Tag Archives: System Preferences

How to remove icons from your menu bar

When you first start using your Mac, you may have quite a few items in your menu bar. I don’t feel the need for the Bluetooth or Input menu items and I prefer an uncluttered look, so I’ll remove them. But how do you do that?

You can easily remove any of these icons you don't need.

There’s nothing in each one’s menu to allow you to remove them and there aren’t easy to find settings for them in System Preferences (though, they are usually scattered around there). If you want to remove one, just hold down the ⌘ (Command) key and drag it out of the menu bar. Lift your finger to stop dragging once you’re clear of the menu bar and poof it’s gone. This is similar to how you can drag icons out of your Dock – only with that you don’t need to hold down the option key.

Keeping your Mac’s Trash in the corner

One of the first things I do on any new Mac is change the Dock so that my Trash is always in the corner rather than floating around as icons are added or removed from the Dock. This makes it very easy to drag items to the Trash because it’s always in the same spot. It’ll always be in the bottom-right corner if your Dock is positioned on the bottom or the right of the screen. And Trash will be in the bottom-left corner if your Dock is positioned on the left of the screen.

You have to set the Dock preferences so that the end of the Dock is pinned to the edge of the screen. But wait, that doesn’t show up in System Preferences for the Dock! Instead, you have to use the Terminal to enter some commands to set a hidden preference. This is really easy to do even if you’re not comfortable with the Terminal application or command line interfaces in general. But, typing the wrong thing into the Terminal can be fairly destructive – you’ve been warned. If you’re ready, Terminal can be found in the Utilities folder within your Applications folder.

Just type the following commands into Terminal one after the other and your Dock will disappear for a second and when it comes back the Trash will be in the corner.

defaults write com.apple.Dock pinning end

killall Dock

Multi-button mousing with your Mac

One of the biggest issues that detractors of the Mac have had over the years is that Macs don’t work with two-button mouses. And one of the curious things about detractors of the Mac is that they apparently have never used one. Macs work with multi-button mouses. They have done so for years. Until recently, Apple only sold one-button mouses, but Mac OS X has supported multi-button mouses since it was first released on March 24, 2001. Apple now only sells multi-button mouses.

The multiple button Mighty Mouse that Apple designed retains the overall form of the Apple Mouse that it replaced and works as a single-button mouse for those that don’t feel the need for multiple buttons and to reduce stress on the index finger since the mouse can be clicked with your entire hand.

So, if you feel the need to right-click, you’ll want to change your system preferences since the mouse defaults to acting like one with a single button. System Preferences are accessed through the Apple menu in the menu bar. Select the Keyboard & Mouse icon that is in the Hardware grouping. Then select the Mouse tab at the top of the window and you’ll see all of the preferences you can set for your mouse. By default both the left and right side of the mouse are set to act as the primary button. Regardless of which side of the mouse you click on, it’ll always register as a “left-click.” So, you’ll want to set one of those to the secondary button. If you’re a right-hander, then you will be most comfortable setting the right side to the secondary button. Keep in mind that the secondary button is registered if only that side is touched when you click the mouse. I really like this feature because I can still use the mouse like a single-button mouse (clicking with my entire hand), and when I need to context-click on something I just click on the right side of the mouse.

You can also set what happens when you click either the scroll ball or the side buttons. There is a key on your keyboard that will activate the Dashboard, so I don’t understand why Apple defaulted the scroll ball to this function. And, the Exposé key on your keyboard will reveal all windows for you, so the side buttons could also be put to better use. My recommendation is to use the two extra mouse buttons for Exposé, but you can set them to whatever you want. I’ve got the scroll ball set to show me the windows for my current application (Exposé – App Windows) and the side buttons set to expose the desktop (Exposé – Desktop). I feel this is best because if you’re going to your desktop, you’re probably going to be dragging something to or from it and dragging works well with the side buttons. You can also see from the screen shot that I increased the tracking speed to be closer to what I was used to on Windows. Adjust this slider to whatever makes you comfortable.

Now you’re all set. You can close the system preferences and use the mouse the way you want to from here on out. Just remember that if you have more than one account set up on your Mac, the other people can configure their own preferences for the mouse. So, you can turn on all of the buttons on your account but make all of them (including the scroll ball and side buttons) act as the primary button for your young child’s account.