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the3rdnumber

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 17, 2013
7
0
I have a macbook pro 13 2011. I wanted to make mountain lion faster and so i disabled some features from it (fancy dock, widget page, missions control). But by disabling mission control it seems it also disabled expose, but I needed this feature.

Is there a way to get the normal leopard expose back?

And if you have other tips to speed up the OS, this would be amazing! :)

3rd
 

benwiggy

macrumors 68020
Jun 15, 2012
2,473
289
I wanted to make mountain lion faster and so i disabled some features from it (fancy dock, widget page, missions control). But by disabling mission control it seems it also disabled expose, but I needed this feature.

Is there a way to get the normal leopard expose back?

And if you have other tips to speed up the OS, this would be amazing! :)
1. Your best way is to reinstall the OS. Unless you know exactly what components you deleted, and can restore them from a backup (with correct file attributes), then you're better off just putting everything back.
A standard install will replace the OS but leave all your data, apps and settings intact.

2. You will not make your computer faster by deleting these things. When idle, the Dock uses almost no resources. Widgets are not loaded until you activate Dashboard. Mission Control, similarly, is not launched until you ask for it. Even after loading, these processes use negligible CPU and memory when idle.

OS X has very sophisticated process management. There is very little you can do to make things go faster. It is already running optimally.

By deleting things like the Dock, you will gain almost nothing, and almost certainly cause yourself problems, as quite a lot of stuff is linked to that process.

The only thing likely to improve speed is having sufficient RAM. Or adding an SSD, if that's easy/possible on an MBP.
 
Last edited:

the3rdnumber

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 17, 2013
7
0
1. Your best way is to reinstall the OS. Unless you know exactly what components you deleted, and can restore them from a backup (with correct file attributes), then you're better off just putting everything back.
A standard install will replace the OS but leave all your data, apps and settings intact.

2. You will not make your computer faster by deleting these things. When idle, the Dock uses almost no resources. Widgets are not loaded until you activate Dashboard. Mission Control, similarly, is not launched until you ask for it. Even after loading, these processes use negligible CPU and memory when idle.

OS X has very sophisticated process management. There is very little you can do to make things go faster. It is already running optimally.

By deleting things like the Dock, you will gain almost nothing, and almost certainly cause yourself problems, as quite a lot of stuff is linked to that process.

The only thing likely to improve speed is having sufficient RAM. Or adding an SSD, if that's easy/possible on an MBP.

Thanks for your great answer :)

Well, as I read your thing I put back mission control. I have 8Gb of RAM, isnt this enough? Also I would love to move to a SSD, the problem is that I dont really know what type of SSD I have to buy, etc.

And is it possible for macs to get viruses? There is a software called MacCleaner or something, should I get it?

I have bootcamp with windows 7, I run a thing from intel that accelerates the CPU to almost 3Ghz (TurboBOOST 2.0), is there a way I can get this on mac?

Thank you :)
-3rd
 

benthewraith

macrumors 68040
May 27, 2006
3,140
143
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Thanks for your great answer :)

Well, as I read your thing I put back mission control. I have 8Gb of RAM, isnt this enough? Also I would love to move to a SSD, the problem is that I dont really know what type of SSD I have to buy, etc.

And is it possible for macs to get viruses? There is a software called MacCleaner or something, should I get it?

I have bootcamp with windows 7, I run a thing from intel that accelerates the CPU to almost 3Ghz (TurboBOOST 2.0), is there a way I can get this on mac?

Thank you :)
-3rd

8 GB of RAM is more than enough, but you can get Macs these days that are upgradeable to 16 GB. No Macs can't get viruses. They are however susceptible to trojan horse attacks, which rely on the user to install. There is no way of OSX knowing whether an app is legitimate or illegitimate other than the malware list maintained by Apple, which syncs with Apple's servers in the background. Various other steps Apple's taken include Gatekeeper, which restricts installations to applications with signed developers and/or are on the App Store, which naturally have been signed.

MacCleaner, CleanmyMac and Onyx do the same things for the most part. I prefer Onyx over the others, but that's personal preference and the fact I've used it since Tiger. I believe Turboboost is built into OS X.

If you absolutely feel you need an antivirus, then I would recommend ClamXAV. Sophos, Norton and the like require root privilege and can be more pain than they're worth.
 

benwiggy

macrumors 68020
Jun 15, 2012
2,473
289
There is a software called MacCleaner or something, should I get it?
Definitely NOT. "Cleaning" apps are at best unnecessary and often cause more problems than they claim to solve.
If you've come from "another OS", you may be used to having to maintain your OS, muck out the stables, change the oil, etc, etc. This is not necessary on OS X. There is no need to run any maintenance process on a regular basis.
If you do get a problem on your Mac, then I would recommend Onyx, which has a number of utilities for troubleshooting problems. Yes, caches can get corrupt and may need cleaning, but you don't want to do this regularly, as caches are there to improve performance.

And is it possible for macs to get viruses?
There is an increasing amount of malware. The vast majority are trojans -- programs disguised as something else, so that you type in your password to authorise them. There is nothing can "spread" from one computer to another -- a virus. There are some malware designed to exploit bugs in things like Flash and Java.
Best practice is to keep up-to-date with OS updates; don't install software whose original you are unsure of (porn sites, bittorrent, etc); and think before installing anything.

I have bootcamp with windows 7, I run a thing from intel that accelerates the CPU to almost 3Ghz (TurboBOOST 2.0), is there a way I can get this on mac?
I'm not strong on hardware, but as I understand it, Turboboost is handled automatically when needed.

In short: enjoy your Mac, and just use it. It's not like a vintage sports car that needs to spend most of its time in the garage being worked on, just so you can go for the odd drive on a Sunday.
 

