Mactenance

DigiGal

Hey guys
New Mac user.Have some really important design software and college stuff on my new MAC (Snow Leopard) I seem to have very bad luck with electronic in general.
Has anyone got any essential maintenance tips apart from the obv...Don't drop it etc...
I couldn't afford Apple Care but will get it asao.
Thanks a mill
I also have an Ipod and a midi Keyboard I use with the mac, just incase that is relevant and use Adobe Photoshop and some otehr design systems, whatever the college requires.
Thanks

Sad Professor

The main thing I'd recommend is to always have a backup. The machine itself is replaceable, your data isn't.

In terms of system maintenance, there isn't much necessary. But you should repair disk permissions and verify the disk every now and then. Be conscious of what 3rd party software you install as it tends to be the cause of most people's problems. No need for antivirus, etc.

Is it a Macbook?

nialler

Sadprof is right in a way.

Generally I run repair permissions at least once a month and definitely after any software installs/update, you can use disk utility (found in the utilities folder) or download onyx (google it) they should have a snow leopard version available, that'll automate for you.

Your mac also runs some cron scripts at night, these are pretty essential for keeping your mac healthy, onyx will also do these for you.

With regard to using photoshop, photoshop generally requires are large amount of scratch disk space (if your image is 1gb your scratch disk will require around 3gb depending on layers that you're using) so keep your HD clean enough, ensure there's around 20gb free at any time.

Antivirus although not a major problem with Mac, it's starting to happen, I ran ClamXav (machine running a bit funny at the moment) and it found around 90 trojans and viruses in my email so they're coming in but would generally only affect PC/Windoze operating systems.

Now backup is the most important thing you could ever do to ensure the integrity of your data, applecare is important when you have a laptop, but a good sized external HD is probably the most important purchase you can get, 1tb (terabyte) drives are going for around €70 at the moment, time machine in os x will simplify the backup for you and automate the whole lot and in the event of a disaster you can always boot from the supplied os x DVD and recover to the last moment of backup from your time machine (although this process is horrendously slow).

Remember this:

Hold down apple-s on startup, when white type on black screen stops scrolling type:

/sbin/fsck -f

This little unix command checks the integrity of your disk and repairs if necessary.

Nialler

DigiGal

Sad Professor wrote: »

The main thing I'd recommend is to always have a backup. The machine itself is replaceable, your data isn't.

In terms of system maintenance, there isn't much necessary. But you should repair disk permissions and verify the disk every now and then. Be conscious of what 3rd party software you install as it tends to be the cause of most people's problems. No need for antivirus, etc.

Is it a Macbook?

It is indeed a Macbook

DigiGal

nialler wrote: »

Sadprof is right in a way.

Generally I run repair permissions at least once a month and definitely after any software installs/update, you can use disk utility (found in the utilities folder) or download onyx (google it) they should have a snow leopard version available, that'll automate for you.

Your mac also runs some cron scripts at night, these are pretty essential for keeping your mac healthy, onyx will also do these for you.

With regard to using photoshop, photoshop generally requires are large amount of scratch disk space (if your image is 1gb your scratch disk will require around 3gb depending on layers that you're using) so keep your HD clean enough, ensure there's around 20gb free at any time.

Antivirus although not a major problem with Mac, it's starting to happen, I ran ClamXav (machine running a bit funny at the moment) and it found around 90 trojans and viruses in my email so they're coming in but would generally only affect PC/Windoze operating systems.

Now backup is the most important thing you could ever do to ensure the integrity of your data, applecare is important when you have a laptop, but a good sized external HD is probably the most important purchase you can get, 1tb (terabyte) drives are going for around €70 at the moment, time machine in os x will simplify the backup for you and automate the whole lot and in the event of a disaster you can always boot from the supplied os x DVD and recover to the last moment of backup from your time machine (although this process is horrendously slow).

Remember this:

Hold down apple-s on startup, when white type on black screen stops scrolling type:

/sbin/fsck -f

This little unix command checks the integrity of your disk and repairs if necessary.

Nialler

I definitely think an external HD is worth investing in...any reccomendations

Cabaal

DigiGal wrote: »

I definitely think an external HD is worth investing in...any reccomendations

Can't go wrong at this price and I have about 7 WD's drives with no issues with any since I got my first WD in 1998
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=420463

nialler

Can't go wrong for that price.