Hi Cathy, One of the best sources of the kind of information you're seeking is the Take Control guide series. You can read the details in "Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac (second edition)" by Joe Kissell, which list members can purchase at an 80% discount (e.g, $2 or about £1.30). That book focuses on an immediate response to problems, and recovery methods, rather than preventive maintenance. Maintenance programs (like Cocktail or OnyX) are discussed in Kissell's book, "Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac". He also does another Take Control guide on backing up your Mac.
A good (but old, and rather detailed and lengthy) web site to check for this kind of information is the Mac Attorney web site on OSX Maintenance and Troubleshooting http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html Most of the concepts covered there still apply, but you'll find the coverage in the Take Control guides more readable and up to date. If you want a couple of web articles that cover some of the solutions that were recently discussed, here are two articles from the MacTutsPlus web site that came up in a Google search: • "5 Quick Fixes to Common Mac Problems" by Jordan Merrick (January 22, 2013) http://mac.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tips-shortcuts/5-quick-fixes-to-common-mac-problems/ • "5 More Quick Fixes to Common Mac Problems" by Jordan Merrick (January 29, 2013) http://mac.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tips-shortcuts/5-more-quick-fixes-to-common-mac-problems/ Use Safari Reader (Command-Shift-R) to read these pages. They discuss resetting the PRAM (NVRAM) in the first article, and booting into Safe mode in the second. These are the two suggestions that I made to Matthew yesterday, and the discussion about booting into Safe mode also suggests that you just boot into Safe mode by holding down the Shift key when rebooting, but that you don't try to log in in this mode -- just restart your computer. (This is why the fact that VoiceOver isn't supported for Safe mode logins doesn't matter -- you only need to wait long enough to ensure that the boot has finished, and take advantage of the fact that Safe mode clears caches and does some other checks). The tutorials also describe the kind of preventive maintenance that OnyX (and Cocktail) will do, as far as cache cleaning and removing log files, in addition to running Disk Utility repairs of permissions. The main point is that many of these solutions and information resources are not expensive; they just require some action on the user's part. Trial versions of SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner can also be used to create a bootable clone of your hard drive. HTH. Cheers, Esther On Jun 5, 2013, at 2:51 PM, Cathy wrote: > hello, > > so it sounds to me that my best way to avoid difficulties with my mac would > be to run some clean up utilities to keep things running well? > are there any utilities that come with the mac? if so which are they and are > they , enough for basic clean up or should I get another ap? > ? > > > I noticed some utilities mentioned, but wondered which of these utilities > would be best for the mac, mini, which would be the most effective and most > accessible. > , thanks, Cathy > <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to mac-access@mac-access.net You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/maillist.xml> As the Mac Access Dot Net administrators, we do our very best to ensure that the Mac-Access E-Mal list remains malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free. However, this should in no way replace your own security strategy. We assume neither liability nor responsibility should something unpredictable happen. Please remember to update your membership preferences periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>
