Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 3
Icons Used in This Book 3
Beyond the Book 4
Where to Go from Here 4
Part 1: macOS Basics 5
Chapter 1: macOS High Sierra 101 (Prerequisites: None) 7
Gnawing to the Core of macOS 8
A Safety Net for the Absolute Beginner (or Any User) 10
Turning the dang thing on 10
What you should see on startup 11
Shutting down properly 13
A few things you should definitely not do with your Mac 15
Point-and-click boot camp 16
Not Just a Beatles Movie: Help and the Help Menu 18
Chapter 2: Desktop and Windows and Menus (Oh My!) 23
Touring Finder and Its Desktop 24
Anatomy of a Window 25
Top o the window to ya! 27
A scroll new world 29
(Hyper)active windows 30
Dialog Dealie-Boppers 32
Working with Windows 34
Opening and closing windows 34
Resizing windows and window panes 35
Moving windows 35
Shuffling windows 36
Menu Basics 39
The ever-changing menu bar 39
Contextual menus: Theyre sooo contextual! 40
Recognizing disabled options 41
Navigating submenus 42
Under the Apple menu tree 42
Using keyboard shortcut commands 44
Chapter 3: Whats Up, Dock? 45
A Quick Introduction to Your Dock 46
The default icons of the dock 46
Trash talkin 49
Opening application menus on the dock 51
Reading dock icon body language 53
Opening files from the dock 53
Customizing Your Dock 54
Adding dock icons 54
Removing an icon from the dock 56
Resizing the dock 57
What should you put on your dock? 57
Setting your dock preferences 59
Part 2: How Stuff Works 63
Chapter 4: Delving Deeper into Finder and Its Desktop 65
Introducing Finder and Its Minions: The Desktop and Icons 65
Introducing the desktop 66
Bellying up to the toolbar 68
Figuring out what an icon is 71
Identifying your Finder icons in the wild 72
Aliases Are Awesome! 73
Creating aliases 74
Deleting aliases 75
Hunting down an aliass parent 75
The View(s) from a Window 76
Moving through folders fast in Column view 76
Perusing in Icon view 78
Listless? Try touring folders in List view 78
You gotta go with the flow 80
Whats next on the (View) menu? 81
Finder on the Menu 82
The actual Finder menu 82
Like a road map: The current folders pop-up menu 85
Going places with the Go menu 86
Customizing Finder Windows 88
Adding folders to the sidebar 88
Setting Finder preferences 89
Digging for Icon Data in the Info Window 92
Chapter 5: Having It Your Way 97
Introducing System Preferences 97
Putting a Picture on the Desktop 100
Setting Up a Screen Saver 101
Putting Widgets on the Dashboard 103
Translation 105
Flight Tracker 105
Giving Buttons, Menus, and Windows a Makeover 106
Adjusting the Keyboard, Mouse, Trackpad, and Other Hardware 109
Keyboard 109
Mouse 114
Bluetooth 115
Trackpad (notebooks and desktops with a Magic Trackpad) 116
Styling Your Sound 117
Changing sound effects 118
Choosing output and input options 118
Chapter 6: The Care and Feeding of Files and Folders 119
A Quick Primer on Finding Files 120
Understanding the macOS Folder Structure 120
Understanding nested folders 121
From the top: The Computer folder 123
Peeking into the Applications folder 123
Visiting the Library folders 124
Let it be: The System folder 125
Theres no place like Home 125
Your personal library card 127
Saving Your Document Before Its Too Late 129
Stepping through a basic save 131
Save As versus Duplicate: Different names for the same result 136
Open, Sez Me 138
With drag-and-drop 139
With a Quick Look 140
When your Mac cant open a file 140
With the application of your choice 141
Organizing Your Stuff in Folders 143
Files versus folders 144
Organizing your stuff with subfolders 144
Creating new folders 146
Navigating with spring-loaded folders 147
Smart folders 148
Shuffling Files and Folders 150
Moving files and folders 150
Selecting multiple icons 151
Playing the icon name game: Renaming icons 153
Compressing files 154
Getting rid of icons 154
The Incredible iCloud Drive 155
Chapter 7: Comprehending the macOS Clipboard 157
Introducing the Clipboard 157
