The Swivel Chair

How to avoid the spinning ball of death!

So you’ve had your new car for over 12 months now, sure you look after it, if a problem comes up you get it fixed right away, but it’s driving slower….you turn it off then back on…that helps for a little while, and if the window is stuck you get it fixed straight away, but you don’t take it in for a full service…oil change, tightening of bolts, the full overhaul……sounds silly doesn’t it?

Of course you would do it for a car, likewise it’s now time to spend 10 minutes overhauling your mac to stop the spinning rainbow ball of death!

Before we start though…just like a car there are programs and things that we love having on our Mac that you should know will slow your machine down…….again with the car analogy, we all know running the Aircon on high all the time, having the demister on when you don’t need to demist the back window, keeping the lights on when the car is stopped are all bad things….likewise your Mac has a few things you should know about…………

Trash…..keep it empty. If you’ve decided to put it in the trash, then get rid of it.

Slideshow on desktop…..is a memory hog. Decide on one picture rather than the slideshow of your last vacation, this will free up some memory.

Folders and documents on your desktop….having too many will slow your machine down. Likewise making a folder on your desktop and placing all your files in the folder won’t suffice. You have to create an alias. Place the folder in “documents” right click on it and choose “create alias”….now, place the alias on your desktop.

Stickies…….I know you love em’ but try not to have so many of them on your desktop.

Unused Applications left running…….Quit programs you aren’t using….have a look at your dock….do you have lots of programs with a shiny light under them, but you’re not using it? Right click on it and quit……they are hogging the limelight.

Dashboard apps………Don’t go overboard on all the dashboard apps. These are kept running all the time and can really slow things down.

Software Update……make sure you check to make sure your software is up to date, your machine will have to work harder to make sure everything is compatable.

Last but not least…..this one is a little more complicated. Repair disk permissions. Go to the application called “Disk Utility”. Click on your hard drive and click “Repair Disk Permissions”

The Mac store at school sells extra RAM for your machine too……….. doubling its “thinking memory” will give you a real boost. It’s a little price to pay for speed!!!!

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One Response to “How to avoid the spinning ball of death!”

1. Kimbra power Says:
   October 27th, 2010 at 2:49 pm

   Nice to see you again Mr Power…
   Thanks for the update, but still, it seems to be more than that for me.
   I think I need more memory.
   Kimbra

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