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Purchasing a MacBook soon, have a few questions.

G

GrimmPenguin

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 29, 2007
106
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I will be purchasing a MacBook soon and I have just a few questions about the Mac OS and such. I have used the Mac OS a few times before, but I am not used to using it as my permanent operating system, so I am preparing myself for the switch.

-Do I need to do maintenance on the system such as cleaning up old, temporary files and defragmenting my hard drive, or does the MacOS do this for you? If not, how would I go about doing this and how often should I?

-Are the MacBooks setup to automatically go to sleep mode when you shut the lid by default, or do you have to change this in settings manually? If so, how?

-I've also heard of a feature called Deep Sleep. What's the difference in this and regular Sleep?

-What is a good way to keep the MacBook clean. I know how to clean the external parts properly. Should I blow some compressed air into the vents and such to keep them cleared out ever so often?

Thanks for your help! If you have any more tips on how to keep MacBooks and Mac OS in tip-top shape I would appreciate them.
 
GrimmPenguin said:
-Do I need to do maintenance on the system such as cleaning up old, temporary files and defragmenting my hard drive, or does the MacOS do this for you? If not, how would I go about doing this and how often should I?
Click to expand...

Defrag: no. Everything else, there're free programs like Onyx that do these things. A few people here use them religiously; many of us do not bother and see no negative consequences. Most things are taken care of by the operating system for you. Mostly, all OS X expects of you is that you keep a good amount of HD space (>5GB, and about 15-20% of HD capacity, if possible) free.

-Are the MacBooks setup to automatically go to sleep mode when you shut the lid by default, or do you have to change this in settings manually? If so, how?
Click to expand...

Yes, that's what they do by default. You can also plug in a keyboard and mouse and use them closed. There are hacks if you want something different. Many of us use sleep extensively and only really shutdown or reboot the computer when we upgrade it.

-I've also heard of a feature called Deep Sleep. What's the difference in this and regular Sleep?
Click to expand...

The Macbook has a feature called Safe Sleep that writes the contents of RAM to the disk drive. If power is interrupted for some reason, or the battery dies completely, then when it gets power back, and you turn it back on, it can load this file into memory and you'll be exactly back where you were before you lost power. Deep Sleep is like hibernate in windows. Instead of going to sleep, after writing the RAM image, the computer turns off completely. If you need to leave the computer off for a longer period of time, I guess it can be good. Deep Sleep, as far as I know, isn't a default feature of OS X, but there's a widget you can install that can trigger deep sleep if you want it.

Good luck! :)
 
Mac OS X defragments and repairs permissions on the fly, so you shouldn't need to. If you're encountering problems, you can always do this manually via disk utility.

Your MacBook will automatically sleep when you close the lid, and wake up when opened. You're returned (with/without typing your password, depending on how you set your security preferences) right to the desktop, with all your applications open, that you had when you went to sleep.

Safe sleep backs up the contents of your RAM to your hard drive temporarily in case of a power failure.
 
Ahh! So it sounds like Mac is it's own little personal maid. That's good! So Safe Sleep kicks in when the battery is almost dead or a power issue occurs? If Safe Sleep works when it's supposed to then it sounds like I need not to use it manually.

Thanks for your help
 
as far as cleaning goes...

i found that with the white macbooks, as weird as this sounds, saliva (yes, spit!) is the best thing to use to clean pretty much any white part of the macbook. as for the screen, windex works wonders. and for air-dusting... do it often. i've got so much hair and dust under my keyboard... :D enjoy your MB.
 
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