Take Control: The Mac OS X Lexicon (1.5) SAMPLE

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$ 15 

Take Control 

The Mac OS X Lexicon 

by Sharon Zardetto and Andy Baird 

Table of Contents (1.5) 

Read Me First........................................ 2 

Introduction.......................................... 6 

| Punctuation | Numbers | 

| A | B | C | D | E | F | 

| G | H | I | J | K | L | 

| M | N | O | P | Q | R | 

| S | T | U | V | W | X | 

| Y | Z | 

About This Book .................................205 

This is a free sample of “Take Control: The Mac OS X Lexicon.” 

Click here to buy the full 209-page ebook for only $15!

READ ME FIRST 

Welcome to Take Control: The Mac OS X Lexicon, version 1.5 

This book explains a little bit of everything; in fact, it’s The Mac OS X 

(and then some) Lexicon because it’s never just you and your Mac. It’s 

you and your Mac and the Web, and your email, and that article you 

just read that threw 17 new acronyms at you or assumed that you 

knew all sorts of networking terms. Or it’s you and your Mac and 

Finder features you’ve never touched, such as burn folders, smart 

folders, or proxy icons, and that mysterious Services submenu. 

This book was written by Andy Baird and Sharon Zardetto, edited by 

Tonya Engst, and published by TidBITS Publishing Inc. 

Copyright © 2007, Andy Baird and Sharon Zardetto. All rights 

reserved. 

The price of this ebook is $15. If you want to share it with a friend, 

please do so as you would a physical book: “lend” it for a quick 

perusal or review, but someone who wants to keep it around to read 

the whole thing should get his or her own copy. Click here to give your 

friend a discount coupon. Discounted classroom and library copies 

are also available. 

What’s New in This Version 

Most of the changes in this version were made to keep pace with 

Leopard: we’ve added about 30 new entries, and changed about 

40 existing entries because Leopard’s little cat feet (apologies to Carl 

Sandburg) left paw prints in areas big and small. Leopard-inspired 

changes are marked with a Leopard spot in the margin. When the 

entry title is marked, it’s a Leopard-specific entry; when the text is 

marked, as with this entry, there’s Leopard-related info in it. 

Because we added so much new material about Leopard, along with 

updating the ebook to cover other changes since it was released in 

July 2007—changes like Apple adding Numbers to iWork and “brick” 

picking up a whole new meaning—we didn’t change the version 

number from 1.0 to just 1.1; we upped it to version 1.5. 


Click here to buy the full 209-page ebook for only $15! 

2

Basics 

This book uses the standard Take Control approaches for referring to 

file locations, menu commands, and System Preferences: 

• Path syntax: The route to a folder or file on your hard disk is the 

file’s path, or pathname. The syntax for paths conforms to Unix 

standards, because that’s what underlies Mac OS X. The path starts 

with the top level of your disk and lists all the intervening folders, 

separated by slashes:/Users/Vanessa/Documents/AnnoyABC. 

• Menus: We refer to menu commands like this: File > Close All. 

Commands in submenus have longer references: TextEdit > 

Services > Translator > Into Pig Latin. 

• System Preferences: When we refer to a “preference pane,” 

such as the Appearance preference pane, we’re talking about panes 

in System Preferences, which you access by choosing apple > System 

Preferences and then clicking on an icon in the System Preferences 

window to get to the specific pane. 

Links and Navigation Controls 

All Take Control ebooks provide blue-colored internal links so 

you can easily jump to someplace else in the book—that’s one of the 

advantages of ebooks. But this Lexicon has more options than the 

other books, and a few are less obvious than they may seem at first: 

• If you are reading this book on paper, obviously the links won’t work. 

However, you can request a free copy of the ebook by sending a 

message to tc-comments@tidbits.com. 

• There’s a roundup at the beginning of each section of all the terms in 

that section. You can use it to browse the section, and to jump to any 

term by clicking on it. 

• To jump to a section for a specific letter, use the bookmarks we’ve 

provided. 

• Many entries have references to other entries, but we haven’t marked 

all the possible cross-references, or we’d have sentences that look 

like this: “In Mac OS X, programs often store plists in a preference 

folder inside a Library folder; try trashing them when the application 

crashes.” We marked just the ones we think you might want to look 

up in context of the current entry. 



3

• Some cross-reference links aren’t to entry titles, but to something in 

the text of another entry. If you run across “daughterboard” and click 

on it, for instance, you’ll be taken to the entry for “logic board,” 

because that’s where daughterboard is explained. 

• You’ll probably be jumping around a lot as you use this ebook, what 

with all the links. Don’t forget about the Back button in your PDF 

reader—you can click your way back through one or more links, the 

same way you retrace your steps in your Web browser. 

Margin Icons 

We’ve provided four special types of links to the outside world—the 

world outside of this book, that is—by way of special margin icons: 

• The blue “weblink” icon takes you someplace on the Web that 

provides further information on the topic at hand. This might be indepth 

information from the Unicode consortium, an Apple support 

page, or a Wikipedia entry; in some cases, it’s just an interesting side 

trip on the current or a tangential topic. 

• The green “weblink” icon brings you to a Web site for a product or 

company mentioned in an entry. 

• The “booklink” icon sends you to the Web page for the Take Control 

book that covers the current entry. 

• The TidBITS icon links you to a TidBITS article related to the entry 

topic. 

• If you are reading this book on paper and don’t have the ebook 

version, you can request a free copy of the ebook by sending a 

message to tc-comments@tidbits.com. 

There’s also a non-clickable margin icon—the Leopard spot— 

described in What’s New in this Version. 



4

Pronunciations 

We provide pronunciations for three types of entries: unusual words, 

words that are commonly mispronounced, and acronyms that are said 

as words rather than as separate letters. (So, if there’s no pronunciation 

for an acronym, such as LZW or GID, you know they’re said as letters.) 

Where we do show how to pronounce a word, 

we don’t use fancy pronunciation guides such 

as in the picture here (for the word “Jabber”); 

we use simple, (American) English-based 

syllables with capitals to show where the stress 

falls: EULA = YOO·la. 

Alphabetization 

Sure, you have the A–Z part down pat, but we want to note these nonletter 

alphabetization issues: 

• Items in the Punctuation and Symbols section are grouped logically, 

not by any specific sorting order. 

• Items in the Numbers section are sorted alphabetically: the leftmost 

characters are more important, so 400K comes before 64-bit. 

• Items that begin with a period (mostly extensions, such as .jpg and 

.bmp) are alphabetized as if they had no leading punctuation. 

He Said, She Said 

Sometimes we write in the plural, and sometimes in the singular. 

There’s no easy way around it: “The first time I ran across this 

feature…”. It’s unlikely that both of us had the same experience, and it 

hardly matters which one of us is speaking at the time. But as we read 

and edited each other’s work, many times our comments were along 

the lines of “Yes, I agree—that interface change was a great improvement 

(or not)—so say ‘we’ here.” Occasionally—very occasionally—we 

disagree, in which case we tell you who thinks what about the issue. 



5

INTRODUCTION 

Are you tired of seeing references to Carbon and Cocoa and not 

knowing what they are or remembering which is which? What exactly 

is iLife? Is that Bonjour choice in iChat’s menu for when you’re typing 

en français? Do you have hot-swappable devices—and would you 

know if you did? Is a dual-layer DVD the same as a double-sided one, 

and is either one a Blu-ray? Do you want to know the basic definitions 

and concepts for things like: permissions, metadata, hypertext, base 

station, partition, phishing, public-key encryption, and that mysterious 

Services submenu? Do you need hip boots to wade through the 

alphabet soup of SDRAM, RSS, RTF, IMAP, EULA, OEM? We could 

go on… and we do! 

But wait! If you already feel familiar enough with all the terms you 

run across when you’re working (or playing) with your Mac, and you 

don’t feel the need to look up anything, it may come as a surprise 

when we say we wrote this book for you, too. Because this is not a 

book for just looking up things; in fact, that’s probably its secondary 

use. We wrote this book so you could enjoy reading it—and learn 

along the way. 

