If you find the options in System Preferences overwhelming, you can selectively hide those unwanted options from displaying.
Open System Preferences app. Click and hold on the “Show All” button to reveal a drop down menu. Select “Customize…” at the bottom of the menu.
From the customize screen, uncheck those options that you want to hide, and then click the “Done” button to save the changes.
If you use the dock but hate the blue indicator light below open applications, OS X Lion now allows you to turn the lights off. Go to System Preferences > Dock, uncheck “Show indicator lights for open applications”.
OS X Lion comes with a new “iTunes Artwork” screen saver, which displays album covers from your iTunes library as flipping grids of images. When you click on an album cover, the songs from the album will start playing.
The settings for screen saver is under System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver.
AirDrop is a new OS X Lion feature that provides an easy way to share files between Wi-Fi enabled Macs, using drag-and-drop right from within Finder. Unfortunately AirDrop is not available for all Macs running OS X Lion as the feature requires a Wi-Fi hardware feature available only on newer Macs.
If AirDrop is not listed on your Mac’s Finder window sidebar or under the Go menu, then your Mac doesn’t support AirDrop. Apple has a support document listing the Macs supporting AirDrop. Macs that are the same as or newer than the models listed below support AirDrop:
Apple Support Doc: Can I use AirDrop with my computer?
AirPrint is the printing module of iOS that enables wireless printing from apps from your iPhone and iPad. However in order to support AirPrint, printers need to have wireless networking feature and specifically enhanced in hardware in order to support AirPrint. You can check out the list of current AirPrint compatible printers from Apple support site. Before you rush out to buy an AirPrint printer specifically, read on.
If your current printer is not AirPrint compatible, you can still enable AirPrint by running an agent software such as AirPrint Activator on your Mac. AirPrint Activator app will broadcast the printers connected on the Mac to your iOS devices via the AirPrint protocol. When you send a print job from iPhone, AirPrint Activator will route the print job to the printer.
The prerequisite for AirPrint Activator is a running Mac in order for the connected printers to be accessible. You also need to enable OS X’s “Printer Sharing” from System Preferences > Sharing.
AirPrint Activator is a third party solution and is not endorsed by Apple. There are other similar apps but AirPrint Activator is recommended as it is simple, it works and it is free (donation is happily welcomed by the developer). Until Apple release similar feature in future OS X, AirPrint Activator is the next best thing without spending the extra for a new printer.
You might be familiar with the File > Duplicate (Command-D) command in Finder. New in OS X Lion is the function “Duplicate Exactly”. You can access Duplicate Exactly by pressing Command-Option-Shift keys while in the File menu. The “Duplicate” menu item will change to “Duplicate Exactly”. Or you can just press the keys Command-Option-Shift-D.
When you choose the normal “Duplicate” command, OS X will create a copy of the file and set the file owner to your login account. “Duplicate Exactly” will create a copy of the file but the ownership of the file follows the source, thus ensuring the exact same file even for file permissions.
New in OS X Lion is the build-in support for Emoji characters. Feeling moody or a little playful? You can now add smiley faces and cute animals to your email, chat or the monthly report. In TextEdit, Pages. iChat or any apps that support this system feature, select from menu File > Special Characters… or press Command-Option-T. A “Characters” window will popup. Select Emoji from the sidebar. Choose the category such as “People” or Nature”, and double-click on a character to place it into your document or chat window.
As you may have discovered by now, OS X Lion has killed the “File > Save As…” command. The change has taken effect in apps such as TextEdit, Preview and Pages. More apps are expected to follow suite when they update to support OS X Lion.
The “File > Save As…” function is now sorted of being replaced by the new “File > Duplicate” command. But there are differences. This is a big deal if you rely heavily on “Save As…” in your document workflow, as the new ”File > Duplicate” command double the steps required.
In the old way using “File > Save As…”, you simply enter a new document name, click the Save button, and you can start working on the new document.
When you issue “File > Duplicate” command, a new document window will appear with a copy of the same document content. You then have to issue “File > Save…” to actually save the new document as file.
This changes might appear more consumer friendly, but it is a pain to adjust to for many who are used to the long time computing “File > Save As…” workflow.
iCal the calendar app in Mac OS X Lion has a new trick. You can create calendar events using plain English. Click on the icon with a plus sign or press Command-N to activate the Quick Event pop-up. Enter your calendar event in plain English, for example “Dinner with Sarah Friday at 7pm”. Press Enter and the event will be created for you on the calendar.
You can create multi days event by keying the start and end date. For example “Year end holidays from Nov 22 to Nov 28″. For one thing, you can’t specify “next weekday/week/month” with Quick Event such as “Movie with Sam next Saturday 8pm”. Let’s hope iCal will improve on this feature for future release. But for now, using plain English is a better way than entering the event date/time manually.
Jenga for the iOS is possibly the best electronic approximation of a game of physical blocks. This is the official game designed with the help of the original Jenga creator Leslie Scott. The standard poke, flick and pull controls are all translated to your mobile screens, except for the tactile feedback. The game now even sports online multiplayer mode for emulating the social nature of the physical game. And there is a version for the Mac as well.
