Removal of Junky Files help to speed up Mac

When we Clean up Mac it includes deleting your system's cache, remove duplicate files, removing unused applications, language files and binary files. All these items are treated as computer junk, because these are the vital causes of slowing down of Mac. Removal of these items from your Mac machine is probably the best technique to bring your Mac back in race.

After cleaning mac junk files, you are also suggested to defrag your Mac files to speed up Mac. This step helps you reclaim some valuable space in your hard drive that is otherwise occupied by unnecessary clutter. Usually, after some time, your Mac gets fragmented, meaning data is not arranged in a proper manner, thus affecting the Macs performance. A disk defragmenter transfers all files to the proper locations for optimum Mac performance.

Freeing up space on your hard drive is also a good idea if you really want to optimize your Macs performance. Logically, the closer your Mac gets to maximum capacity, the slower it will run. You can free up space by deleting unused and unwanted files and applications as well as by storing files and applications you seldom use in an external drive.

Now that you know how to clean up Mac and improve its performance, let me give you some very good news:

Stellar drive toolbox is pack of 12 Mac management tools. This application includes:

• Crap remover
• Partition manager
• Drive Clone
• Drive Defrag

With an interactive interface, Drive toolbox is an easy to use Mac application which requires no prior technical expertise.

Repair Disk Permissions to Speed Up Mac

After performing for a long period our computers start falling of performance hit. Things start to slow down. Our systems just don’t run as fast as they should. The heavy applications start lagging and don’t do exactly what they are designed to do. There is an urgent need of a quick solution to speed up few things. In disk utility there is an option to repair disk permissions.
When we repair disk permissions , we actually correct any error with any permissions, which makes heavy applications correct themselves, and could speed up the overall performance of your mac.
To repair permissions follow the following steps

1. Click GO in the finder,
2. Select utilities.
3. Open up disk utility.
4. Select your hard drive.
5. Next select the first aid tab.
6. From there click Repair Disk Permissions

Verifying the repair is not needed so there is no need to click Verify Disk Permissions, selecting Repair Disk Permissions will verify and repair. This could take 5 minutes to 30 minutes. The time taken depends upon how long it has been since the permissions have been repaired. It is good to generally do this once a month, after you install an application, or run an update.

Further, cleaning mac hard drive could also help you to improve Mac performance. There are so many third party applications to remove unwanted applications and data from Mac machine. Stellar speed up Mac is also one such utility which can remove binary files, cache , language files and large files. This speed up application is applicable on both bootable and non bootable sections of hard drive.

Keeping desktop clean – Can speed up your Mac

Most of my readers ask me if keeping the Mac desktop clean can make their mac faster. And I say, yes, it can. But please remember that it will help only the users of pre-Leopard Macs . Since in Leopard and afterwards Apple has changed the way dock icons are managed. Thus, if you are a Leopard you can have fun with keeping icons at desktop.

Keeping your desktop as icon-free as possible is a good way to save RAM, because of the way Apple decided to deal with desktop icons. Each of the icons on your desktop is a fully fledged window that will use your Mac’s RAM memory.

Thus, if you just download everything on your Mac’s desktop and never clean it up, you will notice a sensible boost in your Mac’s performance once you will move all 700 and something images and documents from your desktop to a folder of your choice.

Other than desktop icons , some other items are also there which can reduce the mac speed and performance. These include the binary files, unused language files, cache or temporary files etc. The removal of this type of files avails a lot of free space on hard drive and ultimately a faster Mac machine. Recently I have used a third party tool named Stellar speed up Mac for removing such unused data.

Its a very easy to use application and is applicable to all the latest versions of Mac. I have speed up my Mac to manifolds using this Mac tool.

How to make my Mac safari faster?

Every Mac user wants surfing the web at a high speed. It was just a few years ago that everybody was using dial-up connections. Just a few years before that, nobody had an idea of what the Internet was. People who own a Mac and a high-speed connection are often interested in being able to surf the web as quickly as possible. In order to do this, they need to know how to make Safari---Mac's web browser---work more efficiently.

Instructions

1. Reset Safari. A lot of use of the Internet can cause Safari to store a lot of files, passwords and codes that simply are not needed for normal operation of the Internet. Start the Safari reset process by clicking on the Safari menu on the top left-hand part of the screen.
   
2. Click on "Reset Safari," which is about halfway down the menu.
   
3. Place a check mark next to each item in the next window and select "OK." This will completely erase all of your cookies, web browsing history and passwords.
   
