Thanks Ronni I consider myself severally named and shamed and will immediately start to clean up my desktop. Another lesson learnt.
Cheers Ronni Tony BODDINGTON Tony: Sent from my iPhone. > On 28 May 2014, at 12:25, Ronni Brown <ro...@mac.com> wrote: > > I'm posting this to WAMUG (again) after seeing the huge number & file size of > files on Tony's Desktop. > How his Mac is even booting up amazes me. > ---- > > Why You Should Keep Your Desktop Clean in OS X > > A desktop is exactly what it sounds like: a place to store temporary > projects. > Once you’re done working on a project, store it in a folder. > > The folder system is really well done on OSX, just go to Macintosh HD > Users > > YourName and you’ll find 9 different folder categories, ranging from music > to documents. Use these folders to store your files. > > Mac OS X considers every icon on your Desktop a window, and because every > window uses additional RAM, more Desktop icons means greater RAM usage. > > Keeping your desktop clean is really important because every icon, folder or > alias on it is loaded into the RAM, slowing your system down. > > If there is a certain folder or file you need to access regularly, leave it > where it should be and slide it into the right side of the OSX dock; this > will create a stack, a feature that is incredibly useful. > > Your Desktop is actually a Folder. > > It lives at your startup disk, usually called “Macintosh HD” > Users > (your > user name) > Desktop. > The difference is that the desktop folder displays it’s contents on your > desktop as icons. > > These are not your normal icons, because the operating system treats every > icon on the desktop as a window. > And because every window uses additional RAM, more Desktop icons means > greater RAM usage. > > So having 100 icons on your desktop is like having 100 windows open at the > same time. > This uses tremendous amounts of system resources and slows everything down. > > It’s easy for the desktop to get out of hand. Icons on the desktop are > generally laid out in a grid. > When the grid fills up, the operating system starts to place any additional > icons in the same place, stacking them on top of icon for your start-up disk! > So now, the problem is getting worse and worse and you don’t even realise it. > > The solution is easy: > > Start by creating a new folder on your desktop. (File > New Folder) > Name it “Stuff to file”, or something like that. Then, take everything on > your desktop and put it in that folder. > It doesn’t matter how many items are in that folder or how much space those > items take up. > To the operating system, it’s just another window. > > Once you have done that, you should notice an immediate improvement in > performance. > > Then Do some house cleaning: > > Start moving things from the “Stuff to file” folder into the proper folders > in your Home Folder: > Documents, Music, Pictures or Movies. > Create sub-folders in those folders, if necessary. > > Then, just keep track of the amount of icons on your desktop. > > How I work and still keep my Desktop Clean: > > 1. I originally created a New Folder in my Documents Folder (in my Home > Folder), and named it "WORK". > Inside that folder I have created other folders, a “Work in Progress" folder > (which also has other folders within it, named for different projects I am > currently working on), "Clients" (which has folders for individual clients > with projects and work I have done for each). > > 2. Then Dragged my "WORK" Folder down onto the Right Side of the Dock. > If you look closely at your dock there is a dividing line. (Applications go > on the left side of the divider, files and folders on the right. > Virtually using the Dock as a launcher, a place for launching applications or > accessing frequently used folders) > > This way my "WORK" folder is filed in my Documents folder in my Home Folder, > but is sitting on my Dock for quick access. > > 3. I do have a folder sitting on my Desktop named "Stuff To File" which holds > everything I have saved to the Desktop (It also has other folders within). > > This way my Desktop stays clean of numerous folders & icons with only the > Hard Drive and "Stuff To File" folder sitting on it. > > In Summary: > Keep all Documents in the Documents folder. Create folders ‘and place > documents within folders’ in your Documents Folder in your Home. > I have numerous Folders in my Documents folder. Example, all documents > relating to Leopard are in a 'Leopard Folder', Snow Leopard Documents are in > a folder ’Snow Leopard’, Lion Documents in Lion Folder, Mountain Lion > documents in Mountain Lion folder etc. > > Drag any Folders you use frequently onto the Right Side of the Dock. Use the > Dock for folders you access every day. > This will not only ensure that your boot time will be shortened, but also > improve the performance of your Mac in general. > > A bit more information: > Remember that anything in the Dock is an Alias. > The greater the number of application aliases the larger amount Dock.app > uses. > The dock is an application and takes about 5 Mb of RAM by itself. > Each application alias in the dock uses about 0.1 Mb of RAM. > This is very little amount of RAM so you won't notice the difference between > 5 application aliases compared to 50. > > Cheers, > Ronni > > 17" MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Quad-Core i7 “Thunderbolt" > 2.3GHz / 8GB / 750GB @ 7200rpm HD > > OS X 10.9.3 Mavericks > Windows 7 Ultimate (under sufferance) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Settings & Unsubscribe - > <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
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