple. It will help Apple to improve on its products, but if you are concerned about safety, leave the checkbox off.

Allow or deny sending of private information

The other side of the window deals with Location Services. Again, if you are concerned with privacy, disable them by unchecking the box. If they are enabled, you’ll see a list of applications which access your location settings.

Category: Spotlight

An underused feature on almost every Mac is Spotlight. You might not like it a lot, but it can help you find things quickly. It’s located in the top right of your menu bar (the loupe icon) or can be called up from anywhere with the keyboard shortcut Command-Space.

Spotlight search from the desktop

Entering a term will bring up apps, documents, emails and web searches that match it. You can fine-tune what will be searched in the system preferences.

Adjust the content which will be searched by Spotlight

You can also adjust the keyboard shortcut here as well the shortcut that will let you all up a separate Spotlight window instead of just the search bar.
If you have sensitive information on your Mac that you don’t want to include in Spotlight’s search, you can ban locations in the Privacy tab. Drag folders or locations there or use the plus button to add them.

Ban content from being searched by Spotlight

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Category: Universal Access

For those users who have difficulty seeing or hearing, Universal Access comes to aid. The first tab, Seeing, deals with helping to read content.

Universal Access panel

Voice Over will activate speech support which will speak descriptions of the items on your screen. In the utility settings, there are a large number of settings you can adjust to your needs.

Voice Over speaks to you

In the Verbosity section, you can set just how much information will be read to you, with High providing the most detailed and Low providing the least information.

Verbosiy settings allow you to define just how much you want to be read to you

For those with serious sight impairment, the Braille settings cover the same thing as Verbosity, but the output will be a Braille keyboard.
The Text setting lets you tweak just how text is read to you: do you want every punctuation read to you? Do you want numbers to be read as digits or words?
Announcement will, for example, let you know when your mouse enters a window, when a modifier key is pressed - basically, Announcement is about events and you can set it up here.
The last tab, Hints, works similarly.
There are a lot more settings here; Speech, keyboard navigation, web behavior, sound and so on which each often have sub-categories of settings as well. I think it’s safe to assume that Apple tries to make sure that even if you are visually impaired, your experience with a Mac will be a pleasant one.
This was just the Voice Over settings. There’s also Zoom, which will enlarge your current window. Additional settings allow you to tweak the feature to make it best suit your needs.
The Hearing tab of the Universal Access category is aimed at those users who won’t hear any notifications. You can have your screen flash instead.

Having hearing problems? These settings will help you interact better with your Mac

Keyboard is for those who have difficulties pressing more than one key at the same time. The feature Sticky Keys will treat a sequence of modifier keys (Command, Alt, etc.) as a combination.

Adjust the keyboard settings if your motor skills are impaired

Also, you will notice Use click sounds if you need an acoustic assurance of your typing, you can enable this feature and it will sound just like a typewriter. (Fun notice: if you are typing really fast, try it too. It will become annoying after a while, but it’s fun to hear your typing speed.)
The last tab deals with Mouse & Trackpad. You can disable Mouse Keys and adjust the trackpad and mouse options.

Assistive Support for Mouse and Trackpad

Troubleshooting: If you’re unable to type and letters or symbols or numbers and you’re using a keyboard that has no numeric keypad (just the numbers in one block) or Num Lock key (as is the case with most portable Macs), you might have accidentally activated the Mouse Keys. Simply click your way into this setting and deactivate them.

That’s a Wrap!

Phew, you are still here? That was a lot of information to digest, but it also was just one single section of the system preferences. Now you know everything there is to know about all the Personal settings and how to tweak them to what effect.
In the following weeks, we will continue this series by covering all the other sections in as much detail as we did here. Hope to see you there!

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