   If you would rather not erase all of this history, you can instead select "Clear Cache," which is located just below "Reset Safari." Remove cache and temporary files will simply delete cookies on the system.
   
4. Check to see if any plug-ins are making Safari sluggish by going back to the Safari menu on the top left-hand corner of the screen and clicking on "Safari."
   
5. Select "Preferences." This is the third item down on the menu. When the "Preferences" menu opens, find the tab that says "Security." Click on this tab.
   
6. Ensure that the "Enable plug-ins" selection at the top of the screen is not checked.
   
7. Close Safari and restart it. You have now made the Internet faster on your Mac. 

Resource:  http://www.ehow.com/how_4898935_make-internet-faster-mac.html

Help to make my Mac faster

Once again your Mac will Run fast
Despite of applying all your efforts, if you are not able to speed up your Mac , don't worry. It happens to everyone.
Although there is no cent percent cure for making your Mac machine as good and fast as day one, but some basic things can help to reclaim disk space, remove some clutter and generally speed up your Mac.


Please mind the hardware of your Mac machine
Before you get started, keep in mind that none of these tips will change your aging G4 iMac into an Intel Quad-core speed machine. One of the best ways to speed up any aging computer is upgrade the hardware, so invest in a larger hard drive or more RAM if you want to make an old machine feel younger and more agile.
Another essential step before we get down to specifics is to run Software Update and make sure that you have the latest version of OS X and other Apple-supplied applications installed.
When your hard drive gets too full drive (and by full, we mean past the 90% mark) it can slow down your Mac considerably. But don't start deleting your precious family photo albums -- here are a few things you may not know about that eat up space on your Mac drive.

1. Take a hard look at your applications folder. Do you really need all those shareware apps you aren't using? If not, get rid of them and free up a little space.
2. Delete unused language packs. You probably aren't using the Farsi language localizations on your machine. Even if you are, then you can probably still get rid of French or German. Check out the freeware app Monolingual which makes getting rid of unused language files a snap.
   
3. Know what you're storing. Download Disk Inventory X (alternatives: Grand Perspective or Where's The Free Space), which will give you a nice graphical overview of what is using space on your drive. If it is indeed those precious family photos, consider moving them off to a USB or Firewire external drive. Or burn them to DVDs.
   

If you still have a question: how to speed your mac just go and see through!

Speed Up Slow Applications to speed up your Mac

These are some applications which are running slow on your Mac and due to which your machine is behaving slower. Some of them are discussed here.

• Safari -- Safari is fast and lightweight, but it can get bogged down if your browsing history is excessively large or if Safari is storing a ton of Autofill entries. One easy way to reset nearly everything at once is to select Safari > Reset Safari in the application menu, which will clear all your caches.
  

• Dashboard -- Dashboard widgets are handy tools, but they eat up RAM -- sometimes even when you aren't using them. This leaves less RAM available for the applications you actually are using. Head into your Applications Folder, select the Utilities Folder and look for Activity Monitor. Activity monitor is a great way to see what applications are using the most memory. If you see a lot of Dashboard widgets high up on the list, consider disabling them.
  

• Firefox -- If you're using versions 2.x or 1.x of Mozilla Firefox, you've probably noticed that the browser tends to take it's sweet time after it's been running for a while. Try uninstalling any unnecessary extensions. Reducing the add-ons you're running to about 3 or 4 will speed up most installations. Your best bet is switching to the latest version of Firefox 3.5, which shows substantial speed improvements over its predecessors.
  

• Universal binaries -- If you're using an Intel Mac, make sure that all your applications are universal binaries. Older software compiled to run on PowerPC machines will be noticeably slower on Intel machines. If there's an upgrade available, download it and run it instead.
  

General System Tips

• Clean Out Your Startup Items -- If you Mac is slow starting up, open your System Preferences and click accounts. Select your username and see what's listed in the startup items. Sometime applications will inject themselves here without asking (or even if they asked, you may not want them anymore). Getting rid of some startup items can speed up your boot time.
  

• Clean Up Your Desktop -- If your desktop is covered with dozens or even hundreds of icons, you may see your performance suffer. Mac OS X treats each desktop icon as its own window, which incurs a small memory hit. For most people this won't be an issue, but if you have hundreds of icons, it might help to move them off to another location.
  

The applications like Stellar speed up Mac are used to get rid of unused files and applications. This creates free space on your hard drive and thus pushes your Mac performance.

