What’s the First Thing You Should Do with a New Mac?

Hey Chris, you may know my as AYBABTU in the chat. Anyway, I compiled a list of things to do right out of the box when you aquire a new Mac…

1. Update, Update, Update! One of the best features of the Mac OS X operating system, is that Apple is constantly releasing updates! These can range anywhere from firmware to bug fixes, and many times patch harmful security flaws in the operating system. To find these updates, go to the apple menu, and select “Software Update.” Once you’ve done the first round of updates and restarted your computer, go through the process again, as Software Update has a maximum amount of updates that it can do each time.
2. Calibrate the display! This is one that a lot of people can forget, as they are already busy glowering in the beauty of their new computer. To access this menu, go to the Apple menu, system preferences, displays, color, and “Calibrate…” Make sure to tick the “Expert Mode” box, as this opens up a whole other section of options. Adjusting the white point correctly is crucial for reducing eye strain. I usually prefer mine a little more towards the blue end of the spectrum.
3. If it’s a laptop, calibrate the battery! Charge your battery fully (until the charger light turns green), and unplug it. Don’t let the computer go to sleep, and play on your computer until it dies. Make sure to ignore the “Reserve Battery Power” messages. Once your computer has fallen asleep in an effort to maintain your data, let it sit for about 5 hours, until the white light on the front of the computer has stopped pulsating. Finally, plug it into the charger, and don’t unplug it until you are again at 100% charge. Calibrating the battery is critical for having a better battery life.
4. Repair disk permissions! Unless you have the computer of the gods, odds are that there is some error in your disk permissions. Open the program “Disk Utility,” found in the “Utilities” folder of your applications. Select your drive, and then select “Repair Disk Permissions.” This makes your computer generally less prone to errors. If you’d like to get slightly more advanced with it, and are comfortable at the command line, you can do a full disk verify and repair by restarting your mac into single user mode. You achieve this by holding down the “apple” and “s” keys right after the startup chime. Once you see some scrolling white text, wait until everything has stopped moving. Type: fsck -f (and then press the “Enter”). Make sure to remember the space in between (!). This takes about five minutes, but will repair everything that it sees wrong. Remember this command if ever your computer won’t mount the hard drive, as it has saved me on numerous occasions.
5. Set up a backup system! I suppose that this goes for all computers, but this is a vital step. Regardless of brand, all computers will have their bad days, which usually occur at the exact moment that you need your files. Apple has already included a great backup utility, Time Machine, which is free, and it’s included with the operating system. If you do not have leopard, but are setting up this system late, apple has another great utility called “Backup.” You can download this off of the Apple website. It isn’t as intuitive as Time Machine, but it gets the job done.

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