iMac first steps for dummies - guide to MacOsX Mavericks (part 2)

One feature of MacOsX that can be confusing for those who are used to Windows, is that when closing your current application window, it does not close the program as it does in Windows. Rather, the program will remain active in the background.An open, active application in the Dock is marked by a white dot beneath the application icon.  To actually close an application, you can either right-click its icon and select Quit or close it from the Activity Monitor.


You can open up the Activity Monitor from Applications/Utilities (Applications is a light blue folder with an A on it on the bottom right of your screen). It shows you a list of the open applications (Fig. 1) and from there you can kill the ones you don't need by clicking the X button and selecting Quit (or Force Quit if an application doesn't respond). On the top left of your screen, you will see an Apple icon. To the right of it is the menu of the application active at the moment. On the top far right of your screen are the icons corresponding to Time machine, Bluetooth, wi-Fi and sound. The current date and time, the computer name and Spotlight complete the Menu Bar.

Fig. 1 (Click to enlarge)

At the very bottom of the screen we find the Dock, which can be divided into two parts.
To the left part of the slash, or dividing line, are the icons of some of the most used programs and some important system tools, which would be the equivalent of your Windows desktop shortcut icons. To the right of the slash, or dividing line, are the shortcuts to Documents, Downloads and Applications folders and the Trash bin. You can add a shortcut to another folder by dragging it to the right part of the Dock; it can be displayed as a folder or as a stack.

The Dock (Click to enlarge)

Launchpad (the icon on the bottom left with the rocket on it) gives you an overview of the most used applications and allows you to look for them in the search box. 

Launchpad (Click to enlarge)

Mission Control (Click to enlarge)

Then we have Mission control, just to the right of the launchpad. It gives the user an overview of the applications and documents currently open as separate virtual desktops. To access Mission control you can click its icon or press F3 on your keyboard.  

Time Machine (Click to enlarge)

Another important System tool is Time Machine, a MacOS backup utility.  Time Machine schedules automatic backups and users can exclude or add folders by clicking on Options.





The most important system tool is System Preferences (the icon with the gears - the equivalent of the Control Panel in Windows).  I am only going to deal with some of the more  important system settings.

Language & Region handles the language and timezone preferences. You can change the default primary language installed. To do this, if the language you want as primary isn't already present in the list, you have to add it pressing the "+" button,  selecting the language you want and clicking the Add button. After this, you need to drag the language chosen as primary on top of the list (Fig. 2).

Another important tool is Security and Privacy. In the General tab you can disable the automatic login requiring a password to access the system and you can allow the installation of apps from sources other than the App Store and identified developers.

You can enable Apple firewall (by default it's disabled) to have better protection against external threats.

Security settings (Click to enlarge)

Changing language (Click to enlarge)

MacOsX implements a robust security system because you need to enter an administrative password (it's up to you to create it) to install any software or to perform any substantial modification to the system.

 Stick around for the final part of this guide.

Go to part 3


Back to part 1