Discover interface features that you may have ignored until now, such 

as proxy icons, burn folders, and clippings. Learn about hard spaces 

and soft hyphens, and which “dash” you should use for a minus sign. 

Find out where the term spam came from, what relationship a flog 

has to a blog, and what an 8x CD speed is 8 times faster than. Add a 

few new words to your vocabulary: anacronym, netizen, Ogg Vorbis, 

favicon, pharming. 

The catalyst for this project was, in fact, the Carbon vs. Cocoa 

conundrum. Sharon ran across the phrase “Carbon application,” 

for the umpteenth time, in a respected Mac magazine, where there 

wasn’t even a quick parenthetical clue as to what that meant, and for 

the umpteenth time thought, “Carbon, Cocoa… why did they both 

have to start with C?!” 

A survey of the general Mac press and book offerings, and an 

inspection of Mac menus, dialogs, and the Help system showed 

an incredible amount of jargon and some surprising assumptions 

as to how many terms every user is presumed to know in all sorts 

of categories: Mac hardware and software; general computing and 



6

asic networking; email and the Web; and items that interface with 

our Macs, such as the iPod and the Apple TV. 

So, Sharon tracked down her old friend Andy Baird—which might 

have been difficult since he’s a fulltime RVer who lives and travels 

in his motor home, but, in fact, was a cinch because he has a satellite 

Internet dish. She suggested he take a vacation from retirement to 

reinvent a project they worked on together a decade and a half ago, 

The Macintosh Dictionary. The lure of doing a just-click-a-link-andgo 

version of a lexicon was obviously strong, because here we are. 

We were quite amused, though hardly surprised, that in the interval 

since that last joint project (eons in computer years), not only has 

the technology advanced, but users’ views and interests have changed 

so much that many of the non-tech entries of that volume are not 

even on today’s radar screen: Steve Jobs’s reality distortion field, 

for instance, probably still exists but users don’t care as much as 

they used to about the personality quirks of their products’ CEOs. 

But we did bring one Dictionary entry forward to this Lexicon 

verbatim: check out Internet. 



7

P 

. 

unctuation and Symbols 

. / \ : - – — ~ “ ” … 

Sure, it’s a period for the end of sentences, but it’s also a divider in 

URLs such as http://www.tidbits.com/ and in email addresses such as 

tc-comments@tidbits.com, where it’s pronounced dot. A dot also 

appears in IP addresses such as 123.231.5.0 where it’s also 

pronounced dot except when the cognoscenti use just a brief pause (the 

way you don’t say the separators in (973) 555-1234, but speak in the 

rhythm of a phone number). 

The period used in software version numbers is pronounced point: Mac 

OS X 10.5 is “ten point five” and 10.5.1 is “ten point five point one.” 

But this period can also be silent: “ten-five” and “ten-five-one.” 

The period also has a special use in filenames in Unix, the Mac’s 

underlying framework: when it’s the first character in the name, the file 

becomes invisible. 

/ 

A forward slash; on the U.S. keyboard, it’s on the same key as the 

question mark. It’s also a plain ol’ slash, so “http://” is said “http 

colon slash slash.” Please see backslash, immediately below— 

because a forward slash is not a backslash! 

The slash is also used to separate folders in a pathname such as 

/System/Library/Fonts. A slash at the beginning of a path, as in that 

example, refers to the root level of your boot disk. 

\ 

A backslash; on the U.S. keyboard, it’s on the same key as the 

vertical line (sometimes called a pipe). When someone says 

“slash,” this is not the character they’re referring to—or, at least, it 

shouldn’t be, and you can tell them so! 



8

N 

umbers 

10Base-T, 100Base-T, 1000Base-T • 2-up, 4-up… • 2x, 4x, 8x… • 400K 

• 404 • 501, 502… • 64-bit processing • 720p, 1080i • 802.11a/b/g/n 

10Base-T, 100Base-T, 1000Base-T ⇢ Ethernet 

2-up, 4-up… 

Multiple images on a page, although the exact meaning depends on 

what you’re doing. When it comes to labels, 3-up is simply 3 columns of 

labels; they could all have the same thing printed on them (“SALE!!”) 

or each have something different. If you’re a graphics professional and 

you’re setting something 4-up for a printer, you’re putting four copies 

of the same item on a single page because the paper is going to be cut 

in production. 

Or, you could be printing two different 5x7 photos on one sheet 

of letter or A4 paper, or two side-by-side pages on a single sheet 

because you’re going to fold it into a booklet. This form of 2-up 

(or 4-up, or more) printing is easy to set up, in any of several 

different layout designs, in the Print dialog: choose Standard from 

the Presets pop-up menu, and Layout from the pop-up menu beneath 

it. Luckily, the Print dialog includes visual feedback as you choose your 

options; the one here is for 4 pages per sheet, with left-right/top-down 

layout direction, single hairline border, and long-edged binding. 

2x, 4x, 8x… 

The first CD-ROM and CD-RW drives read and wrote data at the same 

speed as the audio CDs from which the CD-ROM standard was derived: 

150 kilobits per second (kbps). Later drives sped things up in order to 

get at the data faster, so 2x models worked at 300 kbps, 4x models at 

600 kbps, and so on. Likewise, early DVD drives worked at 1.32 

megabits per second (Mbps)—the same data rate as a digital video 

disc—but soon were replaced by 2x and faster versions. 

Most optical drives can read faster than they can write, and the speed 

at which a drive can reliably write data is limited by the quality of the 

recordable media used; so, a drive rated at 16x may be able to record 



10

A 

AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) • AAT (Apple Advanced Typography) • 

account • Action menu • Activity Monitor • ADC (Apple Display 

Connector) • administrator, administrative account • ADSL (asymmetric 

DSL) • .ai • AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) • AIM (AOL Instant 

Messenger) • AirPort • alert • algorithm • alias • aliasing, anti-aliasing 

• alphanumeric • anacronym • analog • anonymous FTP • AOL (America 

Online) • .app • Apple key • Apple menu • Apple partition map • Apple TV • 

AppleCare • AppleScript • applet • AppleWorks • application • application 

binding • Aqua • archive • Archive & Install • ascender • ASCII (American 

Standard Code for Information Interchange) • ASP (Apple System Profiler) • 

ATA, SATA (Serial | Advanced Technology Attachment) • Atom • ATS (Apple 

Type Services) • authenticate • automagically • automatic font activation • 

Automator • avatar • AVC (Advanced Video Coding) • AVI (Audio Video 

Interleave) 

AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) 

An audio compression method that’s part of the MPEG standard. AAC is 

said to yield better quality at low bit rates than does MP3. All the audio 

files offered by the iTunes Store are in AAC format, but it is not, as 

some people assume, a format proprietary to Apple. 

AAT (Apple Advanced Typography) 

The technology, developed from the now obsolete QuickDraw GX, that 

supports certain typographic capabilities, such as kerning and tracking 

and on-the-fly ligatures; it’s used in Mac TrueType fonts. Windows 

TrueType and Adobe OpenType fonts use OpenType technology for 

similar typographic feats; since AAT is not a cross-platform technology, 

it’s unlikely to last. 

account 

In the multi-user environment of Mac OS X, each user has an account, 

with her own home folder, user settings, preferences—everything that 

makes a Mac a personal computer. The kind of account a user has also 

defines some of the things she’s allowed to do, such as install 

programs. If you’re the sole user, you still have an account. This is all 

managed in the Accounts preference pane. 



