1. Better Text Formatting in Notes
One feature that shouldn’t necessarily be a secret at all is text formatting. On Mac, with just about anything that involves text in many cases, you have the ability to control and customize your text even further. Press “Command + T” while in Notes, a new window opens up that allows you to adjust your text’s font, size, and even color. This is perfect for individuals looking to make their notes color-coded and to be more visually appealing.
2. Adding Location to Reminders
It is possible to add location to your reminders on iOS devices, so why should there be any different in Mac? On Mac, go to the individual reminder’s settings (simply by double tapping) and check the box “At this Location”. From there, you’d be prompted to add a Contact (if it has an attached address) or entering an address manually. Once configured, you will be reminded when arriving or leaving that location.
3. Notification Center Secrets
In System Preferences -> Notifications section, you have the ability to adjust everything from pop-ups (whether you want alerts or banners), how many items you want shown in Notification Center at one time (recommended if you receive tons of emails a day or at a time), and whether or not you want Notification Center to also add a badge or play a sound when a notification needs to go off. If you don’t want it to appear, simply drag the item from “In Notification Center” to “Not in Notification Center”.
In addition, you also have the ability to silence Notification Center as and when you want. You can do it just by tapping the Notification Center icon while pressing the “Option” key. The icon should then turn grey, which means that your alerts will be silenced until tomorrow.
As mentioned above, if you want Notification Center to be reactivated, simply press “Option” and click the Notification Center icon again.
4. Why Some Apps Cannot Be Downloaded?
As a way of implementing higher security measures, Mountain Lion now has a new feature known as Gatekeeper. This feature allows you to limit from where downloads can be added onto your Mac. This is done both as protection for you, but also as a way of preventing downloads from occurring without your knowledge. There are three levels of Gatekeeper. The first level is the highest level of security, just allowing downloads from the Mac App Store only. The second level is allowing downloads just from Mac App Store as well as developers who have identified and have been verified by Apple. The third level is to allow downloads from anywhere. All may be more realistic for different individuals, however you must remember that this is probably the reason why you can’t download that latest game your friend told you about.
5. My Voices are Polyglots
Do you hate that the Voices mode only comes with a monotone American English? In Mountain Lion, you can now mix up the pot with English speakers from Australia, India, Great Britain, and foreign Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Turkish, and Portugese speakers – just to name a few. These foreign voice support are not available by default and require a download. Luckily, they can easily be found in the “Diction and Speech section” of System Preferences.
6. My Downloads – Everywhere
Previously, if you own multiple Macs and you download an application on one machine, you will have to transfer them over to another Mac using a thumb drive or re-download it on another Mac. In Mountain Lion, as long as you link your Apple ID on each machine, you can get the download to occur automatically. That’s it for now. What other tricks have I missed out? Image credit: By CaliforniaDFG
