macOS Big Sur Tour, Tips, and Tricks - Krazy Ken's Tech Talk

**Discover the Exciting Features of macOS Big Sur**

macOS Big Sur is the latest operating system from Apple, and it's packed with exciting features that will take your user experience to the next level. In this article, we'll delve into some of the cool things you can do with macOS Big Sur.

**Using Sign Language in FaceTime Group Calls**

One of the most impressive features of macOS Big Sur is its ability to recognize sign language in FaceTime group calls. When you're in a group call and start signing, your camera will automatically detect it and make your picture bigger, so everyone can see what you're doing. This is a game-changer for people who use sign language, as it allows them to connect with others more easily.

**Photos App Editing Capabilities**

The Photos app in macOS Big Sur has some fantastic editing capabilities, including color control for videos. This means you can make your videos look even more polished and professional, right from within the app. Whether you're a pro photographer or just want to make some simple edits, this feature is sure to impress.

**Timestamps in Messages**

If you swipe on your trackpad or magic mouse in Messages, you can show timestamps for your messages. This means you can easily see when someone sent you a message, which can be really helpful in conversations that span multiple days. And if you right-click on the timestamp, you can toggle it on and off to turn it on and off.

**Proxy Windows**

For power users, there's some good news: proxy windows are still available in macOS Big Sur, even though they're a bit harder to find than before. If you hover your mouse cursor over the title bar of an app window, you'll see the proxy show up, just like it used to. You can then right-click on it to show where that file is in the file system or drag it out and use it in other apps.

**Hidden Resources in macOS Big Sur**

For those who love digging around for hidden features and Easter eggs, there's some good news: the Declaration of Independence is still available in macOS Big Sur. To find it, simply open the dictionary, click on "go" at the top, and then select "front back matter." You'll be treated to a wealth of resources that will make you feel like you've stumbled upon something truly special.

**Dedicated Checkbox for Window Tinting**

One of the small but welcome features in macOS Big Sur is a dedicated checkbox to turn off window tinting. By default, windows in macOS Big Sur soak up some color from your desktop picture, which can be nice but also sometimes distracting. With this checkbox, you can easily toggle it on and off.

**Iconic Startup Sound**

For those who miss the iconic startup sound that used to play when you booted up a Mac, there's some good news: it's back in macOS Big Sur. You can now turn it on from within the Sound preferences, so you can enjoy that familiar chime every time you start up your computer.

**Grabbing a Copy of macOS Big Sur**

If you haven't already, you can grab a copy of macOS Big Sur from the App Store. Make sure to back up your data first, as Apple recommends, and then dive in to explore all the cool features that Big Sur has to offer.

**Brilliant.org for Computer Science Enthusiasts**

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**Get Started with Brilliant.org**

Clicking on the link in the description box will take you directly to Brilliant.org. As one of the first 200 people to click this link, you'll also get 20% off a Brilliant Premium subscription, which offers even more features than the regular free version. So go ahead and check out Brilliant today – your future self will thank you!

