Improving Mac OS X: #7 – Ejecting Removable Media

In Mac OS X, the terms “ejecting” and “unmounting”, as they relate to removeable media, are considered interchangeable by most end users. Most people will talk about “ejecting” their USB flash drive, even though this doesn’t cause the drive to pop out like a CD or DVD. Apple explain this thus:

Ejecting a volume may not mean that it is physically ejected from the computer, but that it is no longer available (mounted) on the desktop or in a Finder window.

Improving Mac OS X: #6 – Copying Bundles

For those who don’t know, OS X has the concept of a “bundle”. A bundle is basically a folder that allows related resources (software code, graphics files, configuration information) to be grouped together. The most common example of bundles is Mac OS X Applications. Mac OS X applications are often bundles, known as “packages”. To the end user, in the Finder, they appear to be a single object you manipulate.…

Improving Mac OS X: #5 – International English

International Language PreferencesMac OS X is quite probably the best operating system in the world when it comes to internationalisation. It comes complete with language settings from all over the world, with the ability to easily switch to another language depending on user preferences. Applications have the ability to easily support languages other than the language the application was written in.

Which is why it is peculiar that OS X is so bad at localised English.…

Improving Mac OS X: #4 – Trash and Shred

A lot of Mac users actually don’t realise that there is a “Secure Empty Trash” option for securely deleting the files in their trash.

Secure menuWhat does this mean exactly? Well, when you empty your trash the usual way, the contents of the files are still lying around on the disk until they are overwritten by other data. This implies that, with appropriate tools, someone could potentially read a deleted file, or even recover most or all of it.…