Few System Preferences Tweaks Mac Users Should Know

December 19, 2011 in Mac by Angelina Roberts

If you want to customize several aspects of your Mac operating system, the System Preferences program can be considered as a one stop shop for all. Select the Apple menu and open the System Preferences. You can also open it through the Dock by clicking on the icon which appears to be a set of gears. Every of the preference pane has been labeled to provide a clear idea as to which form of elements is allowed to change within it. Moreover, several of these preference panes allow the user to not only save some time but to also make the computing experience more efficient. Below mentioned are some of the favorites System Preference tweak which are recommended to known by every Mac user.

Hide the Dock

The Dock is considered as the most useful way through which access to files, folders and other applications can be gained but, another fact is that it occupies a very fair amount of space. This situation can be difficult, especially when a laptop is being used. Although, there is a possibility that you do not want to view the Dock all the time, so, you can simply hide it away. Go to the preference pane of the Dock and select the option of automatically Show or Hide the Dock. Thorough this the Dock becomes invisible until a cursor is pointed on it.

Displaying the Date and Time within the Menu Bar

If the cock of the system is visible within the menu bar, you might feel that simply looking at the time is not enough. For this to improve, go to the Date & Time menu and click on the tab named as Clock. From here, several changes can be made such as setting the date, select the day of the week to be displayed, Am/PM configurations and more. Moreover, if you have forgotten what date or which day is it, this option will be useful to keep you updated only at a glance on the menu bar. There is also an option of speaking clock which tends to tell the time at hourly intervals.

Have Complete Control on the Spotlight Searches

The Mac operating system’s system-wide search feature has been gratefully handled by the Spotlight application. It also allows the user to make several alterations within the way the search results are provides along with the types of items that are searched for on the OS X.  There are several settings that a user might not require to include in the search process. These options can be easily removed by opening the preference pane of Spotlight and then selecting the Search Results Tab. There will populate a list from which you can uncheck those items which you do not want to include in your search. Moreover, the items can also be arranged according to the users requirements which means that the most preferred items will displayed on the top of the search result list.

Disable Caps Lock

You have been facing this situation many times, you are typing in and suddenly you see that everything is typed in Caps. The reason can be you accidentally hit the Caps key and now you have to erase and type all over again. This issue can be resolved by opening the Keyboard and Mouse preference pane and then click on the tab of Keyboard and the Modifier keys. Select the option of Caps Lock and choose No Action and press OK. Now, if you accidentally hit the Caps key, the Mac will ignore the keystroke. In case, you want to undo the action, reverse the entire process.

Enable Exposé from a Screen Corner

The Exposé feature by Apple in its Mac systems enables the user to get a display of all the windows, or to display the desktop or to display the currently running windows by simply pressing at particular keys. Through these features, the user can make a switch very quickly and easily or access to the Desktop with a single keystroke.

Using Exposé provides you to make active screen corners. All you have to do is to open the Exposé & Spaces preference pane and ten select the Exposé tab. Here you will see several pop-up menus spread onto different corners of the screen. These corners can be triggered to set Dashboard, Desktop, Exposé and several other items. As soon as features are assigned to these corners, simply move the cursor to that corner to activate that particular feature.