**The Computer Clan**

That's all for today's episode, folks! If you liked what you saw here, be sure to subscribe to our channel and stick around for more cool tech stuff coming from The Computer Clan. We're talking about some rare and fascinating tech topics, as well as knock-off tech that might surprise you. And don't forget to check out brilliant.org for all your computer science needs.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Sponsored by Brilliant.(upbeat music)Hey guys, how you all doing?If you're new here, welcome.My name is Krazy Ken,and today's a big daybecause after years of macOS version 10,we're now on a new number.macOS 11 Big Sur.This release has an all new designand tons of cool new features.But before we dive into all that stuff,plus some extra tips and tricks,I want to talk aboutcompatibility for a second.If you have any Mac model listed hereor something newer thananything listed here,then you're good to go.macOS Big Sur will workright out of the gateand be compatible with your computer.So you can go ahead and grabthat from the Mac App Store.But as I always recommend,have a backup of your systembefore you install a majoroperating system upgrade.You can use the Time Machine feature,it's built into macOS.Plug in an external hard drive,and it will back up your entire computer,or at least put your main files on iCloudor Dropbox or Google Drivebecause you never know,something could go wrong.So always backup yourdata before you upgrade.All right, let's jumpin and see what's new.So the user interface hasa fresh coat of paint.It's been completely redesigned.The new menu bar blends inwith your desktop picture.The doc has rounded corners and it floatsabove the edge of your desktop,app icons have a uniformed rounded look,kind of like what you have on iOS,but some icons artistically break outof the rounded rectangle,which I think is pretty cool.Sidebars expanded thefull height of the window.The sheets no longer attachedto the top of the window.Instead they float in the middle.There's new glyphs,acts and colors in apps,new progress bars, andeven new sound effects.(sound alerts dinging)Overall, the design looksmuch more similar to iOS,bridging that consistency.And I won't be surprised if iOS 15takes some design cuesfrom Big Sur in the future.All right, so now let'smove on to new features,starting with Notification Center.Notifications and widgets are now combinedinto a single view,so you don't need to click back and forthbetween two tabs anymore.You can rearrange the widgets,add new ones, and even resize them.Kind of reminds me of thoseold Windows Live tiles.Moving on, ControlCenter is now on the Mac.Just like what you'reused to on your iPhone.Common system settingslike brightness, volume,and AirPlay are combinedinto a unified menu.You can easily click andtoggle settings on and off,or you can drill in for more controland you can even drag out certain itemsand place them right in your menu bar.And up next is Safari.Now this is more of a catch-up update,I'm going to be honest.If you're a GoogleChrome user, for example,you're probably not goingto see much of anything newbut it's still importantto have these upgrades,so let's take a look.Similar to Google Chrome,you can now customize yourstart page with this button.You can turn on favorites, iCloud tabs,and even a background image if you'd like,and privacy report, that's a new thing,but we'll cover that in a sec.You can also hover your cursorover tabs for page previewsand you can togglefavor cons in your tabs.And now finally, finally,Safari supports VP9video playback with Big Surwhich means you canwatch 4K YouTube videos.Okay, so back to the privacy report thing.So Safari has had built inintelligent tracking preventionfor a little bit now,and what that does is it stops trackersfrom following you around the web.So your data can be taken from one siteand maybe sold or abused.You know, there's awhole lot of weird thingspeople can do with your data.But a lot of times it's usedfor tailored advertising.So if you're on one websitelooking at a productthen you go to another website.Well, now you see an ad for that producton that other website,well a tracker was following you.That's how it knows whatyou've been looking at.So Safari does all it canto try to block this stuff.But the new feature hereis the privacy reportwill tell you what's being blockedand you can view thatstuff right in the toolbar.Or you can look at asummary on your start page.So another long overdueapp update is messages.For years, millions ofpeople have enjoyed the funand useful features ofmessages on their iPhone,but on the Mac, not so much.So now all that has been fixedand there's even some newfeatures that were introducedwith iOS 14 that are goingto be on the Mac as well.Big Sur's messages app nowlets you pin conversationsand the message effectsactually show up this timeinstead of just a piece oftext that just tells youthat someone sent the effect.You also have a handy photopicker right in the corner,a hashtag images browser,and new from iOS 14,you can now mention a person in a chatand you can send inline replieswhich is super handy for big group chats.Next up is maps.You can now see bike routesfor your destinations.It'll even tell you aboutthe elevation. Neato.Similar to Google Street View,you can use Look Around to,well look around certain areas.This feature isn't availablein a ton of places yet,but at least it's growing.And if you look closely, you'llsee a blue hedgehog fallingfrom this building here.And there's new indoor maps too.Again, not availablein a ton of places yet,but Apple will add more with time.I see this being prettyuseful for airports.Okay, so those were the bigchanges in macOS Big Sur,but