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Good Mac habits - things I have always wanted to know but have been afraid to ask:

Ok -- a safety question. (And we should publish this thread for Apple newbies.) :)

Is there any danger in the batteries?

The reason I ask is that during cleaning of my laptop, I turned it over and the battery is BULGING!!! It's kind of huge -- I had to press down on it a lot in order to make it pop into the slot. I looked it up, and I know several people have reported the same problem, (and :apple: has not always been very responsive.) Anyone know if there is a chance of... I don't know, these things catching fire or something? Or leaking toxic stuff?

My laptop is pretty old -- first generation. Apple care expired last april or so, so a replacement is probably out of the question. I just need to know how quickly I need to get a new batt, and if the computer (which is right next to where I sleep,) could pose any danger.

:eek:
 
Take it to an Apple Store anyway. Since this is a known defect with MacBook Pro batteries, I've heard anecdotes of them replacing them out of warranty. No guarantees, but it's worth a shot.
 
BlueRevolution said:
Take it to an Apple Store anyway. Since this is a known defect with MacBook Pro batteries, I've heard anecdotes of them replacing them out of warranty. No guarantees, but it's worth a shot.
Click to expand...

I will -- but in the meantime, is there any chance it's dangerous?
 
I don't think it's in danger of bursting, but if you force it into the computer the battery compartment or the latch holding the battery in place may be damaged.
 
BlueRevolution said:
You could try running a program like Monolingual to clean up some of the unnecessary system files.
Click to expand...
Generally speaking I'd recommend doing an archive and install of the OS with the undesired system files (printer drivers and language translations) deselected over using Monolingual. Monolingual is nifty, but it occasionally causes problems down the line, and my own experience after running it on my MBP (same vintage as the OP's) wasn't so hot--the system worked, but there were occasional glitches and oddities until I eventually did a clean install.

On the bulging battery thing, I had that (again, same vintage MBP, though mine was an early failure) and read up on it--Apple claims it's in no way dangerous, but obviously it's not going to do your MPB any good if it bends the case out of shape, so get it out of there. Mine was replaced no questions asked under warranty, and if you're lucky yours might be even out (can't hurt to try!), but if not, nothing to do but buy a new one. Over 3 years out of a battery is pretty good regardless.

There have been an EXTREMELY small number of reports of batteries in laptops exploding or otherwise failing catastrophically, but to my knowledge they were usually the result of charging circuitry failure in conjunction with battery failure, and not sure that any were Apple laptops. We're talking about maybe a half-dozen cases worldwide here, which would be <0.00001%, so I wouldn't worry about it.
 
So after reading through the battery articles, seems that the consensus is:

Keep the battery at around 60 percent charge. You dont want to over charge it, and you dont want to let it completely drain.

Then I want to run the maintain-widget once a month.

Then otherwise, I just use it and let it go.

Thanks again.
 
Roy7 said:
So after reading through the battery articles, seems that the consensus is:

Keep the battery at around 60 percent charge. You dont want to over charge it, and you dont want to let it completely drain.
Click to expand...
That sounds just plain wrong to me; Apple's batteries (like any good Li-ion/Li-poly battery) has a charge controller built in to it to prevent it from ever being overcharged/overdischarged. Mainly what counts is that said controller knows where "full" and "empty" are, and that the total lifespan of a li-* battery has as much to do with total charge cycles as anything.

I'm fairly certain that Apple's recommendation is perfectly sufficient: "Use it however works for you, keep it plugged in when convenient, and once a month or so run the battery all the way down until the computer auto-sleeps, then charge it all the way back up."

Besides, HOW would you keep the thing at 60% state of charge? Unplug it and plug it back in every 15 minutes based on the battery meter? That's just silly. Even if it DID work, would it really be worth that kind of hassle to add six months to the 3-5 year lifespan of a $120 battery?

I can check with the battery expert at work if you want some chemistry to back up what I'm saying, but honestly, the common knowledge about rechargeable batteries seems to combine things from four or five different types of batteries--lead acid has different behavior from Ni-MH, which is different from Ni-Cd, which is different from Li-ion, which is even a bit off of Li-poly. I've heard almost as much voodoo about batteries as with disk maintenance routines.
 
Queenredspecial, looks like they've covered it very well so far.

It's generally preferrable to have the Mac automatically turn off the screen instead of displaying a screensaver (or horrors, no screensaver at all) because on laptops, it saves a good amount of battery and on all Macs with a LCD, helps to prevent LCD burn-in which can occur in as little as less than a year of of nonstop displaying -- which could reduce eventual resale value.
 
Makosuke said:
Generally speaking I'd recommend doing an archive and install of the OS with the undesired system files (printer drivers and language translations) deselected over using Monolingual. Monolingual is nifty, but it occasionally causes problems down the line, and my own experience after running it on my MBP (same vintage as the OP's) wasn't so hot--the system worked, but there were occasional glitches and oddities until I eventually did a clean install.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Makosuke -- good to know there is a very small chance of the battery blowing up in my face. :)

Now -- what exactly is a 'clean install?' That sounds like a great deal of trouble -- is it? (Please forgive me if this is a very computer-illiterate question, I'm just not that into computers.) After reading your post, since you have the same computer as I do -- I will hold off on Monolingual.


