How to make sure my mac runs smoothly?

[Lozza]

Hi everyone,

Hoping someone can help me. I have 2 macs - a powerbook g4 and a 20inch new thing with the intel core duo thing/ tiger

My question is, when I took my powerbook to get fixed up a while ago I was told i had some software issues with access rights/permissions - and that applecare didnt cover it. My apple fixer man told me to download some utility which will run in the background and fix up my permissions to ensure everything runs quickly (something to do with being unix and having to keep permissions neat and tidy and my computer not being turned off too much).

The thing is it was all mumble jumble to me and now I can't find his business card with the utility name on it. Does anyone have any idea what I'm talking about? Hopefully this makes a tiny bit of sense to someone and fingers crossed someone can explain all of this in english to me and direct me to this utility?

Thanks!
Lozzy

[sirstaunch]

Onyx

[barhar]

01. '... to get fixed up ...', is too vague; and, does not translate well.

02. 'My apple fixer man', does not sound like an Apple Genius (which at times is an oxymoron, in itself).

03. Did you, or the person you trusted your Mac to, go to '/Applications/Utilities/' and open (run, launch) 'Disk Utility'? If not, do such - click on the icon in the left side column (representing your boot volume), click on the 'First Aid' tab, and finally - click on the 'Repair Disk Permissions' button. Once the process is completed, click on the 'Repair Disk Permissions' button again.

A better approach is to boot from the provided 'Install Disc', and select the 'Installer, Open Disk Utility...' menu item. Once 'Disk Utility' launches - click on the icon in the left side column (representing your boot volume), click on the 'First Aid' tab, and then - click on the 'Repair Disk' button. Once the process is completed, click on the 'Repair Disk' button again. Next, click on the 'Repair Disk Permissions' button. Once the process is completed, click on the 'Repair Disk Permissions' button again.

[Graviton]

I find this utility really handy: MainMenu

It sit's on your menubar for easy access to various Mac OS X maintenance, permissions repair, cleaning and optimization tasks. It's speedy and free.

[barhar]

Just downloaded and installed 'MainMenu'. Pretty nice.

I use 'crontab' and custom scripts to maintain my Mac; but, for those who want quick access to such actions, 'MainMenu' is quite convenient.

[Lozza]

Just wanted to post and say thanks for everyones advise I'll work on it this weekend.

[tomdkat]

Yeah, thanks for those links. Which is better, OnyX or MainMenu? Or are they about the same?

Peace...