Mac Newbie Questions-open Office & more

[natb]

Ok so my husband got me an early Christmas present and got me the new Macbook. This is my first time using a mac since college about 10 years ago.
Being that i'm used to using Office for all my documents I downloaded open office and I dragged it to my dock but every time I quit it, its' gone!!! I thought if you move something to the dock it stays in there forever, that is what I want. I don't want to have to keep searching for where my openoffice is. Another thing, is that sometimes it disappears altogether from the hard drive. Am I doing something wrong? It was kind of annoying when I went to open an attachment and when I went to look for that application to open it with, it wasn't there. Very weird.
Also, do most people quit their applications or just leave them open?
One more thing, with my old pc I would always shut down completely at then end of the night, should I be doing that with the Mac or can I put it into sleep mode and be ok?

Thanks!

 

[r.j.s]

You have to install it, drag the app from the file you downloaded to the Applications folder - then you can drag it to the dock.

As for quitting, if I know I will be using the app again soon, I just close all the windows - or hide it.

Sleep mode works just fine, no real reason to shut down every night.

 

[Compile 'em all]

just put it to sleep.

only turn it off when you are not going to be using it for several days.

 

[natb]

Ahh! I moved it to Apps and dragged and so far so good.
So in the future, anything I download should I make sure its in apps?

Thanks so much!!! That was a week of frustration resolved

 

[r.j.s]

Yes, you need to drag to the Apps folder first, unless there is an uninstaller to run.