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Initial Setting Up of New MBP

M

MadDog31

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 20, 2007
673
254
Please don't hammer me on this one, I've tried searching for the last 15 minutes and for some reason couldn't come up with anything.

I'm new to Apple, and I'm really looking forward to the delivery of my new digital newborn tomorrow morning! I'm just wondering what a few things are to set up a system. I'd assume 'turn it on and have fun' would be an easy answer but just wondered if there were any tried and true things to do when I initially turn the MBP on.

Right now my plan is to unpack it, boot it, set Leopard up, shut it down, then install my 4 GB of RAM I have from Newegg. Then from there set up programs and boot camp w/ Windows (I still unfortunately need it for a couple of things). Do you all recommend calibrating the battery early on? Any definitive guides as to what to set up the screen as for color collaboration? Any other tips are great.

Thanks for being understanding, just hope the search police don't show up...there may be others that might need this thread in the future.

Regards,
Ian
 
Most users won't need to calibrate their screens, simply because they won't be using it for pre-press proofing. Thus... this thread says it all.

However, if you like to calibrate your display you can Apple's built-in calibration software that's fairly basic.
It'll now where as accurate as using a hardware calibrator tool such as Chromix... They range from £100 to £400, depending what you wanna match it for. In the past, I used Spyder2
 
jamin. said:
1. Reinstall OS, I saved a few Gigs
2. Batter Collaboration isn't really a must, personal opinion.
3. Screen Callorbration is still something I'm trying to figure out, this forum isn't too helpful with this topic.
4. In regards to applications, I found this: http://www.mactricksandtips.com/2008/01/top-100-essential-mac-applications.html quite helpful, when it came to finding good applications.
Click to expand...

Did this response make anyone else laugh? I actually laughed out loud :)
 
zepharus said:
Did this response make anyone else laugh? I actually laughed out loud :)
Click to expand...

Shouldn't take the p1ss outta someone else's errors, be gentle! Gezzz...
I'm sure he/she will re-examine their word usage sooner or later :rolleyes: Thankfully Leopard comes with a decent dictionary application, guess they have yet to discover it...
 
You are all so horrible. I am never going to bother trying to give back to peoples threads because of people like you.

Here I am , a very new MAC user, trying to get the gist of things, working with a new Keyboard, Machine and Mouse and you go and pull out the negatives.

Remind me not to bother replying to Help threads anymore.
 
jamin. said:
You are all so horrible. I am never going to bother trying to give back to peoples threads because of people like you.

Here I am , a very new MAC user, trying to get the gist of things, working with a new Keyboard, Machine and Mouse and you go and pull out the negatives.

Remind me not to bother replying to Help threads anymore.
Click to expand...

Ignore them... karma will get them later.

I'll be getting my new MBP soon and I thank you for your advice :)
 
The only reason to reinstall the OS to save disk space would be to either get rid of Garageband or other large apps that you know you dont have an interest in, or to get rid of support for all the languages (which you know you wont need).

Either one can be done easily without actually reinstalling the OS though...

I just say Garageband because as nice as it is, most people arent musicians with the means to record (mics, preamps, gear, etc) and would rather have the few gigs back. To get rid of it, just trash the app, then trash the garageband folder that you find under 'Library/Application Support/'.

Oh yeah, and bootcamp is awesome if you have another (separate) drive, but if you want to run it straight from your laptop it can be a pain because you need two partitions. I'd recommend VMware Fusion if you want to run windows on your mac for basic apps (not games though).
 
jamin. said:
You are all so horrible. I am never going to bother trying to give back to peoples threads because of people like you.

Here I am , a very new MAC user, trying to get the gist of things, working with a new Keyboard, Machine and Mouse and you go and pull out the negatives.

Remind me not to bother replying to Help threads anymore.
Click to expand...

Huh? All? :confused:
 
Recieved my MB Pro bout 10 mins ago. Turned it on and went through the setup. I am worried tho because on the right hand side of my screen is a yellow line running from top to bottom, anyone else had this problem.
Its a 2.5 17inch widescreen.
Help!!!!
 
wh!plash said:
Oh yeah, and bootcamp is awesome if you have another (separate) drive, but if you want to run it straight from your laptop it can be a pain because you need two partitions. I'd recommend VMware Fusion if you want to run windows on your mac for basic apps (not games though).
Click to expand...

