New to Macs, few general questions

MBP late 2011 13inch 2.4ghz

1. Does the battery ever die after a certain amount of uses? On my old dell, it did, is it the same for MBP? Does apple replace it for free even though my warranty is only 1 year?

2. How can I see how much hard drive space I have left?

3. SHould I turn on a firewall or do something for security? I heard the MBP doesn't get viruses, so I don't done any security related things yet.

4. is it safe to clean the screen and trackpad with a damp cloth?

 

1. yes the battery will die after a certain number of cycles. If you use the whole battery, then charge it back up, that's one cycle. If you use half the battery, then charge it to full, then use half the battery again, then charge it up again to full, that's also one cycle.

apple batteries for the newer notebooks are designed to keep 80% of their original charge after 1000 cycles. Depending on your use, that could easily be 3-5 years. If your battery dies within a year and under 1000 cycles (ie. defective), apple will certainly replace it. If you've expended the life of the battery, apple will not replace it for free.

The battery is pretty significantly different from a dell from several years ago, which was likely rated for much fewer cycles.

4. yes. get a microfiber cloth.

 

My pre-unibody MBP had its battery replaced 3 times within 3 years by Applecare. Cycles probably were at about 250-300. Was the battery completely shot? Absolutely not, well the first one - which they said was basically a recall since the cells were dead but were treating it like a TSB.

Roommates laptop - same type bought august 2008 - battery replaced once and the newest one is done, lasts 15 minutes. Newest one is at over 600 cycles.


That is A LOT of cycles...personally, I factor in battery replacement every 2 years as a part of maintenance cost for laptops. Maybe the new ones have gotten better, I don't know. My current laptop battery is holding up well so far.

 

you'll see your hard drive on the desktop (Default name Macintosh HD). This, and any other file/folder, you can always right click and hit Get Info, which has a lot of Info. On the hard drive, it'll show you used space and free space.

yes, turn on the Firewall in System preferences under Security.
While Mac OS X doesn't get malware for Windows, it can get Malware. Sophos has a free antivirus for Mac that takes care of things for you, and has little system over head. Apple also has a built in anti-malware thing in the OS, but its very minimal. Just make sure you keep up with the system updates.