Chapter 27: Setting System Preferences
In This Chapter
How to access system preferences
Setting personal preferences
Adjusting hardware preferences
Specifying Internet and wireless settings
Customizing system-level preferences
The Mac is ready to run out of the box, but you need to adjust anything with as many capabilities as OS X to the peculiarities of your equipment, software, environment, and, yes, personal preferences. You use the System Preferences application to do this customization work.
OS X has as many as 33 system preferences you can adjust. And each system preference has multiple settings within it, so you can make hundreds of customization decisions. That's a bunch, and it attests to OS X's flexibility, but don't worry about facing so many options. You can adjust system preferences at any time, choosing which you want to adjust—and leaving alone the ones you don't want to change.
You can adjust several other OS X preferences that are not found in the System Preferences application. You can adjust what displays in the Finder windows, as well as adjust the access permissions and other attributes of your Mac's disks, both of which are covered later in this chapter. You also can adjust the fonts available to your applications, as explained in Chapter 28; you can adjust various accessibility features, as Chapter 29 explains; and you can add and remove applications from the Dock, as explained in Chapter 2.
Tip
Several system preferences install icons in your menu bar ...
