Mac newbie needing ANY and ALL help!

I recently bought a MacBook off of a friend, who received it from a school scholarship, but didn't care to own a computer. It did not come with any user manual, warrenty, ect. and I am new to the Mac World! I don't really know anything about what I am doing...trying to learn as I go, but also worried about screwing up my computer. I was hoping that someone here might be able to point me in the right direction for an online user manual, or confirm/deny if I am a Tiger so that I can search for information from there.

"About This Mac" reads MAC OS X version 10.4.11...this means I am a Tiger, right? Should I be updating by now?

"Software Update", will give me an error message saying I am not connected to the Internet, but I am! My Safari browser doesn't work anymore, it did initially, but I now use Firefox only.

I don't even know how to resize my photos with iphoto...sigh.

Thanks in advance!

You only have to update from Tiger if you want to. There are plenty of people on the forums who still run Tiger.

Are you connecting wirelessly or with an ethernet cable?

Well,
I cannot help you with software update, as that should work. And i have had no problems with that. But yes, you are OS X Tiger so that s the OS you have, There's no reason to update the os to leopard at this moment. But, i would look into the software updates and safari browser not working. As well maybe repairing permissions/disk will help you out in that regard. To repair permissions go to spotlight (upper right corner) and type in Disk Utility, when you go into that there shoudl be a repair tab at the top area. You click then then clickr epair permissions. Repair disk is there as well. You may not be able to do these without booting from a OS X Disk as it won't repair the disk your mounted on (currently using). If you have the OS X Disk (if he gave you one) you may want to reinstall it, just since it's a new computer, to start fresh, incase there is anything he has on there that is useles for you. It'll help you customize your machine the way you want it compared to the way it came.

Hope this helps, and is not too confusing. If it is i apologize and will try to clarify.

I would certainly checkout the discussions and the mac sections of apple.com. The system is very intuitive and it will come to you very quickly. You can find 10.5 Leopard CD's on ebay fairly cheap and I would suggest upgrading the maxmum RAM when you can. As far as Safari goes, there was an update released just a day or two ago and it may help installing it. I prefer the interface with Safari but Firefox seems to run faster on my MBP.

I use CS2 to edit my images and iPhoto only to import to iWeb. You can use Preview and go to the tool menu and resize your image.

Welcome to the Mac world and enjoy your macbook.

Lifeafter2am: I am using Airport to connect to the Internet.

Lighthouse: I do not have an OS X Disk, but I would be able to purchase one? I will try to repair permissions/disk and let you know what happens...

You could purchase one probably. But if you call Apple they may send you one for a small fee, or you could probably (for the sake of repairing disk/permissions) borrow one from a friend.

As far as repairing permissions goes, you don't HAVE to have a disc to do that. You can run it straight from the Disk Utility or download and install Onyx and use that.

What exactly happens when you try to browse with Safari? I find it odd that while Firefox is working the O.S. itself cannot see the net. You could also check your firewall settings underneath your System Preferences.

My First Mac - Help Buying and Getting Started with Your New Mac
is a helpful site for newbies.
Also
Apple - Support - Mac 101