Mac Tutorials

BLACK SCREEN - CAN'T SEE ANYTHING! If your monitor on the Mac is black, thus preventing you from seeing anything, how can you make the monitor brighter (assuming the monitor is not truly broken)?: Technique 1: keep hitting F2 to see if that brightens the screen.

Technique 2: If you have two monitors connected, click on Apple...System Preferences...Displays, then click on the Gather Window button, which will give you access to the brightness control for the problem monitor. See if sliding the brightness slider to the right fixes it.

Technique 3: try resetting the PRAM (preference ram):
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

BURN DATA CD: I want to back up some data, so I pop a blank CD into my Mac, and iTunes automatically opens, telling me what to do if I want to create an audio CD from a playlist. Thanks for the offer, iTunes, but I want to create a DATA CD. Is there a way to burn a data CD without using the overly "friendly" iTunes software?: In Finder, select the folder, then from the menu choose 'File...Burn to Disc':

DESKTOP PREVIEW: I must have clicked something, because suddenly, every time I click something on my desktop, a window pops up that previews the item. This wasn't happening before. What controls it?: It's called "Quick Look" and you can toggle it on/off by right-clicking on any desktop item:

DESKTOP SHOW/HIDE:: "Apple...System Preferences...Exposè & Spaces" opens a window where you can request that for example the desktop is shown when you move your mouse to the lower left of the screen.

DISK IMAGE: what's a disk image?: A copy of a DVD that resides on your mac as a file. For how to copy a DVD into iMovie using a disk image, see the iMovie '08 tutorial: the question regarding "DVD to iMovie".

DVD NOT SHOWING - HOW DO I EJECT IT? I know darn well that there is a DVD sitting inside my Mac, but I see no icon on my desktop, and when I open the DVD player, it says "supported disk not available". What's going on?: Applications...Utilities...Disk Utility. Right click on the DVD and select 'Eject'. If you don't see i in Disk Utility, restart the Mac and try Disk Utility again.

FINDER...PLACES: How to add a given folder to "Places", so that you can easily access it without constantly drilling down to it through a hierarchy of folders:: In Finder, select the folder, then choose File...Add to Sidebar (Command - T is the keyboard shortcut).

MAC IS WORKING HARD AT SOMETHING AND CAN'T BE USED. How can I see what is consuming all the CPU and RAM?: If it's flat out maxed out, you won't even be able to do the following, but before that happens, open Applications...Utilities...Activity Monitor. If you don't see a window listing Process Name,%CPU, etc, click on Window...Activity Monitor.

OPEN WITH MENU HAS UNWANTED STUFF IN IT: I created a stand-alone .app file using Flash CS4. The app is now showing up in my 'Open With' menu when I right click on .SWF files, and to make matters worse, even after deleting the only copy of the .app file that I can find, clicking on an .SWF file attachment from within Outlook opens this app! How can I remove the .app from the 'Open With' menu and clean things up?: Search the mac, make sure no other copies of the app are found. Empty the Trash bin. Go to your Home/Library/Preferences folder and delete the following file: com.apple.LaunchServices.plist. Restart the mac. If the Open With menus and everything else work fine, you can empty trash, thus permanently deleting com.apple.LaunchServices.plist, or to play it safe, make a copy of the file before permanently deleting it.

PASSWORDS: IS THERE A WAY TO REVEAL A PASSWORD THAT IS BEING MASKED WITH ASTERISKS OR DOTS?: If it's a password that is being pre-loaded when you go to sign on, it's probably being saved in Mac's "Keychain" utility. To reveal a password in Keychain, go to Applications...Utilities...Keychain Access. Double click on the website or application that has the id and password in question, then click the "Show password" checkbox, at which point a pop-up window will ask for your Admin id. After you type in your admin id, then click on the "Allow" or "Always Allow" button, the password for your web site or application sign-on will be revealed to the right of the "Show password" checkbox.

RIGHT CLICK WITH ONE-BUTTON MOUSE: how can I "right click" with a one button Apple mouse so that context menus appear?: CTRL - click (NOT command - click)

SEARCH FOR LARGE FILES. How can I search for files that are at least 100MB in size?: In Finder, choose File...Find (CMD-F) and it lets you specify whatever criteria you want, including Size.

SEASICK. Expose is a way to show and hide the desktop, but it does this with animation, and the windows sliding around give me a seasick feeling and a headache. Is there a way to show and hide the desktop instantly, without all this animation?: Good question. For now, just hit fn - F11 with your eyes closed or looking away, to show/hide the desktop.

SPACE USED UP: My memory stick was full, so I deleted all files on it, but Finder still says it's full. What should I do?: Delete trash using the icon on your desktop. This empties the memory stick trash also, not just the hard drive trash.

UNINSTALL AN APPLICATION: I installed an application called "TinkerTool", but it looks a bit too powerful (and therefore dangerous). How do I uninstall it?: ???