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Apr

29

For Mac Users: Frugal Tips to Extend Your Computer’s Life

Patrick at Cash Money Life wrote an incredibly detailed post for Windows-users about how to extend the lives of their computers. I bow down to Patrick for all of his awesomeness, and for having written that amazing post!

But what about Mac users? He and I discussed it and he’s encouraged me to go ahead and write this response post for those of his and my readers that are Apple computer users instead. If you’re not interested in this post, please bother to visit the end where I wax nostalgic on all my old Macs
I’ve been moonlighting in IT, networking, and system administration since I was 15 and have come to learn a fair amount about maintaining computers in the last few years. I’ve always been - and will always BE - an avid Mac user. (How many Mac users aren’t avid ones?).

To be honest, I actually run duel machines on my MacBook Pro - so I’m running Mac OSX and Windows 98 on my laptop at the same time, but that’s solely because I wanted to run QuickBooks Premier for my businesses (QB Pro [only QB version made for Mac] doesn’t let you track inventory or make customer sub-customers, so I run Premier, which is made only for Windows).

Nonetheless, this article will show you how to keep your Mac (alone) running smoothly and efficiently - and extend its life. My iBook lasted me 5 years and is still in great working order today in its 7th year (I sold it to a friend and upgraded to a MacBook Pro in 2006 because I am a snob ).

This article will follow the same format as Patrick’s to keep things consistent.

WARNING: This post is for those Mac users running Mac OSX at 10.4 or higher (Tiger). Tiger changed how the Mac handles everything, and previous versions won’t be compatible with the advice given below.

Scan your Computer for Viruses, Spyware, and Other Malware?

You don’t have to worry about this. Your Mac automatically checks your downloads for malicious software and content that could harm your system or collect information from your computer. Tiger includes download validation to inform you if potentially-unsafe content is being handled. When Safari, iChat, or Mail is about to handle something that it does not consider “safe,” it will display a warning and ask you to approve the download or access to your computer.

Because Apple is so awesome, there’s no need to worry. If you’re absolutely paranoid, however, you can always download ClamXav and periodically scan your Mac for viruses anyway

Move All Unnecessary Files to an External Hard Drive, CD, or DVD

The less stuff you have on your computer, the more brain-space it has to “think.” People generally think of RAM when trying to boost their computer’s performance, but that’s not the only factor. The more wiggle room you give your computer in its general memory, the better it’ll run. If you have WAY to much digital info on your computer, go through it slowly. Take a whole week of nights for the transfer and devote each evening to a different section of your computer.

When I finally transfered most of my digital stuff to an external hard drive, I deleted about half of it (intentionally) in the process. It’s good to get it all off of your computer, and then get the junk off of the storage drive, too.

If you can’t buy an external hard drive, try using a flash USB stick (you can get one with about 4GB pretty inexpensively on eBay), or just use up a lot of CDs or DVDs for your storage. I will always recommend against the CD/DVD option, though, because they are so easily damaged. Go for a remote hard drive if you can. If you have an Airport Extreme, you can even route the external HD wirelessly!

Remove Unused Applications

Just as with taking files off of your computer and storing them somewhere else, it’s a really good idea to get the unused applications off of your computer. I purge my applications about once a quarter - I’m always downloading ones I don’t use! But that’s because I’m obsessed with technology and freeware.

How to remove unused applications:

Open up your applications folder (Finder > Applications).
Drag the application to the trash.

For professional applications such as Microsoft Office or Adobe CS, go into that program’s file in the Applications folder and find the “remove” or “uninstall” button. (But why would you ever want to get rid of CS?!)

Deactivate Auto-Start “Login” Applications

Apple computers, by default, have very few programs that automatically start on login/startup - but you may have intentionally or accidentally added applications to your startup preferences that you don’t want to have on all the time - or starting whenever your computer starts.

I personally elect to have a lot of little applications start up intentionally when I turn on my computer, but it does eat up a lot of RAM and my computer takes about twice as long to start up as it would otherwise.

