Keeping A Mac Running Smooth And Fresh?

[thisistoto]

I have an iBook G4 with OSX, and being new to mac i just wanna keep it running smooth and fast.

Is there any external programs i should DL or things I should do regulary?


Thanks

[ffooky]

It's a good idea to run something like Onyx or MacJanitor every now and then, particularly if you turn your machine off at night or put it to sleep. There are routines known as "cron jobs" that need to be run in order to keep the size of log files down. These run automatically in the early hours but obviously can't if the 'puter's not running.

You can check when these routines were last run by typing this into a Terminal window:

ls -al /var/log/*.out

you can also run all three jobs from the Terminal by typing:

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

You'll be prompted for your (administrator's) password before the routines (or any command prefixed by 'sudo') will run.

Before and after installing any system software update it's always advisable to repair permissions, either using Disk Utility or from the Terminal with:

sudo diskutil repairpermissions /

DiskWarrior is without doubt the most trustworthy disc repair utility and it does no harm to run it from time to time, especially before backing up a system etc.

[gsmyth79]

I like a program called Cocktail. It does all that stuff at once. I think it's like ten bucks. Versiontracker has it for sure.

[ffooky]

Onyx does everything Cocktail does but for free.

[gsmyth79]

d'oh

[thisistoto]

Merci.