Lots of noob questions

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Lots of noob questions *There are some new ones!*

Hi everyone! Ever since i decided to buy an ibook I have been trolling these forums looking for hints and such for my new mac. I have had it for a few days now and really like it. I had a mac when i was younger (my mom was a teacher) so I am somewhat familiar with macs. But, alas, I have a few questions.

1) My computer has a 40 gb HD, but when i first turned on my ibook and checked the HD the specs were kind of weird. I have a 40gb HD, but 16 gb were already being used. Is this normal? I didn't expect so much of my HD storage to be used up right off the bat.

2) I've always been a fan of Opera and Firefox so I downloaded FF onto my computer. I don't like desktop clutter, so i tried to save it under applications. This, unfortunately, still placed the application on the desktop. I have tried dragging into other folders, but it still stays on the desktop. How do i get this thing off my desktop?

3) How do I check my CPU usage? I would like to be able to see how much each program is using. I'm going to be upgrading my ram soon, but i would to know how much to install based on how the CPU information.


These are just a few of the many questions i have. I would really appreciate some help. Thanks! :mac:
 
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1. the HDD never has 40GB, maybe around 36GB w/o the OS. the rest is used by OS X. I'd recommend a fresh install of the OS. you may wanna get rid of all those print drivers, fonts, and language translations (and maybe iLife apps) that you don't need.

2. presumed you downloaded the FF .dmg w/ safari the file is always saved on the desktop. however, you should be able to drag the FF icon to the applications folder.

3. applications -> utilities -> activity monitor
 
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ghettochild said:
1. the HDD never has 40GB, maybe around 36GB w/o the OS. the rest is used by OS X. I'd recommend a fresh install of the OS. you may wanna get rid of all those print drivers, fonts, and language translations (and maybe iLife apps) that you don't need.

2. presumed you downloaded the FF .dmg w/ safari the file is always saved on the desktop. however, you should be able to drag the FF icon to the applications folder.

3. applications -> utilities -> activity monitor

Cool, thanks for the help. As for the FF, i tried dragging and it just makes a shortcut. I still can't get it off of my desktop. Also, I DL'ed it yesterday and dragged it to my dock. When i restarted my computer it was gone. Is there a different way to put it in the dock?
 
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munch said:
Is there a different way to put it in the dock?

sure. when the app is open, control click the app's icon in the dock and select "Keep in Dock."
 
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1. Go to Versiontracker.com, and download a program called Monolingual. This will clear up a good deal of hard disk space (I got rid of around 2 GB of unnecessary files when I last used it). This is no cure for your decision to get a tiny hard drive, but it should help. If you feel you need a bigger one later, you can always make a "disk clone" on a 60, 80, or 100GB drive to save some reinstallation hassle.

2. I think what you're trying to do is drag the entire disk image, and not the application, into the apps folder. Let me try and walk you through this. Whatever you downloaded before should now be removed. Re-Download FF to your desktop, and leave everything there. If the file you downloaded "auto-executed," like it does by default in many browsers, you'll have to click "accept," and when you're done, on your desktop, there will appear to be two "files." One will be a .dmg file, and the other will probably simply say Firefox, and will be the Firefox logo on what looks like a floppy drive. Neither of these should be dragged to your applications folder. The one that has no file extension is the one you want to open. This is what's called a "disk image." Think of it as an imitation of a small hard disk partition. Once you've opened it, you'll see the actual Firefox application file (and naturally the icon) inside. now, I want you to go up to file, and click New Finder Window. then, I want you to drag the Firefox icon into your applications folder.
 
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Meyvn said:
1. Go to Versiontracker.com, and download a program called Monolingual. This will clear up a good deal of hard disk space (I got rid of around 2 GB of unnecessary files when I last used it). This is no cure for your decision to get a tiny hard drive, but it should help. If you feel you need a bigger one later, you can always make a "disk clone" on a 60, 80, or 100GB drive to save some reinstallation hassle.

2. I think what you're trying to do is drag the entire disk image, and not the application, into the apps folder. Let me try and walk you through this. Whatever you downloaded before should now be removed. Re-Download FF to your desktop, and leave everything there. If the file you downloaded "auto-executed," like it does by default in many browsers, you'll have to click "accept," and when you're done, on your desktop, there will appear to be two "files." One will be a .dmg file, and the other will probably simply say Firefox, and will be the Firefox logo on what looks like a floppy drive. Neither of these should be dragged to your applications folder. The one that has no file extension is the one you want to open. This is what's called a "disk image." Think of it as an imitation of a small hard disk partition. Once you've opened it, you'll see the actual Firefox application file (and naturally the icon) inside. now, I want you to go up to file, and click New Finder Window. then, I want you to drag the Firefox icon into your applications folder.

Thanks for that. The thing that threw me off was that when FF was open the icon would remain on the desktop. I thought that would remain there forever (it doesn't).

As for the HD, it's not a big deal for it to take up so much space; I was just curious as to why it was. I'm going to DL that file and see if I can clean some up. I'm making an external HD in the future, so that should clear up some problems.
 
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did you dl the .dmg file and then open it?

if you did, then you need to move the icon in the .dmg to your applications folder. then drag that icon to the bar.
 
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I started to DL monotraker, but some of the comments scared me a bit. Is there a safe way to use it?
 
