You ask, I’ll answer.
As I work on the tenth edition of my Mac OS Visual QuickStart for Peachpit Press, I’ve been thinking back to the introduction to Mac courses I taught for various training organizations and my own observations of beginners using Mac OS. My goal, in writing these books, is to answer the questions that beginner and intermediate Mac users might have.
What’s “Basic” Has Changed
The books I write are task oriented — that is, they explain how to perform a task without going into a lot of detail about theory. The whole Visual QuickStart Guide series is like this — it’s designed to provide quick answers for “How do I…?” type questions so you can learn what you need to know and get right back to work. (Who has time to wade through dumb jokes in a fat book when there’s work to be done?)
As computer literacy increases, the books need to meet the needs of a more savvy pool of users. So while important basics like how to click and how to close a window are still included in the book, there’s a chance that some of the really basic topics — or the background information about how Mac OS X works — may be excluded, in favor of more advance material.
An Example
What am I talking about? Here’s an example. I’ve often observed Mac OS users shutting down their computers. The first thing some of them do is painstakingly close every open FInder window — even if the first thing they’ll do when they start up is open the same darn windows. Do they have to close the windows before shutting down? No. Do they have to quit applications before shutting down? No. And why is it that windows that aren’t closed when you shut down reopen automatically in the same position onscreen when you restart?
These are the kinds of questions that are very basic yet may not be covered in my book (or others, for that matter). Remember — publishers only give writers a certain number of pages. We have to pick and choose among the topics we think the majority of readers would benefit from. So basic information you don’t need to know may be excluded from the book.
What I’d like to do here is answer some of these questions for users. All I need is the questions.
Send Me Your Questions
Got a basic Mac OS question you want answered? Use the comments link or form below to ask. I’ll create new entries that answer the questions that are not specifically covered in my book.
If a question is covered in my book, I’ll provide the page number(s) of its coverage in the Tiger and Leopard editions (if applicable) for reader reference. Similarly, if the question has already been answered on this site or in one of my Informit articles, I’ll link to the answer.
Keep in mind that if you’re a reader with a question about a topic covered in my books, you should use the Q & A for that book to look up an existing answer or ask the question. That’s the best place to get clarification about book topics.
I’m trying to think back to the questions that I had as a new user back in February.
- how do I stop the screensaver from locking the screen (I can’t remember how I turned that on… oh no, I just found it again under Security in System Prefs)
- how do I type a hash / pound symbol on a UK Mac keyboard? (answer: alt-3, because shift-3 is the UK sterling currency symbol)
I’ll come up with some more, don’t worry ;-)
Well, my main problems in Mac normaly relate with finding the location of some items. I remember having to dig online for anwers like:
1) Where do I find the sound files? (To install a new one.)
2) If I deleted my menubar script menu, how do I put it back?
3) Where are the workflows? (Can I have a shortcut for them? Can I have a drop menu anywhere?)
Or other questions like:
1) If my “open with” drop menu is cluttered with the same application (showing more than one time), how do I clean it?
2) How can I include items on my right click drop menu? (And delete them?)
Now a real question:
Can I force an application to be on top, even if it’s not the active one?
These are great questions, Maria! I’ll try to tackle some of them in upcoming months.
As for your “real” question, as far as I know, the answer is no. The active application is always the one “on top” of the stack. But I think there’s more to be said on this in the future, too.
The use of the Fax over ADSL , can this be used OK
regards Hess
Is there a faily easy way to detect/delete duplicate files using Snow Leopard? If there is
I can’t seem to find a good answer, short of installing a specific software program.
Pat: How odd that you should ask that question today. I was just working on an article that covered that. I can’t think of an easy way in the Finder, but I did find an app that does a darn good job: Find Duplicate Files. It’s quick and easy to use and does NOT depend on file names to find duplicates. It’s $15 but you can get a free trial at http://www.araxis.com/. Hope this helps.
Visual Quickstart Guide Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
From a very newcomer to computers and as a leisure user only.
Can you tell me if there is a way to assess how big a separate harddrive for backup purposes one should obtain. I am sure I do not use my machine up to anywhere near its capacity.
I have ound your book v useful
Regards John Alderdice
John: I use the rule of thumb where the backup disk should be at least the same size of the disk you are backing up. Glad you’re finding my book useful. Good luck with your backups!
How do i get your quickbook pro for mac 2010 guide? I bought the software at Office Max and there are no manuels available to help me. The one I purchased at Barnes and Noble is for windows users. If I can’t find a manuel, I’m going to have to return the software as I am a newbie to quickbooks. I bought quickbook pro for mac 2010.
Judy: You can download the book from within QuickBooks. Look under the Help menu to get started. Good luck.
Got a strange anomoly; past few days I installed Osx 10.6.3. (I’m running a Mac dual core with Xp on the other partition, using ‘boot camp.’ Now, when I restart using the ‘option’ key from the Mac side it restarts again on the Mac side. The pop-up with the two systems (Mac and Windows) doesn’t appear, instead it boots back to the Mac side. I have to manually go into the security section and select ‘restart from Windows,’ in order to boot into Xp. Same thing happens on the Windows side. I can’t seem to find a solution in your ‘Snow Leopard’ book. I’ve started eliminating some programs that may be interferring; so far, no luck. Any suggestions? Thanks
PA Tupper
ptup@telus.net