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Home pages, laptop lids and Windows Media

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Change your Safari Home Page in Safari Preferences.

Closing your laptop lid puts it in Sleep mode with no side effects.

Download Flip4Mac plug-in to view Windows Media content in your browsers.

Force Quitting, Removing USB devices, iChat.

“Programs” File, Download Clutter, and Slow Macs

Setting a Home Page in Safari, Closing the Lid on Your Laptop, and Viewing Windows Media Files on the Web.

By: Chris Kerins
Published: Monday, June 4, 2007
Categories: My First Mac Q&A

Welcome to My First Mac's Q&A column. It is said that Macs are easier to use, but they are still complex in their own right. Here are a few questions we have received lately from readers like you. Sometimes we reformat the questions for clarity and presentation.

This week we have questions about setting a home page in Safari, Closing the lid on your laptop, and viewing Windows Media files on the web.

		I can't stand the Apple page that Safari opens to. How do I change the page that comes up when I open a new window?

		Apple pre-loads Safari to use their promotional page as your home page. It's easy to change in Safari by going to the Safari menu > Preferences > General. In the middle there you'll see "New windows open with:" You can keep it on Home page and change the address to anything you like. It's often easiest to find the page you want before opening the Preferences, then clicking the Set to Current Page button. If you don't want to wait for a page to load, change open with Home Page to Empty Page.

		What is the default setting for when you close the screen on a Mac laptop? is there EVER anything you need to do to bring your work back up or for it to return from sleep mode?

		Closing the lid puts your laptop into Sleep mode. Sleep mode will pause your music or video, turn the screen off, and spin down your hard drive. I don't recommend doing it while the computer is processing something, like sending an email or copying a file. But otherwise, you should be fine. All you need to do to wake it back up is open the lid. Everything should be just as you left it except you will need to restart any music or video again with the play button. On the odd chance opening the lid doesn't wake it, just hit a key on the keyboard. If it still doesn't wake, the battery is low and the power cord should be plugged in to use you Mac right away.

		As soon as I got my Mac on the internet, I went to CNN.com but couldn't view their videos. Do I need Windows Media Player or what?

		Microsoft stopped updating Windows Media Player plug-ins for Mac a while ago. They are supporting another company, Flip4Mac, that makes Windows Media Components for QuickTime. You can download it for free here. After you install it, you should be able to view Windows Media content on the web without a problem.

You can send in your questions via the Contact page or email us at editor[AT]myfirstmac[DOT]com. Because of the volume of email we receive, we can't reply to each and every question personally. We read each question that comes in and reply to the ones that fit the scope of this column. We also save some questions for future columns.

If you need your specific question answered right away, try asking it in the Comments section of a related article.


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Your Comments:

I know this article is old but...

I normally close the lid on my macbook any time I'm not using it. Is it bad for it at all to keep in this sleep mode all the time when not using it, or should I turn it off at times, like at night or when I leave the house without it (which is what I do right now)?

Morgan Clark
10/09/2007 at 12:42 AM

Morgan,

You can have it sleep while plugged in for weeks. I wouldn't leave it unplugged in for more than several days. Basically, a sleeping laptop will still draw just a little power, but eventually, it will run all the way out over time. But I think that time is in days, not hours.

Chris K
10/09/2007 at 10:11 AM

Ok, thanks. I knew that it drew a little power while sleeping, but I was wondering if it did any internal damage to have it on that long. But I guess not. Thanks again.

Morgan Clark
10/10/2007 at 01:36 AM

Mac are hard to use but Vista are worse. I still remember the first day Windows released Vista, it couldn't operate Google.com properly. Oh God!

Best Laptopz Dude
02/07/2008 at 10:32 AM

Thanks for the suggestion.