Pre-Christmas clean out and up tips - By Darren Edwards
With Christmas JUST around the corner, maybe with a little foresight you could tidy up your Mac ready for a fresh start to 1999.
• Make a full backup of everything, yup I said E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. Not just the ones you use this week. About four months ago I changed machines after a bad crash caused by too much playing in ResEdit with the system folder [not recommended looking back]. I only normally back up the fastest and most used files monthly. So when I loaded all the compressed files on to my new machine, a few weeks later I went looking for artwork I was never to find, so back up everything.
• Save some space. Archive files and applications which are wasting space. Clip Art files you hardly use are a good example or compress that programme you only use once a year but you still want it on the hard drive. All Mac users should have a copy of Stuffit and DropStuff. Now that Stuffit is at version 5 it’s even better, go to <www.aladdinsys.com> and check it out for yourself.
 
• My own personal worst nightmare is Preference files in the system folder. I leave prefs in there until the folder swells to about 20meg then start cleaning. There are programs that do the cleaning for you but I prefer to check what I’m throwing out.
 
While we're on the subject of the System Folder, clear out unused & unwanted System Extensions and Control Panels. It only takes a few weeks of installing programs to build up a nice list of Extensions that are weird and wonderful.
 
• Run Apple Disk First Aid from <www.apple.com>, with the ability to check and repair the start up disk you’ll not even have to restart. You’ll might find a few errors you need to sort out.
 
• Run Norton Utilities and then an anti virus. If you have something similar to Norton then use that, Norton is my preference. TechTool Pro is as good if not better in most areas, so to is the Disk Essentials package I use on my old LC. Remember to defragment those drives too!
All the above are simple and effective, also the most easily forgotten procedures of good Mac house keeping.
Oh, one more thing,
• Remember to have a Happy Christmas & a Happy New Year.
