iMac For Dummies

by Mark L. Chambers

Overview

Do it all with your iMac and this bestselling For Dummies guide!

You're still a little giddy from finally scoring your new iMac, and you can't wait to get started. Even if you're already in love with your iMac, it helps to have a little guidance to really get the most out of this ultimate all-in-one computer. This updated edition of iMac For Dummies is the ideal way to learn the iMac fundamentals from setting up and personalizing your machine to importing files, making FaceTime video calls, surfing the web, using your favorite programs and apps, and everything in between.

Trusted Mac guru Mark L. Chambers guides you through the latest iMac features and explains how to navigate OS X, work with files and folders, back up your important stuff with iCloud, add apps from the Mac App Store, get creative with iLife and iWork applications, and tons more.

• Shows you how to find your way around the Mac desktop, customize OS X, and use cool tools like Finder, Finder Tabs, Mission Control, and Spaces
• Explains how to set up your e-mail, use Messages, video chat with FaceTime, create iTunes playlists, and integrate your iMac with other iOS devices
• Covers crunching data with Numbers, dressing up your documents with Pages, adding punch to your presentations with Keynote, organize your images with iPhoto, make music with GarageBand, unleash your creative spirit with iMovie, and more
• Includes tips for connecting to a network, creating user profiles, adding accessories, troubleshooting common issues, and expanding your iMac for your needs

Whatever you can dream up, it's all possible with iMac and a little help from iMac For Dummies, 8th Edition!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781118862377
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	05/05/2014
Series:	For Dummies Books
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Mark L. Chambers has been an author, computer consultant, programmer, and hardware technician for over 25 years. He has written more than 30 computer books, including a number of For Dummies titles. Mark is currently a full-time author and tech editor—and an unabashed Mac fan.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Foolish Assumptions 1