So far this thread is really good, thank you to all the wise contributors.

New topic --

Do macs provide some kind of a convenient, preferable, or desirable way to backup one's system?

What I have been doing, (some of it might be completely ridiculous,) is backing up everything I know of (documents, folders, etc.) onto an external drive, as well as burning it on cd's and dvd's. Occasionally, I 'replace' the backup on the external drive, burn new disks, etc.. Is there a more efficient way? Also, is there a way to back up all the applications? (I have been moving them, but most of them don't have the installers with them -- is it a waste of space?)

What do you mac wizards do to back up your systems in such a way that if they blow tomorrow, (as happened with my old computer,) you can get back to using all your stuff the same way immediately?
 
Queenredspecial said:
...what exactly is a 'clean install?' That sounds like a great deal of trouble -- is it? (Please forgive me if this is a very computer-illiterate question, I'm just not that into computers.)
Click to expand...
It's what it sounds like--the installer sets up a completely "clean" copy of the OS, with nothing but what you asked for.

This isn't particularly complicated; if you boot from either a 10.5/10.6 disc (if you've upgraded) or the OS install disc that came with your computer, there is an option to "Archive and Install, preserving users"--what this does is move all the system folders to a "previous systems" folder and lay down a clean copy of the OS, but it keeps your user folder, so when you log in all of your personal settings will be exactly as before. Run Software Update to get back to the latest version of everything, and you're good to go.

Some applications with installers (Photoshop, for example) may require being reinstalled, but most will be moved over without incident. And, when you do this, you can select under the Options button which specific components to install or leave out; by leaving out printer drivers and language files, you'll save yourself a couple of gigabytes of unnecessary stuff.

Of course, if you haven't already upgraded to Snow Leopard, might be worth it--it's cheap, and even if you DON'T remove the unnecessary stuff, it's still significantly smaller than 10.5/10.4, on account of Apple having removed a lot of legacy junk and compressed some files.

Though the archive and install and/or 10.6 upgrade process should be easy and smooth, that doesn't mean you shouldn't have a backup just in case, which brings us to...




So far this thread is really good, thank you to all the wise contributors.

New topic --

Queenredspecial said:
Do macs provide some kind of a convenient, preferable, or desirable way to backup one's system?
Click to expand...
Yes, it's called Time Machine--look it up. It was added in 10.5, if you're still on 10.4, and is incredibly easy--you add a second drive to back up to, point Time Machine at it, and you're done--it keeps versions ranging from every hour to every week for as long as there's enough space to do so. The backups include all of your personal files and settings, as well as applications and other stuff. If it's an external drive that's not always connected, Time Machine will back up whenever the drive is available, or can be set to run manually by selecting it in the menu bar.

If you aren't using 10.5 yet, that alone is reason to upgrade. If you are, look it up.

There are of course hundreds of other backup programs; if you want a fully bootable backup, then using the free Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your boot drive to a Firewire external will allow you to boot right off said external in the event of a catastrophic failure, although it's far less transparent and background-y to run than Time Machine. I also personally use Sync to do server backups, and I hear SuperDuper recommended a lot, too.

Really, though, it sounds like Time Machine will be good enough for you.
 
Makosuke said:
Generally speaking I'd recommend doing an archive and install of the OS with the undesired system files (printer drivers and language translations) deselected over using Monolingual. Monolingual is nifty, but it occasionally causes problems down the line, and my own experience after running it on my MBP (same vintage as the OP's) wasn't so hot--the system worked, but there were occasional glitches and oddities until I eventually did a clean install.
Click to expand...

Oh, okay. I've never used it myself, since I always do a clean install as soon as I get a new Mac with all of the extra junk deselected. You can install any of the optional packages later on if you need them.

I didn't know that an A&I would get rid of unwanted packages though. I thought it just overwrote system files.

Makosuke said:
Some applications with installers (Photoshop, for example) may require being reinstalled, but most will be moved over without incident.
Click to expand...

In my experience, even Adobe CS4 works without a hitch after an A&I.

Makosuke said:
And, when you do this, you can select under the Options button which specific components to install or leave out; by leaving out printer drivers and language files, you'll save yourself a couple of gigabytes of unnecessary stuff.
Click to expand...

A couple? The installer dumps something like 12 GB of useless trash on your hard drive! (That's including iLife, though.)
 
BlueRevolution said:
I didn't know that an A&I would get rid of unwanted packages though. I thought it just overwrote system files.
Click to expand...
It depends on your definition; it doesn't just copy the files in place like an XP reinstall, it moves the old system to a Previous Systems folder and lays down a completely clean OS, then moves over your users and self-installed apps. Most of what monolingual deletes are alternate language translations from the system and system-installed apps, plus printer drivers. Since both of these things can be unchecked in the A&I, once you chuck the "Previous Systems" folder, you're more or less to where Monolingual would have gotten you, sans anything it might have accidentally deleted (and you don't have inaccurate package recipts, either).

I suppose monolingual will also clean languages out of user-installed apps, but most of those only have a few languages at most, so I doubt that adds up to any significant space savings.