Things that Won't Help to speed Up your Mac

Following are the experiences which are not helpful to speed up Mac

• Repairing File Permissions – Many Mac users believe in it , which in fact does next to nothing. Unless you're having problems logging in or using certain system files, this won't help you to speed up your Mac.

• Increase Safari speed by reducing the "page load delay" -- Lead Safari programmer David Hyatt says, "the preference in question is dead and does absolutely nothing in Safari." After al he has created it.

• Updating Prebinding -- Prebinding is updated when apps are launched (and when new ones are installed), there's no need to do it by hand .

• Take advantage of special programs in case macbook running slow. You will not have to do everything manually, that saves your time. The Stellar speed up Mac is a nice option.

Mac Optimization Tips to speed up Mac performance

It happens not only in Mac but also in PC and Linux; that your system, at one point of time, will start behaving in a sluggish manner. In Macs, this behavior cabn be detected by the spinning wait cursor. Usually, a simple hardware up-gradation solves the issue. More often than not, all your Mac probably needs is some maintenance.

Here are some tips to optimize your Mac and keep the system running healthily.

1. Quit Inactive Mac Applications

One of the most prominent causes of slowdown is running an app in the background without knowing.

Apps running in the background use memory even if they’re inactive, depriving the operating system. Hence, forcing it to use the available hard disk space as virtual memory; leading to an excessive amount of pagings and slowdowns. This also puts unnecessary strain on your hard disk, especially so if you’re running low on free space.

So, keep an eye on the Dock for apps that are inactive or not being used. Be frugal with your memory usage and you’ll notice a different in the system’s performance.

2. Disable The Dashboard

If you hardly use widgets, then you should disable the Dashboard in order to prevent the widgets from loading. The less memory you have to spare, the more reason you should do it.

Disabling the Dashboard requires the use to Terminal. Before you get all frightened, relax. It’s not that difficult.

Launch Terminal from Applications > Utilities > Terminal.app. Copy and paste this line of code into Terminal and hit Enter:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

Don’t quit Terminal just yet. The Dock has to be restarted in order for this hack to work. So copy and paste this line of code to restart the Dock then hit Enter:

killall Dock

You can quit Terminal now by pressing Command+Q. With Dashboard disabled, nothing will happen when you press on the dedicated Dashboard button (F4), hit F12 or click on the Dashboard dock icon; preventing the widgets from launching and hogging precious memory.

To re-enable the Dashboard, copy and paste this code into Terminal and hit Enter:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean NO

Then, restart the Dock by using the code above.

3. Look Into Preferences

There is a lot you can do within System Preference to make sure that your Mac is running as smoothly as possible. For starters, you could take a look through your list of apps which automatically launch on login. You can find it under Accounts setting then hitting the ‘Login Items’ tab. I’ve listed this tip in a previous article but I can’t emphasize how important it is. Apps that launch when your Mac powers on prolong start-up time and take up memory. Keep this list lean and mean.

4. Let Mac Breathe

Hard disk space isn’t only meant for storing files. I’ve seen some people fill their hard disks to the brim. Mac OS X requires at least 20% of the hard disk drive to be free in order to perform smoothly. It uses this space to swap memory with the RAM (paging), write system files and other temporary files. By leaving OS X very little free space, you are choking the system, metaphorically speaking.

How can you free up used disk space? Run an inventory and remove applications that you hardly ever use. Take iDVD and Garageband for example, it uses up free space in the gigabytes. If you don’t frequently use these apps, remove them — you can always reinstall them from the OS X Install Disc.

Buy an external hard disk and store your large movie files over there instead of occupying the space on the primary (system) hard drive.

You can also use applications like Filelight (direct download link, Snow Leopard compatible), GrandPerspective or OmniDiskSweeper to display your hard disk usage in an easily-digestible graphical interface and find the culprit that’s hogging your valuable disk space.

5. Frequent updatation is suggested

Updating your system may feel troublesome to certain users, especially when it involves restarting. It should be made known that Apple releases updates to fix bugs and potential errors which may harm the system. Occasionally, performance updates are issued to address issues regarding improper hardware operation like this one, for instance, which was developed to fix hard drive stalls on Macs running Leopard and Snow Leopard.

To scan your Mac for available updates, run Software Update from the Apple menu in the menubar.

So there we have it, five (frequently overlooked) tips to speed up Mac. I hope that this helps solve the dreadful spinning beachball of death syndrome.

How often do you run maintenance on your Mac? Do you have any other tips to keep OS X running lean and mean? Jot them down in the comments, I’d love to hear your ideas.