About This Book 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 4

Where to Go from Here 4

Part I: Know Your iMac 5

Chapter 1: Okay, This Machine Looks Really, Really Weird 7

An Introduction to the Beast 8

Major parts of your major appliance 8

Important Hidden Stuff 12

Choosing a Home for Your New Pet 13

Picking the right location 14

Considering the convenience factor 15

Unpacking and Connecting 15

Unpacking your iMac For Dummies 15

Connecting cables like a true nerd 16

Discovering All the Cool Things You Can Do 18

What software do I get? 18

Looking forward to fun on the Internet 19

Applications that rock 19

Would you like to play a game? 20

Stuff You Oughta Buy Right Now 21

Chapter 2: Life! Give My iMac Life! 23

Throwing the Big Leaf Switch 23

Mark’s Favorite Signs of a Healthy iMac 24

Harriet, It’s Already Asking Me Questions! 25

Setting up OS X Mavericks 25

Registering your iMac 27

Importing Documents and Data from Your Old Mac 27

Manually Importing Documents and Data from Windows 29

Chapter 3: Introducing the Apple of Your iMac 31

A Quick Tour of the Premises 31

The Mavericks Desktop 32

What’s going on underneath? 35

Similarities with that Windows behemoth 36

Calling for Help 38

The Mavericks built-in Help Center 38

The Apple web-based support center 38

Magazines 38

Mac support websites 39

Local Mac user groups 39

Part II: Shaking Hands with Mac OS X 41

Chapter 4: Opening and Closing and Clicking and Such 43

Working within the Finder 43

Pointing in a Mac World 45

Launching and Quitting for the Lazy iMac Owner 48

Juggling Folders and Icons 51

A field observer’s guide to icons 51

Selecting items 53

Copying items 55

Moving things from place to place 56

Duplicating in a jiffy 56

Keys and Keyboard Shortcuts to Fame and Fortune 57

Special keys on the keyboard 57

Using Finder and application keyboard shortcuts 58

Performing Tricks with Finder Windows 59

Scrolling in and resizing windows 59

Minimizing and restoring windows 60

Moving and zooming windows 61

Closing windows 62

Using Finder Tabs 63

Chapter 5: A Plethora of Powerful Fun 65

Home, Sweet Home Folder 65

Arranging Your Desktop 68

Putting the Dock to the Test 69

Adding Dock icons 70

Removing Dock icons 71

Using Dock icon menus 71

What’s with the Trash? 72

Working Magic with Dashboard, Mission Control, and Spaces 73

Using Dashboard 73

Switching between apps with Mission Control 75

Switching between desktops with Spaces 76

Printing within OS X 77

Chapter 6: A Nerd’s Guide to System Preferences 81

A Not-So-Confusing Introduction 81

Searching for Settings 84

Popular Preference Panes Explained 85

The Displays pane 85

The Desktop & Screen Saver pane 86

The Mission Control pane 88

The General pane 90

The Energy Saver pane 91

The Dock pane 92

The Sharing pane 93

The Time Machine pane 94

Chapter 7: Searching amidst iMac Chaos 97

Doing a Basic Search 97

How Cool Is That!? Discovering What Spotlight Can Do 100

Expanding Your Search Horizons 102

Customizing Spotlight to Your Taste 103

Chapter 8: Using Reminders, Notes, and Notifications 107

Remind Me to Use Reminders 107

Taking Notes the Mavericks Way 110

Staying Current with Notification Center 112

Chapter 9: Keeping Track with Contacts and Maps 115

Hey, Isn’t Contacts Just a Part of Mail? 116

Entering Contact Information 117

Using Contact Information 119

Arranging Your Contact Cards 121

Using Network Directories 123

Printing Contacts with Flair 124

Swapping Bytes with vCards 125

Introducing the Maps Window 125

Switching Views in Maps 128

Getting Directions over Yonder 129

Part III: Connecting and Communicating 131

Chapter 10: Going Places with Safari 133

Pretend You’ve Never Used This Thing 133

Visiting Websites 135

Navigating the Web 137

Setting Up Your Home Page 140

Adding and Using Bookmarks 141

Working with the Reading List and Shared Links 142

Saving pages for later with the Reading List 143

Visiting pages recommended by friends 143

Downloading Files 144

Using Subscriptions and History 145

Tabs Are Your Browsing Friends 145

Printing Web Pages 147

Protecting Your Privacy 147

Yes, there are such things as bad cookies 148

Cleaning your cache 149

Banishing pesky iCloud Keychain passwords 149

Handling ancient history 150

Setting notifications 150

Avoiding those @*!^%$ pop-up ads 151

Chapter 11: Expanding Your Horizons with iCloud 153

So How Does iCloud Work, Anyway? 153

Saving and Opening iCloud Documents 155

Configuring iCloud 156

Chapter 12: Hooking Up with Handy Helpers 159

Connecting Printers 159

USB printers 159

Network printers 162

Connecting Scanners 163

Using Photo Booth 164

Conversing with FaceTime 166

Turning Your iMac into a TV — And More 168

Part IV: Living the iLife 171

Chapter 13: The Multimedia Joy of iTunes 173

What Can I Play on iTunes? 173

Playing an Audio CD 175

Playing Digital Audio and Video 177

Browsing the Library 179

Finding songs in your Music Library 180

Removing old music from the Library 181

Watching video 181

Keeping Slim Whitman and Slim Shady Apart: Organizing with Playlists 182

Know Your Songs 184

Setting the song information automatically 184

Setting or changing song information manually 185

Ripping Audio Files 186

Tweaking the Audio for Your Ears 187

A New Kind of Radio Station 188

Internet radio 189

Tuning in your own stations 190

Radio stations in your playlists 191

Creating a custom iTunes Radio station 191

iTunes and iCloud Together 192

iSending iStuff to iPod, iPhone, and iPad 193

Sharing Media across a Network 194

Burning Music to Shiny Plastic Circles 195

Feasting on iTunes Visuals 196

Exercising Parental Authority 196

Buying Digital Media the Apple Way 198

Chapter 14: The Masterpiece That Is iPhoto 201

Delving into iPhoto 201

Working with Images in iPhoto 204

Import Images 101 204

Organize mode: Organizing and sorting your images 206

Edit mode: Removing and fixing stuff the right way 214

Producing Your Own Coffee-Table Masterpiece 218

Putting Photo Stream to Work 222

E-Mailing Photos to Aunt Mildred 223

Chapter 15: Making Film History with iMovie 225

Shaking Hands with the iMovie Window 226

A Bird’s-Eye View of Moviemaking 228

Importing the Building Blocks 229

Pulling in video clips 229