As for 12GB, yeah, that would be including iLife, which is pretty huge with all the GB and video stuff. I don't remember the numbers that well, but it's somewhere in the 1-2GB range for printer drivers and I think 150MB per language.
 
Ok, you guys are getting all high tech on me. :D

I worry about Photoshop. I installed it with a former business partner who has all the original disks, and I really don't know if I can get to them again or even if he still has them. I would rather not spend the megabucks for a new copy, since the old one is working just fine for me now. So, I don't want to upgrade the OS right now - I feel no need so far.

So, things being what they are now, I would rather just delete stuff. What is iLife? I did a spotlight search, and found a bunch of documents and folders by that name but no application. So I probably don't have it. Are there any other useless things that take up space that I can get rid of? What are the 12GB extra useless stuff, and can I search and destroy? ;)
 
Most of it is in /Library/Application Support/[appname], I think. Note that that's the Library folder at the top level of your hard drive, NOT the one in your user folder. iDVD and GarageBand should both have folders in there that are a couple of GB each, depending on the versions you have; the rest will be smaller and you can probably ignore.
 
Thank you, Makosuke.



I have devoted the last couple of days to optimizing this machine, and you guys are really helping. There just seems to be an overall sluggishness problem, in browsing the net (i've checked my connection and it's really fast,) and iTunes, which is constantly freezing and causing problems. I have run all the maintenance things I have learned in this thread, I have searched far and wide in this forum for the other stuff, I have freed up vast amounts of space on my HD, and I still can't seem to get it running smoothly. I'm starting to feel defeated by this pretty machine. :(
 
P.S. Question about Monolingual -- I just did it, and it didn't save a huge amount of space (500+mbs -- is that right?)

But my question is this -- what are 'architectures,' and should I mess with them?
 
Architectures refers to the type of processor in the Mac. The two current architectures are PowerPC, which was used exclusively until about 4 years ago, and Intel, which has been used since (and isn't likely to be changing any time soon).

The "Rosetta" system that you may have heard of is a type of emulator that lets programs written for PowerPC run on an Intel-based Mac without much speed penalty. You have an Intel Mac, so this will be true of any PowerPC-only app.

Apps can (and many, I'd even say most, do) have both PPC and Intel versions bundled together so they "just work" when you install them, regardless of what kind of Mac you have. Monolingual gives you the option of deleting the support for whichever architecture you DON'T have, to save space.

You could probably do this without harm, but frankly the space savings are small enough I seriously doubt it's worth the trouble (or modest risk of it breaking something).


Now, as for your REAL question, which I guess is what you've been coming at obliquely for the whole thread, the most obvious thing to check is that there's nothing CPU hungry running in the background. Open up "Activity Monitor" in the "Utilities" folder, select "Activity Monitor" from the Window menu if you don't get a window automatically.

Now, select "All processes" from the popup at the top of the window and click on the CPU column to sort by that, and see what's using the most when you're not doing anything. If you just see Activity Monitor itself using, say, 5%, that's normal. If something is using more than it, see what and if it seems reasonable given what you're doing.

Click the CPU tab at the bottom and see what the total CPU is; when you're not doing anything "Idle" should be at >90%. Also check the System Memory tab when you have your normal set of applications open and see what the percentages are. If the Inactive+Free is nearly 0, then you might just be short on RAM.


Another common cause of slowness is Flash; Flash on the Mac is TERRIBLE--it uses basically 100% CPU any time it's doing anything at all. And since nearly every web page now has a Flash ad on it somewhere, you may well end up with one CPU core maxed out at all times, which can in turn lead to annoying slowness or at least your fans spinning up and decreased battery life.

The solution is to use a Flash blocker so that they only load when you explicitly click on something you want to see--makes a HUGE difference in my experience. On Safari ClickToFlash is great, and there are ones for other browsers as well if you use something else. Heck, I'd recommend a Flash blocker even if things aren't slow, just to prevent annoying video ads and a lot of hidden tracking doodads.


Of course, if there's actually something amiss with your system, the previously discussed Archive and Install (preferably into 10.6) may be a better option in the end. The other advantage of 10.6 is that it's much smaller in terms of disk space used.
 
Thanks! Downloading CTF now. I had no idea flash had such problems -- I recently uninstalled and then installed it again, no improvement to overall speed.

Makosuke said:
The "Rosetta" system that you may have heard of is a type of emulator that lets programs written for PowerPC run on an Intel-based Mac without much speed penalty. You have an Intel Mac, so this will be true of any PowerPC-only app.
Click to expand...

Is there a way to make sure apps don't run in Rosetta? (I assume it IS slower?)

Makosuke said:
Now, as for your REAL question, which I guess is what you've been coming at obliquely for the whole thread, the most obvious thing to check is that there's nothing CPU hungry running in the background. Open up "Activity Monitor" in the "Utilities" folder, select "Activity Monitor" from the Window menu if you don't get a window automatically.
Click to expand...

:) The "real" question is everything -- I realized the other day that I have had this computer for a long time, and there are many basic things about its care that I do not know, so I thought I'd ask the experts rather than continuing to guess. :)
 
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