Drew017

macrumors 65816
May 29, 2011
1,254
11
East coast, USA
I have a macbook pro 13 2011. I wanted to make mountain lion faster and so i disabled some features from it (fancy dock, widget page, missions control). But by disabling mission control it seems it also disabled expose, but I needed this feature.

Is there a way to get the normal leopard expose back?

And if you have other tips to speed up the OS, this would be amazing! :)

3rd

As has been said before, many of these features really don't use much CPU, and with 8GB of RAM you are very well off. My MacBook Air only has 2GB of RAM and it runs very smoothly and quickly, so you should be fine.

If you don't like these features, just don't use them ;)
 

cjmillsnun

macrumors 68020
Aug 28, 2009
2,399
48
Thanks for your great answer :)

Well, as I read your thing I put back mission control. I have 8Gb of RAM, isnt this enough? Also I would love to move to a SSD, the problem is that I dont really know what type of SSD I have to buy, etc.

And is it possible for macs to get viruses? There is a software called MacCleaner or something, should I get it?

I have bootcamp with windows 7, I run a thing from intel that accelerates the CPU to almost 3Ghz (TurboBOOST 2.0), is there a way I can get this on mac?

Thank you :)
-3rd

It is possible for any computer to be attacked by malware of any kind, be that a virus, trojan horse, worm or any other form of malware.

However on a Mac there are no viruses in the wild as yet. There are a couple of Trojan Horses but your machine will not be vulnerable to them.

There are some exploits that in the main use third party plugins (Flash, JAVA, etc) that can infect your computer, but using safe browsing techniques and disabling unnecessary plugins you should be safe.

I disable flash completely on my primary browser (Safari) and have Google Chrome installed for flash enabled sites as it keeps itself up to date and includes its own version of Flash. I disable Java in my browser and again only enable it on sites I trust.

OS X Mountain Lion (and indeed Lion) supports the turbo boost function of the latest Intel Core series CPUs automatically and will boost the CPU speed when required.

I'm not sure if you mean MacKeeper (who are advertising on this site). If you do, avoid. It's trash. Use Onyx instead. It's a much better piece of software. But don't over use it. Clearing caches unnecessarily will actually slow your computer down.

As far as AV products go, you don't need them at present. But if you really want one, there are 2 I would recommend, both of them free.

The first is Sophos. Whilst it does require admin privileges to install, it doesn't require root as some people think, and unlike the likes of Norton it is easy to remove if you find that you don't need it (and believe me you won't need it)

It is also thoroughly tested in corporate environments.

The other is ClamXAV. It is completely open source.

Again, I don't bother with AV, instead I make sure the firewall is on and restrict my browsing to sites I trust.

You mentioned upgrades. The best upgrade you can give your MBP is an SSD.

They aren't cheap, however the speed increase you will get is amazing. It's like having a new Mac.
 

snaky69

macrumors 603
Mar 14, 2008
5,908
488
I have bootcamp with windows 7, I run a thing from intel that accelerates the CPU to almost 3Ghz (TurboBOOST 2.0), is there a way I can get this on mac?

Thank you :)
-3rd

The very fact that you're asking tells me you most likely do not need the extra power in the first place.

What do you use your computer for?
 

the3rdnumber

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 17, 2013
7
0
The very fact that you're asking tells me you most likely do not need the extra power in the first place.

What do you use your computer for?

Well I use my computer for HD youtube, video and photoshop CS6. Those seem to work perfectly, but I dont like when the OS itself is not as snappier as I would love it to be :/.

Another thing that I noticed today when I tried to launch a game on windows is that I have all the drivers installed, but it seems that macos is limmiting my gfc to 64mb which is nothing for a normal today's game. It is a HD 3000 and should be allowed to at least 800mb from what I know. But even if it has only 64, can I allocate memory from my actual 8Gb RAM? I know there is a way to do this trough the bios, but since im runnign windows trough bootcamp, I have no clue on how to actually access it. :(

----------

Do your homework and get an SSD, it's the best thing you can do at this point.
Macs don't get viruses so don't bother with virus software.

Yeah lol, Ill get one a s soon as possible :p.

----------

If you're having performance issues, this may help:

The steps you showed me seem good, I will try them when I'm back on MacOS. Thank you :)
 

snaky69

macrumors 603
Mar 14, 2008
5,908
488
Well I use my computer for HD youtube, video and photoshop CS6. Those seem to work perfectly, but I dont like when the OS itself is not as snappier as I would love it to be :/.

Another thing that I noticed today when I tried to launch a game on windows is that I have all the drivers installed, but it seems that macos is limmiting my gfc to 64mb which is nothing for a normal today's game. It is a HD 3000 and should be allowed to at least 800mb from what I know. But even if it has only 64, can I allocate memory from my actual 8Gb RAM? I know there is a way to do this trough the bios, but since im runnign windows trough bootcamp, I have no clue on how to actually access it. :(

Your use benefits very little from extra processor power, you do not need to worry about it. TurboBoost is being taken care of automatically by your processor under OS X, leave it that way.

The OS not being "snappy" is usually due to the computer's bottleneck: the hard drive. Spinning platter hard drives are seriously limiting when it comes to operations such as opening large files, apps and anything else disk intensive.

You cannot, and don't need to allocate more memory to the Intel 3000HD. It's simply a crappy integrated card, so you shouldn't be expecting much performance out of it in the first place, and what performance you do get out of it has very little to do with the amount of VRAM it has. Manufacturers have blown the importance of VRAM way out of proportion, when actual graphical calculation power is more important.

I can push a 1920x1080 desktop with an old PowerMac G4 from 2001 with a 16MB video card. Even the 3000HD is immensely more powerful than the ATI Rage Pro 128 that is in my G4, even so, it's still shoddy compared to today's standards. It simply lacks power, not memory.
 
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