proud new owner of PB .. few ?'s..

1. yah, you can do that. By itself, it wont charge until the charge drops below 95%, so its ok.
2. There is no 'need' for you to shut down, but you may if you like it. I have never ever shut down my ibook.
3. No you shouldnt always drain it down, you should do it once in the beginning to calibrate the battery.

cheers and congrats..

also, the Mac OS is built assuming that you will never turn your computer off... as most people never do, they just put them to sleep. This is because OS X wakes up instantly, meaning that you save 2 minutes startup time over if you shut it down. So yeah, it is quicker (and easier for your OS) to only put it to sleep. When it is asleep, OS X will do a whole lot of system maintainance stuff to ensure your computer is spic and span.

~ozi

Ozi said:

When it is asleep, OS X will do a whole lot of system maintainance stuff to ensure your computer is spic and span.

~ozi

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I never turn my PB off either, and I put it to sleep at night, but those maintenance tasks don't run when the computer is asleep. To run them at your convenience, download MacJanitor..

zach007 said:

OK.. My 1.5ghz PowerBook just arrived today and I need to know some basics about usage.

3. And when using it away from the charger should I always run it completely down and then charge it again?

thanks all advice will be most helpful..

(already calibrated the battery)

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Just use the powerbook without the charger. Rememeber you bought this for portablility right?

It's actually good to use the batteries as long you don't drain them completely. Apple suggests you calibrate the battery every few months or so to keep it optimised see apple link (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284)

aussie_geek

I've got a related question too – what about when you carry your pb in your bag and travel from a to b – should you shut it down then or better to leave it sleeping?

Thanks. m

telecomm said:

I never turn my PB off either, and I put it to sleep at night, but those maintenance tasks don't run when the computer is asleep. To run them at your convenience, download MacJanitor..

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I'd use Anacron instead. It's free and open-source, and unlike cron, can cope with Macs that get put to sleep (it doesn't run tasks at a scheduled time, but rather at scheduled intervals, like one day, whenever the computer is running).

mouchoir said:

I've got a related question too – what about when you carry your pb in your bag and travel from a to b – should you shut it down then or better to leave it sleeping?

Thanks. m

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Leaving it sleeping is fine—people recommend not moving a working computer because it could damage the hard drive if the hard drive is spinning. When the computer is put to sleep the hard drive "spins down," so there's no worry about travelling with a sleeping computer.

telecomm said:

Leaving it sleeping is fine—people recommend not moving a working computer because it could damage the hard drive if the hard drive is spinning. When the computer is put to sleep the hard drive "spins down," so there's no worry about travelling with a sleeping computer.

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Make sure that if you leave it sleeping you save all information in the mean time. I've occasionally had my battery lose the connection while in my bag and your opened unsaved stuff will be gone.

Also, if you have an AC outlet nearby...USE IT! I've had my powerbook for 4 years and the original battery will only last about 45 minutes as I ran it off the battery a lot in 4 years. A friend of mine got hers the same time but has always had it plugged in. 4 years later, it still holds a 3.5 hr charge!

My question: What are these OS X optimizing programs that run at 3am? I don't know anything about them

sjjordan said:

My question: What are these OS X optimizing programs that run at 3am? I don't know anything about them

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They are scripts that do things like trim the system log files of old events, delete old logs, refresh various system caches, and some other things I'm not aware of.