It's very easy to partition using the bootcamp utility, and run parallels from the bootcamp install. Im sure vmware is similar.
 
Naylor said:
Recieved my MB Pro bout 10 mins ago. Turned it on and went through the setup. I am worried tho because on the right hand side of my screen is a yellow line running from top to bottom, anyone else had this problem.
Its a 2.5 17inch widescreen.
Help!!!!
Click to expand...


There shouldn't be a yellow line on the screen, period. Does it stay there throughout the installation process? And what happens when your fully booted into the OS itself after the installation is complete... Is the yellow line still there?

If it is, then i'm sorry... I would advise you to return the system back, at least take it to a AppleStore for verification, if possible.
 
Naylor said:
Recieved my MB Pro bout 10 mins ago. Turned it on and went through the setup. I am worried tho because on the right hand side of my screen is a yellow line running from top to bottom, anyone else had this problem.
Its a 2.5 17inch widescreen.
Help!!!!
Click to expand...

Send that sucker back to Apple, they should be sending you a new one. They should work perfectly out of the box.
 
I cannot conceive as to why anyone would re-install the OS on a brand new computer. To the OP, I believe you should disregard that suggestion. Your computer should work just find with Leopard pre-installed. Even if you "don't want" an OSX app that's on there, your HD is PLENTY large enough to tolerate a very small sized application that you may find yourself needing down the road. Remember, once you delete an OSX application, you cannot simply re-install it later with your restore disk. You will have to re-install the ENTIRE OS at that point. Just take any unwanted apps out of the Dock and enjoy your new computer.

As for screen calibration, that's a complete preference on your end. The mods you can make in Systems Preferences should e good for you if you are a consumer user. I prefer doing those mods in a darker room so the sun/bulb lighting does not effect the colors in any way. But that's just me.

As for battery calibration, here is how Apple suggests you approach your new battery: http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

Enjoy the MBP. I love mine.
 
jamin. said:
You are all so horrible. I am never going to bother trying to give back to peoples threads because of people like you.

Here I am , a very new MAC user, trying to get the gist of things, working with a new Keyboard, Machine and Mouse and you go and pull out the negatives.

Remind me not to bother replying to Help threads anymore.
Click to expand...

Please don't be mad :eek:
Thanks for the info everyone
 
Achiever said:
I cannot conceive as to why anyone would re-install the OS on a brand new computer. To the OP, I believe you should disregard that suggestion. Your computer should work just find with Leopard pre-installed.
Enjoy the MBP. I love mine.
Click to expand...

I take you've never owned a new PC laptop, especially from Sony lol. Luckily Apple doesn't preinstall a bunch of junk on their laptops so performance wise you'll be fine but you can save several gigs of space by doing a quick reinstall and getting rid of garageband, support languages for everything but the language you're actually using, and if you want you can get rid of a lot of the printer drivers too.
 
burningrave101 said:
I take you've never owned a new PC laptop, especially from Sony lol. Luckily Apple doesn't preinstall a bunch of junk on their laptops so performance wise you'll be fine but you can save several gigs of space by doing a quick reinstall and getting rid of garageband, support languages for everything but the language you're actually using, and if you want you can get rid of a lot of the printer drivers too.
Click to expand...

I agree that you can save a bit of space by choosing to not install certain things (foreign languages you won't use, etc.) and I chose to not install them when I upgraded to Leopard from Tiger, but the reality is with the lowest end MBP models having 200 gb HDs, the limited space one would be saving by re-installing the OS is nominal and not likely to save you anything in the long run. Plus, just b/c someone doesn't use an app today doesn't men they never will. I have seen numerous posters ask how they can reinstall an app like Mail, which they previously uninstalled b/c they used Thunderbird. The reality is, they have to reinstall the entire OS to get the app back, and for what? A limited space savings that one probably doesn't need in the long run? Just my thought.

And no, fortunately I have not had to suffer through a Sony PC desktop. Score one for the Achiever.
 
(unboxing photos soon)

It has arrived. :) I'm pumped! I'll have unboxing photos later with full details.

Thank you to everyone who offered advice, including the one person that took some other comments hard...I appreciate your advice, and please keep posting in help threads...there's no reason to run from here, I think in general it's a great group to be around!

More soon!!!!!
 
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