5 things to do to keep your Mac happy in 2009
Once you buy a Mac, whether it is a MacBook, iMac, or Mac Pro, you want to keep it running well for as long as you have it. Macs are pretty self-sufficient machines. They aren’t prone to viruses and other mishaps like PCs are, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to be prepared. Here are a few simple, free ways to keep your Mac running well all year long:
1) Install ClamXAV
ClamXAV is a free anti virus software that is easy to install and does a great job defending your Mac. It is much better than the pay-to-play Norton System Works, and your Mac will like it much better. Why should Mac users have anti virus programs on their machine when Macs run so virus-free? Two reasons: PC users that send you email could be sending you a virus with them, which you can then inadvertently forward to other PC users on your list while you remain unaffected. Also, as Mac get more popular, more virus can and will be written for them – that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
2) Get a copy of Onyx
Onyx is another free utility for the Mac. This one cleans up your hard drive for you, checks your permissions, deletes your cache and other maintenance tasks you may not think of doing on a regular basis. I find it enough to run Onyx once a month or so, but some run it weekly to keep their Macs performing at top speed and reliability.
3) Don’t forget about Verify and Repair
Your Mac comes equipped with an often overlooked and underutilized program called disk utility, which can do a variety of cool things. One of these is the Verify and Repair feature. Onyx does a limited version of this, but you should also run the Disk Utility version once in a while as well. It takes care of problems that may occur deep within the system. Often, if your machine is experiencing lag or you are getting a lot of the dreaded spinning pizza wheel of doom, a simple Verify and Repair will do the trick. I also do this every time I install new software, just in case.
4) Run Monolingual
This one you usually only have to do one time. Monolingual is an awesome program that will delete all language files you aren’t using. Since the Mac comes equipped with every known language, it seems, and some less known (like Farsi), there is a pretty excellent chance you won’t ever need them all. Clearing all but the languages you known or are learning will save you over a GB of space, often more. It only takes a few minutes, too.
5) Schedule time for deleting sprees
Everyone already knows to back up their stuff every day, week or month. But did you know deleting could be just as important? Your Mac has Time Machine already for your backups, but deleting you will have to do yourself. There is a program called Hazel that you can set to auto delete and auto file your files, but I didn’t like the interface. I just schedule an evening of movies or DVR watching, pop some popcorn and drag the laptop to the recliner and spend a couple of hours leisurely deleting all those documents, music files, movies and other things I don’t use or that were only half completed. It’s quite satisfying to watch the space on my hard drive get reclaimed.
If you work these tasks into your routine, your Mac will run faster, with less lag, less crashing and more free space for you to play with. This will make your 2009 much better for computer use. Who can argue with that?
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December 31st, 2008
Farsi is also known as Persian, spoken by 65 million people (which is 5 million more people than live in France). Odd that you might consider French a “known” language and “Farsi” not…
January 1st, 2009
It might be advisable to run ClamXAV and iAntiVirus (http://www.iantivirus.com/), since both of them are free and do not seem to conflict while operating concurrently on a Mac OSX operating system. What one program doesn’t catch the other could have listed in its antivirus database.
January 5th, 2009
oi simon calm down you little bitch