Update Your Profile Pic

You can change your login account profile picture by opening System Preferences, clicking the Users & Groups icon, and then clicking your existing profile picture when the Password tab is selected.

A pop-out window will let you select from the built-in (default) images or iPhoto images (assuming you have iPhoto installed). You can also select the Camera option to take a new photo using the iSight/FaceTime camera built into your Mac.

But how do you use a picture you’ve downloaded from a website or happen to have on your disk but that hasn’t been imported into iPhoto?

The solution is simple—just find the photo within Finder and then drag and drop it on top of the pop-out window. It will then instantly become your profile picture, and you can resize it using the slider at the bottom of the pop-out window and apply effects.

Share Reminders and Calendars

Within the Reminders app, you can share a reminder list with one or more people, allowing them to create or delete entries in the list or check off tasks. This can be useful if you’re working on group projects or perhaps if you simply want to share a shopping list with a family member.

You can also share a calendar within the Calendar app, which again can be useful if you’re working within a group. You could even create a special calendar for a particular project and then share it with others. Others will be able to view and create/modify/delete entries within the calendar, or you can share it as read-only so people can only view the calendar’s contents.

There are some caveats. The people to whom you want to share the reminder list or calendar must be updated to the latest OS X Mountain Lion release, must have an Apple ID (the login email address of which you’ll need to specify), and also must have iCloud activated within their Apple ID.

Sharing a Reminders List

To share a reminder list, click any reminder list and keep the mouse in position until a new icon appears at the right of the entry within the list—an icon of a transmission signal.Click the icon, and a pop-out dialog box will appear, inviting you to type the email address of the individual(s) you’d like to share the list with. Hit Tab after each email address you type.

Once you click the Done button, the individual(s) will be sent an email link so they can subscribe to your reminder list. Once they subscribe, you’ll be notified by a notification pop-up. Additionally, the reminder entry in the list will always display the sharing icon mentioned earlier. To see who the list is shared with, just click the icon. A tick alongside the email address means they have subscribed. A question mark alongside their email address means they’ve yet to respond to the invitation.

Sharing a Calendar

To share a calendar, open the Calendar app and click the Calendars button at the top left so you can see a list of all your calendars in the left side pane. Right-click the calendar you’d like to share (note: you can always create a new calendar specifically for sharing), and then select the Sharing Settings entry on the menu that appears. Following this, the steps are the same as with sharing a reminder list, although you can check the box to make the calendar read-only, in which case people will be able to view the calendar but not create, remove, or edit entries.

Unlike with sharing a reminder list, there’s no obvious sign the calendar is shared unless you right-click the calendar’s entry in the list and again select Sharing Settings to view the pop-out dialog box.

Sharing via iCloud.com 

By visiting the iCloud website and logging in with your Apple ID, you can share your reminder lists and calendars in a virtually identical way to that described earlier—select either the Reminders or Calendar icon on the iCloud home screen, and then select whichever reminder list or calendar you’d like to share. Finally, click the share icon.

Sharing a calendar is slightly different when using iCloud.com because in the pop-out dialog box that appears you’ll be asked if you want to share the calendar privately—that is, with people whose emails you type into the dialog —or share it as a public calendar, in which case absolutely anybody using Calendar on their Mac can view the calendar in read-only mode if they sub- scribe to it using the URL provided, which you’ll need to manually send to people via email/instant messaging.

Rescinding Sharing

To deactivate sharing for one or more people or to remove the offer of sharing if they’ve yet to respond, follow the previous steps to open the sharing pop- out alongside the entry in the list in either the Reminders or Calendar app (or within iCloud). Then simply select the email address in the list and hit the Delete key, or click the email address and select Remove Person. In the case of public calendars shared via iCloud, uncheck the Public Calendar box.

The changes should take effect immediately—access to the list or calendar for the individuals will be rescinded completely, and they will be notified by email and also via a pop-up notification on their computer.

Switch Time Machine Disks

Once upon a time, Time Machine worked with just one destination—be that a removable disk drive you attached to your computer or a Time Capsule. However, with Mountain Lion and newer versions of OS X, you can seamlessly back up to multiple destinations. Each will contain a full Time Machine backup, with the most recently attached disk containing the most recent backup. If you have two or more backup devices attached at the same time, Time Machine will back up to each device in sequence (that is, if you have two backup disks attached, Time Machine will hypothetically back up to disk 1 at 1 p.m., disk 2 at 2 p.m., disk 1 at 3 p.m., disk 2 at 4 p.m., and so on, although the hourly time of backup will depend on when the disks are attached).

