SD card advice (waiting for my Pi)

[CaptainBassline]

Greetings, board.

So I'm waiting for my Pi (which should be with me within days) and I'm preparing everything I have ready for its grand arrival......so I have a couple of questions queries and concerns that I'm hoping you guys might be able to advise me on!

I've flashed an 8GB SD card with the latest image of Wheezy through Ubuntu & DD, but I wish to check that the SD card has been properly prepared, and make any changes I might need to the config file ahead of time.

The trouble is that the flashed card now does not show up in my browser? When I run 'sudo fdisk -l' it shows that the card is there, but that is pretty much the extent of it. Gparted also implies that it doesn't recognise the formatting of the card.

Have I done something wrong in flashing?

Ideally I'd like to be able to access the card outside of the Pi as I would be keen to do much of my work away from the board from the outset....

Thanks