7 Basic Mac OS X Tips and Tricks

September 15th, 2008 | by admin |

The day I bought my new Apple Macbook Pro, I knew my life wouldn’t be easy anymore.

There are some things in nature which can’t be changed and one of them is the difficulty we PC users face in switching to a totally new operating system like

Mac OS X. is no doubt very flexible and efficient but a nightmare for new Windows users.

Below is a list of all those tips and tricks which I learned in time to get myself used to the

Mac OS. Mac newbies and beginners will definitely find these tips helpful.

1. Setup a Proxy for your Network

Open System Preferences and look for Network under Internet & Network. Then select your network device from the menu (AirPort for WiFi, Ethernet for LAN) and click Advanced button.

In the menu that splashes in, select the Proxies tab, define your settings and hit OK.

2. Take an Instant Screenshot

The easiest and fastest way is to use a combination of the keys: Command + Shift + 3.

There is also a utility called Grab which can be found in

Applications → Utilities → Grab. It even allows you to set a timer or take screenshot of a select portion of your screen.

3. Forcefully Eject a CD/DVD

You will need to use this trick when you accidentally inserted a blank disc or ejected while the disc was being used and

the disc icon disappeared from desktop.

Just Go to

Applications → Utilities → Disk Utilities, select your CD/DVD and click Eject or restart your Mac and while it reboots, hold down the mouse or mousepad button.

4. Install an Application

Download the Apple Disk Image (.dmg) of the application to be installed and extract to your desktop (this will make a virtual drive). Open the virtual drive and copy the application file and paste into the

Applications folder.

To cleanup, simply move the virtual drive and the downloaded .dmg file to the trash bin.

5. Completely Quit an Application

In a Mac,

applications don’t completely shut down by clicking the [x] button like they do in Windows. They just move out of focus but keep running in the background.

To completely shut down or quit an application, select it and use the combination: Command + Q. If the application is stuck or is not responding, make use of the Applications → Utilities → Activity Monitor.

6. Arrange the Icons on Desktop

Lets say you have been playing around with the icons on your desktop and you jumbled them all by mistake.

The easiest solution is to use the combination: Control + Mouse Button to open a context menu and select Clean up to make all icons align properly in the grid.