By default, Mac OS X provides a clock in the upper-right corner of the desktop. You can control the appearance of this display by using the System Preferences utility.

1. Open the System Preferences utility.
2. Click the Date & Time icon.
3. To hide the clock, uncheck the “Show the date and time in the menu bar” check box. The clock will be removed and all the options will be disabled.
4. If you prefer to view an icon of the clock instead of the actual time, choose Icon on the View as pop-up menu. The rest of the options will be disabled because they are not applicable.
5. If you choose to display the clock in the text format, use the check boxes to set the options you want to use. For example, to include seconds in the display, check the “Display the time with seconds” check box. The other options are just as easy to understand. As with other System Preferences Utility tools, changes you make are reflected instantly.
6. Quit the System Preferences utility.

As in previous versions of the OS, you can click the menu bar clock to briefly display the date. The menu on which the date appears also enables you to change the view options and to open the Date & Time pane of the System Preferences Utility.

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If you want to enable Automatic Login mode, create a non-Administrator account to use. That way, even if someone does get access to your Mac, they won’t be able to use the Administrator account. Of course, you might have to log out and then log back in as the Administrator, but this strategy provides a good compromise between security and convenience.

To configure the Automatic Login mode, use the following steps:

1. Open the System Preferences utility.

2. Click the Accounts icon to open the Accounts pane of the System Preferences window.

3. Click the Set Auto Login button. The login account sheet will appear. By default, the username of the currently logged in account will be entered. If you want to have the current account logged in automatically, skip to Step 5.

   If you aren’t logged in as the Administrator, you will have to authenticate yourself before you can make these changes (click the Lock icon, enter an Administrator User Name and Password, and press Return).

4. Enter the username for the account into which you want to be logged in automatically in the User Name field.

5. Enter the password for the account that you want to be automatically logged in when the Mac starts up.

6. When you have entered the user account information, click OK to enable automatic login. When you return to the Accounts pane, you will see the “Log in automatically as username” check box where username is the account you selected in Step 4.

The next time you start or restart your Mac, the account you specified will be automatically logged in and you will move directly to the desktop for that account.

This setting affects only the start or restart sequence. When you log out instead of shutting down or restarting, you will still see the Login window again and will have to log in to resume using the Mac.

To disable automatic login again, uncheck the “Log in automatically as username” check box on the Accounts pane.

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The Leopard update, which requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 brings J2SE 5.0 to 1.5.0_22 and Java SE 6 to 1.6.0_17; J2SE 1.4.2 is disabled by default in this update, as it’s no longer being updated. The 78MB Snow Leopard update brings Java SE 6 to 1.6.0_17 as well, and requires Mac OS X 10.6.2.

You can run down the full list for the Snow Leopard or Leopard flavors of the update. Both fix a number of vulnerabilities in Java 1.6.0_15, including one that could allow an untrusted Java applet to obtain elevated privileges, with which it could potentially do nasty things. The Leopard update also mortars a number of chinks in Java 1.5.0_20 along the same lines as above.

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Here’s how: launch TextEdit, then choose Print from the File menu. From the PDF pop-up menu in the bottom-left corner of the dialog, choose Compress PDF. That’s it. It’ll compress the PDF and call it a day.

However, if you’re charging by the hour, and let’s pretend you are, you have a wonderful time-consuming option: Choose Print from the File menu, and from the second Presets pop-up menu choose ColorSync. From the Quartz Filter menu that appears, choose Add Filters. Click on the three-oval icon in the top-left corner of the dialog that appears, click on the filter named Reduce File Size, and then click-and-hold on the arrow button to the right of the filter and choose Duplicate Filter. This creates an unlocked filter you can edit.

Now click on the triangle to the left of the duplicate filter to show its options; this is where you choose what you want. I recommend clicking on the arrow to the left of Image Compression and dragging the magic slider that lets you control the amount of JPEG compression your PDF images receive. For smaller file sizes, drag the Quality Slider toward Minimum. Now go back to TextEdit and in the Print dialog, choose Colorsync from the second Presets pop-up menu, choose your new filter from the Quartz Filter pop-up menu and click Print. That’s it. (Whew!)

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Among the general issues addressed in the update are a well-publicized if unusual bug that could result in data loss when using a guest account, a problem that could cause a system to logout unexpectedly, Spotlight search results not showing Exchange contacts, the reliability and duration of VPN connections, VoiceOver performance, and video playback and performance issues that could crop up for the latest iMacs when AirPort is active.

Apple

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Mac offers a really quick way to check the spelling of individual words in Pages, Numbers, Keynote, TextEdit, Mail, Stickies, and other text-based applications. You can check spelling on the fly without leaving the application you

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When you saw cookbooks specify at the last time.125 teaspoons of salt? No, in virtually all non-metric publications, this would be written 1/8 tsp. That

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If you have got emails that more than one or two years old just clogging up your Inbox (and taking up valuable space), you can use a Smart Mailbox to help you do some fast email house cleaning.

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In order to use Mac OS X services, such as personal file sharing, Windows sharing, or FTP access, you need to open ports in the firewall to allow traffic for that service to and from your computer. When you select a service in the Services pane of Sharing preferences, it is automatically selected in the Firewall pane, and the port is opened.

To prevent that service while the firewall is on, turn off the service in the Services pane.

To turn on firewall protection on your computer:

1. Open Apple Menu.

2. Open System Preferences

3. Click Sharing

And then click Start.To block incoming traffic on ports used by one of the sharing services, disable that service in the Services pane.

You can’t edit the firewall ports used by built-in services. They are enabled and disabled automatically when you turn the corresponding service on or off in the Services pane.

If you use iChat Bonjour, iTunes Music Sharing, or iPhoto Bonjour Sharing, make sure to allow those services in and out of your firewall. Turn on their services on the Firewall pane of Sharing preferences.

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