One of the easiest ways to get to know your Mac better is to use the About This Mac application utility.
In order to access this simply navigate your mouse pointer to the top left hand corner of you display where you see the Apple logo in the menu bar. Then simply click to expand the options and you will see 'About This Mac' as your first option.
Select and the following window will be presented:
You can see immediately that you are given access to perhaps the most important information about your Mac. All this information comes in very handy when purchasing peripherals and applications or when simply troubleshooting your Mac.
Taking a closer look and you will notice under the Mac OS X logo that you have the current version of the operating system you are running. If you click on the version number you will then be shown the build number of your operating system. The build number is a fine detail version of the operating system version currently installed. For example. version 10.7 has a build number of 11A511 and as such this information is relevant to the Apple engineers which are creating the operating system. As such you may if you are enquiring about technical support through Apple be requested for this number in order for the technical support staff to compare known issues with that exact build.
If you click that same area again you will then be presented with the serial number of your Mac. This is very handy for a multitude of reasons most significantly for services such as AppleCare. The serial number for your Mac will still reside on the hardware and is generally located under the battery in Mac laptops and in the RAM bay for iMacs.
Clicking a final time and you will be taken back to the version number of the installed operating system.
Next we have Software Update. Software Update is a built in application utility which allows your Mac to be scanned by Apple in order to determine if you have the most up to date Apple software currently installed on your Mac.
Processor: This informs you of the current processor that you have running inside your Mac and will help you determine the clock speed so you are able to relate that back to system requirements when purchasing applications and hardware or updating the operating system.
Memory: This informs you of the current amount of RAM and the speed of the RAM that you currently have installed in your Mac. Please don't confuse this are with that of hard drive space as they are two completely separate areas. RAM stands for Random Access Memory and is very fast memory which is assigned to hold information temporally whilst you are undertaking other tasks. RAM is one of those areas in computer where more is generally better and if your Mac us starting to feel as if it is slowing down then increasing the RAM can certainly help speed up the processing of data.
Startup Disk: This informs you of the startup disk which is currently used for the operating system in question. If like me you run two different operating systems on different hard drives or partitions then this information can come in very handy. For example I run a Snow Leopard hard drive and now I run a Lion hard drive. You may even like to run two versions of the same operating system but call them different names. Whichever one your booted into and using will be displayed.
The reason why I run both is because when testing and working within a new operating system I want to make sure that while the transition is occurring that I experience no downtime due to the upgrade. This therefore protects my workflow and once I am confident that the new operating system will not cause any problems to my daily workflow I will move that operating system to the main drive in my computer.
The more info button will launch a new area of About This Mac that is specific to the Lion operating system. In previous versions of the operating system this section of additional details has been referred to as System Profiler. In Lion however they have changed this and called it System Information.
This area is integrated within the About This Mac application utility and is first present in Mac OS X Lion.
You will still have access to the fine detail about your Mac as you did before but this is now achieved through a different button which I will explain shortly.
As you can see from the image above this area is now quite different from that of previous Mac operating systems. However, in my opinion it is better and gives more immediately wanted information to the user.
In this first overview tab we have the current iMac that I am using and specifically when it was released. This is important for a number of reasons but knowing which specific version of the iMac I have can really make troubleshooting much easier. Please note that all of this information along with the graphic showcasing the iMac will change to represent your current Mac.
Again looking at this area we have some details which we already knew from About This Mac such as the processor and memory currently installed operating system. You will notice that next to the operating system version within the brackets is a number. This is the build number as spoken about in the previous section.
Serial number also makes an appearance in this area but rather than clicking through to it, it is now immediately available.
One of the most useful areas to be added in this section is graphics. This tells you the name and model number of the installed graphics along with the video memory that is assigned to assist with graphics processing.
Graphics is very important for a number of reasons and not specifically for just gaming purposes. Apple allows applications to take advantage of the graphics card within your Mac to assign processing tasks to it to take some heat away from the CPU (Central Processing Unit). The reason for this is it allows certain tasks to be undertaken much quicker than normal and in many cases the processing power of the included graphics card is not being used and sitting idle so why not put it to use.
Another important reason for knowing which graphics card you have is they are a direct reflection of your systems capabilities and many graphics and video applications will require a graphics card which meets certain requirements in order for the application to render graphics especially video in real time for example.
You will often find system requirements stating that you will need at least 256MB of video RAM. Well in my case this is what I have. Yours will no doubt differ but the general rule of thumb is if an application for example requires 512MB of video RAM then I will not be able to run it. Video RAM, unlike normal RAM, is not upgradeable in your Mac and as such when looking at purchasing a new Mac you should aim for the best graphics card you can afford as to future proof your technology.
In the bottom area of this window you will notice two buttons.
System Report: Clicking on this will take you to the traditional view of information that was previously known as System Profiler. A screen view of this can be seen below:
In this area you have access to complete information relating to your hardware, networking devices and installed software applications. In short this area is a treasure trove of information relating to your Mac and one of the most information rich areas you can utilise when looking for information about your specific Mac.
