The+apple+menu

Mac Help > The Basics > The Apple Menu

 **The Apple Menu** There are many useful functions that reside under the apple menu. Lets go down the list and discuss each one: // **"About This Mac"** // Click on the apple and go to "about this mac"
 * Up in the top left hand corner you will see an apple on the menu bar.
 * A small window will appear with some useful information.
 * About this mac- tells you important info like operating system, serial # and other hardware specs.[[image:About_This_Mac-1.jpg]]
 * The arrow labeled number 1 shows the version of your operating system. Click the gray text two times to display your serial number.
 * The arrow labeled number 2 shows your computers processor speed and type.
 * The arrow labeled number 3 shows your computers unique name that the district has given it. This name will also be displayed under your hard drive icon on the desktop.

// **"Software Update"** //
 * Software update will check your computer for updates to your system and applications.
 * Typically the technology office schedules these updates to occur automatically, once the updates have been tested.
 * Check with us if your application is prompting you to do an update in order for it to work. We may need to do some testing to ensure the update will maintain compatibility with your current system and other applications.

//**"Mac OSX software"**//
 * clicking on Mac OSX software will bring you to Apples webpage to show you what new things are available for download.

//**"System Preferences"**// //** "Recent Items" **// //**"Force Quit"**//
 * System Preferences houses all the settings and controls for your personal users account. Here you can find settings for many things such as your desktop back ground (or wallpaper), printer settings, screen saver, dock, mouse settings and your track pad (mouse pad).
 * "The Dock"**
 * The Dock apple menu option allows you to control where you want your dock to be placed and how you want it to behave. You can set the dock to display at the bottom of your desktop, to the left side or to the right side. You can also set your dock to hide until you place your cursor over it, in which case it will reappear for use.
 * Recent items shows you what you have recently opened or used and recent connections you have made in application, documents, and servers.
 * Force Quit is a tool to help you escape the spinning colored wheel or a frozen application.
 * Click outside of your locked up application by clicking on the desktop behind your application window or the finder icon in the dock.
 * Once the menu bar changes to read "finder" in the top left next to the apple you know you have activated finder.
 * Now click on the apple and navigate down to the "Force Quit" menu choice.
 * A window will appear showing you a list of your running applications. The unresponsive or frozen application will likely be listed in red, (the following picture does not show red text because I could not get my machine to lock up ; )
 * Select that application and click the "force quit" button and that application will be closed leaving your other open applications unharmed. This is a great way to avoid an unwanted restart of the computer.

**//"Sleep," "Shutdown"//** and **// "Logout" //**
 * Sleep, shutdown and logout are all pretty self explanatory.
 * 1.Sleep will cause your display to go black and and a slowly flashing light will appear on the front right hand corner of the laptop case. Sleep can be ended by touching the trackpad, clicking the mouse or by pressing any key. You will be prompted to enter your password to wake your computer from sleep.
 * 2. Restart simply restarts the computer.
 * 3. Shutdown will shut down the computer.
 * 4. Logout will log you out of your personal account requiring that you enter your password to log back in.



