These are my "small dogs" that came with computer purchases from Small Dog Electronics, located in Vermont. If you are a Mac user, you should sign up for their newsletter. It's full of useful information on new Apple products and often they offer advice on how to troubleshoot problems you might encounter – although I admit that Mac users are a proud bunch and don't often admit to having problems.
The most recent newsletter came just in time. My home Mac had started slowing down to a snail's pace. I followed several of the suggestions and sure enough, things started to speed up. Below are the first 5 suggestions.
10 Tips for Dealing with Unexpected Computer Slowdowns
1. Any Mac will slow down when its hard drive is almost full, regardless of processor speed. Simply moving some of your data (especially media files like movies, video podcasts, etc) to an external drive can greatly improve a Mac’s responsiveness.
Read how to reclaim hard drive space in an old Kibbles article by clicking here.
2. Clear your Mac’s desktop. The OS has to draw each of those icons as separate windows, so when you have dozens of files littered on the desktop the system is taxed. Clearing the Macs desktop is proven to improve system performance.
3. Make sure your computer is up to date with all the latest software and firmware updates from Apple. This can go a long way to improving system performance. To check this, click the Apple in the top left corner of the screen and select “Software Update…”
4. Simply running a free maintenance program can often help bring a sluggish and flakey machine back to speed. These programs force the Mac’s regular Unix maintenance scripts; normally these run daily, weekly, and monthly early in the morning. Click here for further reading on this.
I use a program called Onyx to run these scripts. You can get it for Tiger (10.4) and Leopard (10.5). It’s effective and easy to use. It starts by checking the S.M.A.R.T. status of your hard drive, so you can determine if the drive is failing. This step takes several minutes. After that Onyx can flush system cache, etc.
One catch about Onyx is that it has several options that most people shouldn’t use, such as the option for erasing bookmarks and internet browsing history. I do like and recommend Onyx, though—get it for free from the developer Click here for further reading on this. You can also download Onyx directly from Apple’s site by clicking here.
You can also download a simpler program called MacJanitor that will only run the maintenance scripts by clicking here. When a tech diagnoses your Mac, he or she runs a battery of programs that are similar to Onyx. This takes several hours. However, Onyx does a great job for occasional repairs and maintenance.
5. Check the health of your hard drive. I depend on Onyx to verify the S.M.A.R.T. status of my Mac’s hard drive. Immediately back up your computer if you think there’s a real issue with the drive. Then consider using a dedicated drive diagnostic/repair tool such as Disk Warrior. If the drive is having issues and you’re going to replace it, consider using a 7200RPM model. A faster hard drive will result in a (slightly) faster Mac.
So everyone, Happy Inauguration Day, I'm about to tune into the broadcast so I can join in the festivities on this historic day, even though I will be working at the same time!
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