Mac Must Knows

Dashboard is great. Tons of cool widgets that let you do almost anything.

But having all these widgets does affect your computer.

Each widget needs a bit of memory to run. Some more then others.

Certain widgets need so much space they will slow down your computer. The ones that keep updating to show new info are probably the worst.

Don't feel like you can't have these widgets. I use them, they're great.

But if you want to give your computer a little boost just open dashboard and remove the widgets you don't need/use. Doing this will help take some strain off your computer.

If you don't use dashboard, why not disable it? This too will save you some energy.

The easiest way to disable dashboard is with Onyx. It's under: Parameters ---> Expose and Dashboard.

If you don't want to download Onyx you can turn it off with Terminal... it's more technical but you can do it.

This guide will tell you how to do it: http://www.macworld.com/article/46236/2005/08/disabledashboard.html

Good Luck!

Mac is prepared to fit all possible needs. It has settings to help people with problems hearing and seeing, settings to share internet, settings to share files.

This is all great, but not everyone needs it and it slows your computer down.

To see what's turned on open your system preferences.

What we will be checking is:

• Universal Access

• Speech Recognition

• Bluetooth

• Internet Sharing

Universal Access is for people who have impaired vision and/or hearing. So naturally if your hearing and sight is fine, you don't need it. To turn it off open system preferences and click "Universal Access". Just quickly go through and check it's all set to off.

Speech Recognition let's you tell the computer to preform certain tasks using the mic. I personally never use it because a mouse and keyboard do the job. If you don't want it on click "Speech" in the preferences and turn it off.

Bluetooth can be used to connect things wirelessly that are close by. This could be a mouse, a keyboard or even your cell. If you use anything that requires bluetooth, leave it on. If not you can turn it off. This can be done as always through the system preferences under "Bluetooth".

Internet Sharing is very handy for expanding your wireless network. It let's other people near your computer connect to the internet wirelessly. In some situations this may be very useful, but if your not using it your just slowing down your computer. To turn it off go to the preferences and uncheck it in the sharing section.

So there you have it, four services you can turn off to make your computer run a little bit faster.

"10 Ways To Speed Up Your Mac": Clean Useless Startup Items

When you log on to your computer, it has a few programs that it loads as soon as it starts.

The more it has to load, the longer it will take to load. You can cut down the load time by removing some of these startup items.

To do this go to:

System Preferences --> Accounts --> (Click the account you want to clean) --> Login Items

There you can find a list of Applications that launch at the start.

Look through them to see which ones you don't need.

When you find one you want to remove click it to highlight it and click the minus button.

Do this with all the accounts you want. This will make your computer start and run faster!

Ever been using your computer and noticed it getting a bit slow?

Sometimes it's because your running tons of applications, or you haven't restarted your computer in ages. So you close a few things, reboot it up and problem solved.

Other times it's something else. Well there are things you can do to speed up your mac other then just running less apps.

I have made a list of "10 Ways To Speed Up Your Mac". Most of these ways are free so don't worry about pulling out your wallet. They're also fast so you can do them whenever you have some free time.

Here are "10 Ways To Speed Up Your Mac":

1. Clean out useless startup items.
2. Turn off unnecessary services.
3. Remove "Other" unused preferences.
4. Update Your Software
5. Remove unnecessary code from your applications.
6. Remove unused languages and translations.
7. Get rid of power hogging widgets.
8. Check "Activity Monitor".
9. Clean up your hard drive.
10. Run Onyx.

Don't worry, that's not all I'm leaving you with. This is a big subject though... to big for one post. I'll post a more detailed explanation for each tip in a separate post (like with the "Top 10 Favorite Mac Applications").

I keep up-dating, you keep checking back!

I'll start posting soon.