Copying Files and Folders 158
Pasting from the Clipboard 160
High Sierras Universal Clipboard 160
Part 3: Getting Things Done 163
Chapter 8: Four Terrific Timesaving Tools 165
With a Quick Look 166
Share and share alike with the Share menu 168
Slide into Slideshow (full-screen) mode 169
Spotlight on Finding Files and Folders Faster 169
Using the search box in Finder windows 170
Using the Spotlight menu and window 172
Blast Off with Mission Control 173
The Mission Control pane: Its painless 173
Hot corners! 176
Mission Controls Spaces from 30,000 feet (an overview) 177
Getting around in space(s) 179
Launchpad: The Place for Applications 180
Chapter 9: Organizing Your Life183
Keeping Track with Calendar 184
Navigating Calendar views 184
Creating calendars 185
Deleting a calendar 186
Creating and managing events 187
Reminders: Protection Against Forgetting 190
Getting started with Reminders 190
To do or not to do: Setting reminders 191
Everything You Need to Know about Notification Center 192
Use Notes for Making Notes 195
Chapter 10: Siri-ously! 199
What Siri Can Do for You 199
Working with Siri 201
Making Siri Your Own 202
Chapter 11: Maps Are Where Its At 205
Finding your current location with Maps 205
Finding a person, place, or thing 206
Views, zooms, and pans 208
Maps and Contacts 209
Timesaving map tools: Favorites, Recents, and Contacts 210
Smart map tricks 212
Part 4: Getting Along with Others 217
Chapter 12: (Inter)Networking 219
Getting Connected to the Internet 220
Your Internet service provider and you 220
Plugging in your Internet-connection settings 221
Browsing the Web with Safari 223
Owning your toolbar 224
Using the Safari sidebar 226
Using the terrific Top Sites page 230
Searching with Google 231
Checking out Help Center 233
Audio and Video Calls with FaceTime 233
Chapter 13: Dealing with People 237
Collecting Your Contacts 237
Adding contacts 238
Importing contacts from other programs 240
Creating a basic group 241
Setting up a smart group (based on contact criteria) 242
Deleting a group or smart group 243
The view is lovely 243
Sync + Contacts = your contacts everywhere 244
Chapter 14: Communicating with Mail and Messages 247
Sending and Receiving Email with Mail 247
Setting up Mail 248
A quick overview of the toolbar 249
Composing a new message 251
Sending email from the Contacts app 253
Working with stationery 254
Checking your mail 256
Dealing with spam 257
Mailboxes smart and plain 258
Changing your preferences 260
Sign here, please 261
Mail rules rule 262
Markup and Mail Drop 265
Communicating with Messages 267
What the heck is an iMessage? 267
Chit-chatting with Messages 268
Chapter 15: Sharing Your Mac and Liking It 271
Introducing Networks and File Sharing 272
Portrait of home office networking 273
Three ways to build a network 274
Setting Up File Sharing 277
Access and Permissions: Who Can Do What 279
Users and groups and guests 279
Creating users 280
macOS knows best: Folders shared by default 287
Sharing a folder or disk by setting permissions 288
Useful settings for permissions 292
Unsharing a folder 294
Connecting to a Shared Disk or Folder on a Remote Mac 295
Changing Your Password 298
Changing your account password on your Mac 299
Changing the password of any account but your own on your Mac 300
Changing the password for your account on someone elses Mac 300
More Types of Sharing 301
Sharing a screen 301
Sharing the Internet 302
And yet more ways to share 303
Part 5: Getting Creative 305
Chapter 16: The Musical Mac 307
Apple Music and iTunes Match Rock! 308
Introducing iTunes 309
Working with Media 312
Adding songs 312
Adding movies and TV shows 314
Adding podcasts 315
Learning from iTunes U 317
Listening to iTunes Radio 317
All about Playlists 318
Creating a regular playlist 318
Working with smart playlists 320
Burning a playlist to CD 321
Looking at the Genius playlist 321
Chapter 17: The Multimedia Mac 325
Playing Movies and Music in QuickTime Player 325
