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iMac For Dummies
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iMac For Dummies
by Mark L. Chambers
iMac For Dummies, 8th Edition
Introduction
Introduction
Foolish Assumptions
About This Book
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I: Know Your iMac
Chapter 1: Okay, This Machine Looks Really, Really Weird
An Introduction to the Beast
Major parts of your major appliance
Important Hidden Stuff
Choosing a Home for Your New Pet
Picking the right location
Considering the convenience factor
Unpacking and Connecting
Unpacking your iMac For Dummies
Connecting cables like a true nerd
Discovering All the Cool Things You Can Do
What software do I get?
Looking forward to fun on the Internet
Applications that rock
Would you like to play a game?
Stuff You Oughta Buy Right Now
Chapter 2: Life! Give My iMac Life!
Throwing the Big Leaf Switch
Mark’s Favorite Signs of a Healthy iMac
Harriet, It’s Already Asking Me Questions!
Setting up OS X Mavericks
Registering your iMac
Importing Documents and Data from Your Old Mac
Manually Importing Documents and Data from Windows
Chapter 3: Introducing the Apple of Your iMac
A Quick Tour of the Premises
The Mavericks Desktop
What’s going on underneath?
Similarities with that Windows behemoth
Calling for Help
The Mavericks built-in Help Center
The Apple web-based support center
Magazines
Mac support websites
Local Mac user groups
Part II: Shaking Hands with Mac OS X
Chapter 4: Opening and Closing and Clicking and Such
Working within the Finder
Pointing in a Mac World
Launching and Quitting for the Lazy iMac Owner
Juggling Folders and Icons
A field observer’s guide to icons
Selecting items
Copying items
Moving things from place to place
Duplicating in a jiffy
Keys and Keyboard Shortcuts to Fame and Fortune
Special keys on the keyboard
Using Finder and application keyboard shortcuts
Performing Tricks with Finder Windows
Scrolling in and resizing windows
Minimizing and restoring windows
Moving and zooming windows
Closing windows
Using Finder Tabs
Chapter 5: A Plethora of Powerful Fun
Home, Sweet Home Folder
Arranging Your Desktop
Putting the Dock to the Test
Adding Dock icons
Removing Dock icons
Using Dock icon menus
What’s with the Trash?
Working Magic with Dashboard, Mission Control, and Spaces
Using Dashboard
Switching between apps with Mission Control
Switching between desktops with Spaces
Printing within OS X
Chapter 6: A Nerd’s Guide to System Preferences
A Not-So-Confusing Introduction
Searching for Settings
Popular Preference Panes Explained
The Displays pane
The Desktop & Screen Saver pane
The Mission Control pane
The General pane
The Energy Saver pane
The Dock pane
The Sharing pane
The Time Machine pane
Chapter 7: Searching amidst iMac Chaos
Doing a Basic Search
How Cool Is That!? Discovering What Spotlight Can Do
Expanding Your Search Horizons
Customizing Spotlight to Your Taste
Chapter 8: Using Reminders, Notes, and Notifications
Remind Me to Use Reminders
Taking Notes the Mavericks Way
Staying Current with Notification Center
Chapter 9: Keeping Track with Contacts and Maps
Hey, Isn’t Contacts Just a Part of Mail?
Entering Contact Information
Using Contact Information
Arranging Your Contact Cards
Using Network Directories
Printing Contacts with Flair
Swapping Bytes with vCards
Introducing the Maps Window
Switching Views in Maps
Getting Directions over Yonder
Part III: Connecting and Communicating
Chapter 10: Going Places with Safari
Pretend You’ve Never Used This Thing
Visiting Websites
Navigating the Web
Setting Up Your Home Page
Adding and Using Bookmarks
Working with the Reading List and Shared Links
Saving pages for later with the Reading List
Visiting pages recommended by friends
Downloading Files
Using Subscriptions and History
Tabs Are Your Browsing Friends
Printing Web Pages
Protecting Your Privacy
Yes, there are such things as bad cookies
Cleaning your cache
Banishing pesky iCloud Keychain passwords
Handling ancient history
Setting notifications
Avoiding those @*!^%$ pop-up ads
Chapter 11: Expanding Your Horizons with iCloud
So How Does iCloud Work, Anyway?
Saving and Opening iCloud Documents
Configuring iCloud
Chapter 12: Hooking Up with Handy Helpers
Connecting Printers
USB printers
Network printers
Connecting Scanners
Using Photo Booth
Conversing with FaceTime
Turning Your iMac into a TV — And More
Part IV: Living the iLife
Chapter 13: The Multimedia Joy of iTunes
What Can I Play on iTunes?
