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Purchased new Macbook, will NOT return!

T

theStump

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 10, 2007
7
0
Philadelphia, PA
No offense to the guy posting with the MBP, but I finally after months of anticipation broke down and drove to the apple store after work yesterday to get my first mac and im loving it :D. After changing my mind on a near daily basis and checking this site since March/April, I impulsively settled on the white 2.16 MB and its blown me away so far, coming from a 6 year old self-built PC. Anyway I have a couple questions to throw out there...

-I have a 19" widescreen LCD I use as an external monitor. When I work with that I can't stand typing on the macbook keyboard. Does anybody use a wireless keyboard and/or mouse that they highly reccomend? I can't afford the diNovo but have been close to picking up the S 350, my only concern is using it with windows as I will be using boot camp for a few windows apps maybe 2-3 times a week (development in visual studio, occasional counterstrike). Any reccommendations there?

-Is there any regular maintainence thats reccommended to keep it running fast?

-Any must have apps that you can think of off the top of your head?

I have had one weird encounter since using the macbook - I had it powered on for about an hour, and was fooling around with photobooth. It took a picture (this would be the second time it used the camera, the first being the OS X setup when it wanted a picture of me for the login screen) and the screen flashed (almost like a camera flash it was a bit odd) and then went dark. Initially I thought it was supposed to do this (i.e. the camera flash) but then I realized that my backlight was completely off :confused:. I could barely see the picture on the screen, and after I was able to navigate to the apple menu to shut down, the backlight kicked back in on the restart. Haven't had a problem since, should I worry about this or not?

Sorry that was a bit long, but thanks for your help in advance!
 
can't help too much. I use the diNovo, and don't have an Intel machine so don't know about the camera. Just wanted to point out though that there are keys on the top row of the MacBook keyboard that adjust the backlighting if you have this problem reoccurring.

Congrats on the new purchase.
 
Disk warrior - use it once a month to keep your disk healthy and fast
graphicconverter - does most of the standard image editing stuff and more, inexpensive shareware
VLC - plays all videos

those are the top 3 I'd recommend.
 
i just got the kensington ci70 and it's amazing. the pictures don't do it justice, and if you have a silver external or MBP or ACD display, it matches perfectly. it looks a little strange in the picture, what with the giant ridge on the back, but the front part where the keys lay is only 1/2" tall (if that) and the back isn't nearly as obtrusive. not to mention that it's actually apple compatible, so it does have that wonderful little apple key (and a windows key, but hey, who's counting) as well as an eject key at the top of the multimedia controls.

lemme know if you want some real pictures, i'd be happy to send them. :)
 
Hi, I'm going to buy a MB as soon as the free ipod for students deal begins (edit. in the UK). How much disk space does the OS and installed software take up when you first start using it?
 
john2006wright said:
Hi, I'm going to buy a MB as soon as the free ipod for students deal begins. How much disk space does the OS and installed software take up when you first start using it?
Click to expand...

my brand new blackbook had about 27gb of stuff on it when I got it, and i don't know if that's quite normal- there is about 33gb occupied on it right now with 6gb of my music and that's it on there.

So in my experience, that junk takes up a whole lotta space. Can anyone tell me if this is right, that my hard drive is supposed to have 20gb of stuff on it when I get it?
 
feelthefire said:
my brand new blackbook had about 27gb of stuff on it when I got it, and i don't know if that's quite normal- there is about 33gb occupied on it right now with 6gb of my music and that's it on there.

So in my experience, that junk takes up a whole lotta space. Can anyone tell me if this is right, that my hard drive is supposed to have 20gb of stuff on it when I get it?
Click to expand...

27Gb pre-loaded. That seems an awful lot? Are their easy ways of trimming away the useless stuff??
 
john2006wright said:
27Gb pre-loaded. That seems an awful lot? Are their easy ways of trimming away the useless stuff??
Click to expand...

I thought it was a lot too, but it's got trial versions of office and stuff, and all of iLife, so I'm not totally sure how much there's supposed to be. Can someone else with a new one pull up their hard drive and see how much junk is on there?

I plan to delete some of the games and stuff that came installed, since I can't figure out how to play them (lol).
 
I just got my BlackBook a couple of weeks ago and I have about 25 gb used. However, I have at least 2 gb of music, as well as The Sims 2 and the Sims 2 University.
 
Eve said:
I just got my BlackBook a couple of weeks ago and I have about 25 gb used. However, I have at least 2 gb of music, as well as The Sims 2 and the Sims 2 University.
Click to expand...

Man, that is one hefty OS then. 20gb. I can't imagine how they sold these things with 60gb hard drives in them.
 
john2006wright said:
Hi, I'm going to buy a MB as soon as the free ipod for students deal begins (edit. in the UK). How much disk space does the OS and installed software take up when you first start using it?
Click to expand...

feelthefire said:
my brand new blackbook had about 27gb of stuff on it when I got it, and i don't know if that's quite normal- there is about 33gb occupied on it right now with 6gb of my music and that's it on there.
Click to expand...

That should be about right. Besides all the software, it has to include hundreds of different drivers for external devices, language packets and such. You can re-install OSX when you get it and get rid of programs that you don't need and delete the languages that you don't need. Those are the easy ones that'll free up some space. I wouldn't recommend deleting drivers unless you know you won't need them, is experienced and really need the space.

Edit: to the OP, i would recommend getting smc fan control and coconut battery. If you need to rip/convert dvds, get Mac The Ripper and/or Handbrake. Open Office or Neo Office is a nice free alternative to MS Office, and you can use Gimp for more advanced photo editing. Many people recommend Adium for your messenging needs, but i stuck with MS messenger :p. Of course, there are bunch of little widgets that you can get, so have fun :).
As for maintenance, just get the latest software update, and your mb will scream :D.
Anyways, congrats on your purchase!
 
Adding to apples profits

Hi, I've just signed up to this forum site having also just purchased a new macbook online. I have a few questions about my new purchase. I plan to upgrade to 2g of RAM and I was wondering if I should replace the ram before starting up for the first time or if I should switch the machine on first to check its in working order then worry about switching the sticks. I'm very much looking forward to next week and its arrival. Thanks in advance for your help.:)
 
^^^^
I would turn on the machine first to make sure everything's working. If you have a dead logic board or broken screen, you can't very well check if your ram is working or not.
 
I am so happy to hear that you are satisfied with your MacBook. I will be getting my first Mac, a MacBook in fact, in a couple weeks. Let us know how you feel about it in the upcoming weeks :)
 
feelthefire said:
Man, that is one hefty OS then. 20gb. I can't imagine how they sold these things with 60gb hard drives in them.
Click to expand...

As stated a little earlier, this includes trial version of MS Office, iWork, as well as all of iLife, games, etc. Garageband alone takes up a couple of Gigs of space with sample songs.
 
Thanks to everybody for the replies, I've checked out most of the stuff recommended and its been great advice. I'm still absolutely loving the machine and the transition from windows has been basically seamless, it was a lot easier than I imagined. I'll try and post in the next few weeks how I'm doing with it for those who are looking for some buying advice for their first mac.
 
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