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Kind of a mac newbie, have some questions

M

MauerFan

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 9, 2012
223
0
I have used macs before, mainly in my school's mac lab but I am going to get a 15 in MBP when the refresh happens. I have a few questions thought, if you all don't mind.

What exactly is an ethernet port? It seems like a lot of people are upset that the new macs may not come with that.

What are some basic things I should do after I get my mac? I know they don't get viruses but are they any basic things I should do right away?

What exactly is iCloud?

Since I start college in the fall I will need excel, word and power point. Is there a way I can still buy it even if the new macs wipe out the optical disk drive?

I don't know a ton about computers, I know a little java but other than the basics that's about it. I'm also a Windows users, but that will be ending shortly.
 
MauerFan said:
I have used macs before, mainly in my school's mac lab but I am going to get a 15 in MBP when the refresh happens. I have a few questions thought, if you all don't mind.

What exactly is an ethernet port? It seems like a lot of people are upset that the new macs may not come with that.

What are some basic things I should do after I get my mac? I know they don't get viruses but are they any basic things I should do right away?

What exactly is iCloud?

Since I start college in the fall I will need excel, word and power point. Is there a way I can still buy it even if the new macs wipe out the optical disk drive?

I don't know a ton about computers, I know a little java but other than the basics that's about it. I'm also a Windows users, but that will be ending shortly.
Click to expand...

is it that hard to search in google?
 
MauerFan said:
I have used macs before, mainly in my school's mac lab but I am going to get a 15 in MBP when the refresh happens. I have a few questions thought, if you all don't mind.

What exactly is an ethernet port? It seems like a lot of people are upset that the new macs may not come with that.
Click to expand...

It essentially allows for a wired internet connection; one that is more stable than using, say, Wifi. It also allows for faster, more stable data transfers.

What are some basic things I should do after I get my mac? I know they don't get viruses but are they any basic things I should do right away?
Click to expand...

This depends on your preferences; such downloading preferred web browsers like Foxfire or Chrome, third party software, rearranging the dock, etc...

If this is your first Mac, just play around with it, have fun.

What exactly is iCloud?
Click to expand...

iCloud is a free service that can store and sync your information across numerous devices. Such as from iMac to iPad and iPhone.

Since I start college in the fall I will need excel, word and power point. Is there a way I can still buy it even if the new macs wipe out the optical disk drive?
Click to expand...

Apple has software that will allow you to use another computers optical drive to install the software wirelessly to your Mac in the event that an optical drive is not present.

I don't know a ton about computers, I know a little java but other than the basics that's about it. I'm also a Windows users, but that will be ending shortly.
Click to expand...
 
MauerFan said:
I'm just asking experienced mac users some basic questions. I'm not asking you guys to do quantum physics.
Click to expand...

And we're not asking you to catch a shark with your bare hands.
In the time it took you to post here, you could have googled:

Ethernet port
Office for Mac
iCloud
 
MauerFan said:
I'm just asking experienced mac users some basic questions. I'm not asking you guys to do quantum physics.
Click to expand...

Again, information on this could have been found faster using a www search engine, but NathanMuir was kind enough to answer them anyway.

Now tell us what topic your homework is on, and someone will do it for you.

Ah, all the people pointing out the usage of a www search engine got down voted, but the one voting doesn't vote NathanMuir up? What the frell is wrong with you? Can't you appreciate the nice people? Ah, you can't, because you aren't nice either. Welcome to the not so nice people club. Please two votes down for this one, minimum.
 
mikeo007 said:
And we're not asking you to catch a shark with your bare hands.
In the time it took you to post here, you could have googled:

Ethernet port
Office for Mac
iCloud
Click to expand...

That's what the people at apple should say too then right? If a customer has a question about their computer they should have just googled it right? Rather then going in their car, and using the gas to get to the store. Why don't we just get rid of customer help.

----------
NathanMuir said:
It essentially allows for a wired internet connection; one that is more stable than using, say, Wifi. It also allows for faster, more stable data transfers.



This depends on your preferences; such downloading preferred web browsers like Foxfire or Chrome, third party software, rearranging the dock, etc...

If this is your first Mac, just play around with it, have fun.



iCloud is a free service that can store and sync your information across numerous devices. Such as from iMac to iPad and iPhone.



