4. Master Your Files

In my years of using and teaching about the Mac, I’ve run across people who are quite adept in some areas, like using a particular program, but lack some core knowledge about how the computer works. It’s as if they missed the first day of a “How to Use Your Mac” class and never caught up with their homework. Ask them to build a spreadsheet in Excel and it’s no problem; ask them to locate that Excel file and they’re utterly lost.

It’s not their fault. No one ever said, “Go learn how a hierarchical file-system works.” Instead, they learned how to accomplish a specific task—build a spreadsheet, enhance a photo, read email. And in most cases, those tasks involve files. Files are the foundation of working within OS X, and you ...

Get OS X Mavericks Pocket Guide now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.