New convert...couple of questions

I've been a pc guy my whole life. I bought a macbook pro for my wife and then liked playing with it so much, I bought one for me.

1. One of the books I got from the library on osx says that the power button on the macbook won't be used much. They recommend just closing the lid. I love being able to open the lid and be online and up in a second instead of minutes on my old Dell (I gave it to one of my grandkids). I'm assuming that closing the lid just puts it to sleep and it awakens when I open it. Anyone have any sage advice for powering off vs sleeping?

2. I like the idea of not cluttering up my desktop with icons. I've set up my favorite web pages with top pages so I can open safari and then click on the top pages grid icon to see my top pages. Is there a way I can make safari open with top sites already "up?" Are the any tips for a one click solution or do I have to make individual icons on my desktop for each of my favorite pages?

As usual, thanks in advance for any useful tips.

John

You sound like me a few month ago 25 year PC Vet

1.) put it to sleep reboot when a update needs it.

2.) Yes there is a way I have not used Safari since I found speed dial for Chrome. But if i remember correctly there is an option in the settings for this.
Try putting topsites:// in your default webpage.

option +command + 1 is "Open Top Sites" in Safari. If you want to open several of your favorite sites in Tabs at one time click on Safari's "Bookmarks" menu and make a new folder and give it a name like "Start Tabs", then open all the websites you want to open at one time and go back to the "Bookmarks" menu and click on "Add Bookmark for these Tabs" and save in the folder you just made. Next time you open Safari go up to the "Bookmarks" and in the folder you made click on "Open in Tabs" and they will all open.

Actually, making Top Sites your default home page is one of the options in Safari's home page preferences. So that answers your second question.

As to your first, Apple itself says (I'm summarising) that your machine should be slept when not in use, and only shut down when you're going to be away from it for a long period (they don't define this, but I take it as more than 48 hours) or when a system update requires it.

Thanks!

Hi, I have a question about sleep mode in MacBook. If I close the lid when it is on battery, does the battery run down, or can you only put it to sleep when on power?

LL

chas_m said:

Actually, making Top Sites your default home page is one of the options in Safari's home page preferences. So that answers your second question.

As to your first, Apple itself says (I'm summarising) that your machine should be slept when not in use, and only shut down when you're going to be away from it for a long period (they don't define this, but I take it as more than 48 hours) or when a system update requires it.

Click to expand...

This is correct, works great.

lakewoodlady said:

Hi, I have a question about sleep mode in MacBook. If I close the lid when it is on battery, does the battery run down, or can you only put it to sleep when on power?

LL

Click to expand...

Yep, the battery runs down, but at a very slow rate.
Last time I slept mine overnight, the battery went from 100% to 97%.

lakewoodlady said:

Hi, I have a question about sleep mode in MacBook. If I close the lid when it is on battery, does the battery run down, or can you only put it to sleep when on power?

LL

Click to expand...

It does run down...I left my 2008 MB on sleep for a two days without plugging it in and it went down 3%.

Many thanks for your replies, now I know.

LL

Safari also gives the ability to 'edit' and 'pin' your favorite sites to Top Sites page. So I set Safari to open to Top Site as default or homepage, then pin my all my favorite sites to Top Sites' divided windows. The rest of the extra windows under Top Sites would cycled through all the sites I've visited the most. Just a more fancy way similar to opening up all my favorite sites at the same time under tabs in Firefox.