The Genius is in.You don’t have to be a genius to use Mac OS X Snow Leopard. But if you want to get the very

most out of it, put this savvy Portable Genius guide to work. Want to quickly access the most

useful features, apps, and utilities? Customize the desktop and make it your own? Install Xcode®

Developer Tools or learn UNIX® tricks? Automate repetitive tasks? You’ll fi nd cool and useful

Genius tips, full-color screenshots, and pages of easy-to-access shortcuts and tools that will

save you loads of time and let you enjoy your Mac OS X Snow Leopard to the max.

Dwight Spivey is a software and support engineer for Konica Minolta, where he specializes in working

with Mac operating systems, applications, and hardware. He is the author of Mac OS X Leopard Portable

Genius, teaches classes on Mac usage, and is a Mac OS X beta tester for Apple.

P O R T A B L E G E N I U S Fun, hip, and straightforward, the new Portable Genius series gives forward-thinking Apple users useful

information in handy, compact books that are easy to navigate and don’t skimp on the essentials. Collect

the whole series and make the most of your Apple digital lifestyle.

Computers / Operating System / Macintosh

$30.00 US • $36.00 CAN

Spivey

PO

RT

AB

LE

G

EN

IUS

Mac O

S® X Snow Leopard

™

P O R T A B L E G E N I U S

Mac OS® XSnow Leopard™

P O R T A B L E G E N I U S

Mac OS® X Snow Leopard™

P O R T A B L E G E N I U S

Mac OS® X Snow Leopard™

by Dwight Spivey

Mac OS® X Snow Leopard™ Portable Genius

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.10475 Crosspoint Blvd.Indianapolis, IN 46256www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-0-470-43637-0

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Web site is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization of Web site may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Web sites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

For general information on our other products and services or to obtain technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at (877) 762-2974, outside the U.S. at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Library of Congress Control No.: 2009929455

Trademarks: Wiley and the Wiley Publishing logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley and Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Mac OS and Snow Leopard are trademarks or registered trademarks of Apple, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Mac OS® X Snow Leopard™ Portable Genius is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple, Inc.

About the Authoris the author of several Mac books, including Mac Bible and Mac OS X

Leopard Portable Genius. He is also a software and support engineer for

Konica Minolta, where he specializes in working with Mac operating systems, applications, and

hardware, as well as color and monochrome laser printers. He teaches classes on Mac usage, writes

training and support materials for Konica Minolta, and is a Mac OS X beta tester for Apple. Dwight

lives on the Gulf Coast of Alabama with his wife, Cindy, and their three beautiful children, Victoria,

Devyn, and Emi. He studies theology, draws comic strips, and roots for the Auburn Tigers in his

ever-decreasing spare time.

Dwight Spivey

Executive EditorJody Lefevere

Project EditorSarah Cisco

Technical EditorBrian Joseph

Copy EditorKim Heusel

Editorial DirectorRobyn Siesky

Editorial ManagerCricket Krengel

Vice President and Group Executive PublisherRichard Swadley

Vice President and Executive PublisherBarry Pruett

Business ManagerAmy Knies

Senior Marketing ManagerSandy Smith

Project CoordinatorPatrick Redmond

Graphics and Production SpecialistsJennifer Henry

Andrea Hornberger

Quality Control TechnicianSusan Moritz

ProofreadingMelissa D. Buddendeck

IndexingValerie Haynes Perry

Credits

To my wife, Cindy: I love you very much.

I told you marrying a geek would pay off!

Acknowledgmentsto super agent, Carole Jelen McClendon. I’m so glad I fell into your sphere!

Sincere appreciation goes to Cricket Krengel, Sarah Cisco, and Jody Lefevere, my editorial manager,

project editor, and acquisitions editor, respectively. Thank you all for being so good to me from

start to finish of this book.

Thanks and salutations go to my technical editor, Brian Joseph, for his expertise and keeping me

honest.

Thank you to all the wonderful people who helped get this book from my Mac to the store shelves.

You are too numerous to mention here, but I extend my heartfelt appreciation to each one of you

for your hard work. You’ve all done a fantastic job!

I cannot forget to thank my kids, Victoria, Devyn, and Emi, who are so good to put up with Dad’s

absences when he’s writing these tomes. Thanks as well to Mom, Dad, Kelli, Keith, Kelsey, Keaton,

Kelen, and Kooper. I love you with all my heart!

