Setting up your MBP for optimal performance

[dbit]

I have a question that I've asked three times here in various places and have still not recieved a good suggestion, so I'll ask one more time.

Does anyone know of any good links for comprehensive prepping of a new MBP for optimum performance for both windows and osx? I'm talking about things like partitioning, power conditioning, account setup, etc?

For instance, I learned recently something that I never knew, that you shouldn't use your administrator account for your primary account. I never knew this perviously.

Any good links for prepping a MPB for optimum long term performance would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any help!

d

 

[Temujin]

For instance, I learned recently something that I never knew, that you shouldn't use your administrator account for your primary account. I never knew this perviously.

d

Why is that?

 

[gcrowell]

Bad practice in the UNIX world to use the administator (or root) ID for anything other than admin-type tasks. Thus the ability to su to root in a term session in UNIX.

Makes if far less likely you will totally hose your machine. Might goof up you ID, but likely that's all.

 

[mleary]

Bad practice in the UNIX world to use the administator (or root) ID for anything other than admin-type tasks. Thus the ability to su to root in a term session in UNIX.

Makes if far less likely you will totally hose your machine. Might goof up you ID, but likely that's all.

OS X forces you to sudo for root privilages from accounts with "Administrator access" by default. Theres no reason to have a seperate account.

 

[thenewguy]

OS X forces you to sudo for root privilages from accounts with "Administrator access" by default. Theres no reason to have a seperate account.

So no need to set up another account? is that what the "shortname" indicates?


I'd love to hear all other optimization tips. In windows I'm used to running a host of programs that rearrange boot sectors and turn off disk indexing, etc. etc. anything like that for osx?

 

[Regaj]

So no need to set up another account? is that what the "shortname" indicates?

No, there's no need to set up another account. The "shortname" refers to the home directory that is set up when the account is created.

As for performance, other than occasionally running "repair permissions" I don't think there's a lot you need to think about. OS X is a remarkably robust OS.

 

[hkk]

In Windows however, its definitely a very good idea to have your primary user account not have administrator rights. And then only switch over to the admin account if you need to install some new software or such.

 

[dbit]

So for the handful of windows applications I need to run do I need to learn all about the technical aspects of the OS? I know how to use it and poke around various aspects of it, but I mean, if I only go there for certain tasks do I really need to take on the responsibility of learning its intricacies?

(sorry, just b*tching lol)

 

[Hockeypuck]

So for the handful of windows applications I need to run do I need to learn all about the technical aspects of the OS? I know how to use it and poke around various aspects of it, but I mean, if I only go there for certain tasks do I really need to take on the responsibility of learning its intricacies?

(sorry, just b*tching lol)

No, I'm a long-time Windows user. You don't need a separate account to act as admin, as long as you don't plan on getting into places you don't know what you're changing.

Just set yourself up as the only account. It's easy to install and run programs in Windows without knowing everything about it. Your "poking around" knowledge will be plenty for the tasks you probably need to accomplish.