Any advice for a new mac owner?

davidfenndavidfenn
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Just got a new 2.4Ghz Macbook Pro (4GB RAM & 320GB HD @ 7200rpm) and I'm wanting it to last a good 3 or 4 years of good performance



so since its my first Mac i was wondering if any has some good advice for taking care of it and maintain the performance over time, since I know how easy it is to wreck a windows laptop..



its worth noting i'm using it mainly for logic studio



Cheers

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    lorrelorre Posts: 396member
    If you treat it as gently as you would a Windows laptop and make sure the harddrive has about 30GB of free space at all time, it will probably never get slow or laggy as most Windows computers tend to do over time.



    I do suggest using AppCleaner for removing programs or other stuff, just so your system doesn't get cluttered with unnecessary files, but those little preferences files apps sometimes leave behind still won't make your Mac run any slower.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lorre View Post


    and make sure the harddrive has about 30GB of free space at all time



    that's hardly necessary. I guess the number comes from the 10% HDD capacity rule, but with an HDD that big the rule kind of goes out the window. 10 GB free is more realistic and even then, 5 GB isn't a disaster and it'll keep working right down to below 1 GB, but by that point you're really pushing it.



    The most important thing is to not try and make it work like Windows. If anything you're doing seems excessively convoluted there's almost certainly an easier or quicker way of doing it.



    Some advice:
    • Get used to "hiding" apps. If you've not done this before then to see how it works, launch multiple apps, then press "command-h", "command" being the key with the Apple on it. This will "hide" the front-most app: it will still be running but all its windows will disappear. You can get the app back by clicking its icon in the dock or switching to it with the app-switcher ("command-tab"). Hiding works a lot better than minimising in Windows.

    • You can perform commands such as "quit" and "hide" on apps without having to bring them forward, via the application switcher. Press "command-tab", tab to the app you want to quit or hide and instead of releasing the command key, which would cause the app to become front-most, keep the command key depressed and press "q" to quit the app or "h" to hide it. This is useful if you've got 15 apps open and you want to hide several at once, or want to quit all your apps.

    • Once the app switcher is up, you can navigate it with the arrow keys or the mouse (you must keep the command key depressed at all times though), and the tilde key will scroll through the list in reverse order.

    • Disk images are used a lot for application distribution in OS X. These "look" like files, but when you double-click on a disk-image icon, a new "disk" will mount in Finder, just like when you insert a DVD or connect an external hard drive. The concept may not at first appear to be that useful, but there are some really powerful things that you can do with disk images. Anyway, the important thing here is that if you download an app that's distibuted on a disk-image, make sure you don't run the application directly from the disk image. Copy the app. to your HDD first (preferably to the "applications" folder), then "unmount" the disk by clicking on the eject arrow in a Finder window or dragging the disk from the desktop towards the dock, when the trash can will change to an eject symbol. Drop the image on the eject symbol and the image will unmount.

    • Visit http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/ every day to keep up-to-date with third-party applications

    • Perian works well as a QuickTime plugin for playing all kinds of video formats

    • Flip4Mac will let you play WMV files in QuickTime

    • When Perian/Flip4Mac/QuickTime let you down, there's VLC.

    • Visit MacOSXHints regularly and you'll learn new things, also it's a great site to search if you're trying to do something and you can't work it out.

    Good luck and enjoy your new Mac!
  • Reply 3 of 5
    wircwirc Posts: 302member
    Learn the shortcuts. They make life easier.



    Please don't act smug or try to convert anyone - just let them see the quality of OS X.



    Back. Up. Your. Data. Apple made it so easy to do, there is no reason not to.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wirc View Post


    Learn the shortcuts. They make life easier.



    Please don't act smug or try to convert anyone - just let them see the quality of OS X.



    Back. Up. Your. Data. Apple made it so easy to do, there is no reason not to.



    Very well said.



    If you find Apple's time machine a bit over the top and requires too much storage capacity with its multiple snapshots, I very much like Carbon Copy Cloner.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    bbwibbwi Posts: 812member
    I concur with everything above but will also add that you should always try and run the latest version of OS X. Unlike Windows in recent years, Apple is committed to increase performance for new operating systems regardless of the hardware you're running
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