Super thanks

chapter 1

How Do I Get Started with Snow Leopard? 2

System Requirements for Installing Snow Leopard 4

What’s New in Snow Leopard? 4

Choosing an Installation Method 5

Upgrading to Snow Leopard 5

Custom Installations 7

Advanced Installation Options 8

Partitioning your hard drive 8

Installing the Xcode Developer Tools 9

Working with Finder 10

The Snow Leopard Desktop at a glance 11

Desktop 11

Finder windows 13

Setting the Finder preferences 14

General 14

Labels and Sidebar 16

Advanced 16

Moving around in the Finder 17

Finder viewing options 17

Icons 17

List 18

Columns 18

Cover Flow 18

Getting Information on Files and Folders 19

Using Quick Look 20

Working with Removable Media 21

Utilizing the Dock 22

Adding and removing items 22

Setting the Dock’s preferences 23

Searching for Items 24

Searching with Spotlight 24

Setting Spotlight preferences 25

Searching within a Finder window 27

Managing Windows with Exposé 28

Manipulating open windows 28

Setting Exposé preferences 29

Taking Screenshots 29

Capture screenshots manually 30

Using Grab to capture screenshots 30

Using Multiple Desktops with Spaces 30

Setting Spaces preferences 31

Adding and removing spaces 31

Moving between spaces 32

Assigning applications to spaces 33

chapter 2

Can I Customize Snow Leopard? 34

The Appearance Preferences Pane 36

Color modifications 36

Scrolling options 36

Accessing recently used items 37

Viewing fonts 38

Changing the Desktop 39

Choosing a desktop picture 39

Selecting a screen saver 40

Set the screen saver’s options 41

Using hot corners 42

Customizing the Finder 43

Finder windows 43

Modifying the toolbar 44

Change the sidebar 46

Add a background image or color 47

Changing icons 48

Adding and removing items in the Dock 50

Change the Dock’s appearance and placement 50

Working with Widgets 51

Snow Leopard widgets 53

Managing widgets 54

Setting preferences in widgets 55

Finding more cool widgets 56

Create your own widgets using Web Clips 58

chapter 3

How Do I Change Snow Leopard’s System Preferences? 60

Personal 62

Language & Text 62

Language 62

Text 63

chapter 4

How Do I Manage User Accounts? 82

Types of Accounts 84

Administrator 84

Standard 84

Managed with Parental Controls 84

Sharing Only 85

Creating New User Accounts 85

Password assistance 87

Modify account settings 87

Logging into Accounts 90

Login Options 90

Login Items 92

Setting Up Simple Finder 93

Limiting Access 95

Enabling Parental Controls 95

Application and function restrictions 96

Web site restrictions 97

Allow unrestricted access to websites 98

Try to limit access to adult websites automatically 98

Allow access to only these websites 99

Mail and iChat limitations 99

Setting time limits 100

Keeping account activity logs 101

Formats 64

Input Sources 64

Security 66

General 66

FileVault 67

Firewall 67

Hardware 68

CDs & DVDs 68

Displays 68

Energy Saver 70

Keyboard & Mouse 71

Trackpad 72

Sound 73

Internet & Network 74

MobileMe 74

Network 75

System 76

Date & Time 76

Software Update 77

Speech 78

Speech Recognition 78

Text to Speech 79

Startup Disk 79

Universal Access 79

Adding a Disk Images preferences pane 80

Other System Preferences 80

Formatting Your TextEdit Documents 122

Using fonts 122

Using the Fonts window 123

Checking spelling and grammar 124

chapter 6

How Can I Print with Snow Leopard? 126

Set Up a Printer 128

Installing your printer’s software 128

Connecting your printer 130

USB 131

Network 131

Create a print queue 132

Print Documents 136

Discover Snow Leopard’s print options 138

Creating your own PDFs 141

Security options 143

Why and how to create PostScript files 144

Assigning ICC profiles to a printer 144

chapter 5

What Can I Do with Applications and Utilities? 102

Discovering Applications 104

Calculator 104

Chess 106

Dictionary 107

DVD Player 107

Font Book 108

Stickies 109

Additional applications 109

Navigating Snow Leopard’s applications 110

How to open and close applications 111

Common commands and keyboard shortcuts 112

Easily access applications with a Stack 113

Using Utilities 114

Working with Documents in TextEdit 116

Setting TextEdit Preferences 117

Creating and saving your document 120

Opening an existing document 120

A word about file formats 121

chapter 8

How Do I Organize My Life with iCal and Address Book? 160

Creating Calendars 162

