So I've had my macbook for a few months now and it being my first mac, I'm not sure how to best set it for optimal performance. It's the 2ghz CD with 512 mb RAM, which will hopefully be upgraded soon. Being a user of windows for most of my life, I just don't know what to do with my mac to make it perform at it's best. On windows machine's I'd clean the disk up and all that other stuff...any help would be much appreciated! While I am happy with my mac I don't see the $1,000 difference between it and my old laptop at this point. Oh and where should I go to get my RAM upgrade?
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Optimal performance
- Thread starter peterh2o
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It's of course a personal thing, but for me, the stability/features of OSX along w/ the beautiful enclosure more than make up for any difference in price. I'd think it'd be safe to say that most mac users share that sentiment.
If price was a huge concern for me I would probably have gone w/ a Dell. It gets the job done, but not nearly as painlessly and elegantly as my mac. I guess I'd describe the mac as lying more on the end of luxury goods (granted many people use their macs/mac software for their jobs and livelihood).
If price was a huge concern for me I would probably have gone w/ a Dell. It gets the job done, but not nearly as painlessly and elegantly as my mac. I guess I'd describe the mac as lying more on the end of luxury goods (granted many people use their macs/mac software for their jobs and livelihood).
good RAM upgrades can be found at Crucial and OWC. Newegg is also good, but i've found the best prices at OWC.
you do not need to run any maintenance on your computer. emptying the Trash is the most disk cleaning you'll have to do. the operating system defragments the hard drive automatically. there are no viruses or spyware or adware so you don't have to run those scans. if you feel the need to do something (don't we all?), you could do something called "repair disk permissions." the usefulness of this task has been debated, but for me, it clears up RAM usage (i always have more RAM available after doing it) and makes it seem like you're doing something good for the computer. it is in Disk Utilities, which is in the Applications folder. once in Disk Utilities, in the left pane, click on your hard drive and then in the right pane, click "repair disk permissions."
good luck, and remember, one of the benefits of having a Mac is not having to worry about optimizing your system's performance. that's taken care of by the operating system.
you do not need to run any maintenance on your computer. emptying the Trash is the most disk cleaning you'll have to do. the operating system defragments the hard drive automatically. there are no viruses or spyware or adware so you don't have to run those scans. if you feel the need to do something (don't we all?), you could do something called "repair disk permissions." the usefulness of this task has been debated, but for me, it clears up RAM usage (i always have more RAM available after doing it) and makes it seem like you're doing something good for the computer. it is in Disk Utilities, which is in the Applications folder. once in Disk Utilities, in the left pane, click on your hard drive and then in the right pane, click "repair disk permissions."
good luck, and remember, one of the benefits of having a Mac is not having to worry about optimizing your system's performance. that's taken care of by the operating system.
if you're up for going deeper into software side of optimization, here's a good thread to read (these guys optimize their Mac's to get the most juice for professional useage). remember, users discretion: if you're not sure, don't do it.
http://www.gearspace.com/board/showthread.php?t=67882
feel free to ask any Q's.
http://www.gearspace.com/board/showthread.php?t=67882
feel free to ask any Q's.
my macbook runs just as fast since the day it came out of the box
it might run even faster if you optimize it... thereby not "suck" anymore