If you want your computer to start faster and be less bogged-down with start-up apps, you need to deactivate them.

How to deactivate autostart programs:

Click on System Preferences (if you don’t know where this is, click Command+Space to activate Spotlight, then type “system” and click on System Preferences)
Click on Accounts (bottom-left)
Click the tab called Login Items
Select the Application you want to remove and click the “-” button.

Quit Programs You Aren’t Using

Again, I personally run against the advice here because I always have 10 to 20 applications open at any given time. But given that I’m a web developer and graphic designer and usually doing a few projects at a time, there are just a lot of things to have running at once! Plus I have many tiny apps running always which make my life a MILLION times easier, such as Quicksilver, Google Notifier, Spirited Away, MenuCalendarClock, Calq, Caffeine, Alarm Clock 2 and WeatherBug Lite.

THAT BEING SAID, if you find your computer running slowly, you may want to close some applications. There are a few ways to close applications on your Mac - the easiest of which is to right-click on the icon in the dock and select “Quit.”

Can’t right-click? Oh, but you can!

If you don’t have a mouse with a second button, hold down “ctrl” while you click and the menu will appear.
If you have a trackpad (on a laptop), you can also two-finger click* by placing two fingers on the trackpad and clicking - the menu will appear.

* You have to enable this in System Preferences. Go to System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Trackpad tab > check the checkbox next to the line, “Place two fingers on trackpad….”

Clean Up Disk Space

If your computer is running really slowly, click on your main Hard Drive (on the desktop, usually called Macintosh HD) and click command+I for Info. The available disc space will be calculated for you. You can also do this to see the amount of space anything on your computer is using (e.g. click on the Pictures folder and click command+I and you’ll see how much memory your photos are eating up.)

If you need to find more space, even after moving most of your info to a remote HD, you can follow this extensive tutorial here.

Check Your Hard Drive for Errors

Your Mac does this automatically when you restart. There are manual ways to do this, but unless you’re comfortable using the Terminal, it’s best to leave it alone.

Defrag Your Hard Drive

Your Mac does this automatically when you restart.

Install Additional RAM (Memory)

Of all the things I advocate spending money on, RAM is at the top of the list. I bought a MacBook Pro when they were brand new and only came with 512MB of RAM, which is really laughable, but I didn’t have the money for more RAM at the time.

Two years later I was trying to run Windows dually as a virtual machine, while accessing Firefox (multiple tabs, of course) and Photoshop and Illustrator on the Mac and my computer was taking 5 minutes to do everything. So I broke down and bought some RAM - 2GB to be exact. The Apple guys were astonished that I had survived as long as I had with only 512MB of RAM, doing what I was doing. Validation! How nice. I mean, they were actually perplexed (apparently they didn’t remember that the first MacBook Pros came out with only 512 MB - they kept insisting that I had 1GB until I proved them otherwise).

RAM determines how fast your computer can process information, and how much it can do at once. The more available RAM, the more space your computer has to “think” about what it’s doing. The more applications you have open at a time, the more RAM you’ll need to keep running smoothly. Your RAM remembers all the stuff you’ve been doing in all the programs you have open before you save - so you’re not losing info all the time.

If you find applications shutting down randomly, or have a ton of lag time when you switch applications (or if you regularly have meetings with the beachball of death), it’s time to get more RAM.

To find out how much RAM you will need, click on the Apple icon in the upper-left-hand corner of your screen and select About This Mac. The number after the label “Memory” is your RAM amount.

To get more RAM installed, it’s best to have it done at the Apple store, unless you really know your way around a computer and feel comfortable opening up your computer. Prices vary - at the Apple store, 2GB of RAM plus installation (a half-hour) costs about $330.

These Tips Will Improve Your Mac’s Performance

Going by the processes I’ve given here (and variations thereof, over the years), I’ve extended the life of ALL of my Macs. But that should be expected, no? Macs are inherently awesome.

