Help with my new Macbook Pro

Hello all, I'm new to the forums. I just got my brand new Macbook Pro and I'm loving everything about Apple and most of the products they sell. I looked around the mac-forums, read most of the f.a.q's but I still got a couple of questions.

1) Back when I was a Windows user, I always installed this program called: Ccleaner which cleans most of the temp files, cache and other garbage hidden in your harddrive. Are there any programs for Leopard similar to Ccleaner?

2) During my Microsoft days, I would degrag my harddrive on a weekly basis. Does Leopard offer any utilities that defrag my harddrive or do I have to download this software?

3) Speaking of defragging, what other things should I do in order to keep my mac running nicely? Every computer runs perfectly out of the box or after formatting, I just want to keep it running smoothly.

4) I noticed that every now and then, the brightness on my Macbook Pro goes down and up one level even if I'm typing and connected to the A/C Adapter. If I react quick enough, I could put up the brightness one level before the computer does it automatically. Is this normal behavior? I find it to be very annoying.

5) Safari is one **** of a browser in my opinion, I love it. The only thing bugging me right now would be that every time I click on a link my friend sent me through Adium...it opens a new window instead of opening a new tab. If I already got a Safari window open, why would I want another window? How can I solve this issue?

6) My friend gave me a .toast file of a dvd he created and I googled how to burn a toast file. I discovered you can accomplish this by using Toast 9 or Disk Utilities which comes with Leopard. My question is, I want to burn a couple of documents, pictures and random videos on a DVD. Can I just drag, drop and burn somewhere on Leopard? I don't want to go out and buy Toast 9 just yet.

7) From Monday to Saturday I'm mostly at my office, which means my Macbook Pro is always connected to the A/C adapter. By doing so, can I damage my battery like that? What I try doing is using up the the battery fully and recharging again. I'm not sure if connecting my Mac to the A/C with the battery halfway out is a bad thing.

8) I love iChat even though I just got one friend on it. I'm using Adium for MSN Messenger sake and unfortunately Adium does not support webcam chatting yet. Is there a way I could search for more iChat users that are currently online? Or anything?

Those are all the questions I got for now, thanks in advance! Cheers

iMarco said:

Hello all, I'm new to the forums. I just got my brand new Macbook Pro and I'm loving everything about Apple and most of the products they sell. I looked around the mac-forums, read most of the f.a.q's but I still got a couple of questions.

1) Back when I was a Windows user, I always installed this program called: Ccleaner which cleans most of the temp files, cache and other garbage hidden in your harddrive. Are there any programs for Leopard similar to Ccleaner?

2) During my Microsoft days, I would degrag my harddrive on a weekly basis. Does Leopard offer any utilities that defrag my harddrive or do I have to download this software?

3) Speaking of defragging, what other things should I do in order to keep my mac running nicely? Every computer runs perfectly out of the box or after formatting, I just want to keep it running smoothly.

4) I noticed that every now and then, the brightness on my Macbook Pro goes down and up even if I'm typing and connected to the A/C Adapter. Is this normal behavior? I find it to be very annoying.

5) Safari is one **** of a browser in my opinion, I love it. The only thing bugging me right now would be that every time I click on a link my friend sent me through Adium...it opens a new window instead of opening a new tab. If I already got a Safari window open, why would I want another window? How can I solve this issue?

6) My friend came a .toast file of the dvd he created and I googled how to burn a toast file. I discovered you can accomplish this by using Toast 9 or Disk Utilities which comes with Leopard. My question is, I want to burn a couple of documents, pictures and random videos on a DVD. Can I just drag, drop and burn somewhere on Leopard? I don't want to go out and buy Toast 9 just yet.

7) From Monday to Saturday I'm mostly at my office, which means my Macbook Pro is always connected to the A/C adapter. By doing so, can I damage my battery like that? What I try doing is using up the the battery fully and recharging again. I'm not sure if connecting my Mac to the A/C with the batter halfway out is a bad thing.