13

B 

Back to My Mac • backdrops • background • backup, back up • 

.backupdb • bandwidth • base font • Base Station • baseline • bcc 

• benchmark • beta test • Bézier curve • billion • binary numbers • bit • 

bit rate • bitmapped font • bitmapped graphic • BitTorrent • blog, 

blogger, blogosphere • Bluetooth • Blu-ray • .bmp • Bonjour • bookmark 

• boolean • boot, reboot • bootable disk, boot disk, startup disk • Boot 

Camp • bot • bounce • breadcrumbs • brick • brick-and-mortar • broadband 

• buffer • bug • burn • burn folder • bus, bus speed • byte 

Back to My Mac, BtMM 

The way to, well... get back to your Mac when you’re away from it. With 

two Macs running Leopard, you can use its screen sharing feature to 

remotely control your Mac, doing whatever’s necessary—which will 

often involve transferring files you forgot about. This particular miracle 

is somewhat narrow in scope, since not only do you need a .Mac 

account, but both Macs involved must be configured to use the 

account—and, oh... did you leave that other Mac turned on? Still, if 

you’re the recipient of a narrowly focussed miracle, are you going to 

complain? 

backdrops ⇢ iChat 

background 

1. A process running behind the scenes, invisible to the user. 

2. Something “visible” going on while you’re working on something 

else: printing, downloading, and file copying are among the many 

activities that can happen “in the background.” 

3. The picture that appears underneath your Desktop icons, managed 

from the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane. 

backup, back up 

A copy of files made for safekeeping in case of fire, theft, or (more 

likely) hard drive failure. Okay, also in case of stupidity or wanton 

carelessness, because we all have our days. Consider the adage, “There 

are only two kinds of computer users: those who have lost files and 

those who will.” Leopard’s Time Machine should make backups a normal 

way of life for Mac users, so perhaps the definition of “two kinds of 



24

C 

C • cable modem • cache, cache file • calibration • Caps Lock • 

Carbon • CardBus • Cascading Style Sheets • cc, bcc (carbon copy, 

blind carbon copy) • CD (compact disc) • certificate • Character 

Palette • character set • chip • CID (character ID) • CJK, CJKV 

(Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese) • Classic • client • 

Clipboard • clipping • clock speed, clock rate • clone • CMAP 

(character map) • CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) • Cocoa • code • 

codec • collapse, expand • collection • Combo Drive • Combo updater, 

Delta updater • Command key • component video • composite video • 

Compress • compression • concatenation • contextual menu • Control key 

• cookie • Core Animation • Core Duo, Core 2 Duo • Cover Flow view • CPU 

(central processing unit) • crash • creator code • creeping featuritis • CRT 

(cathode ray tube) • CSS • CSV (comma separated values) • ctrl • curly 

quotes • cursor 

C 

So you thought your Mac used the latest breakthroughs in computer 

science? Not exactly. Most of the programs you use were written in 

some flavor of C, a computer language developed more than 30 years 

ago. C and its descendants (C++, Objective-C, Java, JavaScript and 

others) dominate today’s software scene. If you think 30 years sounds 

like old technology, think about this: the Mac’s operating system is 

based on UNIX, which was developed 40 years ago! 

cable modem 

A box that lets you connect your computer to a cable TV network, and 

thus obtain a high-speed link to the Internet. Of course, the network 

must be set up to offer this service, and you’ll have to pay for it. Since 

cable TV companies have broadband cable going into almost every 

community in America, piggybacking broadband Internet access on 

their networks was a natural way to add a needed, profitable service. 

Also see modem. 

cache, cache file 

cash · Storage of recently used information for speedy retrieval, on the 

assumption that if you just did or used something, you’re likely to do it 

or need it again soon. Cache usually refers to something in memory, 



36

D 

daemon • daisy chain • Dashboard • data detector • data fork • 

database • daughterboard • dead key • debug • decompress • default 

• defrag, defragment • degauss • delimiter • Delta updater • deprecate 

• descender • Deselect All • Desk Accessory • Desktop • dfont, .dfont • 

DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol) • dialog • dial-up • 

differential backup • digital, analog • digital certificate • digital divide 

• digital watermark • digitize • dingbat • directory • disabled • disclosure 

triangle • discretionary hyphen • discussion group, discussion board • disk 

image • Disk Utility • disk vs. disc • dismount • dither • DivX • DL (dual 

layer) • .dmg • DNS (domain name system) • .doc, .docx • Dock • 

documentation • dogcow • domain, domain name • dongle • .dot • double 

layer • dpi (dots per inch) • DRAM (dynamic random access memory) • 

drawer • driver • DRM (Digital Rights Management) • Drop Box • droplet • 

DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) • dual core • dual layer • dual processor • DVD 

(digital versatile disc) • DVI (digital visual interface) • Dvorak keyboard 

daemon 

DEE·mahn · In Unix systems, a program that runs in the background 

(such as a print server) rather than under direct control of a user; the 

word is an archaic spelling of “demon.” But note that the word itself is 

so archaic that its meaning is akin to “spirit,” with no evil connotation. 

daisy chain 

To connect together one after another; as for 

example, connecting a camera to a FireWire drive, to 

another FireWire drive, which is in turn connected 

to the Mac. 

Dashboard 

A “layer” in which small programs called widgets live; it opens 

when you press F12 if you haven’t changed any of the default 

keyboard shortcuts in the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane, and 

stays on top of all your other open applications until you close it by 

pressing F12 again. 

To say neither of us loves Dashboard would be putting it mildly. Andy 

considers it an alternate universe where normal Mac user interface 



51

E Easter 

egg • eject button • em dash • emoticon • en dash • enclosing 

folder • encryption • endless loop • episode • EPS (encapsulated 

PostScript) • ergonomic • Esc key • Ethernet • EULA (End User License 

Agreement) • exabyte • expand • ExpressCard • Exposé • extension, 

filename extension 

Easter egg 

A surprise built into software, usually found when you hold down 

certain keys while clicking something, or by performing certain 

procedures in a specific order. Easter eggs used to be endemic 

in the computer world, and in the Mac world in particular, but 

everyone seems so grown up and business-like these days. 

However, here’s a nifty Mac OS X Easter egg. Turn on Speakable Items 

in the Speech Recognition screen of the Speech preference pane. With 

everything working (you can test it by asking your Mac, “What time is 

it?”), speak thusly: “Tell me a joke.” And then again. And again. Hope 

you like fifth-grade-level knock-knock jokes! 

But the drop in computer-software Easter eggs is somewhat made up 

for in the larger computer world, as in movies released on DVD, and 

even in Google maps, where, for a while at least, you could ask for 

driving directions from New York, NY to Paris, France, and get 

swimming instructions at step 23. Once word got around about this, 

there must’ve been way too much traffic (so to speak), because 

between the time we wrote this entry and laid it out, the egg 

disappeared. 

eject button ⇢ hot swappable 

em dash 

A dash as long as an em space. Wasn’t that helpful? An em, in 

typography, is a unit of measure the height and width of the point size 

being used. It’s called an em because in traditional typesetting the 

letter m was on a slug (a little lead block) the size of the font: in a 16point 

font, for instance, the m slug was 16 points wide. Now an em 

dash is just a long dash—like this—that’s not necessarily connected to 

the point size of the type—especially in height—look, two more! You 

can type an em dash with Option-Shift-hyphen. Also see en dash. 



66

F face 

• FairPlay • fan • family • FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) • Fast 

User Switching • favicon • favorites • FFIL • field • file extension • file 

sharing • file type, filetype • FileVault • Finder • Firefox • firewall • 

FireWire • firmware • first-line indent • F-key • flame • Flash • flash 

drive • flash memory, flash RAM • flog • floppy disk • fn key • folder 

actions • font • Font Book • font collection • font metrics • Font panel • 

font smoothing • force quit • fork • format • forum • forward delete • 

.fp7 • fragmentation • freeware • freeze • Front Row • FTP (file transfer 

protocol) • function • function keys 

face ⇢ typeface 

FairPlay 

A digital rights management (DRM) technology applied to most files in 

Apple’s iTunes Store to ensure that purchases won’t be freely copied. 

FairPlay sets fairly liberal limits on what you can do with the items you 

buy: you may copy them to any number of iPods, burn them to as 

many CDs as you want, and play them on up to five computers, which 

must be authorized via the iTunes Store. 

