When Mountain Lion was introduces, the Notification Center, originally found in iOS devices. This move brought the mobile and desktop operating systems closer to each other and replicated third party app functionality. Unexpectedly, for an Apple product it can be easily customized. Check out how you can get the most out of the Notification Center.
Control Receipt of Notifications:
If you keep getting annoying notifications from some app you can easily turn it off by disabling the Preferences – Notification for that app. You can configure notifications for all apps here.
Difference between banners and apps:
If you want the notifications to be displayed and then disappear, then you can configure the notifications to Banner style. But if you want to be able to see them in a corner of your screen at all times till you act on them, set the Alert notification style. You can also choose whether to display sounds with the notifications or not.
Shortcuts:
Opening the Notification Center is very simple; you only have to click the menu bar icon. To further simplify things you can configure shortcuts and gestures. You can just swipe two fingers from the trackpad’s right hand side. Just ensure that it has been enabled in the Preferences – Trackpad – More Gestures tab. You can also learn of new gestures here. If you want, you can even set up what’s called a ‘hot corner’. Go to Preferences – Mission Control – Hot Corner. As the icon is located in the top left corner, this would be the best choice. To create a keyboard shortcut, go to Preferences – Keyboard.
Twitter:
You can configure the Center to give you notifications of Twitter mentions and direct messages and also have a button thru which you can directly tweet, without logging in to Twitter. If you don’t have an account, you can set it up here: Preferences – Mail, Contacts and Calendars.
Temporary Break From Notifications:
If you’re having a busy day, or you just want some quiet time, you can disable all notifications. On opening the notification center, you can pull it down to toggle. This automatically gets enabled the next day, just in case you forget to do it yourself.
Permanently Stop Notifications:
If you have had enough with notifications and don’t want to deal with them anymore, you can do this: Go to /System/Library/Core Services/ and change the name of the Notification Center.app. Then open Terminal and just type ‘kill all Notification Center’. If you get guilt pangs later on, no sweat. Just restore the original filename and restore the application.
Growl notifications:
Growl is a 3rd party notifications app. If you have apps with inbuilt Growl functionality but you would rather use the local Notification Center, then you can make use of Hiss, which acts as an intermediary. It receives growl notifications and reroutes them to the Notification Center. It is a free beta tool.
Change the background:
If you want a change from the boring linen background, you can do it in the /System/Library/Core Services/ Notification Center tab. You can select an image, export it and rename it as linen.tiff. You will be prompted for further actions. Just follow the instructions and you are done.
Author Bio:
Sasha loves to write about technology stuffs in any field. She has been a writer/blogger for four years and currently working for Internet Bundles where you can find great offers and details about verizon internet.
