Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

regularly cleaning up the mac...

krossfyter

krossfyter

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jan 13, 2002
4,297
0
secret city
what clean up tool is the best for the mac?...

norton or that tool one (forgot the exact name)?...any others? any of that free ware? thanks.
 
techtool... i think is the name.


so you recommend norton aye! well cool. any freeware links? if not then i know i cant get it from a friend but i have to wait.


thanks.
 
I use a trilogy of utilites daily, and in the following order...

DiskWarrior 2, TechTool Pro 3, and Norton Utilities 6 (part of NSW).

I will be getting the update to NSW2 soon, when it is shipping, and as soon as I can call in the order.

The combination of the three fixes just about everything (except for damaged resource forks). I let DiskWarrior do it's thing, then I turn off the optimization, virus check, and software conflict parts of TechTool Pro. I let Norton do just about what it likes, except that I usually have Disk Doctor skip the check media feature.
 
a can of of compressed air

…or you can try being nice to your mac and give him/her some love.

ever since i stopped using norton and picked up some good computer cleaning habits, my computer has been running smoothly. it doesn't even mind when i get it dirty at an outdoor gig.
 
One thing to keep in mind... NEVER install ANY of the utilites onto your hard drive. Use them off of the provided cd, unless you have the skills to combine them all into one (as I have done).

No matter what you do, your hard drive WILL become fragmented. The ONLY way to avoid it is to leave it powered off and never use it.
 
The best way to organize your Mac is this:

1. One partition for the system folder only (OS). It should take 1G at list and I think is enough (I do not run OS yet, this is for clasic system).

2. A secund partition with all the software (Soft), usually from 2G to 3G. My folders are sub devided like this:
-Audio (Protools, Digital Performer, iTunes, etc)
-Video&Animation (After Effects, Final Cut Pro, etc)
-Publishing (Photoshop, Illustrator, Omnipage Pro, Office)
-Tools (Hackers helper, Norton, Toast, etc)
-Web (Dreamweaver, Flash, Hotline, Limewire, etc)
-VJ (Arkaos, Rithmic Circle Fuse, Artmatic, etc)

3. A third partition called Storage. There is where you are gonna place all your text files, pictures, movies, downloads, etc.

In that way you will resolve the followed problems:
1. Fragmentation caused by the used of files preventing from alter the OS or the softwares making your computer more stable.
2. Easy acces to your files, specially if you create an alias of the "soft" partition and place it on the Apple menu items.
3. Viruses would get stock in one partition in case they appear, living the rest of the computer alone.

A very good trick that I discovered recently and is keeping my desk clean is this:

1.Create one file with the Simple Text.

2.Place it in the Apple menu items with a name that start with "Z" or "X" to be placed at the botton of the menu.

3.Now, every time you have to write something down (e-mail, phone numbers, name, note, etc) you are gonna do it there in place of using the crappy stickers or a piece of paper that eventually will get lost.

The beauty of this is that, that file would be easy to find because would be at the end of the Apple menu items. Then you will have to save it (stickers get deleted easilly) and is the easiest way to keep track of your notes of the week. And the file opens very fast because the Simple Text is very light.

My bigest problem is that I'm always writing something down and I run out of paper, and then I write on the back, on the borders, etc... and later I lost the paper between the 30 others I had before. Now my desk is clean:)

These are the best tricks to optimize my work on my Mac.
 
What I do...

I save all my important stuff. Then I re-format the hard drive, and reinstall my stuff. Works like a charm! Although you shouldn't do this often, so i dont!
 
Avoid defragging when possible. It can introduce more problems than it actually solves. It may lose files. Rather... copy all your drive onto another drive, delete the original, then copy back. If you dont have room or a second drive, do it in largest steps possible. This will help.
 
Originally posted by buffsldr
Avoid defragging when possible. It can introduce more problems than it actually solves. It may lose files. Rather... copy all your drive onto another drive, delete the original, then copy back. If you dont have room or a second drive, do it in largest steps possible. This will help.
Click to expand...

In all the years that I have been defragging systems, I have NOT ONCE lost a file that way.

While copying and wiping a system might work for you, the normal person doesn't want to go throught that much pain. I have seen performance, and stability increase drastically once a drive has been defragged. I also don't just run Norton, that is the last utility I run, as I put above.

I have run the utilities on my own systems, which have BOTH OS 9.2.2 and OS X (10.1.3) installed and have not lost a file there. IF anything, they run better once the suite has done it's work.
 
Re: What I do...

Originally posted by Mac_User
I save all my important stuff. Then I re-format the hard drive, and reinstall my stuff. Works like a charm! Although you shouldn't do this often, so i dont!
Click to expand...

I'm sure that works....but doesn't it seem like a hell of a lot of work to do?!