Adding events to calendars 163

Editing calendar events 164

Setting iCal Preferences 165

Sharing Calendars 168

Publishing a calendar 168

Exporting a calendar 169

Subscribing to calendars 170

Printing Calendars 171

Working with Contacts in Address Book 172

New cards 173

New groups 174

Importing contacts 175

Exporting contacts 177

Setting Address Book Preferences 177

General 177

Accounts 178

Template 178

Phone 180

vCard 180

Getting Detailed Maps of Addresses 181

chapter 7

How Do I Work with PDFs and Images? 146

File Types Supported by Preview 148

Open and Save Files in Preview 148

Set Preview’s Preferences 150

General 151

Images 151

PDF 151

Bookmarks 152

View and Edit PDFs 153

Mark up and annotate PDFs 153

Delete pages from a PDF 154

Rearrange pages in a PDF 155

View and Edit Images 155

Resizing and rotating images 157

Adjusting color in images 158

Using Bookmarks 200

Organizing bookmarks 200

Importing and exporting bookmarks 202

Customizing Safari’s Main Window 202

Viewing Your Favorite Pages with Top Sites 203

Private Browsing 206

Viewing RSS Feeds 207

Viewing Windows Media Files 208

Finding Text on a Web Site 209

Troubleshooting Safari 210

A Web page won’t open 210

Unable to download files 210

Downloaded files won’t open 211

The AutoFill feature isn’t working 211

Images aren’t displaying correctly 211

chapter 10

How Do I Stay Connected with Mail? 214

Getting Around in Mail 216

Customizing the Toolbar 217

Managing E-mail Accounts 218

Automatic setup 218

Manual setup 220

Syncing Contacts and Calendars with Handheld Devices 182

Connecting a device to your Mac 182

Supported devices 182

Bluetooth 182

USB 184

Syncing with iSync 184

Add a device to iSync 185

Sync devices with your Mac 185

Sync alert 187

iSync preferences 188

Syncing an iPhone or iPod touch with iTunes 189

chapter 9

How Do I Master the Web with Safari? 190

Setting Safari Preferences 192

General 192

Appearance 193

Bookmarks 194

Tabs 195

RSS 195

AutoFill 196

Security 197

Advanced 198

Setting iTunes Preferences 238

General 238

Playback 238

Sharing 238

Store 238

Parental 239

Apple TV 239

Devices 240

Advanced 240

Organizing and Playing Media 241

Importing music 242

Automatically importing from CDs 242

Importing individual music files 242

Creating playlists 243

Setting up Genius playlists 244

Using Smart Playlists 245

Burning CDs 245

Managing audio file information 247

Adding album artwork to your music 248

Streaming radio 248

Backing up your audio Library 249

Converting audio formats 251

Creating ringtones for your iPhone 252

Using the iTunes Store 252

Finding music 254

Renting or buying movies 254

Subscribing to podcasts 256

Educating yourself with iTunes U 257

Composing E-mail 222

Using Stationery 223

Adding attachments 224

Formatting content 225

Receiving, Replying to, and Forwarding E-mail 225

Organizing Mailboxes 226

Mailboxes 226

Creating custom and Smart Mailboxes 227

Notes and To Dos 228

Using RSS Feeds 230

Troubleshooting Mail 231

Unable to send messages 231

Unable to receive messages 232

chapter 11

What Are iTunes’ Coolest Features? 234

Getting Around in iTunes 236

Understanding the iTunes window layout 236

Full Screen mode 237

Using a Scanner 274

Scanning images 274

Using the Image Capture options 274

Using your scanner’s software options 276

chapter 13

How Can I Share Files and Other Items? 278

Using the Sharing System Preferences 280

File Sharing 282

Adding shared folders and users 282

Enabling file-sharing protocols 285

Printer Sharing 286

Sharing with Mac OS X users 286

Sharing with Windows users 287

Remote Management 287

Sharing through Bluetooth 288

Using Bluetooth File Exchange 290

Send a file from your Mac 290

Browse another Bluetooth device 290

chapter 12

What Can Snow Leopard Do with Digital Photography? 258

Getting to Know Photo Booth 260

Taking Snapshots 261

Single snapshots 261

Taking four quick snapshots 261

Creating video 262

Viewing your snapshots 263

Using Special Effects 263

Snapshot effects 263

Video backdrops 265

Adding custom backdrops 267

Using your pictures and videos 267

Working with Image Capture 269

Connecting your device 270

Using a Digital Camera 270

Transferring images to and from your camera 270

Download or Download All 271

Transfer images to your camera 272

Deleting images from your camera 273

chapter 15

