Just got my Macbook

A couple of Q's

when I double click on my Mac HD, on the bottom it says that I have 57.33 GB available. But I ordered my macbook with 80 GB so what's the deal?

 

Well the 80 GB is not 80 as you probably know. Plus the OS X install is rather large and you have iLife 06 installed as well. So, a few gigs for the hard drive tax and about 15 to 20 for the OS and iLife, plus another gig for misc trials such as iWork 06 and Office for Mac 2004.

Congrats on the MacBook!

 

Hard Drive tax...I like that.

 

is there any way to get a few gigs back? like a hd tax refund?

 

LOL! Hard drive Tax Refund!

Yeah, you can get rid of the Office for Mac Test Drive and iWork 06 Trial. And maybe iLife apps that you won't use. What you will notice is that you won't have to install as much extra stuff as you would in Windows, so the initial shock will even out.

 

Thanks cashmonee. Another question, I accidently deleted the battery meter on my top right screen (open apple, dragged the meter, then poof dissapeared) how do I get it back?

 

IIRC (not at the macbook at the moment), open system preferencies, go to energy saver, there should be an option to display it at the menu bar.

 

thanks wooky! Sorry for all the newb questions lol. Okay, this is the last one, how do you customize your dock? For instance, my friend, her systems preference icon "was" on the dock and somehow she manage to delete it from there. How do you put it back. Again sorry for the newb questions, but thanks for the patience

 

So open system preferences so that the icon shows in the dock. You can either drag it back in with the other icons in the dock or do a secondary click and choose 'keep in dock'. And don't worry about the newb questions. Many people have the same questions, but are afraid to ask.

 

Open an app (like system preferences) and when the icon is on the dock right/command click it and a context menu will appear; select keep on dock. Options for customizing the dock are in sys prefs as well... also, by command clicking the line that divides apps and windows/shortcuts you have access to customizing options such as position, size, magnification, etc.

 

hi i've got a question about the 60gig hard drive

if an 80gigs hdd leaves only 57 gigs, it means apps are using 23 gigs !!!

does that leaves the 60 gigs hdd with only 37 useable gigs ?!!?!?

 

The reason that your real HD space and advertised HD space is different is due to the way they calculate MB size.
1MB = 1024kb
And so on...
However, manufacturers don't use Base 2 calculations on their packaging. So, instead of 1024kb = 1MB, it's now 1000kb. This helps it have a nice round number for the packaging so it doesn't say 74.532 GB.

And yes, it does state this on the package.... in very very very tiny text.
Plus, OS X is by far the largest OS I've ever installed.

I liked the HD tax joke... good stuff

 

oh maaan !!!

it means i cant get all my mp3 and some movies in the original 60hdd ???

 

The smaller the HD, the less it looses from the advertised space to the real space. A 250 gig drive will loose something like, 30 or 40 gigs (just rough estimation, but I know it's a lot) While a 60 gig may only loose 6 gigs.
But there are a few things I think you can do when you install OS X that reduces the amount of space.

xCode takes up a LOT of space, as well as language support and print drivers. Too bad I need xcode...

 

I remember having about 35GiB free when I got my Macbook, so it might be even worse.
While I have no doubt HD manufacturers do it for marketing reasons, it turns out they are actually right; the commom usage of MB and GB is wrong, including the way OSs report space. The problem is that the prefixes (Giga and Mega) already existed and were standartized to mean 10^9 and 10^6 long before we came to use them. We got around by using a capital K to indicate 1024 instead of a normal k to indicate 10^3 (1000); but that doesn't work for M and G (and T for Terabytes as well).
It would help if people started using Gibibytes and Mebibytes; this way the HD manufacturers would have no excuse.

 

Memory is in base 2, not base 10.
So it's actually 2^x not 10^x.
To expand on that, 1024 = 2^10.
There is no representation of 1000 in binary (as far as number of bits being used).
So it's 0000000000. You cannot remove or add a binary digit to show 1000.
***edit***
Well, this may explain it better....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte

 

If you want to decrease the install amout... Removing Garageband may be an idea for you. It uses up over 2 gigs. I think there are 1 or 2 other apps you can remove that take up quite a bit of space as well that aren't needed for normal users.

 

I just got a macbook too and was wondering what the difference was betweening minimizing (cmd m) and hiding (cmd h) an application. thanks.

 

cmd-m sends the windows down to the dock, similar to the taskbar in Windows. Cmd-h is similar to cosing the window, except it retains the windows state. So the web page you were on is still there when you bring it back.

 

ok, i'll check when i get home, but if you happen to know, is either one (hiding vs. minimizing) better in terms of conserving system resources? or better to just close the app outright until it is needed next time?

 

it's a relief (at least) that i'll have more space than i've calculated ! as you said, i'll unistall garage band, but what're the xcode ??
and do you know an app such as appzapper which is free ?? i heard it saves room to use such an app when uninstalling !

 

u might wanna remove driver you don't need. mac install about 2-3GB (sorry if i got this wrong, but it is definitly more than 1gigs) of printer driver, mac install driver from most manufacturer, so uninstall printer driver from manufacturer u are unlikely to use/buy.

 

yeah, that's what i'll do ! one gig is ONE gig !! better save it for mp3 than for useless drivers

 

just play a few days with your macbook and then reinstall osx with less software, things like garage band and the iwork demo use a lot of space. There are also like a ton of languages preinstalled, select just your language and english

 

Just thought I'd give an update on my macbook. So far the experience has been very pleasant. I'm soooo glad I made the switch For those of you wondering about the heat issue, yes it does it warm (atleast on my macbook) but not to the degree where it'll burn you. I guess the best way to describe the warm is like holding a nice warm cup of coffee. It's not too hot but it's not too cold. Just wanna thank everyone who replied to my posts!

 

Check out the SMC Fancontrol app. You can change the fan speed with it and cool it down significantly.
Link is in the Mac Gems thread.

 

yeah ! i wanna switch too ! i just call a friend to get his feedback, they are all positives !
plus he said he had 40gigs left when he got the macbook ! i'll go buy it next week i think, there's a 250€ deal for the 1299€ macbook ! which is a great and rare deal in france!!! yeaaah ! go and switch !

 

then with the 250€ i'll upgrade the ram to 1.256 !!