The other button at the bottom of the overview screen is Check For Updates. Clicking this will perform the same task as that within the About This Mac. It will simply scan you system and make sure that your first party Apple applications are up to date with the most recent versions whilst also providing operating system updates and security patches.
Moving along now and we will take a look at the Displays tab as shown below:
As you can see this area is quite basic but does present information which is important for users to know. As previously discussed knowing your graphics capabilities can be of great value when purchasing new applications to run on your Mac. This area presents us with one additional area of information not previously shown and that is the maximum screen resolution of the display mentioned. You will see next to the size of the display that the resolution is presented in the brackets. The resolution of my screen in this example is 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high. Your display will present the pixels that are available for your Mac.
It is important to be aware of these numbers as graphics applications and games present their system requirements generally in these values. Some graphics applications also require a minimum screen resolution. Hence, if yours is not of a higher value you may be unable to run the application in question.
Then our main option and link in the displays tab is that of Display Preferences. This will simply launch the display preferences which can also be found in your System Preferences which will allow you to make changes such as altering the screen resolution, brightness and colour. Should you have a multiple display setup this is also the area where you can detect the displays and configure them to suit your needs.
Moving along now and we have the Storage tab. This area really interests me and is taken from the graphical view used in iTunes to showcase the amount of data and the type of data that is currently stored on your iOS device. An example of how this is presented can be seen below:
As you can see each drive connected to your system will contain information. Your external drives are also taken into account as are any partitions including BootCamp and your SuperDrive should you have one installed.
Currently the SuperDrive only presents a list of formats which can be written. However, all other drives have a selection of files available and as such are presented. As you can see Movies is highlighted in purple and the purple bar represents how much of the drive is consumed with movie content. You also will note underneath this area that you are told the total amount of GB of data used for the specific file types.
Having this information certainly helps when trying to work out which files and what type of files are consuming the most amount of data on your hard drive and therefore causing you to run out of available space.
Looking towards the bottom of the image above and you will notice that you have a button for Disk Utility. Disk Utility is Apple's central location for formatting, partitioning and making disk images of your drives. This is only a few of the services which Disk Utility can offer and Disk Utility will be looked at more closely later in the book.
We will now move on and take a look at the Memory tab. As mentioned before this memory refers to the amount of RAM you have, not the amount of hard drive space.
The image above represents the view you will see. As you can see I have 4GB of RAM installed in total and the two lower drive bays in my iMac are represented as having a 2GB stick of RAM in each. It also represents that I have two empty slots as seen above that I can add RAM to.
Now all Mac's will have a different configuration and if you have RAM in all available slots or if you have less or more slots available on your Mac then that will be represented and will be specific to your Mac.
Looking at the very bottom of this window and you will notice that you have Memory Upgrade Instructions. This will take you to a Apple's Support Article in relation to the type of Mac you have. You will then be able to choose your model from a list and will then be presented with accurate information as to how to add and replace the RAM along with the total amount that can be installed and the recommended configuration.
The reason why I previously mentioned the importance of when your Mac was originally released is that this site relies on that information in order for you accurately locate the information for your Mac. Hence, when I go looking down the list for my Mac I need to locate iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009).
Moving across to the right hand side and you will now see the support tab. Selecting this will present you with the following:
This area presents support information for your specific range of Mac in two areas. The first being Mac OS Resources and the second being Macintosh Resources. The difference is the first second will present you with general overall information relating specifically to the operating system where the second option will be relating specifically to your Mac.
The help centre will take you to help pages relating to the operating system as shown below:
Mac OS X Support will take you to Apple's live and up to date support site for Lion.
User Manual will take you to the specific user manual for your Mac.
Specifications will take you to the specifications page on Apple's site for the exact model of your Mac.
Hardware Support will take you to the relevant support page for your system. It won't be model specific but you will be able to find just about anything you need on this site.
Moving on now to the final tab int the About This Mac/System Information section and upon selecting you will be presented with the following window:
In order to use this area you will need to allow your serial number to be sent to Apple. In order to do this simply select one of the three options and the following message will appear:
To proceed simply press allow. If you are worried about sending your serial number to Apple then simply press cancel.
Moving back to our list of options you have the ability to check your service and support coverage status which will showcase that you Mac is registered and will indicate if you have telephone support, repair and service coverage still on your system and if you are eligible for extended coverage by purchasing an AppleCare Protection Plan.
The next option in the list will show your service and repair options. You will be taken to the service and repair section of Apple's site and will be able to make an appointment at a Genius Bar, locate an Apple Authorised Service Provider and also call Apple Telephone Technical Support.
Moving down to the second half of this final tab and this will take you to the AppleCare website where you can view the different services which are included along with adding AppleCare to your Mac if you didn't do that at the time of purchase.
So there you have it. The new features of About This Mac and System Information certainly make obtaining important information about your Mac easier than in previous editions of the operating system.