As we wrote this entry, Apple introduced its new DRM-free option for 

some music files, wherein you pay a little more ($1.29 instead of .99) 

for non-protected files. For the extra 30 cents, you also get twice the 

data rate, or bit rate: AAC files encoded at 256 kbps instead of the 128 

kbps standard for the rest of the iTunes library. You probably can’t hear 

the difference on your iPod—without much better headphones—but 

what with the bigger picture of electronic integration (AirPort Express 

connecting iTunes to your stereo setup), higher-quality digital 

downloads are becoming more important. 

family 

A set of typefaces that share a common base design; for instance, Gill 

Sans Bold, Gill Sans Italic, Gill Sans Condensed, and Gill Sans Narrow 

are all in the Gill Sans family. 

fan ⇢ stacks 



71

G 

G5, G4, G3 • GarageBand • GB, Gb • GHz • GID (glyph ID) • GIF 

(Graphics Interchange Format) • gigabit Ethernet • gigabyte, gig • 

gigahertz • glyph • googol, googolplex • Grab • graphics card • graphics 

tablet • grid • Guest account • GUI (graphical user interface) • GUID 

G5, G4, G3 ⇢ PowerPC Macs 

GarageBand 

Apple’s program for musicians and would-be musicians (which is all 

of us, right?) makes it remarkably easy to put together a 

professional-sounding tune, and serves as a podcast studio. 

GarageBand can work with music loops, MIDI instruments, or live 

recordings, blending them together with a timeline-based user 

interface. 

GB, Gb 

An important distinction: GB is gigabyte, a common measure for hard 

disk capacity, and Gb is gigabit, a common unit in measuring network 

speed (Gb/sec or gbps, gigabits per second). 

GHz ⇢ You Always Hertz the One You Love 

GID (glyph ID) 

Identifying numbers assigned to characters in a font, especially 

necessary for characters outside the Unicode encoding scheme—as 

when a font supplies several alternate capital letters (Unicode has a 

single ID for, say, uppercase A). Also see glyph. 

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) 

jif · A type of compressed bitmapped graphic often used in 

Web pages. GIFs can have a maximum of only 256 colors, 

so the format is unsuitable for photos, which are better 

saved as JPEGs. But the GIF format works well with line 

drawings, logos, and similar graphics (like this map), and 

can also be used for simple (generally annoying) animations. Lots of 

people pronounce GIF with a hard G—probably because it stands for 



82

H H.264 

H.264 

• halftone • handles • hang • hard hyphen • hard link • hard 

space • HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) • HDTV (high- 

definition TV) • help tag • hertz • hexadecimal numbers • HFS Plus 

(hierarchical file system) • home folder • home page • hot swappable • 

.html, .htm • HTML (hypertext markup language) • HTTP (hypertext 

transfer protocol) • hub • hypertext • hyphen • Hz 

A video codec that’s becoming increasingly popular for downloadable 

video. H.264, also known as AVC or MPEG-4 Part 10, is the basis of 

Apple’s television and movie offerings in the iTunes Store, for example, 

as well as iChat AV’s high-quality videoconferencing. 

halftone 

A way of simulating grays on paper when you only have 

black ink. Similar to dithering, halftoning uses clusters of tiny 

black dots to give the illusion (at a normal viewing distance) 

of grays. When halftoning is used to simulate a full range of 

photographic colors with only four inks, the result is called 

process color. 

handles 

Small squares displayed at the corners of an onscreen object, used 

for resizing or otherwise manipulating it. 

hang ⇢ freeze 

hard hyphen ⇢ non-breaking hyphen 

hard link 

A special structure in Unix (and therefore in Mac OS X) that allows any 

reference to a file or folder appear to be that file for folder. Yes, that’s 

very Zen-like—and it’s not necessarily a satisfactory explanation to the 

more technically inclined. But we don’t have to worry about the 

underpinnings, when all you need to know is the result: Time Machine 

uses hard links in its storage scheme, so when it does an incremental 

backup and you’ve changed only a 500K file, the next hourly backup 



86

I 

i.Link • I-beam • iCal • iChat • icon preview • iDisk • IEEE 1394 • iLife • 

IM (Instant Message) • IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) • 

iMovie • incremental backup • .indd • index sheet • index.html, 

index.htm • infinite loop • Info window • Input menu • insertion point • 

Inspector, inspector palette • installer • Intel Core Duo • interlaced, 

progressive • Internet • intranet • IP address (Internet protocol) • 

iPhoto • iPod • IRC (Internet Relay Chat) • iSight • ISO-8859-1, ISO Latin-1 

• ISP (Internet Service Provider) • iSync • iTunes • iTunes Store • iWeb • 

iWork 

i.Link ⇢ FireWire 

I-beam 

The mouse cursor used for text editing, so named because… well, 

because that’s what it looks like. 

iCal 

Apple’s entry into the diet-drink market. 

Or, its calendar program that, while easy to use, lacks a businessworthy 

(or even busy-person-worthy) integration with Mail, could 

use a better approach to a To-Do list, and absolutely needs more 

options when it comes to font sizes on calendar appointments. After all, 

it’s the users who can no longer read 8-point type who are also the 

ones more likely to need to write down all their appointments. 

iChat 

Apple’s instant messaging (IM) software—or at least that’s what it 

pretends to be. In reality, it’s much more. In fact, I rarely use it for 

IMing, since most of my electronic conversations are necessarily 

asynchronous—my friends and I are rarely free to chat at the same 

time, so email works much better for us. But when a colleague or friend 

and I need to transfer a humongous file that oversteps the bounds of 

one or the other of our email attachment limits, we switch to iChat and 

drag the file in question into the iChat window. And did I mention you 

can chat—with your voice? (As long as you have a microphone on your 

Mac.) And if you have a compatible camera such as Apple’s iSight, you 



92

J 

Jabber • jaggies • Java • JavaScript • Journaled • JPEG (Joint 

Photographic Experts Group) • .jpg 

Jabber 

A protocol for instant messaging (IM), Jabber’s open standards lets 

anyone with the know-how (and a domain name, the hardware, the 

software, and the Internet connection) set up a Jabber server and 

contact Jabber users on other servers. You can be a jaberrer in iChat by 

choosing Window > Jabber, which opens a window just like your Buddy 

List or for Bonjour. 

jaggies ⇢ aliasing 

Java 

A C-derived language that was originally developed for intelligent 

toasters and the like, but became a fad in the ’90s, based on its 

slogan “Write once, run anywhere.” Java applets (small 

applications) can indeed run on many kinds of computers, 

although Microsoft muddied the waters by coming up with its 

own, incompatible, version. Java has almost no relationship to 

JavaScript, despite the similarity of names. 

JavaScript 

A scripting language with a C flavor, often used for simple programs 

embedded in Web pages. Despite the name, JavaScript has little in 

common with Java. In fact, the language was originally called “Mocha,” 

but Java was trendy back in the mid-90s, so some marketing genius at 

Netscape decided to cash in by renaming it JavaScript. 

Journaled 

Beginning in Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2), when you erase a Mac hard drive, 

the default volume format is “Mac OS Extended (Journaled).” That 

means the operating system keeps a continuous record—a journal—of 

the changes made to the disk. If something goes wrong (such as a 



101

K 

K, KB, Kb • kbps (kilobits per second) • kernel, kernel panic • kerning 

and tracking • .key • key repeat rate • keyboard layout • keyboard 

shortcut • Keyboard Viewer • Keychain • Keynote • kilobyte, kilobit • 

kiosk mode 

K, KB, Kb 

K and KB are abbreviations for kilobyte; Kb is the abbreviation for 

kilobit. 

kbps (kilobits per second) 

1. A measure of network speed. For example, a typical dial-up 

connection to the Internet can move data at a maximum rate of 53 

kbps. Since there are 8 bits in each byte, 53 kbps is only 6 kilobytes 

per second (kBps)—at that speed, it would take you almost 10 

minutes just to download a song from the iTunes Store. 

