Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. You've unwrapped your new Mac desktop or laptop and you're ready to dive in: Where should you start? Modern-day macOS is designed to be intuitive and straightforward, but it's also stuffed with options and features you can tweak to fit your needs. Here we'll look at some of the fundamental settings that you should change first, to ensure you're getting the best possible experience. All of these options can be found by opening the Apple menu in the top left corner of the macOS interface, then choosing System Settings.

The standard QWERTY keyboard is a rather limited tool. Designed and tinkered with over the early 1870s by newspaper editor Christopher Latham Sholes, the typewriter configuration has barely changed since 1873, when the rights to the product were sold to E. Remington and Sons, which released the following keyboard: These days, we have a few extra characters at our fingertips. We have brackets, (round), [square], and {squiggly}. We have all the symbols we might need for typing fake $@*% words. But we still do not have our deliciously protracted, overapplied em dash--a beloved tool in many a writer's toolbox.

The code is designed to be used in conjunction with the book to illustrate some of the central ideas in the text, so you may want to buy the book from Barnes & Noble or Amazon. You can also read the latest news and announcements about the book. If you are here to look up a link that is mentioned in the book, click on the "links" tab in the menu bar at the top of the page. You will be taken to pages of links organized according to the different chapters in the book. On each page you will find links to online information and resources covering many of the topics mentioned in the associated chapter.

At long last, it appears the Siri virtual assistant is making it to Mac desktops. MacRumors reports that sources close to Apple have shared screenshots that show Siri icons appearing both in the dock and menu bar of early versions of Mac OS X 10.12, due in the fall of this year. The site did not have any other evidence at the time beyond what its sources were telling it. Macrumors says the images come from a source that provided "reliable information about Apple's software plans in the past." Apple is widely expected to unveil Mac OS X 10.12 at WWDC next month.