I haven't even used a disk utility yet since I went almost exclusively to X on my TiBook...

wanna share the wealth on that disk u created Alpha? he he he... ;)
 
Defragging has caused me problems and I have lost files... that may be because I was using a pc with windows, but I have come to distrust defragging. I personally now just reformat every 6 months, and no I dont consider it a pain because it forces me to examine what I really want to save and gives me a huge performance increase.

If defrag works for you, rock on, but I prefer to get a nice book and read while I reinstall. Whats hard about that?
 
I can see where defragging from windblows utilities causes lost files... The Mac utilities on the other hand function about 100x better. All you have to do is boot from the utility cd and let nature take it's course.

I would probably be gun shy to do it too if I had lost files, but since I have yet to on the Mac, I trust it. I have run Speed Disk hundreds, if not thousands, of times on many, many systems ranging from PowerPC to the current G4's with no ill effects.

The less technically savy people might be scared to do the wipe and re-install path. One thing that will not fix though, is fragmented files... that requires some kind of utility.

One other thing... I run the defrag after I do a complete system config, and it always finds fragmentation. So the 'clean' system after a complete wipe and install, is still fragmented. Also DiskWarrior almost always finds items to fix, that increases performance. Just something to keep in mind.
 
Originally posted by AlphaTech
I can see where defragging from windblows utilities causes lost files... The Mac utilities on the other hand function about 100x better. All you have to do is boot from the utility cd and let nature take it's course.

I would probably be gun shy to do it too if I had lost files, but since I have yet to on the Mac, I trust it. I have run Speed Disk hundreds, if not thousands, of times on many, many systems ranging from PowerPC to the current G4's with no ill effects.

The less technically savy people might be scared to do the wipe and re-install path. One thing that will not fix though, is fragmented files... that requires some kind of utility.

One other thing... I run the defrag after I do a complete system config, and it always finds fragmentation. So the 'clean' system after a complete wipe and install, is still fragmented. Also DiskWarrior almost always finds items to fix, that increases performance. Just something to keep in mind.
Click to expand...

Can you tell me more about your system? I think degragging offers higher returns for ide drives at <5200 rpm as compared to scsi drives. I just dont see it being a problem. I have a 30 gb 5400 deskstar and a 40 gb 7200 deskstar. Maybe it happens so slowly that i just dont notice the performance drops. Late
 
My personal systems are a G4 500 (agp) with the 27GB drive it came with along with a 40GB on top (7200 rpm). My TiBook has the 20GB 4200 rpm drive currently, but I am upgrading to the 60GB IBM TravelStar as soon as the damned thing arrives (pissed at where I purchased it since I was told it would be here today, but they hadn't shipped it as of this morning... getting a 6-pack of whoop-a$$ ready for the salesman).

Most of the systems at work have whatever Apple has shipped with them, typically 5400 or 7200 rpm drives, both ATA and SCSI. With a fre 9GB Cheetah's tossed into the mix.

On my own systems, I don't run the utilities unless I see a need to. Typically try 1, 2 or 11 errors in applications, or a slow down compared to what I consider to be normal.

At work, before I re-deploy a system to a new person, I do wipe the drive and install everthing clean. Then I run the full set of utilities in order to give it a clean bill of health. That kind of preventative maintenance has saved us from needing to make service calls because of system crashes within the first week of someone starting here. We have a typical system refresh every three years here, so systems don't usually get the wipe treatment more often then that, unless someone leaves.

Right now, I have a pair of blue and white G3's that I am giving the treatement too since one person was given a laptop (going on maternity leave) and the other left. One has a SCSI drive, and the other ATA. I usually do a low level format on the SCSI drives, more on principle then anything else, and commonly write zero's to the ATA drives when I wipe them.

I don't want the previous person's issues cropping up for the new person (entire reason for the wipe and reconfig.). A base config usually takes up to an hour, depending on which department the system is slated to go to.

Sheesh, no wonder I work 10+ hour days... come summer time (or April) that is going to change... got to rack up the miles on the Harley... come 5pm, I am outtahere... :D
 
If you lost files while defragging, then most likely there were some errors on the drive to start with that should have been corrected using your favorite disk repair utility before you ran the defrag. Most defraggers these days force you to check disk integrity first for exactly this reason.

As far as copying your files to another drive and then copying them back... well... what do you think your defragger is doing? It just uses the free space on the disk itself instead of a separate disk, which means it can't move all the files at once. Basically, any problem you could run into with a defragger, you could also run into using your method.

Since you said this was a Windows machine, I suspect you were just experiencing standard Windows Rot. The fact that you have to reinstall everything from the ground up once a year on a Windows box has nothing to do with fragmentation.
 
Originally posted by Gelfin
If you lost files while defragging, then most likely there were some errors on the drive to start with that should have been corrected using your favorite disk repair utility before you ran the defrag. Most defraggers these days force you to check disk integrity first for exactly this reason.
Click to expand...

Exactly. The process of defragging is pretty simple and would be hard to screw up. Now if there was a disk error, thats a whole other ball game...

Matthew
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back