Simple questions from a Mac noobie-iTunes & Battery

[timhealey]

Hello hello! I just bought my MacBook Pro about a week ago, and I consider myself to be Mac-illiterate, so I have a couple questions.

First, I bought and am currently downloading the Fever Pitch movie, which iTunes says takes up 1.16 GB of memory. Am I correct in my understanding that this will take up over 25% of my 4 GB of memory on this Mac?

Second, my battery life doesn't seem long enough. On Apple's website, it is advertised as having a battery life of "up to" ten hours, but mine doesn't seem close to that. Is there something I can/am supposed to do to make it last longer?

This seems like quite the knowledgeable Mac community here, I'm glad I found it! Thanks, any help would be appreciated.

 

[spinnerlys]

Hello hello! I just bought my MacBook Pro about a week ago, and I consider myself to be Mac-illiterate, so I have a couple questions.

First, I bought and am currently downloading the Fever Pitch movie, which iTunes says takes up 1.16 GB of memory. Am I correct in my understanding that this will take up over 25% of my 4 GB of memory on this Mac?

It will take up 1.16GB of your Hard Disk Drive (HDD) space, which should be 250 to 320GB minus what you have already used. The 4GB is the amount of your memory, the so-called RAM, where only open applications and documents are stored. The RAM gets freed after you restarted the Mac or quit the application or closed the document.

What is Computer Memory? RAM vs Hard Drive

Second, my battery life doesn't seem long enough. On Apple's website, it is advertised as having a battery life of "up to" ten hours, but mine doesn't seem close to that. Is there something I can/am supposed to do to make it last longer?

This seems like quite the knowledgeable Mac community here, I'm glad I found it! Thanks, any help would be appreciated.

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

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​

 

[Hellhammer]

1. That is hard drive space which you have plenty, at least 250GB.

2. 10 hours can be achieved when fully charged and then not doing anything heavy. How long does it last?

 

[timhealey]

spinnerlys-Thank you very much! After briefly looking at those links I feel like they will be a lot of help in the near future...especially the "Switch 101" one haha

Hellhammer-I'm getting about 5 hours, which, according to one of the links about battery life above, isn't uncommon.

 

[spinnerlys]

spinnerlys-Thank you very much! After briefly looking at those links I feel like they will be a lot of help in the near future...especially the "Switch 101" one haha

Hellhammer-I'm getting about 5 hours, which, according to one of the links about battery life above, isn't uncommon.

Have you calibrated the battery yet?

Have a look at Activity Monitor ( Applications / Utilities / ) and select All Processes and sort by CPU to see what the culprit may be.

image below uses sorting by CPU as an example

 

[timhealey]

I haven't calibrated yet, but I found the step-by-step intsructions on how to do so, and plan on it when I have a window of time when I can focus on that...Likely tomorrow.

And I looked at the Activity Monitor, and it doesn't seem like anything is taking up an abnormal amount of CPU percentage (% CPU?).