2. Speaking of songs, kbps is a measure of the amount of data in each 

second of audio in an audio file, and therefore describes its quality; 

see bit rate. 

kernel, kernel panic 

The kernel is the core of the Mac operating system, alternatively called 

the kernel environment. 

The panic sets in when the operating system doesn’t know what to do 

with an instruction it’s received: you get a black box on your screen 

with white text that usually says, “You need to restart your computer.” 

(No kidding!) One possible cause of a kernel panic is a damaged (or 

moved-out-of-the-right-place) system file or folder; another is an 

application or system utility utterly misbehaving. A simple restart 

almost always fixes the problem; if it doesn’t, you should consider 

reinstalling your system, using the Archive & Install option. 



103

L 

LAN (local area network) • landscape • Latin-1 • launch • leading • 

Leopard • library • Library folders • ligature • line break • Linux • 

LISTSERV • local folder • log in, log out • logic board • login item • 

lossless, lossy • lpi (lines per inch) • LWFN • LZW 

LAN (local area network) 

A group of computers and peripherals (such as printers and scanners) 

connected by a common network—usually Ethernet and/or Wi-Fi. As the 

word “local” implies, this is usually in a small area, such as a single 

building, although some corporate LANs span continents. 

landscape 

A sideways (wider than it is tall) orientation for printing, as opposed to 

the standard, upright portrait view. 

Latin-1 ⇢ ISO Latin-1 

launch 

To open, or run, an application. 

Leopard’s Spotlight provides a special launching option: trigger 

Spotlight with with the default Command-Space, and type the name of 

the application—or as many letters as you need to identify it. Spotlight 

puts the application at the top of its “I found it!” list, already selected 

as the Top Hit, so all you have to do is hit Return to launch the 

program. 

leading ⇢ baseline 

Leopard ⇢ The Cat’s Meow 

library 

1. In Font Book, a user-defined group of fonts the Mac can access no 

matter where they’re stored on your disk—they don’t have to be in a 

Fonts folder. 



108

M 

Mac • MAC (Media Access Control) • .Mac • macro • MacRoman, 

Mac OS Roman • MagSafe • Mail • mailing list • malware • markup 

language • MB, Mb • Mbps (megabits per second) • media • 

megabyte, meg • megahertz • megapixel • memory • menu 

symbols • meta tag • metadata • MFS • MHz • Mighty Mouse • 

Migration Assistant • MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) • 

MIME (multipurpose Internet mail extensions) • mirror site • modem • 

modifier key • monofont, monospaced font • motherboard • .mov • MP3, 

.mp3 • MPEG-4 (Motion Picture Experts Group) • .mpkg • MTBF (mean time 

between failures) • MUG (Macintosh User Group) • multi-core processor • 

Multiple Master • multitasking 

Mac 

Macintosh · That’s right, it’s not an acronym, so if anybody writes 

“MAC” when describing your computer, you can look down your nose at 

them. And it’s not an apple (although it is an Apple), so folks who write 

about “McIntosh computers” are picking their fruit from the wrong tree. 

MAC (Media Access Control) 

This one is an acronym. It’s the unique hardware address built into 

every network adapter on your computer, and every networkable 

device—including Palm PDAs, VoIP over Wi-Fi phones, and printers with 

Ethernet. No two devices in the world have the same MAC address, 

allowing devices on a local network to easily differentiate themselves. 

MAC addresses are used only on local networks, not routed to wider 

networks or the Internet, so this is not the address the outside world 

sees—that’s your IP address. 

The MAC address for a Mac’s built-in Ethernet or AirPort adapter is 

sometimes accessed when you register or “activate” software so the 

software will be associated with that specific machine and not work if 

you copy it to another machine. You can find MAC numbers in the 

Network preference pane: choose the adapter from the Show menu, 

and then look for the AirPort 

ID or the Ethernet ID (for the 

Ethernet ID, click the Ethernet 

button, as shown here). 



113

N 

nano 

nano • narrowband • NetBoot • netiquette • netizen • netroots • 

network • newbie • non-breaking hyphen • non-breaking space • NTSC 

(National Television Standards Committee) • NVRAM (non-volatile 

random access memory) 

A billionth part; a nanosecond (ns) is a billionth of a second. Here’s how 

short that is: light travels only twelve inches in a nanosecond. Also 

used colloquially to mean very, very small: “Nanotechnology will 

provide nanobots to scavenge through your bloodstream.” 

narrowband ⇢ bandwidth 

NetBoot 

As a verb, without any fancy caps, netboot means to start up your 

computer using an operating system that resides on a network server, 

rather than on a local disk drive. 

With the fancy spelling, NetBoot is Mac OS X Server’s way of allowing a 

networked computer to start up from a special disk image that resides 

on the server. Aside from being a useful troubleshooting tool, using a 

NetBoot disk image as a startup disk is a way to ensure that every Mac 

in a specific environment—a classroom, say—presents exactly the same 

“experience” to every user at every startup. 

netiquette 

internet + etiquette · Generally accepted polite behavior in email, 

discussion forums, and other online activities. For example, typing in 

ALL CAPS is considered poor netiquette, unless you really mean to 

shout (which is, of course, still poor netiquette). 

netizen 

internet + citizen · Someone who is active and very involved in one or 

more online communities. 



123

O OCR 

(optical character recognition) • OEM (original equipment 

manufacturer) • Ogg Vorbis, .ogg • old style numbers • open source • 

OpenType • operating system • optical drive • optimization • Option key 

• optional hyphen • OS (operating system) • OS X • otf • outline font • 

owner, Ownership & Permissions 

OCR (optical character recognition) 

A software feature that analyzes an image of a page of text (typically 

one that’s been created by a scanner), and, by recognizing the images 

of individual characters, produce a digital text file. 

OEM (original equipment manufacturer) 

Yep, that’s what it means: the company you buy something from isn’t 

necessarily the company that made the device—or, at least, the whole 

device. You can, for instance, buy an Apple computer with a hard drive 

made by one manufacturer, the memory by another, and the processor 

by yet another. That’s a pretty confusing example, of course, even 

though it’s accurate. You’ll more often run into the term for something 

more simple, such as a hard drive whose mechanism is made by an 

OEM and placed into a housing, packed with a power cord, and sold by 

another company. This might matter quite a bit when the company that 

sold it to you provides only a year’s guarantee but it turns out the that 

OEM provides a two-year guarantee on the mechanism that failed. 

Ogg Vorbis, .ogg 

A type of audio compression sometimes used as an alternative to MP3. 

iTunes and iPods can’t play .ogg files, but audio programs such as 

Amadeus can read them and convert them to MP3 format. 

The name, in case you’re wondering—and how could you not be?— 

comes from Exquisitor Vorbis, a character in Terry Pratchett’s science 

fiction novel Small Gods, plus the slang term “ogging,” meaning a 

kamikaze-style attack, that was used in the online game Netrek. What 

did any of this have to do with audio? Search us! 



126

P 

P2P (peer to peer) • package • packet • .pages • Pages • PAL (phase 

alternating line) • palette • panic • Panther • Pantone • Parallels • 

parent folder • Parental Controls • partition • partition map scheme • 

pasteboard • path bar • path menu • pathname, path • PCMCIA • PDF 

(Portable Document Format), .pdf • peripheral • permissions • 

petabyte • phishing, pharming • Photo Booth • pica • PiFont • ping • 

pixel • .pkg, .mpkg • plist • plug-in, plugin • PMS (Pantone Matching System) 

• PMU, SMU (Power Management Unit, System Management Unit) • PNG 

(portable network graphics), .png • podcast • point • pointer • POP (post 

office protocol) or (point of presence) • port • portrait • PostScript language 

• PostScript Type 1 • power button • PowerPC Macs • ppi (pixels per inch) • 

.ppt • PRAM (Parameter RAM) • preference • preference pane • Preview • 

printer font • Printer Setup Utility • privileges • process color • processes 

• processor speed • program • proportional font • protocol • proxy icon • 

proxy server • .psd • Public folder • public-key encryption • Puma 

P2P (peer to peer) 

A type of network in which computers communicate with each other as 

equals, as opposed to a client-server network, where multiple 

computers (clients) obtain services from a central server. When you use 

the Create Network command in the AirPort menu, you’re creating a 

P2P network between two Macs; in contrast, when you use a browser to 

load a Web page, you’re in client-server mode. 

package 

A folder that looks like a file, in order to hide 

different data types within a single file icon. 

