From pure eye candy to outright productivity-boosters, here are some of the more obscure things you can do with your Mac, fresh out of the box.
10. Say anything
Turn on your speakers, launch Terminal and type: say hello world. Yes, your Mac speaks. If you've got a text file you want your Mac to read to you, try: say -f mytextfile.txt
9. Show off Stacks and Expose in slow motion
Hold down Shift and click on one of your Dock's Stacks, or hit F12 to invoke Dashboard -- and watch the action happen in slow motion.
8. Activate screen corners
Assign actions to each corner of your desktop by activating screen corners. In System Preferences, Expose & Spaces, set actions for each corner of your desktop. Then, perform those actions with a swipe of the mouse.
7. Display custom hard drive icons
ID your digital camera card, USB drive, and external FireWire drive at a glance in Finder. Assign custom icons to each one of your drives to pretty up your desktop and make them easy to see.
6. Look up words in the dictionary with a keystroke
Highlight any word in a native Cocoa app and press Apple+Ctrl+D to look it up in the built-in OS X dictionary and thesaurus.
5. Launch applications from Spotlight
If Quicksilver isn't your cup of tea, Spotlight can do that for you without running another application. Simply set Spotlight to include Applications in its search results, invoke it with the (default) keyboard shortcut, Cmd+Space, type your app name and hit Enter to launch it.
4. Tab between all controls
By default, your Mac's Tab key doesn't move between controls on a page or form other than text boxes and lists. Click the "All Controls" radio button at the bottom of the Keyboard & Mouse pane in System Preferences to right this wrong.
3. Zoom WAY in on a page
Examine small text up close or just zoom in on a huge image by using the two-finger trackpad trick. Hold down the Control key, then drag TWO fingers up your Mac's trackpad to give it a try. Here's how to set up two-finger zoom.
2. Show the date on the menu bar
If you need more than just the current time in your Mac's menu bar, you can add the date as well. Here's how to edit your date and time format to keep yourself from having to click the time whenever you want to see what day of the month it is.
1. Double as an external drive
Want to move huge files onto one Mac from another? Using the Mac's "Target Disk Mode," a press of the T key during startup transforms your Mac into an external FireWire drive. Plug it into another Mac with a FireWire cable and copy files to and fro, no networking required.