iBooks on the Mac 327
Buying iBooks 328
Shopping for books without Apple 330
Reading iBooks 331
Youre the Star with Photo Booth 333
Viewing and Converting Images and PDFs in Preview 334
Importing Media 336
Downloading photos from a camera 336
Downloading DV video from a camcorder 339
Chapter 18: Words and Letters 341
Processing Words with TextEdit 341
Creating and composing a document 342
Working with text 343
Adding graphics to documents 347
Font Mania 348
Types of fonts 348
Managing your fonts with Font Book 349
Installing fonts manually 350
Chapter 19: Publish or Perish: The Fail-Safe Guide to Printing 351
Before Diving In 352
Ready: Connecting and Adding Your Printer 352
Connecting your printer 353
Setting up a printer for the first time 353
One last thing: Printer sharing 356
Set: Setting Up Your Document with Page Setup 356
Print: Printing with the Print Sheet 358
Printing a document 358
Choosing among different printers 359
Choosing custom settings 360
Saving custom settings 362
Preview and PDF Options 363
Part 6: Care and Feeding365
Chapter 20: Features for the Way You Work 367
Talking and Listening to Your Mac 367
Keyboard System Preferences pane: You talk and your Mac types 368
Commanding your Mac by voice 369
Listening to your Mac read for you 371
Automatic Automation 374
Script Editor app: Write and edit AppleScripts 374
Automator app: Automate almost anything 376
A Few More Useful Goodies 378
App Store app: The place to buy Mac apps 378
Accessibility System Preferences pane: Make your Mac more accessible 379
Energy Saver System Preferences pane: For energy conservation and sleep 380
Bluetooth System Preferences pane: Where Bluetooth lives 382
Ink System Preferences pane: Visible to pen-input tablet users only 382
Automatic Login in the Users& Groups System Preferences pane: Dont bother with the login screen 383
Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac 383
Boot Camp Assistant app: Run Windows on your Mac really 384
AirPlay mirroring 384
Handoff 385
Chapter 21: Safety First: Backups and Other Security Issues 387
Backing Up Is (Not) Hard to Do 388
Backing up with High Sierras excellent Time Machine 388
Backing up by using the manual, brute-force method 392
Backing up by using commercial backup software 393
Why You Need Two Sets of Backups 393
Non-Backup Security Concerns 394
About viruses and other malware 394
Firewall: Yea or nay? 397
Install recommended software updates 398
Protecting Your Data from Prying Eyes 399
Blocking or limiting connections 399
Locking down files with FileVault 399
Setting other options for security 400
Chapter 22: Utility Chest403
Calculator 403
Activity Monitor 404
Disk Utility 406
First Aid button 406
Partition button 407
Erase button 407
Mount/Unmount button 407
Info button 408
Grab 408
Grapher 408
Keychain Access 409
Migration Assistant 411
System Information 411
Terminal 412
Chapter 23: Troubleshooting macOS 413
About Startup Disks and Booting 413
Finding or creating a startup disk 414
They call it a prohibitory sign for a reason 414
Recovering with Recovery HD 416
Step 1: Run First Aid 416
Step 2: Safe boot into Safe mode 417
Step 3: Zapping the PRAM/NVRAM 418
Step 4: Reinstalling macOS 419
Step 5: Things to try before taking your Mac in for repair 419
If Your Mac Crashes at Startup 420
Optimizing Storage 421
Part 7: The Part of Tens 423
Chapter 24: Ten (or So) Ways to Speed Up Your Mac Experience 425
Use Those Keyboard Shortcuts 426
Improve Your Typing Skills 427
Resolution: Its Not Just for New Years Day Anymore 427
A Mac with a View and Preferences, Too 429
Get a New, Faster Model 431
You Can Never Have Too Much RAM! 431
Get an Accelerated Graphics Card 432
Get a Solid-State Drive (SSD) 433
Get a New Hybrid Drive 433
Chapter 25: Ten Great Websites for Mac Freaks 437
The Mac Observer 437
Macworld 438
TidBITS 438
AppleWorld.Today 439
Download.com 439
Alltop 440
Apple Support 441
Other World Computing 441
EveryMac.com 442
dealmac 442
Index 445