Playing an Audio CD
Playing Digital Audio and Video
Browsing the Library
Finding songs in your Music Library
Removing old music from the Library
Watching video
Keeping Slim Whitman and Slim Shady Apart: Organizing with Playlists
Know Your Songs
Setting the song information automatically
Setting or changing song information manually
Ripping Audio Files
Tweaking the Audio for Your Ears
A New Kind of Radio Station
Internet radio
Tuning in your own stations
Radio stations in your playlists
Creating a custom iTunes Radio station
iTunes and iCloud Together
iSending iStuff to iPod, iPhone, and iPad
Sharing Media across a Network
Burning Music to Shiny Plastic Circles
Feasting on iTunes Visuals
Exercising Parental Authority
Buying Digital Media the Apple Way
Chapter 14: The Masterpiece That Is iPhoto
Delving into iPhoto
Working with Images in iPhoto
Import Images 101
Organize mode: Organizing and sorting your images
Edit mode: Removing and fixing stuff the right way
Producing Your Own Coffee-Table Masterpiece
Putting Photo Stream to Work
E-Mailing Photos to Aunt Mildred
Chapter 15: Making Film History with iMovie
Shaking Hands with the iMovie Window
A Bird’s-Eye View of Moviemaking
Importing the Building Blocks
Pulling in video clips
Making use of still images
Importing and adding audio from all sorts of places
Building the Cinematic Basics
Adding clips to your movie
Marking clips
Removing clips from your movie
Reordering clips in your movie
Editing clips in iMovie
Transitions for the masses
Even Gone with the Wind had titles
Adding maps and backgrounds
Creating an Honest-to-Goodness Movie Trailer
Sharing Your Finished Classic with Others
Chapter 16: Recording Your Hits with GarageBand
Shaking Hands with Your Band
Composing Made Easy
Adding tracks
Choosing loops
Resizing, repeating, and moving loops
Using the Arrangement track
Tweaking the settings for a track
Sharing Your Songs
Creating song files and ringtones in iTunes
Exporting a project
Burning an audio CD
Part V: Getting Productive with iWork and Other Tools
Chapter 17: Desktop Publishing with Pages
Creating a New Pages Document
Open an Existing Pages Document
Saving Your Work
Touring the Pages Window
Entering and Editing Text
Using Text and Graphics Boxes
The Three Amigos: Cut, Copy, and Paste
Cutting stuff
Copying text and images
Pasting from the Clipboard
Formatting Text the Easy Way
Adding a Spiffy Table
Adding Alluring Photos
Adding a Background Shape
Are You Sure about That Spelling?
Printing Your Pages Documents
Sharing That Poster with Others
Chapter 18: Creating Spreadsheets with Numbers
Before You Launch Numbers …
Creating a New Numbers Document
Opening an Existing Spreadsheet File
Save Those Spreadsheets!
Exploring the Numbers Window
Navigating and Selecting Cells in a Spreadsheet
Entering and Editing Data in a Spreadsheet
Selecting the Correct Number Format
Aligning Cell Text Just So
Formatting with Shading
Inserting and Deleting Rows and Columns
The Formula Is Your Friend
Adding Visual Punch with a Chart
Chapter 19: Building Presentations with Keynote
Creating a New Keynote Project
Opening a Keynote Presentation
Saving Your Presentation
Putting Keynote to Work
Adding Slides
Working with Text and Graphics Boxes
Adding and Editing Slide Text
Formatting Slide Text for the Perfect Look
Using Presenter’s Notes in Your Project
Every Good Presentation Needs Media
Adding a Background Shape
Creating Your Keynote Slideshow
Printing Your Slides and Notes
Chapter 20: Creating a Multiuser iMac
Once Upon a Time (An Access Fairy Tale)
Big-Shot Administrator Stuff
Deciding who needs what access
Adding users
Modifying user accounts
I banish thee, Mischievous User!
Setting up Login Items and Parental Controls
Multiuser Rules for Everyone
Logging on and off in Mavericks For Dummies
Interesting stuff about sharing stuff
Encrypting your hard drive can be fun
Chapter 21: Building (Or Joining) a Network
What, Exactly, Is the Network Advantage?
The Great Debate: Wired versus Wireless
Sharing Internet Access
Using your iMac as a sharing device
Using a dedicated Internet sharing device
What Do You Need to Connect?
Wireless connections
Wired connections
Connecting to the Network
Sharing stuff nicely with others
USE YOUR FIREWALL!
