Datasheet

 Don’t unplug your Mac when it’s turned on. Very bad things can

happen, such as having your operating system break. See the preceding

section, where I discuss shutting down your system properly.

 Don’t use your Mac when lightning is near. Here’s a simple life equa-

tion for you: Mac + lightning = dead Mac. ’Nuff said. Oh, and don’t place

much faith in inexpensive surge protectors. A good jolt of lightning will

fry the surge protector right along with your computer — as well as pos-

sibly frying your modem, printer, and anything else plugged into it. Some

surge protectors can withstand most lightning strikes, but these war-

riors aren’t the cheapies that you buy at your local computer emporium.

Unplugging your Mac from the wall during electrical storms is safer and

less expensive. (Don’t forget to unplug your external modem, network

hubs, printers, and other hardware that plugs into the wall, as well —

lightning can fry them, too.)

 Don’t jostle, bump, shake, kick, throw, dribble, or punt your Mac,

especially while it’s running. Your Mac contains a hard drive that spins

at 4,200 revolutions per minute (rpm) or more. A jolt to a hard drive

while it’s reading or writing a file can cause the head to crash into the

disk, which can render many or all files on it unrecoverable. Ouch!

 Don’t forget to back up your data! If the stuff on your hard drive means

anything to you, you must back it up. Not maybe. You must. Even if your

most important file is your last saved game of Call of Duty 2, you still

need to realize how important it is to back up your files. Fortunately,

Mac OS X Leopard offers, for the very first time, an awesome backup

utility called Time Machine. So I beg you: Please read Chapter 17 now

and find out how to back up before something horrible happens to your

valuable data!

I strongly recommend that you read Chapter 17 sooner rather than

later — preferably before you do any significant work on your Mac. Dr.

Macintosh says, “There are only two kinds of Mac users: those who have

never lost data and those who will.” Which kind do you want to be?

 Don’t kiss your monitor while wearing stuff on your lips. For obvious

reasons! Use a soft cloth and/or OmniCleanz display cleaning solution

(I love the stuff, made by RadTech; www.radtech.us) to clean your

display.

Point-and-click boot camp

Are you new to the Mac? Just figuring out how to move the mouse around?

Now is a good time to go over some fundamental stuff that you need to know

for just about everything you’ll be doing on the Mac. Spend a few minutes

Chapter 1: Mac OS X Leopard 101 (Prerequisites: None)

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