the location of my .profile file?

You need to create your own .profile in your home folder. There is a system wide profile - /etc/profile. Look at man bash for an explaination under INVOCATION.

You can't find it with the Finder's Find or Spotlight because it's a hidden file. That's what the period in front of its name does. Open the Terminal app, type this in, and you'll see the default file:

cat /Users/<username>/.profile

As stated, don't remove it. You can add anything you want to it. Here's mine, for example (I've added items to the PATH and MANPATH):

##
# DELUXE-USR-LOCAL-BIN-INSERT
# (do not remove this comment)
##
echo $PATH | grep -q -s "/usr/local/bin"
if [ $? -eq 1 ] ; then
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin:/Developer/Tools
export PATH
fi
export MANPATH="/usr/share/man:/usr/local/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man"

G4 450 MP Gigabit Mac OS X (10.4.6)

baltwo

He may not have a .profile, since it isn't there by default. I certainly don't have one, but I do have a .bash_profile, so even if I did have a .profile it wouldn't be read.

Well, IIRC, there was one on my installation.