new to mac

[latisha1903]

just got my first mac product in december [ipod mini] and a powerbook g4 in april.

question...

how do i permanetly (sp?) delete something from my hard drive? does putting an entire program and its folder in the trash delete it, so that its no longer taking up space and memory?

second question...i always let my battery get down pretty low before charging my pbg4, when it goes to 100% or 99% i unplug it and the screen dims some...why is this?

thanks in advance

 

[eva01]

in the preferences i believe there is a way to turn off auto-dim for the screen.

and if you just move an item to the trash can it just puts it in the trash can you can then control click on the trash can and go to empty trash, or you can press down (command + shift + delete) I think (can't remember because i always use the option key as well which doesn't give you the warning about emptying your trash)

also there is a menu way while in finder to go up there and go down to empty trash (can't remember it thou not at my powerbook)

 

[Ugg]

There are two options for deleting items in the trash. Go to Finder in the menu bar, and halfway down, you'll see "empty trash" and "secure empty trash". "empty trash" just empties the trash can and the data could be recovered in the future. "secure empty trash" overwrites the file and makes it almost impossible to recover. I always use the secure mode.

It's also good to let the battery go completely dry about once a month, this supposedly makes it last a lot longer.

 

[St Soichiro]

<snip> does putting an entire program and its folder in the trash delete it, so that its no longer taking up space and memory?

Yes you can delete applications by dragging them to trash and then emptying the same. This does leave some preference files floating around, but they are usually very small. It is possible to find these through Spotlight and removing them, but not really necessary. So much better than "uninstalling."

Have fun, and run regular maintenance: learn to Fix Permissions (in the Disk Utility) and periodically run maintenance scripts using something like MacJanitor (freeware, no affiliation).

As for the PB battery, see:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=50666
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284

 

[DarkNetworks]

There are two options for deleting items in the trash. Go to Finder in the menu bar, and halfway down, you'll see "empty trash" and "secure empty trash". "empty trash" just empties the trash can and the data could be recovered in the future. "secure empty trash" overwrites the file and makes it almost impossible to recover. I always use the secure mode.

It's also good to let the battery go completely dry about once a month, this supposedly makes it last a lot longer.

How do i recover my files?

 

[DarkNetworks]

any solution for this one ^^?

 

[St Soichiro]

any solution for this one ^^?

No easy way that I know off. You can try Data Rescue. Never had the need to try it, but have heard good things about it. They do have a free demo.

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue_info.php

 

[Diatribe]

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[5300cs]

To recover files that have been deleted, you'll need a 3rd party undelete program. Here's a start. Using Secure Empty though, I'm not sure if those files can be recovered or not.

As for batteries, here's another link: Apple: batteries