Tricks Island

Apple has all kinds of little tricks built into their operating system that can make users’ computer experience much more efficient and smooth. However, many of these features are often unknown to new as well as old Mac users, or are understood only in their fundamental parts. Spotlight is one of those things. It can be used intuitively to make simple searches even by someone totally new to OS X, although there are also slightly more in depth methods of using it, by utilizing specific file attributes, that turn it into a powerful and awesome search tool. When you simply type in the name of something you are looking for, Spotlight will not only list all the files that contain that word in their name, but also any file that contains that word within the actual document. For example, if you were to type in “vacation,” any file with that word in the name or within the contents anywhere will show up, rendering a rather cluttered list of results. To avoid this, you can type in “nam...

The Dock in OS X is a gem of programming and design that serves several functions. It acts as a sort of home base for launching and controlling applications as well as storing and accessing folders and files. The Dock is also fully customizable to a particular user’s needs. This article will examine the functions of the OS X Dock and go over the various ways users can tailor it to match their vision of a perfect computing experience. When scrolling the pointer over anything on the Dock, a little word bubble will appear showing the name of that item. One of the simplest and most apparent functions of the dock is to open applications, which can be done with a single click of whatever icon the pointer hovers over. By right clicking an icon in the Dock, the computer will instead bring up a menu in which information and options for that application can be found. Also of note, users can hold down command while clicking an item in the Dock to go to the original item in Finder. Ce...