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New Mac User - General Advice Needed

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xreyuk

Cancelled
Original poster
Jul 22, 2010
37
1
Hi Guys,

I'm a brand new Mac user, and have bought a standard MacBook.

My first thing is, what is the best way of speeding it up and keeping it fast? Should I strip the RAM out and put new RAM in? Are there any maintenance tools I should download and use? Any other suggestions?

Also, are there any programs that you would consider essential for every Mac user?

Thanks
Alex
 
You aren't in Windows World anymore. All you need to do is use it and enjoy it. It'll take care of all it's maintenance by itself.
 
More RAM is always good if you need it. Larger Hard drives are good too... If you need it.
It really depends on your usage. For a net surfer, email, iTunes, documents person, the standard RAM is plenty.

I agree with Intell... just use it and don't worry about the old windows type maintenance routines. Battery maintenance is about the only suggestion that I have. See This.
 
Thanks for the link and the advice!

I'm still getting used to just deleting applications, without going through an uninstall process!
 
xreyuk said:
Hi Guys,

I'm a brand new Mac user, and have bought a standard MacBook.

My first thing is, what is the best way of speeding it up and keeping it fast? Should I strip the RAM out and put new RAM in? Are there any maintenance tools I should download and use? Any other suggestions?

Also, are there any programs that you would consider essential for every Mac user?

Thanks
Alex
Click to expand...

Hey.welcome to the Mac family!
Just from personal experience,the stock RAM is plenty,as my "late 09" MB still has 2GB of RAM.Macs don't use much RAM at all.And maintenace wise,it usually takes care of itself.But you should run disk utility every once in a while and verify and repair the disk and repair permissions.Another good maintence program is onyx,it's a free download and takes care of most things.Any essential programs I would say are google Chrome and if you can,get iWork,it's much better than MS Office and cheaper as well.Hope this helps.PM me with any questions.:)
 
I had a look at Onyx and I'm not sure what's safe to delete etc. Can you advise me?

Also, I'll try the disk utility. Thanks :)
 
xreyuk said:
Also, are there any programs that you would consider essential for every Mac user?
Click to expand...

Well, I would say maybe iStat Pro, which is a widget which displays a lot of information about your Mac; it's handy for helping troubleshooting and things like that. As well as that, maybe consider Onyx, which is a free maintenance application. You don't have to do much maintenance to keep your Mac running well, though - it does most of this in the background on it's own.


xreyuk said:
I had a look at Onyx and I'm not sure what's safe to delete etc. Can you advise me?

Also, I'll try the disk utility. Thanks :)
Click to expand...

Well, on the 'Cleaning' tab most of them are temporary files anyway but I'm glad you are being careful with it. The only problem I can see is on the 'Internet' section, where some saved passwords and other information might be lost if you delete some of the things from there.
 
Just remember to unplug the MagSafe when the battery is at 100% and to wear it down a few times a week for optimal health. As for software, almost everything you need comes on the OS itself. The only thing I would recommend is CoconutBattery and iWork '09 if you need to do lots of business/school related stuff.

As for RAM.. you really don't need to upgrade. My MacBook literally only had 1GB of RAM and ran Snow Leopard just fine; the iStat monitor showed me that RAM only got up to 75% usage under heavy use. That being said, I upgraded to 3GB just to be safe. You're going to love your Mac, good luck with everything :)
 
might find some useful stuff here: http://opensourcemac.org/

I use onyx about once a week or so. Keeps things nice and tidy. Pretty sure its not needed that often but I'm kind of OCD with that kinda stuff :)

SMCFanControl is nice too to ramp up fan speeds.
 
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