99 tips For a Fast Performing MAC ( part 5 )

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73) Clean Your Computer

A dirty computer will mean that your make Mac runs hotter. As a result your computer will compensate by slowing down processes to increase the life of it components. Clean out your Mac by taking it apart and using an anti-static cloth. Consult Apples website for more information.

74) Turbo Charge Your Mouse

You can speed up how quicker your mouse tracks by using a terminal command line.

defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling some_number

The highest value that a mouse can track at is 3, through a normal way. You can try and increase this to 5 or 6 for a starting point. To revert it back insert a number lower than 3 or use the Preference Pane.

75) Turbo Charge A Trackpad

You can use the same method to turbo charge a laptop trackpad. The max speed for a trackpad is 1.5 through a Preference Pane so you may want to change some_number to 2 or 3.

defaults write -g com.apple.trackpad.scaling some_number

76) Use A Seperate Drive For Large Files

The Mac file system HFS is a fickle system for fragmentation of large files. Defragging is not recommend for your Mac system since it breaks system file hot clustering, but it can speed up large files. So for a quick file access put large video files on a separate disk to speed up access time to these files.

77) Kill Background Processes

I have mentioned earlier that you should kill any programs you are not actively using. Another speed tip to get the most out of your Mac is to kill any background processes. Open up Activity Monitor and quit any processes you don’t need. Be careful because some processes you shouldn’t quit. Only end the ones you know.

78) Optimize GarageBand Response Times

In the GarageBand Preferences change the optimization time. A small buffer will enable you to listen to tracks sooner.

79) Lock GarageBand Tracks

Lock GarageBand tracks in the main window so you can’t change their settings. This takes the load off your CPU and RAM and puts it on the hard drive enabling your computer to do something else.

80) Hide The Track Mixer In Garage Band

Turn off the track mixer during playback. This frees up CPU when playing back tracks.

81) Combine Tracks In GarageBand

Combine finalized GarageBand tracks so your computer doesn’t have to keep track of these music tracks.

82) Clear PRAM (Intel Macs)

Although people haven’t found any speed increase, this little trick will clear out any RAM gremlins allowing your computer to boot quicker. Restart you Mac and hold Command + Option + P + R and let your computer chime three to four times.

83) Set Big Packets On Your Network

The size of your data packets on your network will enable more data to be sent at once. Open up Network in System Preferences. Hit the Advance button and click on Ethernet. Set the MTU to Jumbo and the Duplex to full duplex, flow control. This will enable bigger packets to flow over your network. You will have to do this for all your computers for best effect.

84) Use Quicksilver

Quicksilver is designed to enable you to work quicker on your computer. Install it and do your every day actions quicker. Once as you learn how it works and how to use it you will never be without it.

85) Let Unix Scripts Run

Your computer has a couple of built in Unix scripts for cleaning up your Mac. Keep your Mac on during the night on a Saturdays and the first day of the month so it can run its scripts.

86) Remove Services

If you have a lot of services in the services menu this take up RAM and time to load. Remove the ones you don’t use with a tool like Service Scrubber.

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