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The amount of space given by apple (40GB) is the raw space on the disk. In order to use it though, it needs to be formatted. This takes up a percentage of your useable space, so in actual fact a 40GB drive will only have 36-37 available to be used.

OS X and the iLife apps will use up another 3-8 GB of this space, depending of what you've selected to install.

Monolingual should be fairly safe to use, as long as you don't have any apps that depend on foreign languages.
 
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Since we've last talked I've made a few upgrades to my computer. I've installed a 1gb stick or RAM (oh yeah!), made an external dvd burner and HDD, and tried to get more familiar with this thing you all call an ibook. Well, I've learned a lot and love it. But now, I've got a couple of new questions, so bare with me:

1) I want to try and take some programs from iLife off of my internal HDD and put them on my external HDD. I'm looking at you Garageband. I really think I'll use the program, but I know I won't use it without the external HDD. If I just drag the entire Garageband folder onto my external HDD will it work the same? Will I have to readd it to the dock due to its new position in my external HDD?

2) How exactly do I go about backing up everything on my internal HDD. Do I literally have to drag everything to it? There has to be an easier way. This is the HDD I have, by the way:

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Seag...35114/catOid/-12973/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

with this external case:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145656

3) Since I got the DVD burner I've been dabbling a bit with iMovie and iDVD. I've even considered upgrading to iLife 06. I tried creating movies with some videos I've DL'd off the net and some short one's i've taken with my digital camera. Imovie would load any of them, save a mario kart commercial. Some of them were even .mov! I'm kind of confused. I really wanted to create a dvd of movies for my fiancee that she made with her digital camera, they are .avi's, but those won't load either. Is there a way to get any movie to load onto imovie?

If you guys could help me out on this I would really appreciate it! Thanks!
 
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munch said:
2) How exactly do I go about backing up everything on my internal HDD. Do I literally have to drag everything to it? There has to be an easier way. This is the HDD I have, by the way:

If you guys could help me out on this I would really appreciate it! Thanks!

There are a few ways to back up your data. Are you a .Mac member? If so you can use Backup, its part of the .Mac services suite offers. With it you can manually or automatically back up to your iDisk, iPod, CD/DVD, or external hard disk. Its really simple to use, I use it for backing up keychains and preferences and purchased music to my iDisk.

Second you can use Disk Utilities Restore feature. That will make a clone of your drive.

There are a few other utilities out there Carbon Copy Cloner is a good one.

I recommend you get a enclosure with firewire 400 aka 1394a. If you plan to make a clone of your drive you can boot from it. Alternatively you can partition it and keep clean install there for trouble shooting and other diagnostic reasons.

There are other enclosures out there cheaper but thats just the first link I came across.
 
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IronMac said:
There are a few ways to back up your data. Are you a .Mac member? If so you can use Backup, its part of the .Mac services suite offers. With it you can manually or automatically back up to your iDisk, iPod, CD/DVD, or external hard disk. Its really simple to use, I use it for backing up keychains and preferences and purchased music to my iDisk.

Second you can use Disk Utilities Restore feature. That will make a clone of your drive.

There are a few other utilities out there Carbon Copy Cloner is a good one.

I recommend you get a enclosure with firewire 400 aka 1394a. If you plan to make a clone of your drive you can boot from it. Alternatively you can partition it and keep clean install there for trouble shooting and other diagnostic reasons.

There are other enclosures out there cheaper but thats just the first link I came across.

Awesome. I'm going to try the disc utility one later. Thanks a lot!

I made the mistake when I ordered the enclosure of getting the USB2.0 version instead of the FW. I thought FW would be better with the burner because it would be more consistent and transfer data more efficiently (my logic was this would lead to less bad burns), and I would then use a USB2.0 for the HDD. Well, the enclosure I have will only allow up 10x burning and the fix to get it up to 16x made it all messed up. So, I only have USB2.0 for both. I think i'm going to get a FW enclosure soon, but not right now.

Does anyone have advice for the other two questions?
 
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munch said:
1) I want to try and take some programs from iLife off of my internal HDD and put them on my external HDD. I'm looking at you Garageband. I really think I'll use the program, but I know I won't use it without the external HDD. If I just drag the entire Garageband folder onto my external HDD will it work the same? Will I have to readd it to the dock due to its new position in my external HDD?
Okay I'm not so sure about Garageband because I deleted that behemoth awhile back. A quick test with iTunes worked fine. Mind you I only moved the program not the library. It did come up in the dock with a second icon but selecting 'keep in dock' from the pop up insured that it stayed there. On a side note you can only 'install' iLife apps on an start-up volume.

munch said:
3) Since I got the DVD burner I've been dabbling a bit with iMovie and iDVD. I've even considered upgrading to iLife 06. I tried creating movies with some videos I've DL'd off the net and some short one's i've taken with my digital camera. Imovie would load any of them, save a mario kart commercial. Some of them were even .mov! I'm kind of confused. I really wanted to create a dvd of movies for my fiancee that she made with her digital camera, they are .avi's, but those won't load either. Is there a way to get any movie to load onto imovie?
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here. iMovie doesn't support Muxed files (files with audio and video on the same track) or just any .avi or .mov. You have to convert them into something iMovie likes first. Use ffmpegX or Mpeg Streamclip I like ffmpegX. .avi is a container not a format meaning that it holds a encoded video track and audio track, the same applies for .mov, just a container. I think thats all I got for ya.
 

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