For example, a typical program needs code, 

help text, buttons, menus, windows, dialogs, 

and many other resources. The code could 

reside in the program’s file, and the other 

stuff in separate folders, but then it would 

be easy for the items to be accidentally separated. Putting it all in a 

package keeps everything together. Before Mac OS X, the Mac used a 

file’s resource and data forks to keep disparate data in one place, but in 

Unix-based Mac OS X that approach has been largely replaced by 

packages—also known as bundles—that hold the necessary pieces of a 

file, program, or installer. 



130

Q quad 

core • quarter • Quartz, Quartz Extreme • Quick Look • QuickTime 

• QuickTime Player, QuickTime Pro • quincunx • quits unexpectedly • 

QWERTY • .qxd 

quad core ⇢ multi-core processor 

quarter 

Joking jargon for two bits of information. In the 18th century, Spanish 

gold coins were sometimes cut into 8 pieces, referred to as bits (which 

is where the phrase “pieces of eight” comes from); since the Spanish 

coin was about equal in value to the American dollar, two bits equaled a 

quarter. Also see Shave and a Haircut, next page. 

Quartz, Quartz Extreme 

When you click a window’s Minimize button (that’s the yellow one) and 

watch the window shrink into the Dock like a genie returning to his 

bottle, you’re seeing Apple’s Quartz graphics software in action. Quartz 

puts everything, from scrolling text to eye-catching tricks like the genie 

effect, on the screen. In fact, “Quartz” is an umbrella term used to 

describe all the parts of the Mac OS X display software, including Core 

Image, Core Graphics, and Core Video. Quartz Extreme is the latest 

version, faster and better than ever. Whether you use the Genie or 

Scale minimize effect (set it in the Dock preference pane), try this: hold 

Shift when you click the Minimize button for a slooow motion effect. 

Quick Look 

This is Sharon’s favorite new Leopard feature. With Quick Look, you 

look at nearly any file without opening its application—which means you 

don’t need its application. Quick Look can display many types of files: 

TextEdit, Word, Excel, PDF, and many graphics file types. You can even 

flip through multi-page Word, TextEdit, and PDF documents. 

Trigger Quick Look for a selected document with File > Quick Look 

(Command-Y) or with the Quick Look button on a Finder window’s 

toolbar; in the Quick Look window, you can use the up and down arrow 

keys to move to the previous and next files in the Finder window. 



149

R RAM 

(random access memory) • .ram • raster graphic • rasterize • RCA 

connector • read-only • RealPlayer • reboot • receipt • Recent Items • 

refurbished • repair permissions • repertoire • resetting NVRAM • 

resetting PRAM • resolution • resource fork • restart • RGB (red, green, 

blue) • rich text • rip • ROM (read only memory) • Roman • root, root 

user • root level, root directory • Rosetta • router, wireless router • RSS 

(really simple syndication) • RTF (rich text format) • RTFD (rich text 

format directory), .rtfd • RTFM • RTL (right-to-left) 

RAM (random access memory) 

ram · Computer memory that needs electric power in order to retain its 

contents. RAM can be written to and read from much faster than to and 

from a hard disk, so it’s used for most of what your computer does. 

When you launch a program, much of it is loaded into RAM; when you 

work on a document, its contents are stored there until you save it to 

the disk. When you restart or turn off the computer, everything in RAM 

is forgotten. 

The first Mac had 128K of memory; the next, nicknamed the “Fat 

Mac,” had 512K. Most Macs come with 2 gigs of RAM as standard 

now: at 2,097,152K they must be morbidly obese. (Sharon’s first 

computer, a membrane-keyboard Timex-Sinclair, had 2K of memory, 

and she was thrilled when a 16K RAM pack became available. Andy’s 

first, a Poly-88, came with 16K of RAM, but he was able to upgrade it to 

48K.) 

.ram · RealPlayer file extension 

raster graphic ⇢ bitmapped graphic 

rasterize 

To convert a graphic or text from vector to bitmapped (or raster) form. 

For example, if you have editable text in Photoshop and want to apply a 

filter to it, you must first rasterize it, because Photoshop filters work 

only on bitmaps. In fact, any text—even a business letter—is rasterized 

before printing, because all printers are raster devices: they put drops 

of ink, or dots of toner, on paper. That vector-to-raster conversion can 

take place in your computer, in the printer, or in a high-speed “rip” 



151

S 

Sad Mac • safe boot • safe login • Safe Mode, safe boot • sans serif • 

SATA • .scpt, .scptd • screen saver • screen sharing • screenshot, 

screen capture • Script Editor • script, scripting • scriptable • scroller 

• SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) • SDRAM • .sea • search 

engine • Search For • SECAM (Système Electronique pour Couleur 

Avec Mémoire) • secondary click, secondary button • semiconductor • 

serif, sans serif • server • Services submenu • Sharing & Permissions • 

Shared folder • shareware • sheet • Sherlock • Shift key • short name 

• shortcut • sidebar • Simple Finder • .sit, .sitx • skin • Skype • SLA 

(Software License Agreement) • Slideshow command • slot-loading drive • 

Slow Keys • small caps • smart folder • smart quotes • smiley • SMS (short 

message service) • SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) • SMU • SnapBack • 

soft hyphen • soft return • Software Update • source code • Spaces • spam • 

spider • spot color • Spotlight • spring-loaded folders • SRAM (Static Random 

Access Memory) • stack • startup disk • startup item • static IP address • 

stationery • Sticky Keys • storage card • straight quotes • streaming 

• strikethrough • string, text string • StuffIt • style • subscribe, subscription 

• suitcase • SuperDrive • S-Video • symbols in menus • sync, syncing • 

system fonts • System Preferences • System Profiler 

Sad Mac 

The now-retired symbol of a Mac in trouble at startup, the Sad 

Mac used to show up on the screen, accompanied by a cryptic 

error code and the Chimes of Doom, when something Really 

Wrong occurred—such as a bad memory chip. His (her?) 

counterpart, the startup Happy Mac, has also been retired. We 

now have bad news accompanied by the international “no” 

symbol (the red, slashed circle), and a normal startup graced by 

a dull gray apple. 

The Sad Mac’s descendent—perhaps the child of Happy and Sad—lives 

on as Sad iPod, displayed on an iPod screen when it fails to start up. 

safe boot ⇢ Safe Mode 

safe login 

Logging in to an account in Safe Mode (next entry) when the computer 

is already on, by holding Shift immediately after clicking the Log In 



160

T tab 

tab 

• .tab • tags, tagged text • Target Disk Mode • TCP/IP 

(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) • terabyte • Terminal 

• text box, text field • text encoding • text file, plain text file • text 

smoothing • TextEdit • theme • third-party • thumb drive • thumbnail • 

.tif • TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) • Tiger • Time Machine • To Do • 

tool palette • toolbar • Trash • Trojan horse • TrueType • TSV • .ttc • 

.ttf • .txt • Type 1 • typeface 

1. What you shouldn’t use to indent the beginning of a paragraph (see 

first-line indent). 

2. In preference panes and dialogs, tab refers to a screen of information 

available through a button (“use the General tab in Safari 

preferences”) because this interface feature used to look like tabs on 

stacked folders. 

3. An ultra-convenient browser feature that lets you keep multiple Web 

pages in a single window: Command-clicking on a link creates a tab 

in the current window instead of opening a separate window. Prior to 

the 3.0 version of Safari that comes with Leopard (and was also 

released separately—it’s compatible with Mac OS X 10.4.9 and later, 

so it works with later versions of Tiger), this feature was easily 

overlooked, since you had to opt in by turning it on in Safari’s 

preferences; now it comes on by default. As befits such a handy 

feature, the new Safari provides even more in the way of tab 

options, such as “Turn all my tabs into separate windows,” “Turn all 

my windows into tabs in one window,” and the long-overdue 

confirmation warning if you close a window with multiple tabs in it. 