What Can I Do with UNIX Commands in Terminal? 310

Tinkering with Terminal 312

Terminal preferences 312

Startup 312

Settings 313

Window Groups 315

Encodings 316

Tabbed windows 316

Entering UNIX Commands 317

Navigating a CLI 317

Common commands 318

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s superuser! 319

Snow Leopard UNIX Tricks 321

Changing the Dock from 3-D to 2-D 321

Adding a message to the login window 321

Changing the format of screenshots 321

Enable the path view in Finder 322

Using transparent icons for hidden applications 322

Enable double scroll arrows 323

Setting a screen saver as your desktop picture 323

Finding Additional UNIX Information 323

chapter 14

How Can I Automate My Mac? 292

Getting Around in Automator 294

Using Workflows 296

Designing a workflow 296

Saving your workflows 299

Recording Your Own Actions 300

Discovering Time Machine 301

Why it’s important to back up your files 302

Hardware requirements for using Time Machine 302

Setting Up a Backup Disk 303

Formatting a hard drive 303

Telling Time Machine about the backup drive 303

Selecting the Files You Want to Back Up 306

Working with Backups 307

Manual backup 307

Pause and resume a backup 307

Retrieving Information from Time Machine 308

Restoring individual files 308

Restoring an entire drive 308

chapter 17

Do You Have Any Troubleshooting Tips? 338

Start Problem Solving 340

Restarting your Mac 340

Backing up your Mac 340

Make Sure You Are Up to Date 341

Startup Issues 342

Your Mac won’t power up 342

Your Mac is hung up at startup 343

Handy startup keyboard shortcuts 344

Isolating Software Troubles 345

Utilizing the root account 346

Deleting preference files 347

Killing a process 348

Correcting permissions issues 349

When All Else Fails, Reinstall 351

Appendix A 352

Appendix B 355

Glossary 360

Index 368

chapter 16

Can I Install Windows on My Mac? 324

Understanding Boot Camp 326

Benefits of installing Microsoft Windows 326

What you need in order to install Windows 326

Using Boot Camp to Install Windows 327

Partitioning your hard drive 328

Windows installation 330

Choosing a Startup Disk 331

From Windows 332

From Snow Leopard 332

Removing Windows from Your Mac 333

An Alternative Method for Running Windows on Your Mac 334

Parallels Desktop for Mac 335

VMWare Fusion 336

VirtualBox 337

1

Once ag ain you’ve raised the bar for your competitors and knocked the

socks off the rest of us. Snow Leopard isn’t only the best-looking oper-

ating system around, it’s also the most functional and easy to use.

Some of you may be rolling your eyes right now; all computers use the file and folder concept and

some sort of colorful user interface, so there couldn’t be that much difference between Mac OS X

and its competitors, right? Wrong! I don’t just say this because of some blind devotion to all things

Apple; I’ve actually used different flavors of Windows and Linux for more than 14 years, right

alongside my trusty Mac, so experience has been my teacher. If I have any devotion to Apple, there

are plenty of good reasons why, the subject of this book being the first.

Readers of this book who are already Mac users understand exactly what I’m talking about. For

those of you moving from other computing platforms, it’s my desire that by the end of this book

you will have a whole new perspective on computing and see what it means to really have fun

while working with your computer.

In Mac OS X Snow Leopard Portable Genius you learn much more than just basics; you learn the

subtle nuances and little tips and tricks that make using your Mac that much easier. I’ve covered

the gamut, from printing files, surfing the Internet, and using e-mail, to partitioning your hard

drive, automating repetitive tasks, and using UNIX commands, with just a little bit of geeky humor

thrown in for good measure.

I hope this book will do justice to Mac OS X Snow Leopard, which isn’t just a computer operating

system; it’s an art form.

Thank you, Apple!

1

How Do I Get Started with Snow Leopard?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

You are about to embark on the world’s most advanced operating system expe-

rience, courtesy of Apple Inc. In this chapter, I show you how to get Mac OS X

Snow Leopard up and running, as well as how to navigate Snow Leopard using

the Finder application, which helps you find just about anything on your Mac.

