Calling the Mac experts

[Lemur]

Is there are any way to speed up the rate at which characters are deleted when holding down backspace?

System Preferences→Keyboard & Mouse→Key Repeat Rate

Resuming my planned post contents, is there a way to get safari to fill the whole screen? I can't get it to fill more than 1/3 of it no matter what I do.

That's very strange. The bottom right of the window should have an indented triangle which allows you to drag the window size.

I lost 30% of my battery charge in half an hour! Is that right? I'm wary because of it being a refurb, want to be sure everything is correct.

Remember that's just what the OS is reporting, your actual charge may be different. That said, it sounds kinda off. You should be able to work off a plug for at least three hours.

What is 'spaces'?

Seems like it's some sort of virtual window function. Never used it myself.

Likewise for 'preview', except it opens up what appears to be a limited and mostly useless PDF manual for the OS.

Preview is a built-in PDF/JPEG/.doc/.rtf/PNG viewer. It's convenient enough, but I install Adobe Viewer anyway.