Apple has software that will allow you to use another computers optical drive to install the software wirelessly to your Mac in the event that an optical drive is not present.
Click to expand...

Thank you.
 
MauerFan said:
That's what the people at apple should say too then right? If a customer has a question about their computer they should have just googled it right? Rather then going in their car, and using the gas to get to the store. Why don't we just get rid of customer help.

----------



Thank you.
Click to expand...

I think you have the wrong idea of what a community forum is. We don't work for apple, you're not our customer.
 
MauerFan said:
That's what the people at apple should say too then right? If a customer has a question about their computer they should have just googled it right? Rather then going in their car, and using the gas to get to the store. Why don't we just get rid of customer help.
Click to expand...
This is not a customer service, this is a free help message board, but if people are even too lazy to help answer such simple questions themselves, it gets frustrating.
Normally more advanced problems get solved here.

Maybe we are just frustrated that you didn't challenge us, I mean come on, even my imaginative cat with no thumbs can find answers faster than this, but then it couldn't eat her spinach. And she loves spinach, and her new pug puppy. You should see her eyes, lighting up like those bolts of thunder inside those new optical Macs coming out in 2015.

PS: If you are worried about viruses, then you are correct.
 
I am going to be nice and respond to this post for you. For future reference if you want help with something don't tell us that you are too lazy to search for it yourself, and certainly don't tell us that you would rather have us do the searching and answering for you it is incredibly rude and won't help you gain a worthwhile reputation here and people will start ignoring your topics and then when you really need help you will have no one to turn to. Now that my rant on your ignorance and generally lack of caring is over I will move on.

The first basic thing that you should do is get to learn OSX itself. You will notice that everything is different albeit simpler to do on a mac. Even the way files are stored is different so you are going to want to familiarize yourself with the way stuff works. Once that is done then you can move onto to things like getting new software.

As far as MS office goes it is available for Mac I currently have it on my machine. That being said there are other Mac native alternatives called Pages Keynote and numbers. Pages is very much like word in that it is a word processor. Keynote is Macs version of powerpoint but in my opinion it can do much more and is rather more user intuitive. Numbers is apples version of excel and allows you to do all your spreadsheet work and whatever. Now if you really want MS office, depending which school you attend you may be able to get it for a pretty large discount. I got my version from $30 I believe from the university bookstore. However if the MBP truly drops the optical then you have 2 options for installing programs via disk, you can buy an external optical drive which are available from apple and other retailers. You can also check the mac app store where a lot of different programs are sold. It is possible that MS office will be added to the app store if apple notebooks no longer carry an optical drive.

You don't really need anti virus software as there really aren't many viruses that are native to OSX. Also apple has some pretty solid built in anti virus and malware software included that they update regularly. Apple also requires your permission before it downloads anything from the internet, even if the virus is in a photo apple will detect it and ask you for permission to download. So in essence you will literally have to give your machine permission to download the virus.

Now in closing, your welcome for answering the questions that you were to lazy and couldn't be bothered to research yourself, the very least you could do would be to say thank you.
 
ethernet%2Bport.jpg


04_ethernet_port.jpg
 
MauerFan said:
I'm doing homework right now, I'd rather someone else just answer this for me, haha.
Click to expand...

This is a great attitude for college. I hope for you and for your teachers that it's not a CS major/minor.

Anyways, Office can be installed through download, if you have enough bandwidth (should be a few GB (gigabytes)).

I wouldn't worry about an ethernet port, the fact that you don't know what it is shows that you won't need it!
 
Ethernet ports have been shown in above posts. Chances are if you didnt know what it was, you are not going to need it. Unless you are in a place with only wired internet and absolutely no wireless.

You should do fine without an ODD. External drives are cheap enough

Start backups as soon as you get it. Trust me, its better safe then sorry.
 
Buy yourself an external HDD. I recommend at least 1TB and they can be had for cheap. Or if you think your going to upgrade to an SSD like I did you can put the original HDD into a firewire or USB enclosure and use that as a backup drive. I currently have my in 2 partitions one large one for time machine back ups and a smaller one that is bootable. Time machine is a fantastic back up tool and is incredibly easy to setup. Again as another poster said it is never too early to back up. I recently had to wipe my SSD due to me being stupid and corrupting it and thank god I had my time machine back ups I lost only 1 hour of work which was awesome considering I had to completely delete my SSD and reinstall everything.
 
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