.tab · tab-separated text file extension ⇢ delimiter 

tags, tagged text 

1. Tags are special “codes” used in text files to specify things such as 

character formatting and special instructions. HTML tags for Web 

pages—which are interpreted by browsers—look like this: 

Chris’s Web Page. 



182

U 

U+ 

U+ • UID (User ID) • UFS (Unix File System) • unexpectedly quits • 

Unicode • Unicode font • uninstall • Unix • unmount • unzip • update • 

URL (Uniform Resource Locator) • USB (Universal Serial Bus) • UTF-8 

(UCS Transformation Format, 8-bit) • UWB (ultrawideband) 

The prefix for a Unicode ID number: U+0041 is uppercase A, for 

instance. It should also remind you that the number is in hex, not 

decimal. You’ll see these IDs in Character Palette’s pop-up help tags, 

and you can also type them (without the U+ prefix) in its Search field 

to find a specific Unicode character. Also see Hexadecimal: Sweet 16. 

UID (User ID) ⇢ 501 

UFS (Unix File System) 

A data storage format used in some Unix systems, UFS is an option for 

some drives when you erase them under Mac OS X with Disk Utility. 

You shouldn’t use this format unless you have good reason to—and if 

you don’t know what those reasons are, you shouldn’t be using it! 

(How’s that for beating around the bush?) 

unexpectedly quits 

Sometimes an application just ups and disappears—one second it’s 

there, and in the next instant it’s vanished, like a guest abruptly gone 

without so much as a by-your-leave. Then you get a “The application 

‘Rude Company’ has unexpectedly quit” dialog—as if you hadn’t 

noticed! 

Use the Reopen button in the Unexpectedly Quit dialog the first time 

this happens for an application; if it happens again almost immediately, 

use the Try Again button instead, since this sets the application to open 

with many of its settings temporarily back to their defaults instead of 

your (possibly corrupted) user-defined ones. 

Unicode 

A text encoding standard that assigns a number (and name) to each 

character in every written language. As you might imagine, that’s quite 



189

V 

vector graphic • VGA (video graphics array) • virtual Desktops • 

virtual memory • virus • vodcast • VoiceOver • VoIP (voice over IP) • 

volume 

vector graphic 

An image made of lines and shapes rather than from 

individual dots or pixels. Vector graphics have a big 

advantage over bitmapped graphics: they can be enlarged 

or reduced without ever suffering the jaggies. This format 

isn’t suitable for the tonal subtleties of a photograph, but 

when it comes to logotypes, charts, or other “drawn” art, like this truck, 

vector graphics excel. By far the most popular type of vector art is the 

PostScript format, as embodied in PDF, EPS, and Adobe Illustrator files. 

VGA (video graphics array) 

An early-’80s standard for analog video; it has a resolution of 640x480 

pixels and uses a 15-pin D-subminiature connector. The term is often 

used as shorthand for 640x480 video of any kind. A proliferation of 

variants came later, including QVGA (320x240), SVGA (800x600), 

XVGA (1024x768), and extending all the way up to WQUXGA 

(3840x2400). There are dozens more, but rather than continue listing 

names, we’ve provided a weblink to a handy chart. 

virtual Desktops 

What you don’t get in Leopard with Spaces. Despite some overactive 

hype and misguided enthusiasm, it’s just not true: you have the same 

Desktop background, and the same Desktop icons are always there no 

matter which space you use. Spaces is so terrific it needs only accurate 

enthusiasm! 

virtual memory 

“Fake” memory, in that it’s treated as if it were RAM, but the 

nformation actually resides on a disk. This lets your Mac do more than 

it could if it had to stick to only the actual RAM installed, letting it run, 

say, 17 programs at once and handle very large documents in each. 

Virtual memory (also known as VM) is slower than genuine RAM, but 



193

W WAN 

(wide area network) • watermark • WAV (waveform audio 

format), .wav • Web 2.0 • Web Clip • web crawler • webmail • 

WebDAV (Web-based distributed authoring and versioning) • 

Web-safe colors • widgets • Wi-Fi • wiki • WMV (Windows Media 

Video), .wmv • workflow • worm • write • write-only • WWW 

(World Wide Web) • WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) 

WAN (wide area network) 

A single network that covers a large geographical area; as opposed to a 

LAN, which typically exists only in a single building, or the Internet, 

which is a network of LANs and WANs. 

watermark ⇢ digital watermark 

WAV (waveform audio format), .wav 

Microsoft’s earliest file format for digital audio. Simple and not very 

efficient, it has been eclipsed by the compressed MP3 format, but there 

are still a lot of WAV files out there, and the best of them can equal 

audio CD quality. Fortunately, QuickTime can play .wav files. 

Web 2.0 

No, it’s not the Next Big Thing, full of fascinating new technologies, 

super-fast networks, and beefed up security. It’s a Concept already 

here, and, like most concepts with a capital C, it’s nebulous because the 

definition keeps changing. (Also because it’s not an upgrade to the 

Web, or its technologies, so the name’s a little bogus.) Coined by Tim 

O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media, it has all sorts of buzz phrases attached to it 

but might best be described (since that is, after all, why we’re here) by 

a comparison. Web 1.0: top-down, relatively static, fed-to-you 

information. Web 2.0: user-as-participant, wiki-based, blog-filled. This 

can go either way: there’s democracy, for instance, and then there’s 

American Idol. 

Web Clip 

A Dashboard widget you create from a piece of a Web page—a special 

Leopard Safari feature. When you see a part of a Web page you’d like 

to have as a widget—an hourly weather report, say—you click the Open 



196

X 

Xeon 

Xeon • Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) • x-height • XHTML 

(extensible hypertext markup language) • .xls • XML (extensible 

markup language) 

An Intel chip used in multiple-socket computers such as the Mac Pro. 

Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) 

An inspirational Mecca, the originator of ideas such as the mouse, the 

graphical user interface (GUI), WYSIWIG text editing, Ethernet, the 

laser printer, and a resolution-independent page-description language 

(InterPress) that was the precursor to PostScript. To name just a few 

you’d recognize right away. 

Because the mouse and the graphical user interface were conceived 

and incubated at Xerox PARC, and it was no secret that Steve Jobs and 

his posse had an official tour and demo of their computer developments 

(and that Apple hired some PARC researchers), it’s often claimed that 

the Mac, and its earlier GUI-based incarnation, the Apple Lisa, were 

merely rip-offs of the Xerox PARC creations. Not so! Read about it in 

the words of two people who were there, Bruce Horn and Jef Raskin; 

the three weblinks here are Bruce’s statement in 

regard to the Mac’s early development, Jef’s 

corrections on some details, and Bruce’s reply to 

those! And be thankful that the mouse developed 

beyond the first working model, shown here (and 

described in the patent application as an “X-Y 

position indicator for a display system”). 

x-height 

The height of the lowercase letters in a font, not counting 

those with ascenders like d and b. 

XHTML (extensible hypertext markup language) 

Most Web pages use HTML, a “markup language” that tells your Web 

browser how text and pictures should look on the screen. XHTML is the 



201

Y 

Y2K 

Y2K • YMMV, your mileage may vary • yottabyte • YouTube 

from Year 2000 · An expected disaster that didn’t happen. Early 

computer programs assumed the 20th century would last forever and 

stored years as 2-digit numbers. Why that would keep elevators from 

working, and how stocking up on canned goods would help, is beyond 

us, but the “crisis” came and went with only minor glitches. (There 

were adumbrations: one of Sharon’s credit cards was turned down in 

1999 because its 2001 expiration date was interpreted as 1901, and 

was thus nearly a hundred years out of date.) 

