Mac OS X Power Hound, Second Edition

Chapter 5. System Preferences

System Preferences is like your brain’s cortex in that it coordinates fine-motor skills. It’s the program to use if you want to change the characteristics of your machine (like the speed of your mouse) or system-wide functions (like the color used for highlighting text). If you’re an old Mac or Windows hand, note that System Preferences has replaced the Control Panels of yore.

UP TO SPEED 50 Ways to System Preferences

There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and there’s certainly more than one way to open System Preferences.

Most people get there by clicking the little light-switch icon on the Dock. If you don’t see it there, somebody may have dragged it off. Fortunately, there’s a backdoor: you can also choose

→ System Preferences.

If you want to jump quickly to the Sound or Displays pane, there are a couple of special keystrokes that take you there in a flash. Press Option and the Mute key on the keyboard

(usually at the top of the numerical keypad), and the Sound pane of System Preferences pops open right before your eyes. To get to the Displays panel just as quickly, press Option along with one of the Brightness control keys (usually at the top of a laptop keyboard).

The third method, well, it’s hardly a shortcut: open your Applications folder and double-click the System Preferences icon.

System Preferences

This section just contains hints on using the System ...