Mac Maintenance

[greg mgm]

A couple months ago I bought my first Mac.

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MB950LL/A?mco=MTM3NDc2NDc

It works great, but have a question about maintenance. On my PC's I defrag fairly often and do cleanups with http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
I also used a couple virus/ spyware programs for obvious reasons. Is using one on a Mac overkill? What regular maintenance should I do with my Mac?

 

[JayGannon]

I've been working professionally with Macs for about 10 years, I wipe and reinstall maybe every year or two, nothing beyond that and no major problems.

 

[huntoon]

macs

I have been using without fail and usually without turning off my dual G5 mac for about 4 years. I don't have virus protection software.

the only maintenance I ever do is organize the folders and file system and update when it tells me to.

btw, little known fact is that files per folder will bog you down.

 

[goodtimes]

A couple months ago I bought my first Mac.

I did that too.

My wallet has about recovered, but I'm still missing some software that I'm trying to avoid buying (CS.x, something to talk with the 276c, ...).

Other than needing to buy new software, do you regret going to the dark side?

 

[greg mgm]

Thanks guys for the replies. It sounds like I have little to worry about...which is a good thing.

I did that too.

My wallet has about recovered, but I'm still missing some software that I'm trying to avoid buying (CS.x, something to talk with the 276c, ...).

Other than needing to buy new software, do you regret going to the dark side?

I haven't had to buy software yet since I mostly use the Mac for the internet. Luckily my older Canon printer works fine with the new Mac. BTW, no regrets at all. I had a bunch of problems with one of my old PC's...and I decided to see what the deal is with Apple. I now have a pc and a mac on my desk side by side but use them for different purposes. I can't say one is better than the other but in time the mac should be more reliable.

 

[Pest]

I have 2 macs: a PowerBook G4 laptop, about 5 years old, never performed any "maintenance", no antivirus, no nothing, still works just as good as day 1... and a Intel core 2 duo iMac, about 3 years old, again, no maintenance, no antivirus, no nothing, still works great.

You really have nothing to worry about, additional "cleaner" programs are just clutter on macs.

 

[grahamfitter]

If its an iMac, consider periodically spraying compressed air into the vents at the top. This prevents dust from accumulating which can cause overheating. This isn't academic: the HDD on my iMac fried and when the Apple store opened it up they found the whole thing was full of dust and the cooing fan for the disk was clogged up.

Maintaining a backup is the most important thing you can do!

Other than that if you wipe the screen and mop tea stains and biscuit crumbs off the keyboard every once in a while you're probably going beyond the call of duty.

Cheers,
Graham

 

[PAToyota]

MainMenu will give you easy access to everything you need.

The main thing is that being Unix, there are three cron tasks that would run automatically if you leave the computer on and logged in all the time - daily, weekly, and monthly. If you shut the machine off at night these don't run. Basically, they are housekeeping tasks. Also gives you easy access to clearing out caches, logs, and force emptying the trash (if something gets stuck in there).

All of these things can be done manually, but MainMenu is very nice for easy access.

I wholeheartedly agree with the advice to do regular backups on any computer!

 

[Honu]

MACARONI is not a bad utility to have cleans up some of the *nix based stuff that OS X works on
not needed ? but I still like it ?

when a major OS X upgrade comes out I do a fresh install

their is a program called ApZapper or something ? that works to help remove some of the stuff left behind on a mac ? but its not like a PC and DLL or registry issues so even if the stuff sits their its doing nothing

I also keep my startup stuff to a minimum pretty easy to google info on that to get ideas of what is going on and running when your mac starts up ?
I dont need things like the itunes being ready etc..


congrats on the new toy

 

[dustboy]

Your new Mac came with Time Machine, which is the simplest and most convenient backup utility ever. Set it up with an external USB Hard disk and you'll never know it's there until you need it. After our laptops got stolen, we ran the restore feature on our new lappys and they worked exactly like the old ones (only way faster!).

I've been using Macs for 25 years, never had a virus <knocking on wood>. The older systems you used to have to do some periodic maintenance, but now that's mostly built into the system updates.

 

[haven]

I have an Intel iMac that's a couple of generations old. I have had no issues with the software. I wiped the disk and reloaded the OS when I upgraded to Snow Leopard last year. Otherwise, no maintenance other than regular backups of my data.

This is not true of the Windows PCs I own. These are constantly scanned and cleaned of virus/spyware/malware. If I don't reload Windows every 6 months, performance suffers. I have not used Windows 7 long enough to know if it's much of an improvement.

The iMac hardware has been another story. This particular vintage of iMac has problems with the power supply. I have replaced two so far, once under warranty at no charge, and one recently out of warranty for beaucoup dollars. Apple hardware is not cheap to repair.

Even with this repair history, I purchased a new iMac this year. I did pay for an extension to the one year warranty!

My PC hardware generally has been reliable. I had to replace a system board in a Dell machine once, and a RAM module went bad in an HP laptop. These were inexpensive fixes compared to the Apple-branded power supply.

Overall, the Macs at my house are less trouble than the PCs.

 

[DiploStrat]

All Mac, all the Time

Been a Mac user since 1985. I no longer have many utilities, but recommend the following:

-- Disk Warrior: Generally agreed to be the best disk repair utility around. Use once every year or two, whether I need it or not. Used it to save part of a MacBook that had been dropped.

-- AppZapper: Mac applications are generally deleted simply by dragging to the trash, but they do leave a bit of detritus in the form of preference and cache files. AppZapper cleans this up automagically. (N.B. Many complex applications come with their own uninstallers.)

-- iDefrag: This is a nice, safe utility if, and only if, you meet one of these two conditions: really big photo, video, audio file collections. Other than that, don’t worry about it, OSX will keep your disk nicely organized. (Ironically, you can use the demo version of iDefrag to prove to yourself just how clean your disk is.)

Keep your system drive no more than say, 75% full, and you will probably never see any slow downs, etc.
With disk prices as low as they are, every Mac owner should have two backup hard drives:

-- One, equal to or, ideally, twice as large as all of your primary computer’s disks combined – Use for Time Machine. Time Machine is so brainlessly easy, shame on you if you lose data on a Mac.

-- One, equal in size to your system disk – use as a clone. (I use SuperDuper!) My system disk is cloned every morning at 0300, automatically.

As always with this kind of advice: YMMV, No responsibility for errors or omissions, etc.

Enjoy!

 

[huntoon]

Mac is the Toyota of computers.

 

[TJDIV]

Question:

My macbook pro is going on 3 years and the battery seems that it could use replacement. Runs hotter than it ever has, I've considered a cooling pad actually.

Any thoughts on just replacing the battery?

TIA-

 

[haven]

The MacBook Pro can get uncomfortably hot. You might consider running a program like Temperature Monitor to check the temp, then look online for reports from other MacBook Pro users to see if your temps are unusually high

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/review/temperature_monitor_4.6_gives_warm_fuzzies/

Have you noticed that the battery life is not as long as it used to be? That's the easiest way to tell if the battery is headed for the last roundup.