Galen Gruman - Mac OS X Snow Leopard bible

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Bible

Galen Gruman

Mark Hattersley

with Timothy R. Butler

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Bible

Published by
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
10475 Crosspoint Boulevard
Indianapolis, IN 46256
www.wiley.com

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

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-0-470-45363-6

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 Website 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 or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites 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.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009932707

Trademarks: Wiley and related trade dress are registered trademarks of Wiley Publishing, Inc., in the United States and 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 Bible is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple, Inc.

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

To all the Mac users who've endured Apple's troubled 1990s and are now enjoying the Mac's renaissance. Galen Gruman

For my darling wife, Rosemary, with all my heart. And to my parents for buying me my first computer and filling my childhood with happiness, but inspiring me to work hard. Thank you. This book is also for the forum posters on Macworld UK, for their priceless advice, suggestions, thoughts, and opinions. It's good to be a Mac! Mark Hattersley

To Mom and Dad. Thank you for all of your support for my writing and everything else. And most of all, your love. Tim Butler

About the Authors

Galen Gruman is the principal at The Zango Group, an editorial development and book production firm. As such, he has produced several books for Wiley Publishing and is a regular contributor to Macworld and CIO. He is also author or co-author of 24 books on desktop publishing. Gruman has covered Macintosh technology since then for several publications, including the trade weekly InfoWorld, for which he began writing in 1986 and of which he is now executive editor, and Macworld, whose staff he was a member of from 1991 to 1998.

Mark Hattersley is the editor in chief of Macworld UK. He is a writer and editor of various technology publications including Macworld, iPod User, Digital Arts, and MacVideo. Mark has spent much of his working life covering Apple products and is an unabashed enthusiast of what Macs enable people to create, rather than merely consume.

Mark is a key name on the UK Mac scene, and he has tremendously enjoyed covering Apple's Pheonix-like rise; emerging from the ashes when he first began writing about technology, to making some of the UK's most popular tech products.

Mark lives in London with his wife, Rosemary, who is the deputy editor of PC Advisor (the UK edition of PC World magazine). This causes much mirth to their friends, although the home networking issues have finally been sorted.

Timothy R. Butler is the editor in chief of Open for Business ( www.ofb.biz ). At OFB he started by covering the GNU/Linux beat, particularly focusing on Linux as a desktop system in business environments. In recent years his coverage has broadened to cover Macs, along with non-tech subjects such as politics and religion. He is a happy desktop-Linux-to-Mac switcher and now enjoys doing his little part for Mac world domination. Tim is also the founder of Universal Networks, where he has worked as a system administrator for Mac, Unix, Linux and Windows systems since 1998.

Credits

Acquisitions Editor

Aaron Black

Project Editor

Martin V. Minner

Technical Editor

Paul Sihvonen-Binder

Copy Editor

Lauren Kennedy

Editorial Director

Robyn Siesky

Editorial Manager

Cricket Krengel

Business Manager

Amy Knies

Senior Marketing Manager

Sandy Smith

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Richard Swadley

Vice President and Executive Publisher

Barry Pruett

Project Coordinator

Patrick Redmond

Graphics and Production Specialists

Andrea Hornberger
Jennifer Mayberry
Christin Swinford
Ronald Terry

Quality Control Technician

Melissa Cossell

Proofreading

Bonnie Mikkelson

Indexing

Broccoli Information Management

For those who've used the Mac since the mid-1980s, it's hard to believe that it's been eight years since the first version of Mac OS X (10.0 Cheetah) was released, in March 2001, at a period when Apple's very survival seemed uncertain after years of chaotic management. Returned CEO Steve Jobs changed that chaos into focus and innovation, and a steady stream of improved Mac OS big cats have followed ever since: Mac OS X 10.1 Puma in September 2001, followed by Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar in August 2002, Mac OS X 10.3 Panther in October 2003, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger in April 2005, and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in October 2007. Now the newest big cat is here: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

Of the Mac OS X lineage, Snow Leopard in many ways is the oddest. Apple publicly proclaimed that this seventh version would not introduce significant new functionalities, the kinds of Wow! features like Time Machine or the Dock Apple is famous for. Instead, it would be retooled to be lighter and faster less fat, more muscle by taking advantage of multiple cores now standard on computer processors. That means a boost to application performance, speedier QuickTime streaming media, and faster JavaScripts on Web pages. Oh yeah, and take less disk space. Many of us believe these under-the-hood changes are not only to make the Mac faster, but to prepare for the use of Mac OS in new kinds of devices that the iPhone (also based on some of the Mac OS) can only suggest.