Making use of still images 231

Importing and adding audio from all sorts of places 232

Building the Cinematic Basics 235

Adding clips to your movie 235

Marking clips 236

Removing clips from your movie 236

Reordering clips in your movie 237

Editing clips in iMovie 237

Transitions for the masses 238

Even Gone with the Wind had titles 239

Adding maps and backgrounds 240

Creating an Honest-to-Goodness Movie Trailer 241

Sharing Your Finished Classic with Others 243

Chapter 16: Recording Your Hits with GarageBand 245

Shaking Hands with Your Band 246

Composing Made Easy 248

Adding tracks 249

Choosing loops 251

Resizing, repeating, and moving loops 254

Using the Arrangement track 256

Tweaking the settings for a track 257

Sharing Your Songs 259

Creating song files and ringtones in iTunes 260

Exporting a project 261

Burning an audio CD 261

Part V: Getting Productive with iWork and Other Tools 263

Chapter 17: Desktop Publishing with Pages 265

Creating a New Pages Document 265

Open an Existing Pages Document 266

Saving Your Work 267

Touring the Pages Window 268

Entering and Editing Text 269

Using Text and Graphics Boxes 269

The Three Amigos: Cut, Copy, and Paste 270

Cutting stuff 270

Copying text and images 270

Pasting from the Clipboard 270

Formatting Text the Easy Way 271

Adding a Spiffy Table 271

Adding Alluring Photos 273

Adding a Background Shape 274

Are You Sure about That Spelling? 274

Printing Your Pages Documents 275

Sharing That Poster with Others 276

Chapter 18: Creating Spreadsheets with Numbers 277

Before You Launch Numbers 277

Creating a New Numbers Document 278

Opening an Existing Spreadsheet File 279

Save Those Spreadsheets! 280

Exploring the Numbers Window 281

Navigating and Selecting Cells in a Spreadsheet 282

Entering and Editing Data in a Spreadsheet 283

Selecting the Correct Number Format 283

Aligning Cell Text Just So 284

Formatting with Shading 285

Inserting and Deleting Rows and Columns 286

The Formula Is Your Friend 287

Adding Visual Punch with a Chart 289

Chapter 19: Building Presentations with Keynote 291

Creating a New Keynote Project 292

Opening a Keynote Presentation 293

Saving Your Presentation 293

Putting Keynote to Work 294

Adding Slides 295

Working with Text and Graphics Boxes 296

Adding and Editing Slide Text 297

Formatting Slide Text for the Perfect Look 297

Using Presenter’s Notes in Your Project 298

Every Good Presentation Needs Media 298

Adding a Background Shape 299

Creating Your Keynote Slideshow 300

Printing Your Slides and Notes 301

Chapter 20: Creating a Multiuser iMac 303

Once Upon a Time (An Access Fairy Tale) 303

Big-Shot Administrator Stuff 304

Deciding who needs what access 305

Adding users 306

Modifying user accounts 309

I banish thee, Mischievous User! 310

Setting up Login Items and Parental Controls 311

Multiuser Rules for Everyone 317

Logging on and off in Mavericks For Dummies 317

Interesting stuff about sharing stuff 320

Encrypting your hard drive can be fun 320

Chapter 21: Building (Or Joining) a Network 323

What, Exactly, Is the Network Advantage? 324

The Great Debate: Wired versus Wireless 325

Sharing Internet Access 326

Using your iMac as a sharing device 326

Using a dedicated Internet sharing device 327

What Do You Need to Connect? 328

Wireless connections 329

Wired connections 334

Connecting to the Network 337

Sharing stuff nicely with others 337

USE YOUR FIREWALL! 339

Part VI: The Necessary Evils: Troubleshooting, Upgrading, Maintaining 343

Chapter 22: It Just . . . Sits . . . There 345

Can You Troubleshoot? Yes, You Can! 345

Basic Troubleshooting 101 346

The Number One Rule: Reboot! 346

Special keys that can come in handy 348

All hail Disk Utility, the troubleshooter’s friend 349

Mark’s iMac Troubleshooting Tree 353

Okay, I Kicked It, and It Still Won’t Work 357

Apple Help Online 358

Local service, at your service 358

Chapter 23: I Want to Add Stuff 359

More Memory Will Help 360

Figuring out how much memory you have 360

Installing memory modules 362

Can I Upgrade My Hard Drive? 365

Consider your external options 366

Gotta have internal 368

Weighing Attractive Add-Ons 368

Game controllers 368

Hard drive arrays 369

Video controllers 369

Audio hardware 369

Chapter 24: Tackling the Housekeeping 371

Cleaning Unseemly Data Deposits 371

Getting dirty (or, cleaning things the manual way) 372

Using a commercial cleanup tool 374

Backing Up Your Treasure 374

Saving Files 375

Backing up to an external hard drive 375

Backing up to CD and DVD 375

Putting Things Right with Time Machine 376

Maintaining Hard Drive Health 378

Automating Those Mundane Chores 379

Creating an application in Automator 380

Running applications at startup 382

Updating OS X Automatically 382

Part VII: The Part of Tens 385

Chapter 25: Ten Ways to Speed Up Your iMac 387

Nothing Works Like a Shot of Memory 387

Hold a Conversation with Your iMac 388

Vamoose, Unwanted Fragments! 388

Keep Your Desktop Background Simple 389

Column Mode Is for Power Users 389

Make the Dock Do Your Bidding 389

It All Started with Keyboard Shortcuts 390

Hey, You Tweaked Your Finder! 390

Keep in Touch with Your Recent Past 391

Go Where the Going Is Good 391

Chapter 26: Ten Things to Avoid Like the Plague 393

Keep Things Cool 394

Phishing Is No Phun 394

Don’t Rely on a Single Password 395

Do You Really Want a Submerged Keyboard? 395

Don’t Use Antiquated Utility Software 396

Don’t Endorse Software Piracy 396

Call It the Forbidden Account 396

Don’t Settle for a Surge Suppressor 397

Refurbished Hardware Is No Deal at All 397

iMacs Appreciate iCleanliness 398

Bonus Chapters  Online at www.dummies.com/extras/imac

Bonus Chapter 1: Communicating with That Bluetooth Guy BC1

Bluetooth: What a Silly Name for Such Cool Technology BC1

A little Danish history BC2

Is your Mac Bluetooth-ready? BC2

Mavericks and Bluetooth, together forever BC2

Adding Wireless Keyboards and Mice to Your Mac BC5

The Magic of Wireless Printing BC6

Bonus Chapter 2: Running Windows on Your iMac BC9

Figuring Out How Boot Camp Works BC9

Comparing Boot Camp with Windows Emulators BC10

Configuring Boot Camp BC12

Switching to Windows BC14

Checking for Apple Updates BC15

Index 399