now I want to show you someof the smaller things andsome other tips and tricksalong the way.First up, Apple Music replaced the defaultfor you page with a newlisten now start screenwhich includes featureslike auto-generatedpersonalized playlists.There's also a new nowplaying menu in the menu barand it works with Apple Music,but it also works with otherthings like YouTube videos.And next, just like with any new macOS,there's a bunch of new wallpapers as wellthat you can take a look at,and from the Computer Clan,we also have our new wallpaper packif you want to checkout all of our gallery,feel free to click thelink in the descriptionand get yourself a new wallpaper.Up next, password warnings in Safarigot a little bit of an update.In addition to warning youabout re-used passwords,Safari will now do its best to warn youabout suspected security breaches.And as a video guy,I like this updated version of QuickTime.You can now choosedifferent time displays,plus you can type in a framenumber to jump the play headto a particular frame in the video.And there's new playbackspeed controls as well,and a quick tip, which isn'tnew in Big Sur but still handy,if you hold down the option keyand press the fast forward button,you can increase the playbackspeed in 0.1 increments.Switching to system preferences,there's a new battery usage history panel,kind of like what you have on your iPhonewhich shows you the charge of your batterythroughout the day.And in FaceTime group calls,you know when you'rein those little squaresand you start talking,your square gets biggerand you're more in the front,well now that works with sign language.So if you sign, the camera will recognizeyou're using sign language.Instead of the microphonepicking up on your talking,it'll look at your hands andmake your picture bigger.So that's really good, too.Up next, the photos app nowhas editing capabilitiesfor videos which includes certainthings like color control.And in Messages, if youswipe on your track pador magic mouse, youcan show the timestampsor you can right click and toggle them.Now this is a bit of a power user thing,but I've always been a hugefan of the proxies in Windows.So they're a little bithidden now, but don't worry,they're still there.If you hover your mousecursor over the title bar,you can see the proxy show upand then it functions just like normal.You can right click on itto show where that fileis in the file system,or you can drag it out anduse it in other applications.And yes, the Declaration of Independenceis actually kind of hidden in macOS.Open the dictionary, click the go menu,and open up front back matterand boom, tons of resources.So feel free to have some fun with that.Another small thing,there's now a dedicated checkboxto turn off the window tinting.So by default, the windowswill soak up a little bitof color from your desktoppicture, which I personally like.But if you want to turn that offand just get the neutral color,you can do that with thischeckbox in the general pane,and my personal favorite small feature,I'm so excited thatthey brought this back,in the sound preferences,you can now turn on theiconic startup sound.For most, if not allof Apple's new productsfrom late 2016 on, thestartup sound was disabled.and there were sometricks that you can useto kind of get it turned back on,but now there's adedicated checkbox for it.I even did a video about this years ago,so maybe Apple somehowlistened to me or somebody.I don't know. I'm just glad it's back.You can turn that sound on and enjoy.So go ahead and grab acopy of macOS Big Surif you haven't already.You can download it from the App Store,and again, make sure youhave a backup of your data.I always recommend that,and I know I didn't coverevery single feature.So feel free to leave a commentabout any other cool featuresthat I didn't mentionand maybe any other littlefeatures or Easter eggsthat you found and feel freeto let me know what you thinkabout Big Sur in general.And hey, if you liked thisepisode, you know what to do,and feel free tosubscribe and stick around'cause there's going tobe a lot more cool stuffcoming from the Computer Clan.We're talking about somecool, rare tech stuffand even knock-off tech.We love doing that here.So it's going to be a fun time,and speaking of cool tech stuff,if you want to learn moreabout how all that stuff works,brilliant.org is the perfect place to go.They sponsored today's episode.So thank you so much for the support.And here's a couple of computerscience related coursesyou can learn from on Brilliant.Think about artificial intelligence.How does that work?How does the iPad's neural engine work?How can it use machinelearning to teach itself thingsand recognize handwriting?Brilliant has interactivecourses which help you understandhow artificial neural networkswork and it's interactive.It's not just some sit and get lecture.Brilliant can also help youlearn about search engines,quantum computing, computermemory, and even cryptocurrencyso you can master that Bitcoin craze.And then once you masterthat and make some moolah,you can learn about casinoalgorithms and take that moolahto the casino and make even more money.Okay. I'm mostly jokingnow, but you get the idea.So here's the deal.Click the link in the description.You can sign up completely for freeand when you do click it,if you're one of thefirst 200 to click it,you can get 20% off of aBrilliant Premium subscriptionwhich offers a lot more featuresthan the regular free version.So go ahead and checkout that link and enjoy.Start learning some cool stuff.And thank you very much, Brilliant,for sponsoring today's episode.Anyway, thanks for sticking with me.Catch the crazy and pass it on.(upbeat electronic music)(dinging)\n"