After talking to various friends and colleagues of mine over the past year or so, it has become apparent that there are a few Mac owners/users out there. This has led me to ponder how people may use their Mac OS differently. Specifically, I am curious how other users customize their system preferences to suit their individual tastes. If you are a Mac user, please feel free to share your responses to the below queries (my answers are in italics). If you are not a Mac user, seek help, your mind is sick and you desperately need professional help.
Query 1: How do you organize your files? Do they have a veritable catalogue of well-organized folders and sub-folders that you can easily navigate via the Finder? Or is your desktop littered with folders and files for "easy access". Everyone has a method to their madness, what's yours?
I try to keep a tidy desktop both in the real world and the virtual world. Hence, my desktop tends to be on the tidy side. I try to limit desktop clutter to 1–5 documents or folders on any given day. I find that this allows me a better view of my wallpaper in addition to providing a nice sense of virtual feng shui (see picture).
Query 2: Do the OS Leopard users utilize the stacks feature on the dock? If so, how do you like the documents and folders to be displayed? As a fan? Grid? Or list?
Personally, I use stacks sparingly. I am so use to searching for files via the finder that I often forget that there are other ways to navigate through the Mac world.
Query 3: How have you customized your dock? Is it set to show or hide? Where is it positioned? Is your minimize effect set to "genie" or "scale"? Is magnification on or off?
At work, I have my dock set to auto-hide and positioned on the on the bottom of the left monitor at my workstation. However, at home, I tend to prefer to keep the dock visible at all times.
Query 4: What view mode is your finder window set to? Icons? List? Column? Or Cover flow?
As visually impressive as cover flow may be, I still prefer to use the column view mode to navigate through files and folders. To me, this option just seems so intuitive, not to mention how quick it is to navigate back and forth from folder to folder without having to click "back" and "forward" buttons, although you can if you like. I also find it much easier to copy or click and drag files while in the column view mode (see picture).
3 comments:
Yay, Macs!
I love my Mac - I have a 13" White MacBook.
Query 1: Unlike my physical desktop, I like my virtual desk top neat. To that effect I only keep files that I am currently using on the desktop. I will save to the desktop almost always, but I put things in folders pretty much right away.
Query 2: I have only been a regular mac user for since January, as the availability of computers on campus is regulated by crazy people(PC users) and I couldn't afford to buy my own until then. I use the stacks rather sparingly as Finder is were I go first and it is easy. I will occasionally use the downloads stack and it fans, but it is not my go-to option.
Query 3: Of course - as a hip, individual Mac user it would be counter my nature to not customize. To make the best use of my small screen space, I keep mine at about half size, positioned on the left hand side and have the auto-hide on. I have to say, I am not a big fan of the magnification - it kinda weirds me out.
Query 4: Columns - it just makes the most sense.
I have to say it again - I love my Mac!
Hey Fleur! Neat to hear about how you use your Mac. I also do quick file saves to the desktop sometimes before I put it in a folder.
I don't really know about stacks, I have customized my dock a bit, and my desktop us not often more than the little harddrive icon
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