Processes in Activity Monitor

[eyebeaz]

I was looking at the processes in my Activity Monitor, and there seem to be several that are unecessary (such as iTunes Helper). Furthermore there are some that I don't know much about such as aped, ATTServer, mdimport, Microsoft AU Daemon, and pbs. Does anyone know what these are, if they are important, and how I can prevent a process from starting automatically, cause some of them take up valuable memory. Any help/advice is appreciated! Thanks.

[robbieduncan]

The iTunes Helper is used to launch iTunes when you attach an iPod. It may have other uses too.

aped: not sure, I think it's part of Application Enhancer?
ATTServer: I think this has something to do with the type/fonts system. Might be a typo: ATSServer server fonts to user applications
mdimport: This is part of Spotlight. It is what keeps the index up to date
MS AU Daemon: Part of Office Autoupdate. Not really required, but without it you'll not get notifications to update office
pbs: Pasteboard server. Without this you cannot copy and paste.