At the very end of a post about professional public speaking (more about Tod’s public-speaking series of posts soon – they’re fantastic, and this one is actually hilarious), Tod Maffin offers a piece of advice that just about every Mac user should take to heart:

Mac machines by default make a chirping sound each time you hit a volume key. You can turn that off by going to System Preferences, then Sound, then uncheck “Play feedbackwhen volume is changed.” Really, the last thing you need is a speaker-destroying chirp that glues your audience to the ceiling. Lousy client relations.

It sounds pretty distracting and unprofessional in a client meeting, too. Or in the middle of a podcast recording (I’ve heard plenty of those). I’ve just made the settings change – I encourage you to go do the same if you’re the kind of person who takes their MacBook out in public.