Those are all the questions I got for now, thanks in advance! Cheers

Click to expand...

1. OS X comes with built-in scripts. There are daily, weekly and monthly scripts. To run them you can use Terminal and run them individually or some combination of or together, for example "sudo periodic daily weekly monthly". periodic is the command for those scripts. You can also install Onyx, which is a maintenance program.

2. There is no such thing. Most Unix operating systems including OS X do not suffer from defragmentation like Windows does.. This is not a concern for you. It won't happen.

3. Run maintenance scripts from time to time and you'll be fine. Watch how many things you run as login items for faster boot.

4. I think you can change this in the Energy Saver Preferences.

In a rush, I will post when I get back.

5. You can change this in Safari's preferences. Under the General tab at the bottom.

1) I just got OnyX, using it right now, just afraid of check marking certain options that weren't checked by default.

Where can I get these scripts by the way, if I already I have them somewhere on my harddrive, where?

2) Wow so no defragging ever? That's great!

3) Yet again, where can I get these maintenance scripts, hopefully it's not too much of a complicated thing to do.

4) I'm sure that worked. Why would it put my brightness down a level even if Im working? Is that necessary for the screen's health?

Thanks Tux, looking forward to the rest of your response.

tux08902 said:

1. OS X comes with built-in scripts. There are daily, weekly and monthly scripts. To run them you can use Terminal and run them individually or some combination of or together, for example "sudo periodic daily weekly monthly". periodic is the command for those scripts. You can also install Onyx, which is a maintenance program.

2. There is no such thing. Most Unix operating systems including OS X do not suffer from defragmentation like Windows does.. This is not a concern for you. It won't happen.

3. Run maintenance scripts from time to time and you'll be fine. Watch how many things you run as login items for faster boot.

4. I think you can change this in the Energy Saver Preferences.

In a rush, I will post when I get back.

Click to expand...

Thanks Ska, that worked

skaheadpunk said:

5. You can change this in Safari's preferences. Under the General tab at the bottom.

Click to expand...

This is probably irresponsible of me but I've never run a maintenance script and it'll be 2 years in August on this mac...

You've inspired me to give it a go though! When I figure out what I'm running and how.

I would be careful running any kind of maintenance program. The temp files and cache files are all created for a reason. Deleting them just makes the Mac run slower until they are rebuilt. The cron files run automagically, you don't need to run them manually. And I would not run Onyx until you completely understand what it is doing. It can remove files that are needed by certain programs. Choosing what it does and doesn't remove means that you need to be smarter than it is!

6) Burn anything, anytime under the File menu when you are on your Desktop. Programs like Toast have a bunch of extra features, but the basics are built in.

7) No need to worry too much about your battery. They have logic circuits that prevent over-charging. Taking the battery out will immediately cut the CPU speed and Murphy's law will guarantee you will knock the mag safe out while working on an important document!

3) The scripts are built-in, and they run automatically in the wee hours of the morning if the compute is awake. You can run them by opening the "Terminal" application in Utilities and typing "sudo periodic daily" without the quotes, wgere you can also run the weekly or monthly versions if you wish.

6) Just pop a blank DVD in and you a burn "disc" will show up in your Finder. Drag whatever you want onto there and ciick "Burn."

7) It's recommended in your situation that you calibrate your battery once per month to maximise battery performance.

8) No. Just get your friends to use Skype or something.

iMarco said:

4) I'm sure that worked. Why would it put my brightness down a level even if Im working? Is that necessary for the screen's health?

Click to expand...

it lengthens the battery life of your charge. Illuminating the screen uses quite a bit of energy.

Thanks to all

6) If you have a .toast file and don't want to buy toast, you can change the .toast extension to .iso and then burn it like you would an iso file. (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060619181010389) I've done this before and it worked just fine.

Just dragging the .toast file onto a disc won't be the same as using this method.