To set up additional backup destinations, attach the disk (or get within Wi- Fi range of the Time Capsule), open System Preferences (Apple menu→System Preferences), and select the Time Machine option. Click the Select Disk button,and then select the new hardware from the list in the dialog box that appears. Remember that it can take hours if not days before the first backup has completed on a new backup device.
There are a number of advantages of having more than one backup destination, as follows:

• If you have a portable Mac, you can set up a Time Machine backup device at home and one at work. Your Mac will seamlessly back up to whichever one it’s attached to without any need for you to select it. You could use a removable disk drive at work, for example, and a Time Capsule at home.

• You can “rotate” disks by setting up two or more removable storage devices for use within Time Machine and then attaching each daily (that is, disk 1 on Monday, disk 2 on Tuesday, and so on). This helps avoid wear on any particular disk, reducing the risk of failure, but also lets you store the currently out-of-sequence backup disks in a different physical location to avoid all the backups being destroyed by a disaster such as a fire.

Master Notification Center

In a default installation of OS X, Notification Center can be activated in two ways, as follows:

• Swiping from right to left with two fingers on a trackpad, if your computer has one; start the swipe gesture from the very right edge of the trackpad. This can take some practice to get right!

• Clicking the Notification Center icon at the top right of the screen.

However, you can add two quicker and substantially more intuitive ways to activate Notification Center, as follows.

Using Hot Corners to Activate Notification Center

OS X lets you configure hot corners to activate certain desktop functions, which is to say you can push the mouse cursor into any of the four corners of the screen to activate things like Mission Control or Notification Center. Because the Notification Center icon is at the top right, it makes significant sense to configure the top-right Hot Corner to activate it. 

To do so, open System Preferences (Apple menu→System Preferences), click the Mission Control icon, and then click the Hot Corners button at the bottom left of the program window. In the drop-down dialog box that appears, click the drop-down list at the top right—the one relating to the top right of the screen preview—and select Notification Center. Then click OK and close System Preferences.

The changes take effect immediately, so give it a try—push the mouse cursor into the top-right corner, and the Notification Center will appear. Click any- where outside of Notification Center to dismiss it.

To turn off the Hot Corner, repeat the previous steps, but in the drop-down list for the choice of what function to activate for the top-right Hot Corner, select the hyphen at the bottom of the list.

Assigning a Keyboard Shortcut to Open Notification Center

You can also (or alternatively) assign a keyboard shortcut to open and close Notification Center. For some reason Apple doesn’t include this in a default install.

To do so, open System Preferences and click the Keyboard icon. Then click the Keyboard Shortcut tab, and in the list on the left select Mission Control. On the right of the window, check Show Notification Center. You’ll immediately be prompted to type the keyboard shortcut you want to use. The choice is up to you, but I find that Option+Commmand+ Tab works well and isn’t already assigned to a function in OS X. I hold down Option+Commmand with my left thumb while tapping Tab with a finger.

To remove the keyboard shortcut, repeat the previous steps, but this time remove the check alongside Show Notification Center in the list.

Share Google Links

Safari in OS X Mountain Lion lets you query Google by typing a search term into the address bar. This works very well but raises an issue: what if you want to send somebody the link to a search you’ve done? You can’t copy and paste the address from the address bar because you never get to see the search address—the search query takes its place.

The solution is simple: click and drag the small magnifying glass symbol at the very left of the address bar to where you want to insert the link within your document or email. This will insert the URL for the search straight into your document.

Duplicate a File with One Click

To quickly create a duplicate of a file within the same folder (or on the desktop), click and drag the file to a new blank spot and hold down Option before releasing the mouse button. This is the equivalent of right-clicking the file and selecting Duplicate from the menu that appears.

Modify Messages’ Look and Feel

By right-clicking the message bubbles within Messages (ensuring you don’t right-click any text) or selecting View→Messages, you can select a different look and feel for conversations. You can select to have “boxy” messages, for example, or “compact” and can also select to show people’s names in addition to (or in place of) their picture. Experiment to see which works best for you!

Fonts and colors can be changed on the Messages tab of the Preferences dialog box (click the application menu→Preferences, or hit Command+ , [comma]).