Folders in Finder not showing This may be a total noob question, but this is my first apple product, please bear with me. 
I'm not seeing certain folders, like "movies", "music", and "pictures" in finder. 
Is there a way to activate these folders?

I'm running osx mavericks on a late 2013 mbp.
Pull down the Finder menu and select Preferences...



In the Preferences dialog, along the top row, click on the Sidebar tab.
Check the boxes next to the items you want to see in the sidebar of every Finder window.



Close the Finder Preferences window and you are good to go.