A.7. The Setup Assistant
When the Mac restarts after the installation, the first thing you experience is one of the
most visually stunning post-installation OS startup movies in history: a flythrough of
deep space, accompanied by scooby-dooby music and a fancy parade of 3-D, computer-
generated translations of the word "Welcome." Once Apple has quite finished showing
off its multimedia prowess, you arrive at a Welcome screen.

Note: You also hear a man's voice letting you know that if you're blind, you can press
Esc to hear audio guidance for setting up the Mac and learning VoiceOve.If you do so,
you're treated to a crash course in VoiceOver, the screen-control/screen-reading software
described on Section 15.5.1.3
. This, by the way, is the only time you'll be offered this
tutorial, so pay attention. (Hint: Here are the basics. Hold down the Control and Option
keys and press the arrow keys to highlight different elements of the screen, hearing them
pronounced. When a new window opens, press Control-Option-Shift-W to read the
contents of the window. Press Control-Option-Space bar to "click.")

Once again, you're in for a click-through-the-screens experience, this time with the aim of
setting up your Mac's various options. After answering the questions on each screen,
click Continue.
The number and sequence of information screens you'll encounter depend on whether
you've upgraded an existing Mac or started fresh, but here are some of the possibilities:
•
Welcome. Click the name of the country you're in.
•
Select Your Keyboard. Different countries require different keyboard layouts. For
example, if you choose the Canadian layout, pressing the ] key on a U.S. keyboard
produces the ç symbol. Click Continue.
•
Do you already own a Mac? If you choose "Transfer my information from another
Mac," the installer will assist you in sucking all of your old programs, files,

information—the local access number, account name, and password, and so on—
regarding your Internet account. See Chapter 18
for advice on filling in these
settings.
•
Enter Your Apple ID. Here, you're offered the chance to type in, or create, an
Apple ID—which is your email address. An Apple ID doesn't cost anything, but it
makes life easier if you want to buy songs from the Apple Music Store, order gift
books or prints from iPhoto, and so on. (If you have a .Mac account—see Section
18.6—put that account info here.
•
Registration Information. This is your chance to become a grain of sand on the
great beach of the Apple database (and to set up your own "card" in Mac OS X's
Address Book program).

Tip: If you're not interested in providing your personal information to Apple, or if
you've already done so during a previous installation, press -Q. A message
offers you Skip, Shut Down, and Cancel buttons. If you click Skip, you jump
straight ahead to "Create Your Account," below.

•
A Few More Questions. Where will you primarily use this computer? What best
describes what you do? Do you want to get junk mail from Apple?
•
Create Your Account. Most of the steps up to this point have been pretty
inconsequential, but this is a big moment. You're about to create your account—
your Administrator account, in fact, as described in Chapter 12
.
All you have to do is make up a name, usually a short variation of your name and
a password. Choose carefully, because you can't easily change your account name

If you're camera-shy, of course, you can choose "Choose from the picture library"
instead, and find an Apple-provided icon instead.
•
Your .Mac Billing Information. If you have a .Mac membership, Apple cheerfully
lets you know when it will expire.
•
Thanks For being a .Mac member. Aw, shucks.
•
Thank You. When you click Go, you wind up at the Mac OS X desktop, just as
described in Chapter 1