General questions about Macs

Hi, I'm new to this forum since I only received my new Mac Book Pro (13 in) only three days ago. I have to say that I really enjoy this notebook and am a now proud convert. Yet, I have a predicament: I would like to keep my mac book for as long as possible, so I would like some tips regarding that.

Since I'm going to college in 2.5 weeks, it would be really helpful to know all this before I head out.

I will simply list my questions, and answer whichever you like, thanks!

I always left my desktop pc on 24/7, but I don't know if I should do that with my mac book. For the past three days, whenever I wont be using it for at least four hours, I turn it off, as well as for charging it, since I read that it charges quicker when turned off. I use it at for at least six hours a day .

Will keeping it on consecutively harm it? If so, should I just put it on sleep mode for when I'm not using it (even overnight)?

What is callibration (in terms of the battery)? Should I be doing this often?

What can I do to keep the battery at 4-5 hours when the book is not connected to the adapter?

At home, is it OK to always have it connected to the adapter?

In terms of battery life, I never have anything more than five hours (even when I just charged it). Is there something wrong with the battery?

Also, after 1 hour and 30 min of use, the notebook is pretty hot. Is this normal?

I actually have more questions regarding downloading (i.e. bittorrent and storage), so I'll update later.

Congrats and welcome to the forums!

Leaving it on 24/7 is perfectly fine. I actually recommend you leave it one for a while since the Mac OS performs daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance scripts in the middle of the night in the background. You can put it to sleep, but every once in a while I would just log off to let it do the scripts. I think I shut mine down about once every month or so, or unless I need to for software updates.

I believe the instruction booklet that came with your Mac states that you should calibrate the battery once a month for it to have a good lifespan. When using it without the adapter, the best way to save power is to turn off Bluetooth (if your not using it) and keep the screen brightness to the lower setting. Obviously the more applications you run, and the more devices you have plugged in (such as USB drives), the more power it consumes. It's fine to leave the power adapter plugged most of the time. I have for quite a while and my battery is still pretty good.

I've noticed that my MBP can run pretty hot when on my lap or even on the desk. The best thing to do is make sure that the fans aren't running at high RPMs whenever you have few applications running. The easiest way to do this is to download the iStatPro widget for the dashboard. It can give you quick access to some of your computer's information such as RAM usage, HD space, CPU processes, and how fast your fans are running.

Hi there. Some people like to do a fresh restart cycle every few days, but it's not really needed. I unplug mine, let the battery get pretty close to dead, and then reconnect it to power to charge up, but every month or so you should let the battery completely deplete (although I don't do that as much as I should.