Just received my Macbook Pro 15" - Couple of questions for beginners

[Namji]

Hi,

Just joined this forum to find information regarding Macbooks and so far I have found lots of good info. I am new to Macbooks and I got my Macbook pro yesterday and its a cool change from a PC.

I have a few questions that I could not find when I searched so I hope someone here could help answering them.

1. The Macintosh HD icon that appears in the top right corner, is that a default setting? I checked some threads here and looked the screen shots and it seems that lots of others have this same icon on the screen, so I am assuming that this is a default setting straight out of the box.

2. Could someone direct me to a thread that guides me into what I should do when I first receive my Macbook pro? I read somewhere that I should turn on my firewall, so I already did that. Any other things I should install, or change on the default settings.

3. What is a Leapord? Panther? I know its a big cat but I see this term being used a lot regards to the OS. What OS do I have? and what are the differences?

Thanks in advance.

 

[spinnerlys]

1. That is the default setting. You can put the icon somewhere else if you like, or even hid it (Finder > Preferences > General > Show these items on the Desktop: Hard disks).

2. Calibrate your battery:

This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions: Apple Notebook Battery FAQ

Apple on notebook batteries

Apple Portable: Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance

Laptop Battery Guide


Links to Software Recommendation Threads

3. Leopard is the code name for Mac OS X 10.5, Panther is the code name for Mac OS X 10.3, Mac OS X 10.6.x is called Snow Leopard. Look here for more information.



Also have a look at the following links (if you haven't already), as the information presented there might be helpful in your future endeavours into Mac OS X and could clear up initial confusion and may even prevent harm to your system or your files.


Mac OS X Basics

Switch 101 - guide with articles made by Apple on how to accustom yourself, after you switched to Mac OS X from Windows​

Mac 101 - How to get started with Mac OS X​

Find out how - tutorial videos made by Apple on how to do certain thing in Mac OS X​

Pro tips - tips made available by Apple for easier ways of doing certain tasks​

Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts - Learn about common Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts.​

Mac OS X Beginner's Guide by MacRumors - learn about software, media players, shortcuts and some useful tips, tricks and hints​

Mac Guides - tutorials, product guides and more​

Mac Guides - Finding Mac Software​

MRoogle - a very effective tool to search these fora using Google and made available by edesignuk, introductory threads: 1, 2 and 3​

"How to maximise your MacRumors troubleshooting experience" created by mad jew in 2006​

 

[Namji]

1]

3. Leopard is the code name for Mac OS X 10.5, Panther is the code name for Mac OS X 10.3, Mac OS X 10.6.x is called Snow Leopard. Look here for more information.

Thanks for the replies! So I can safely assume that I have the latest version of OS since I got a new macbook pro from Apple online store.

Great info.

 

[iggypod]

When you start your spanking new MBP the first time it will retrieve and install the latest updates.

 

[Namji]

I'm going to ask all my newbie questions on this thread so I don't create new ones.

1. In the box that I received my macbook included two discs ( Mac OS X install DVD & Applications Install DVD ) Are these discs just back up incase I need to re-install the OS and apps for any reasons in the future?

2. I have a Western Digital external hard drive that I used to store all my important documents, music, and photos on my old Sony Vaio so that I don't use up too much storage on my old laptop. i tried connecting this same external hard drive to the new macbook pro and I kept getting an error saying that it could not read the drive. Are there only certain types of external hard drives that can be used with Apple products?

Thanks.

 

[spinnerlys]

I'm going to ask all my newbie questions on this thread so I don't create new ones.

MRoogle can help too.

1. In the box that I received my macbook included two discs ( Mac OS X install DVD & Applications Install DVD ) Are these discs just back up incase I need to re-install the OS and apps for any reasons in the future?

Those grey discs are the so-called Restore DVDs, DVD 1 contains Mac OS X, DVD 2 has iLife on it. There are there to restore your Mac or simply re-install Mac OS X and iLife.

2. I have a Western Digital external hard drive that I used to store all my important documents, music, and photos on my old Sony Vaio so that I don't use up too much storage on my old laptop. i tried connecting this same external hard drive to the new macbook pro and I kept getting an error saying that it could not read the drive. Are there only certain types of external hard drives that can be used with Apple products?

Thanks.

Any external HDD should work, Mac OS X is able to read and write to FAT32 formatted HDDs (FAT32 being a file system mostly used on older Windows computers) and it is also able to read NTFS formatted HDDs (NTFS being the file system in use since Windows NT, but mostly used since XP or Vista as a replacement for FAT32 (which has a 4GB file size limit)). More information about that.

How do you connect the HDD to your Mac?

 

[Namji]

MRoogle can help too.



Those grey discs are the so-called Restore DVDs, DVD 1 contains Mac OS X, DVD 2 has iLife on it. There are there to restore your Mac or simply re-install Mac OS X and iLife.




Any external HDD should work, Mac OS X is able to read and write to FAT32 formatted HDDs (FAT32 being a file system mostly used on older Windows computers) and it is also able to read NTFS formatted HDDs (NTFS being the file system in use since Windows NT, but mostly used since XP or Vista as a replacement for FAT32 (which has a 4GB file size limit)). More information about that.

How do you connect the HDD to your Mac?

Thanks for the info. I just tried to connect the external drive again and it works now lol. I connected with a usb cable.

 

[hakuryuu]

If you run into an external drive you can't write data to it will most likely be NTFS formatted. If so, you can install Macfuse and NTFS-3G.

If you have any questions about the installation just post it here or send a pm.

 

[Namji]

Thank you everyone for the patience of a newbie mac owner.
I really appreciate all the good advices. I just realized today that I did not turn on my firewall. So I turned on the firewall and noticed that there was also a option to turn on stealth mode. Could someone give me a brief information what stealth mode is? Or perhaps direct me to a link with some info. I did a search before posting this but I didn't seem to find anything specific.

 

[spinnerlys]

Some sophisticated computer hackers scan networks attempting to identify computers to attack. If you’re concerned about security, you can use the stealth mode in Mac OS X to make it more difficult for attackers to find your computer. When stealth mode is enabled, your computer will not respond to “ping” requests and does not answer to connection attempts from a closed TCP or UDP.
...
Stealth mode prevents outgoing traffic like ARP, Bonjour and connections to the Internet from giving away of the presence of your computer on the network.

from Preventing others from discovering your computer