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Another Convert, Love my Macbook, but have a couple of questions...

T

taskmaxter

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 4, 2007
22
0
Well, the last Apple I have ever owned was one of the first Apple II+ systems (many many years). I've been using Windows systems and have a pretty nice quad CPU desktop, but I needed a new notebook. I had been looking at Mac's now for a while and decided to pull the trigger on a refurbished Macbook 2.4ghz system. Wow, once you get the feel of Leopard and use the trackpad, I want to use my Macbook all the time now. I was going to load XP or Vista on it but I'm not sure if I'll even bother!

I do notice a couple of things you guys might help to answer.

1) The battery shows it has been cycled 7 times already though I've never ever run it down. What does this mean?

2) Using wireless in my house (older Linksys G router) I get a lot of the following messages:

"The wireless network appears to have been compromised and will be disabled for about a minute"

I'm finding this rather annoying. I've seen some threads on this by googling it but no definitive resolution. I'm using standard WPA because when I tried to use WEP I was having problems getting the Macbook and Linksys to talk.

Any thoughts on the above would be great. I'm going continue to enjoy my Macbook and frequent these forums.

Task
 
taskmaxter said:
Well, the last Apple I have ever owned was one of the first Apple II+ systems (many many years). I've been using Windows systems and have a pretty nice quad CPU desktop, but I needed a new notebook. I had been looking at Mac's now for a while and decided to pull the trigger on a refurbished Macbook 2.4ghz system. Wow, once you get the feel of Leopard and use the trackpad, I want to use my Macbook all the time now. I was going to load XP or Vista on it but I'm not sure if I'll even bother!

I do notice a couple of things you guys might help to answer.

1) The battery shows it has been cycled 7 times already though I've never ever run it down. What does this mean?

2) Using wireless in my house (older Linksys G router) I get a lot of the following messages:

"The wireless network appears to have been compromised and will be disabled for about a minute"

I'm finding this rather annoying. I've seen some threads on this by googling it but no definitive resolution. I'm using standard WPA because when I tried to use WEP I was having problems getting the Macbook and Linksys to talk.

Any thoughts on the above would be great. I'm going continue to enjoy my Macbook and frequent these forums.

Task
Click to expand...

1. maybe the the machine was returned or Apple forgot to reset the battery before it left the factory/testing place
2. can you take a screenshot of the message (apple+shift+3)? i wonder what produces such a message
 
You bought it refurbished so it's probably been used by someone and then returned, that's why the battery indicates 7 cycles ;)
 
Buskape said:
You bought it refurbished so it's probably been used by someone and then returned, that's why the battery indicates 7 cycles ;)
Click to expand...

Yeah, thats sort of what I was thinking as well. What constitutes a "cycle"? Is it running the battery all the way down to sleep mode?
 
cherry su said:
1. maybe the the machine was returned or Apple forgot to reset the battery before it left the factory/testing place
2. can you take a screenshot of the message (apple+shift+3)? i wonder what produces such a message
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick reply. I am going to need to download a image tool I guess so I can save a screen shot section as a jpg file. I'm still learning and I don't see a paintbrush type of tool within Applications folder.

Also, can anyone one tell me how you "right click" using the track pad? I notice that words are underlined in Safari when they are spelled wrong and in Windows if I right click on the word it will give me a selection to replace it with. Is it the same here?
 
taskmaxter said:
Thanks for the quick reply. I am going to need to download a image tool I guess so I can save a screen shot section as a jpg file. I'm still learning and I don't see a paintbrush type of tool within Applications folder.

Also, can anyone one tell me how you "right click" using the track pad? I notice that words are underlined in Safari when they are spelled wrong and in Windows if I right click on the word it will give me a selection to replace it with. Is it the same here?
Click to expand...

To generate a "right click" or officially called a Sub menu just hold 2 fingers on the trackpad and click the button or you can do 2 finger tap which you have to adjust in System Preferences-Trackpad.
Safari has Spellcheck. When you right-click it's in the sub menu.
When your battery is fully discharged to a point where it remains in sleep mode then you recharge it fully it is considered a cycle. Even if you discharge it half and then recharge it that counts as a half cycle.

Mac OS X has a built-in image editor. When you open up a jpeg it opens in Preview which is Apple's PDF/Jpeg reader. In the Menu Bar you can find the tools to fully edit the image like paint.
 
HLdan said:
To generate a "right click" or officially called a Sub menu just hold 2 fingers on the trackpad and click the button or you can do 2 finger tap which you have to adjust in System Preferences-Trackpad.
Safari has Spellcheck. When you right-click it's in the sub menu.
When your battery is fully discharged to a point where it remains in sleep mode then you recharge it fully it is considered a cycle. Even if you discharge it half and then recharge it that counts as a half cycle.

Mac OS X has a built-in image editor. When you open up a jpeg it opens in Preview which is Apple's PDF/Jpeg reader. In the Menu Bar you can find the tools to fully edit the image like paint.
Click to expand...

Oh, very cool. Thanks for the tips. I have opened preview and it looks like it will do the trick. I'll post a picture of the wireless error message next time it pops up for comments.
 
This is the occasional error message I get from Airport. I think it has something to do with WPA security I'm using.
 

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I don't know about Macs specifically, but I do know that part of the WPA protocol is, if it detects spurious packets being injected that belong to either the AP or the laptop, to stop all network transmission for 60 seconds.

More info here or here.

This doesn't happen with WPA2, as it uses a different protocol to make a session key.
 
I'm a newbie too so this is a very stupid question. How or where do you go to see how many times the battery has been calibrated or reset? I went to Preference, but it just has setting I can adjust.
Thanks.
 
ehotwill said:
I'm a newbie too so this is a very stupid question. How or where do you go to see how many times the battery has been calibrated or reset? I went to Preference, but it just has setting I can adjust.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

Click on the :apple:

select "about this mac"

Then select more info

select power
 
taskmaxter said:
This is the occasional error message I get from Airport. I think it has something to do with WPA security I'm using.
Click to expand...

Someone might have broken into your wireless network. Might want to change encryption to WPA2 or WEP (I would go with the first than the latter) and also change your passwords.

If it does keep doing that, contact Linksys about it. Other than that, Apple Phone support could shed some light behind that message.
 
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