YMMV, your mileage may vary 

A disclaimer in a reported benchmark or description that tells the 

reader she shouldn’t necessarily expect the same results: “I got rid of 

all the icons on my Desktop, and my overall Finder speed increased by 

almost ten percent. Your mileage may vary.” 

yottabyte 

Approximately one septillion bytes. Also see When Is a Thousand Not? 

YouTube 

From an idea about people uploading and sharing their vacation videos 

with family and friends to Time’s 2006 Invention of the Year, YouTube 

is, well… YouTube, MeTube, and EverybodyTube. 

It’s been interesting to watch (pun intended) how television has been 

hammering out its relationship with YouTube. When they first found 

their shows on YouTube, broadcasters threatened litigation based on 

copyright infringement; later they woke up to that fact it was free 

advertising. For an amusing look at copyright versus fair use issues, 

using material (in a fair use way) from one of my favorite companies, 

known for its resolute defense of its copyrights—no, not Apple—click 

the weblink. The video, of course, is on YouTube. 



203

Z 

zapping PRAM • zettabyte • zip, .zip • Zune 

zapping PRAM 

A general troubleshooting procedure that may solve several types of 

problems, such as when your computer turns on (you get the startup 

chime and hear the drive spinning) but the screen remains blank. To 

zap the PRAM: Start with the computer off; turn on the computer, 

immediately hold down Command-Option-P-R; keep all four keys 

pressed until you hear the startup chime twice, then release the keys. 

zettabyte 

Approximately one sextillion bytes. Also see When Is a Thousand Not? 

zip, .zip 

1. To compress a file into a “zip” format, which then gets the .zip 

extension. In Mac OS X, the File > Compress command (“Make 

Archive” previous to Leopard) zips a file. There’s no Unarchive 

command; double-clicking a zipped file unzips it. Take Control 

ebooks are in zip format so that when you download one from the 

Web site, it arrives as a file on your disk; otherwise, some Web 

browsers would just open the PDF file in the browser window. 

2. The late, sometimes great—and sometimes not so much—storage 

solution, Zip drives and Zip disks, introduced in 1994, provided 

removable 100 MB disks for a $200 drive, a price and capacity 

extremely worthwhile at the time. The drop in price of CDs and the 

introduction of writeable DVDs and flash drives a few years later 

(and their continued price drops) eroded the Zip market. 

Zune 

Microsoft’s iPod-killer; apparently a very subtle assassin. 



204

ABOUT THIS BOOK 

Thank you for purchasing this Take Control book. We hope you find 

it both useful and enjoyable to read. We welcome your comments at 

tc-comments@tidbits.com. 

About the Authors 

Sharon Zardetto: Sharon (formerly Zardetto Aker, but in real life 

sometimes Zardetto Wolfson... oh, never mind, that’s why she’s gone 

back to the original!) has been writing about the Mac ever since she 

had one, when it debuted in 1984. Her best-known efforts of more 

than 20 print books include the third edition of the Macintosh Bible 

as a sole effort (and involvement in many subsequent editions) and 

the Mac Almanac. She wrote for both Macworld and MacUser 

magazines from their earliest issues until the latter’s demise; 

documentation projects included the venerable, ground-breaking 

SuperPaint and the subtle hit—who could forget?—Machine 

Language Subroutines in Microsoft QuickBASIC. 

She’s also covered Mac OS X Tiger in Take Control of Fonts in Mac 

OS X and Take Control of Font Problems in Mac OS X, also available 

in a combined print version from Peachpit press as Real World Mac 

OS X Fonts. More recently, she’s authored Take Control of Fonts in 

Leopard. Oh, she also has a life beyond the Mac, too, in northern New 

Jersey with her husband, two grown sons who keep coming back to 

the nest, and twice as many Macs in the house as people. 

Andy Baird: Andy has loved computers ever since he saw his first 

one (the Lincoln Labs TX-O, complete with graphic display and light 

pen) in 1957. A Macophile since 1984, he’s taught about Macs, written 

about them (including The Macintosh Dictionary), written software 

for them, and generally spent way too much of his adult life sitting 

in front of them. Andy lives and travels in his motorhome, “Skylark,” 

keeping in touch via satellite Internet. Most of his contributions to 

this book were written from various remote locations in the mountains 

of New Mexico. Like Sharon, Andy has exactly twice as many 

Macs as people in his home. 

Email us: Sharon | Andy | Sharon, cc Andy | Andy, cc Sharon 

(Aren’t hyperlinks fun?) 



205

Shameless Plug 

Sharon has more Mac information than she 

knows what to do with, and much of it doesn’t fit 

our Take Control line. Check out the beginnings 

of her own line of ebooks, 33 Things, at 

http://www.33thingsbooks.com/. 

Thank You to… 

We’d both like to thank Tonya and Adam for taking on this slightly- 

0ff-the-beaten-Take-Control path project, and Tonya for her editing 

efforts. The Control Freaks and the Irregulars put a lot of time in 

reviewing the 1.0 manuscript, many going way beyond the call of 

whatever duty is incumbent upon such folks, and we’re grateful for 

their time and talents, even though we didn’t put in all the extrageeky 

Unix/Terminal stuff they suggested. 

Sharon would also like to thank Jerry Szubin (his picture is in Photo 

Booth) for help with setting the 1,456,432 links (or so it seemed) in 

the 1.0 version of this ebook, her son Nat for checking them after they 

were set, and Andy for foolishly agreeing to come out of retirement 

for this project. 

About the Publisher 

Publishers Adam and Tonya Engst have been 

publishing Mac-related content since they created 

the online newsletter, TidBITS, in 1990 

(http://www.tidbits.com/). Adam and Tonya are 

known in the Mac world as writers, editors, and 

speakers. They are also parents to Tristan, who 

thinks ebooks about clipper ships and castles would 

be cool. 

Production Credits 

Layout: Sharon Zardetto 

Link-making AppleScript: Matt Neuburg 

List macros: Sharon Zardetto 

Take Control logo: Jeff Tolbert 

Editor in Chief: Tonya Engst 

Publisher: Adam Engst 



206

Take Control: The Mac OS X Lexicon 

ISBN: 1-933671-30-0 

December 2007, Version 1.5 

Copyright © 2007, Sharon Zardetto and Andy Baird. All rights reserved. 

TidBITS Publishing Inc. 

50 Hickory Road 

Ithaca, NY 14850 USA 

http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/ 

TAKE CONTROL electronic books help readers regain a measure of control in an 

oftentimes out-of-control universe. Take Control ebooks also streamline the publication 

process so that information about quickly changing technical topics can be published 

while it’s still relevant and accurate. 

This electronic book does not use copy protection because copy protection makes life 

harder for everyone. So we ask a favor of our readers. If you want to share your copy of 

this ebook with a friend, please do so as you would a physical book, meaning that if your 

friend uses it regularly, he or she should buy a copy. Your support makes it possible for 

future Take Control ebooks to hit the Internet long before you’d find the same 

information in a printed book. Plus, if you buy the ebook, you’re entitled to any free 

updates that become available. 

Although the author and TidBITS Publishing Inc. have made a reasonable effort to 

ensure the accuracy of the information herein, they assume no responsibility for errors 

or omissions. The information in this ebook is distributed “As Is,” without warranty of 

any kind. Neither TidBITS Publishing Inc. nor the author shall be liable to any person or 

entity for any special, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, including without 

limitation lost revenues or lost profits, that may result (or that are alleged to result) 

from the use of these materials. In other words, use this information at your own risk. 

Many of the designations used to distinguish products and services are claimed 

as trademarks or service marks. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, 

or named features that appear in this title are assumed to be the property of their 

respective owners. All product names and services are used in an editorial fashion only, 

with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade 

name, is meant to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this title. 

This title is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or 

otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Because of the nature of this title, it uses terms that 

are trademarks or registered trademarks of Apple Inc.; to view a complete list of 

trademarks and registered trademarks of Apple Inc., visit http://www.apple.com/legal/ 

trademark/appletmlist.html. 



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