System Requirements for Installing Snow Leopard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

What’s New in Snow Leopard? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Choosing an Installation Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Upgrading to Snow Leopard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Custom Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Advanced Installation Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Working with Finder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Getting Information on Files and Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Using Quick Look . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Working with Removable Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Utilizing the Dock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Searching for Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Managing Windows with Exposé . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Taking Screenshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Using Multiple Desktops with Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

4

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Portable Genius

System Requirements for Installing Snow LeopardAs anxious as you probably are to get started, make sure that your Mac meets all the necessary

hardware requirements for properly installing and running Snow Leopard. Table 1.1 lists the

requirements, which are straight from Apple.

Table 1.1 Requirements for Installing Snow Leopard

Requirement Minimum Specifications

Processor Intel processor

Memory 512MB of RAM just to get Snow Leopard up and going. 2GB is needed to run all the bells and whistles at a decent speed

Media An internal, external, or shared DVD drive

Hard drive space At least 9GB of free space

What’s New in Snow Leopard?A great deal of Snow Leopard’s improvements to Mac OS X are under the hood. You won’t notice

too many differences cosmetically between Snow Leopard and its predecessor, Leopard. Let’s

check out some of Snow Leopard’s more prominent goodies:

Greatly reduced footprint. Snow Leopard requires considerably less hard drive space

than previous versions of Mac OS X.

64-bit extension. Apple has extended the capabilities of its 64-bit technology so that

Mac OS X can now accommodate insane amounts of RAM (memory). As a matter of fact,

theoretically your Mac could now support up to 16 terabytes of memory, which is about

500 times more than in Leopard (the previous version of Mac OS X).

Microsoft Exchange support. Snow Leopard has built-in support for Microsoft

Exchange 2007. This means that applications such as Mail, Address Book, and iCal can

use the Exchange Web Services protocol to access your e-mails, contacts, and calendars.

Grand Central. All new Macs have multicore processors, and now with a new set of

technologies called Grand Central, your Mac can make full use of these processors by

making the entire operating system multicore aware. If you’re a regular guy like me, this

means your Mac is going to speed up dramatically.

5

Chapter 1: How Do I Get Started with Snow Leopard?

QuickTime X. This is a brand-new iteration of what is already the best media platform

on the Internet. Media playback and JavaScript are greatly improved, making Web appli-

cations zip along like never before.

Choosing an Installation MethodOnly you can decide how to install Snow Leopard. Should you upgrade or wipe everything clean

on your hard drive and start all over with a fresh OS install? Let’s look at the options.

Upgrading from a previous version of the Mac OS has its advantages, to be sure:

There is no need to create new user accounts for every user.

You don’t have to reload all of your applications and documents.

The Snow Leopard installer does all the difficult work, migrating user account

information such as passwords, e-mail accounts, and Safari bookmarks.

These are compelling reasons to simply upgrade and be done with it. However, there are also a

couple of good reasons to wipe the drive clean and start fresh:

If you have Mac OS X 10.2 or earlier, you can’t upgrade to Snow Leopard. You must

have 10.3 or 10.4.

If your Mac has been exhibiting some weird behavior lately, it is most likely system

related. It’s best to start over if this is the case.

You may want to simply start over, especially if your Mac has become bloated with

extraneous applications and documents that you’ve forgotten about or neglected

to maintain.

Weigh the six points I just listed and decide for yourself whether to upgrade or wipe the drive

clean. If you choose to upgrade, simply continue on to the next section. Should you decide to wipe

the drive clean and start fresh, skip to the “Custom Installations” section to get going quickly.

Upgrading to Snow LeopardLet’s get started with your upgrade to the newest feline from Apple. Follow these steps:

1. Insert the Snow Leopard installation disc into your Mac.

2. When the disc mounts, the Mac OS X Install DVD automatically opens, as shown in

figure 1.1.

6

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Portable Genius

1.1 The Snow Leopard DVD window

3. Double-click the Install Mac OS X icon.

4. Click Continue in the Install Mac OS X window.

5. Select the hard drive on which you want to install Snow Leopard.

6. Click Install in the Install Mac OS X window, as shown in figure 1.2.

1.2 Click Install to begin the installation process.

7

Chapter 1: How Do I Get Started with Snow Leopard?

7. After your Mac reboots, select the language you want to use for the installation

process and click the forward arrow.