Part VI: The Necessary Evils: Troubleshooting, Upgrading, Maintaining
Chapter 22: It Just . . . Sits . . . There
Can You Troubleshoot? Yes, You Can!
Basic Troubleshooting 101
The Number One Rule: Reboot!
Special keys that can come in handy
All hail Disk Utility, the troubleshooter’s friend
Mark’s iMac Troubleshooting Tree
Okay, I Kicked It, and It Still Won’t Work
Apple Help Online
Local service, at your service
Chapter 23: I Want to Add Stuff
More Memory Will Help
Figuring out how much memory you have
Installing memory modules
Can I Upgrade My Hard Drive?
Consider your external options
Gotta have internal
Weighing Attractive Add-Ons
Game controllers
Hard drive arrays
Video controllers
Audio hardware
Chapter 24: Tackling the Housekeeping
Cleaning Unseemly Data Deposits
Getting dirty (or, cleaning things the manual way)
Using a commercial cleanup tool
Backing Up Your Treasure
Saving Files
Backing up to an external hard drive
Backing up to CD and DVD
Putting Things Right with Time Machine
Maintaining Hard Drive Health
Automating Those Mundane Chores
Creating an application in Automator
Running applications at startup
Updating OS X Automatically
Part VII: The Part of Tens
Chapter 25: Ten Ways to Speed Up Your iMac
Nothing Works Like a Shot of Memory
Hold a Conversation with Your iMac
Vamoose, Unwanted Fragments!
Keep Your Desktop Background Simple
Column Mode Is for Power Users
Make the Dock Do Your Bidding
It All Started with Keyboard Shortcuts
Hey, You Tweaked Your Finder!
Keep in Touch with Your Recent Past
Go Where the Going Is Good
Chapter 26: Ten Things to Avoid Like the Plague
Keep Things Cool
Phishing Is No Phun
Don’t Rely on a Single Password
Do You Really Want a Submerged Keyboard?
Don’t Use Antiquated Utility Software
Don’t Endorse Software Piracy
Call It the Forbidden Account
Don’t Settle for a Surge Suppressor
Refurbished Hardware Is No Deal at All
iMacs Appreciate iCleanliness
About the Author
Cheat Sheet
More Dummies Products
Search in book...
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Introduction
iMac For Dummies
Visit
www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/imac
to view this book's cheat sheet.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Foolish Assumptions
About This Book
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I: Know Your iMac
Chapter 1: Okay, This Machine Looks Really, Really Weird
An Introduction to the Beast
Major parts of your major appliance
Important Hidden Stuff
Choosing a Home for Your New Pet
Picking the right location
Considering the convenience factor
Unpacking and Connecting
Unpacking your iMac For Dummies
Connecting cables like a true nerd
Discovering All the Cool Things You Can Do
What software do I get?
Looking forward to fun on the Internet
Applications that rock
Would you like to play a game?
Stuff You Oughta Buy Right Now
Chapter 2: Life! Give My iMac Life!
Throwing the Big Leaf Switch
Mark’s Favorite Signs of a Healthy iMac
Harriet, It’s Already Asking Me Questions!
Setting up OS X Mavericks
Registering your iMac
Importing Documents and Data from Your Old Mac
Manually Importing Documents and Data from Windows
Chapter 3: Introducing the Apple of Your iMac
A Quick Tour of the Premises
The Mavericks Desktop
What’s going on underneath?
Similarities with that Windows behemoth
Calling for Help
The Mavericks built-in Help Center
The Apple web-based support center
Magazines
Mac support websites
Local Mac user groups
Part II: Shaking Hands with Mac OS X
Chapter 4: Opening and Closing and Clicking and Such
Working within the Finder
Pointing in a Mac World
Launching and Quitting for the Lazy iMac Owner
Juggling Folders and Icons
A field observer’s guide to icons
Selecting items
Copying items
Moving things from place to place
Duplicating in a jiffy
Keys and Keyboard Shortcuts to Fame and Fortune
Special keys on the keyboard
Using Finder and application keyboard shortcuts
Performing Tricks with Finder Windows
Scrolling in and resizing windows
Minimizing and restoring windows
Moving and zooming windows
Closing windows
Using Finder Tabs
Chapter 5: A Plethora of Powerful Fun
Home, Sweet Home Folder
Arranging Your Desktop
Putting the Dock to the Test
Adding Dock icons
Removing Dock icons
Using Dock icon menus
What’s with the Trash?