Since I really have no final thoughts, and because Macs are so user-friendly and easy to understand, here’s my Mac history for your entertainment:

Our Apple SE30 lasted from 1987 until 2002 when my mom threw it away while I was on vacation. I hated her forever - it still ran perfectly 15 years into its life.
My Apple IIe lasted from 1980 until 2002 when my mom threw it away while I was on vacation. I’m still not over it, MOM! That computer was SO FUN OMG ZORK!! It lasted 22 years without major problems (no, I was not alive when it was made - I bought it in 1999 for $20).
Our iMac was bought in 1998 and I desperately maintained it while it served a family of three teenagers and a computer-wary mother. I learned most of my networking during those years, while yelling at my sisters to stop downloading everything in sight because it was always messing up our router. That computer is still alive and well and running great at a friend’s house today, 10 years later.
My iBook was bought by my ex in 2000 and I used it from 2003 to 2005, when I bought it from him. After a new battery, HD, RAM, memory, and a full system re-install, it’s running good as new. I sold it to my other friend in 2006, where it’s running awesomely 8 years later.
My current MacBook Pro was purchased in 2006 and will probably last me until 2010 when I get the new-computer itch again and decide to upgrade - only I will probably not sell this computer and keep it as a secondary one instead.

Do you see a theme? Macs last forever and are basically wonderful all around.
In summary: I <3 Mac.

Questions? Comment here and I’ll get right on it

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Comments

11 Responses to “For Mac Users: Frugal Tips to Extend Your Computer’s Life”

Patrick on April 29th, 2008 7:26 pm

Macs are awesome, and I think I might just get one next time around. Great article!
Emily on April 29th, 2008 9:23 pm

Love my Macbook Pro. Thanks for the tips; I am not nearly as tech savvy as you are. I will pass this link out for sure.
AJ on April 30th, 2008 4:13 am

Awesome post.
irene on April 30th, 2008 6:37 am

$330 for a RAM upgrade? You paid too much! Installing RAM in a Mac laptop is laughably easy. I paid maybe $80 last year for two 1-GB mac sticks off Newegg.com. Installing is as easy as flipping it off, popping the battery out, and following the instructions printed on the casing! You do need a really tiny screwdriver to remove the panel that holds in the RAM, but they pop out easily from there, and the new ones just snap in. Way easier than changing RAM in a desktop PC!
Mydailydollars on April 30th, 2008 7:09 am

Thanks Shanti! I read Patrick’s post and thought, shucks, what about us Apple folks. I’ll try these tips out today. My iBook is only a year and a half old, and I’d like it to last a long time!
Danielle on April 30th, 2008 9:19 am

Awesome post! Now I can tell all my friends (PC users) “See? I CAN right click!”
Aaron Stroud on May 6th, 2008 5:21 pm

Have any of you seen the new Times rss reader (OS X 10.5 Leopard required)? It’s absolutely beautiful. Times takes rss feeds and works them into a newspaper layout that makes browsing fun.

The program is new and apparently buggy and resource intensive, but it’s running fine on my alum iMac.
shanti on May 6th, 2008 5:46 pm

I haven’t… cool!

I am in love with google reader, no matter how ugly. The keyboard shortcuts are all memorized already and I LOVE it. I also really like that it integrated with gmail and with all of my contacts… for me it’s an indispensable tool But I want to check this other one out…
Aaron Stroud on May 6th, 2008 5:58 pm

Ahhh, but you live in a concrete jungle where highspeed bandwidth grows on trees! DSL only arrived in my neighborhood a few months before we finished our house and we live several miles beyond the end of the cable run.

We’ve had the dsl go down too many times for me to trust my subscription-addiction to a web service. Plus, I segregate my feeds depending how closely I follow the blog or website. At the moment, I’m using three separate rss readers whose interfaces surprisingly match my reading/scanning/interest levels for the feeds…
James Raider on July 26th, 2008 11:11 am

Shanti,

Great post. Well written and clear.

…. would all technical support be so well presented. Perhaps ADOBE has a job for you. They really need help with their documentation. Great software, but come on, couldn’t they write instructions that make sense?
Thanks.
shanti on July 27th, 2008 5:46 pm

Thanks, James!