8. Click Continue at the Welcome screen.

9. Agree to the software license agreement.

10. Choose the hard drive on which you want to install Snow Leopard and click Continue.

11. Click Install in the Install Summary window.

12. Sit back, get a cup of your favorite beverage, read the Welcome to Snow Leopard

manual that came in the Mac OS X Snow Leopard retail box, and when the installa-

tion is finished, you will be fully Snow Leopardized!

If you are installing Snow Leopard on your startup disk, do not stop the installation

process! If the process doesn’t finish, you may not be able to start up from your hard

drive. If you are installing on a laptop, make sure the power supply is connected

before beginning the installation so that the process isn’t stopped due to low bat-

tery power.

Caution

Custom InstallationsShould you decide to completely start over with your Mac, you’ve come to the right section of this

chapter. To “start over” means to completely install a fresh operating system and not upgrade over

an existing one. Follow these steps:

Back up your files before performing this kind of installation! Otherwise, you will lose

all the data on your drive! If you don’t back up, it’s almost inevitable that after the

process is complete, you will slap your forehead in disgust, realizing you just erased

Grandma’s recipes that have been passed down for generations.Caution

1. Insert the installation disc and reboot your Mac.

2. Immediately after the startup sound, hold down the C key to boot from the instal-

lation disc. Continue to hold C until you see the gray Apple logo.

3. Choose the language you want to use for the installation process and click the for-

ward arrow.

4. Select the drive on which you want to install Snow Leopard.

5. Click Install to install the default system and files, or skip to step 6 and customize

the installation.

8

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Portable Genius

6. Click Customize to choose a particular set of files and alternative system resources.

7. Select the check boxes next to the applications and utilities that you want to

include in the installation.

8. Click OK when you finish with the customization, and then click Install.

Advanced Installation OptionsThere are a couple of other things I want to show you that can help customize your Snow Leopard

installation.

Partitioning your hard driveIf you have a large hard drive, you can partition it, meaning that you can divide the physical drive

with software to make the drive appear and even operate as if it were multiple disks. This is advan-

tageous if you plan to install Windows on your Mac using Boot Camp (see Chapter 16), using part

of your drive for the OS and other parts for storing your documents and information, or if you want

to install multiple versions of Mac OS X on one computer. Of course, there are many more reasons

you would partition your drive, but you get the idea.

To partition your drive, follow these steps:

1. Insert the installation disc into your Mac and restart the computer.

2. Immediately after you hear the startup sound, hold down the C key to boot from

the installation disc. Continue to hold the C key until you see the gray Apple logo on

the screen.

3. Select the language you want to use for the installation process and click the for-

ward arrow.

4. Choose Utilities ➪ Disk Utility from the menu.

5. Select the disk in the volume list on the left side of the Disk Utility window, as

shown in figure 1.3.

6. Click the Partition tab in the window and then click the + button in the lower-left

corner to begin adding partitions to the Volume Scheme.

7. Select a format for each partition using the Format menu.

8. You can resize each partition by typing a size into the Size box.

9. Click Apply when you are ready to partition the drive.

9

Chapter 1: How Do I Get Started with Snow Leopard?

1.3 Partitioning a drive with Disk Utility is a breeze.

Installing the Xcode developer toolsThe Snow Leopard installation disc comes with all the tools that application developers need to

get started with programming for Mac OS X. These tools, called Xcode developer tools, can easily

be installed from the Mac OS X Install DVD. They are found in the Optional Installs folder on the

disc; the path to the installer is shown in figure 1.4.

1.4 You have to search a little to find the Xcode installer on the DVD.

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Mac OS X Snow Leopard Portable Genius

To install the Xcode developer tools, follow these steps:

1. Double-click the Xcode.mpkg file to launch the installer and click Continue.

2. Click Continue again in the Software License Agreement window and then agree to

the license agreement.

3. Select the hard drive on which Xcode will be installed and click Continue.

4. Choose the items you want to install and click Continue again.

5. Click Install in the Standard Install on “Macintosh HD” window to begin the instal-

lation (see figure 1.5).

1.5 Click Install to begin the Xcode developer tools installer process.

Working with FinderAfter your Mac has booted or when you first log in, take a look at that smiley-face guy grinning at

you near the bottom-left corner of your screen. That’s the Finder (see figure 1.6), and it’s one of the

most important items in all of Mac OS X Snow Leopard.