Working Magic with Dashboard, Mission Control, and Spaces
Using Dashboard
Switching between apps with Mission Control
Switching between desktops with Spaces
Printing within OS X
Chapter 6: A Nerd’s Guide to System Preferences
A Not-So-Confusing Introduction
Searching for Settings
Popular Preference Panes Explained
The Displays pane
The Desktop & Screen Saver pane
The Mission Control pane
The General pane
The Energy Saver pane
The Dock pane
The Sharing pane
The Time Machine pane
Chapter 7: Searching amidst iMac Chaos
Doing a Basic Search
How Cool Is That!? Discovering What Spotlight Can Do
Expanding Your Search Horizons
Customizing Spotlight to Your Taste
Chapter 8: Using Reminders, Notes, and Notifications
Remind Me to Use Reminders
Taking Notes the Mavericks Way
Staying Current with Notification Center
Chapter 9: Keeping Track with Contacts and Maps
Hey, Isn’t Contacts Just a Part of Mail?
Entering Contact Information
Using Contact Information
Arranging Your Contact Cards
Using Network Directories
Printing Contacts with Flair
Swapping Bytes with vCards
Introducing the Maps Window
Switching Views in Maps
Getting Directions over Yonder
Part III: Connecting and Communicating
Chapter 10: Going Places with Safari
Pretend You’ve Never Used This Thing
Visiting Websites
Navigating the Web
Setting Up Your Home Page
Adding and Using Bookmarks
Working with the Reading List and Shared Links
Saving pages for later with the Reading List
Visiting pages recommended by friends
Downloading Files
Using Subscriptions and History
Tabs Are Your Browsing Friends
Printing Web Pages
Protecting Your Privacy
Yes, there are such things as bad cookies
Cleaning your cache
Banishing pesky iCloud Keychain passwords
Handling ancient history
Setting notifications
Avoiding those @*!^%$ pop-up ads
Chapter 11: Expanding Your Horizons with iCloud
So How Does iCloud Work, Anyway?
Saving and Opening iCloud Documents
Configuring iCloud
Chapter 12: Hooking Up with Handy Helpers
Connecting Printers
USB printers
Network printers
Connecting Scanners
Using Photo Booth
Conversing with FaceTime
Turning Your iMac into a TV — And More
Part IV: Living the iLife
Chapter 13: The Multimedia Joy of iTunes
What Can I Play on iTunes?
Playing an Audio CD
Playing Digital Audio and Video
Browsing the Library
Finding songs in your Music Library
Removing old music from the Library
Watching video
Keeping Slim Whitman and Slim Shady Apart: Organizing with Playlists
Know Your Songs
Setting the song information automatically
Setting or changing song information manually
Ripping Audio Files
Tweaking the Audio for Your Ears
A New Kind of Radio Station
Internet radio
Tuning in your own stations
Radio stations in your playlists
Creating a custom iTunes Radio station
iTunes and iCloud Together
iSending iStuff to iPod, iPhone, and iPad
Sharing Media across a Network
Burning Music to Shiny Plastic Circles
Feasting on iTunes Visuals
Exercising Parental Authority
Buying Digital Media the Apple Way
Chapter 14: The Masterpiece That Is iPhoto
Delving into iPhoto
Working with Images in iPhoto
Import Images 101
Organize mode: Organizing and sorting your images
Edit mode: Removing and fixing stuff the right way
Producing Your Own Coffee-Table Masterpiece
Putting Photo Stream to Work
E-Mailing Photos to Aunt Mildred
Chapter 15: Making Film History with iMovie
Shaking Hands with the iMovie Window
A Bird’s-Eye View of Moviemaking
Importing the Building Blocks
Pulling in video clips
Making use of still images
Importing and adding audio from all sorts of places
Building the Cinematic Basics
Adding clips to your movie
Marking clips
Removing clips from your movie
Reordering clips in your movie
Editing clips in iMovie
Transitions for the masses
Even Gone with the Wind had titles
Adding maps and backgrounds
Creating an Honest-to-Goodness Movie Trailer
Sharing Your Finished Classic with Others
Chapter 16: Recording Your Hits with GarageBand
Shaking Hands with Your Band
Composing Made Easy
Adding tracks
Choosing loops
Resizing, repeating, and moving loops
Using the Arrangement track
Tweaking the settings for a track
Sharing Your Songs
Creating song files and ringtones in iTunes
Exporting a project
Burning an audio CD
Part V: Getting Productive with iWork and Other Tools
Chapter 17: Desktop Publishing with Pages
Creating a New Pages Document
Open an Existing Pages Document
Saving Your Work
Touring the Pages Window
Entering and Editing Text
Using Text and Graphics Boxes
The Three Amigos: Cut, Copy, and Paste
Cutting stuff
Copying text and images
Pasting from the Clipboard
Formatting Text the Easy Way
Adding a Spiffy Table
Adding Alluring Photos
Adding a Background Shape
Are You Sure about That Spelling?
