If you are the proud owner of a brand new Mac and you haven’t used one before, in this article we are going to provide relevant info that will help you start using the computer. Your first priority after plugging in the new Mac is to think about a backup solution which although might sound boring, it can prove to be extremely useful in the future in the unfortunate event that something goes wrong. By doing a backup of the system it means that in the future there will be no risks at losing important data so better be safe than sorry and do a backup of your Mac.
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Since this is your new computer, you might as well tweak it as you prefer. In order to do this you will have to access System Preferences which can be found in the default Dock or you can access it via the Apple menu. We recommend spending some time to view every pane available and whenever you reach an option that you don’t know for sure what it does, you can either find out about it or you can simply leave it alone. You will probably want to fiddle with the default alert sound (accessed from Sound > Sound Effects) or the background images (found at Desktop & Screensaver).
We also have to recommend using Dropbox which is a free utility that aside from backing up your files, it offers the possibility to synchronize your data among various devices. After installing this application, the content that you copy to the Dropbox folder is going to be backed up by the Dropbox’s website and if you log in with another device, the content will still be there for you to use. If the Mac that you just have bought has a trackpad, you might want to spend some time learning about the numerous gestures that are supported in OS X Lion. The best way to find out more about the gestures is to go to the System Preferences and then access Trackpad where you will notice that there are three tabs for mouse shortcuts. If you move the mouse cursor to any of these tabs, you’ll get to see a video preview of how to perform a gesture. Don’t forget about the Mac App Store which can be accessed by clicking on the blue circle that has a stylized A inside it. This icon can be found in the Dock and after accessing the store you’ll notice that there are thousands of applications waiting for you. Downloading and installing these apps is a piece of cake and many of these programs are entirely free. The paid ones cost from just $1 to even a couple of hundred bucks.
Apple installs on every new Mac an application called iMovie which is a great tool for making your own video clips in only a few minutes. You also have the possibility to make some high quality trailers which will let you find out more about the iMovie’s powerful features. Also on your new Mac is an application called GarageBand with which you’re able to create music.
These are only just a few of the things that you might want to do with your brand new Mac and we’ll let you discover the rest of the stuff that can be done with a Mac.