Mac Newbie Tip #1: Turn on the tabs!

There are a number of things I do to set up my Mac OS X environment when I start using a new Mac or set up a new version of the OS. A few of you that read the blog (Arjun, Sudhish) are starting to use the Mac OS for the first time and I figured that I would write down a few tips here in the hope that they others may find them useful now and in the future as well.

For tip #1, I'll start with Safari which is the default browser included with the OS, a pretty good one if I may add! Inexplicably, Apple ships Safari with a couple of key options turned off.

First, you may want to turn on the pop-up blocker. There's still a great many sites that will annoy the hell out of you with pop-up windows so I find it very useful to turn the blocker on. This is easily accomplished by turning it on from the menu. Here's where you can find it.



Next, I recommend you turn on tabbed browsing. I love tabs in my browser, as anyone using Firefox would also attest. IE 7 in Windows Vista will have this feature next year but Safari has had it for a good few years now. To turn this on, go to Safari->Preferences and select 'Tabs' on the top strip. Here's what you'll see. The keyboard shortcuts are handy too.



As a bonus, try Command (this is the key with the Apple logo) and the comma key. That is an almost universal shortcut for the Preferences window in any application.
Mac Newbie Tip_