Printing Your Pages Documents
Sharing That Poster with Others
Chapter 18: Creating Spreadsheets with Numbers
Before You Launch Numbers …
Creating a New Numbers Document
Opening an Existing Spreadsheet File
Save Those Spreadsheets!
Exploring the Numbers Window
Navigating and Selecting Cells in a Spreadsheet
Entering and Editing Data in a Spreadsheet
Selecting the Correct Number Format
Aligning Cell Text Just So
Formatting with Shading
Inserting and Deleting Rows and Columns
The Formula Is Your Friend
Adding Visual Punch with a Chart
Chapter 19: Building Presentations with Keynote
Creating a New Keynote Project
Opening a Keynote Presentation
Saving Your Presentation
Putting Keynote to Work
Adding Slides
Working with Text and Graphics Boxes
Adding and Editing Slide Text
Formatting Slide Text for the Perfect Look
Using Presenter’s Notes in Your Project
Every Good Presentation Needs Media
Adding a Background Shape
Creating Your Keynote Slideshow
Printing Your Slides and Notes
Chapter 20: Creating a Multiuser iMac
Once Upon a Time (An Access Fairy Tale)
Big-Shot Administrator Stuff
Deciding who needs what access
Adding users
Modifying user accounts
I banish thee, Mischievous User!
Setting up Login Items and Parental Controls
Multiuser Rules for Everyone
Logging on and off in Mavericks For Dummies
Interesting stuff about sharing stuff
Encrypting your hard drive can be fun
Chapter 21: Building (Or Joining) a Network
What, Exactly, Is the Network Advantage?
The Great Debate: Wired versus Wireless
Sharing Internet Access
Using your iMac as a sharing device
Using a dedicated Internet sharing device
What Do You Need to Connect?
Wireless connections
Wired connections
Connecting to the Network
Sharing stuff nicely with others
USE YOUR FIREWALL!
Part VI: The Necessary Evils: Troubleshooting, Upgrading, Maintaining
Chapter 22: It Just . . . Sits . . . There
Can You Troubleshoot? Yes, You Can!
Basic Troubleshooting 101
The Number One Rule: Reboot!
Special keys that can come in handy
All hail Disk Utility, the troubleshooter’s friend
Mark’s iMac Troubleshooting Tree
Okay, I Kicked It, and It Still Won’t Work
Apple Help Online
Local service, at your service
Chapter 23: I Want to Add Stuff
More Memory Will Help
Figuring out how much memory you have
Installing memory modules
Can I Upgrade My Hard Drive?
Consider your external options
Gotta have internal
Weighing Attractive Add-Ons
Game controllers
Hard drive arrays
Video controllers
Audio hardware
Chapter 24: Tackling the Housekeeping
Cleaning Unseemly Data Deposits
Getting dirty (or, cleaning things the manual way)
Using a commercial cleanup tool
Backing Up Your Treasure
Saving Files
Backing up to an external hard drive
Backing up to CD and DVD
Putting Things Right with Time Machine
Maintaining Hard Drive Health
Automating Those Mundane Chores
Creating an application in Automator
Running applications at startup
Updating OS X Automatically
Part VII: The Part of Tens
Chapter 25: Ten Ways to Speed Up Your iMac
Nothing Works Like a Shot of Memory
Hold a Conversation with Your iMac
Vamoose, Unwanted Fragments!
Keep Your Desktop Background Simple
Column Mode Is for Power Users
Make the Dock Do Your Bidding
It All Started with Keyboard Shortcuts
Hey, You Tweaked Your Finder!
Keep in Touch with Your Recent Past
Go Where the Going Is Good
Chapter 26: Ten Things to Avoid Like the Plague
Keep Things Cool
Phishing Is No Phun
Don’t Rely on a Single Password
Do You Really Want a Submerged Keyboard?
Don’t Use Antiquated Utility Software
Don’t Endorse Software Piracy
Call It the Forbidden Account
Don’t Settle for a Surge Suppressor
Refurbished Hardware Is No Deal at All
iMacs Appreciate iCleanliness
About the Author
Cheat Sheet
More Dummies Products
Guide
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