Mac Tips and Tricks

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Clearing Your Desktop

Your desktop plays a part in how long it takes for you to boot the system because it’s the first screen that it has to load up. As much as possible, try to keep it simple by minimizing the number of icons from the dock and clearing up the amount of files you can see. You can either delete themor put them into folders so that the operating system doesn’t have to waste additional resources to load them upon starting your computer.

mac desktop

Doing this will take the toil away from your memory, especially if you’re using an older Mac system. This will not only ensure that your boot time will be shortened, but also improve the performance of your Mac in general.

Managing Startup Items

When you install some applications, they automatically configured your startup setting such that these applications would be loaded up when you boot up your Mac. Depending on your usage, such a setting can either make it convenient for you (if the first thing you want to do when you boot up is to use that application), or slow down the booting time with no additional convenience for yourself.

Leaving such applications can also draw some valuable resources away from your Mac such that it slows down the system. As much as possible, try to remove those which you rarely use. For Mac OS X Lion’s user, all you need to do is go to System Preferences > System > Users & Groups > Login Items, and uncheck the application(s) you want off from the startup.

Cleaning Up The Hard Drive

Mac operating system actually utilizes whatever free space you have on your hard drive as ‘virtual memory’, which plays a significant role in the performance. In other words, the more data you have in your hard drive, the lesser the amount of memory you would have for the smooth running of your applications. The obvious solution to a slow-running Mac operating system is to free up hard drive space to make room for the ‘virtual memory’.

I’m sure you know where to begin when you’re cleaning up your hard drive, such as emptying your Trash, removing rarely used applications, etc. Alternatively, you can also remove languages that you don’t use through programs like Monolingual. This would save at least several hundred megabytes of disk space. It may not be much, but why waste resources?

Monitor Your Activity Monitor

Sometimes you wouldn’t know what’s taxing your memory and slowing down the system in the process. This is where the Apple’s Activity Monitor comes in handy. You get to see the CPU usage, Random Access Memory (RAM) and virtual memory usage from the monitor, which the info will help greatly in optimizing your Mac!

When you notice that there’s a spike when you use certain applications, you can infer that these are the ones which are draining away your memory and making your system sluggish. That way, you can either choose to minimize your usage on these applications or make room in your memorylike closing down other applications when you’re going to use them. On top of that, the monitor lists down in details all the applications which are currently in use. You can see how much each application is eating up your CPU, real & virtual memory. You may choose to quit those that are consuming an awful lot of your system’s resources to speed things up. If you need more explanations on the Activity Monitor, do check out this comprehensive guide.

Embrace Cleaning Utility Tools

Perhaps the most straightforward way to optimize your system’s performance is to runmultifunction utility tool like OnyX. What it basically does is that it conducts system maintenanceand cleaning functions to smoothen the running of your system. Temporary files stored as caches are cleared so that they don’t ‘jam’ up the performance of your system.

onyx

If your goal is to sustain a top-notch performing Mac, then such utility tools can be programmed torun as scheduled routines. This way, unnecessary files and browser history or any other cache files are regularly removed from your system so that it will run at its best most of the time. In fact, it is highly recommended that all Mac users do such consistent maintenance. If OnyX doesn’t seem to cater to your maintenance needs, you can also try out others like CleanMyMac and MacKeeper.

Getting Hardware Upgrade

Worse comes to worse, if the above tips didn’t significantly improve your Mac’s performance to your liking, you can always consider purchasing hardware that would more or less guarantee a speed boost. This would, however, require you to throw money to resolve the issue, as compared to the previous tips which are all free. Upgrading your RAM is probably the simplest way to ensure a faster computer. As compared to upgrading your processor, it is also much cheaper. If you only have one piece of RAM attached in your Mac, consider getting another one.
upgrade ram

At the very least, your Mac should have a 2 GB RAM minimum, and 4 GB RAM is recommended for web designer who run premium graphic editor like Adobe Photoshop which eats up a lot of memory and hard drive space. If you are using 2GB/4GB ram and still finds it running slow, consider getting an additional 2 GB RAM that would logically speed up the performance by 50%. Of course, this depends on how much memory your Mac can support, so ask the professionals before you proceed. Another alternative is to get a faster hard drive or use a Solid State Drive (SSD), but they don’t come cheap. One way is to get the SSD to run only your operating system and other applications, while leaving the other data on your old hard disk. Here is a good site on how to set up a SSD drive.

Reset specific parts of Safari

If Safari is behaving oddly, maybe loading very slowly or crashing while other browsers or devices are working fine, you can use the Reset Safari command from the Safari menu to clear out some or all of its cached data. In the vast majority of cases, this action restores speed and responsiveness to the browser. Bear in mind that you might want to uncheck the option to remove all saved names, passwords and autofill data since many people rely on the browser to remember the many logins they have.

Customise your desktop + screen saver

Go into System Preferences and locate the Desktop & Screen Saver section. Under Desktop, you can choose from the included images, or select one from your iPhoto library or a custom folder. You can even specify times changes if you like, to keep things interesting. In the Screen Saver tab, you can assign hot corners to start your screensaver as well as showing a clock whenever it's running. In the Security & Privacy tab of System Preferences you can choose to require a password to stop the screen saver, which is still the simplest way of securing an unattended Mac - extremely useful in an office environment or one in which kids are apt to fiddle.

Use Smart Folders effectively

Often overlooked, Smart Folders can be really useful. Select File > New Smart Folder in the Finder and then add criteria to the folder as you would if performing a search. For example, 'kind is image' and 'last opened is in the last one month'. Then click Save. This folder will always show files that match those criteria, automatically updating itself so it stays current. Another great timesaver is to select several items in the Finder then choose File > New Folder With Selection, which places the items into a new folder automatically.

Take advantage of Quick Look

Quick Look can preview multiple documents at once. Select a number of items in the Finder then hit the space bar. Pressing the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard will now cycle through them, and pressing the Grid button in the Quick Look window will display all items in a single window. It's possible to open a document in its associated application by using the Open In button at the top right of the Quick Look window.

Organize Your Dock

The Dock is undoubtedly one of the best features inside of OS X. Many have discounted it, tried to replace or out right copy it, but with little success. In this Quick Tip, you’ll learn how to add an extra bit of wow to your Dock by adding Spacer Tiles.
What Are Spacer Tiles?
Spacer Tiles are just what they sound like, a blank Dock icon that acts as a spacer between other icons already in your Dock. You get them with a simple Terminal command and can use them to organize your Dock icons into logical groups or any other organizational way you want. The Dock can become a bit tricky to navigate if you like having a lot of icons docked. Using Spacer Tiles can help you navigate your Dock icons quickly by giving you visual cues as to where things are.

Adding Spacer Titles to Your Dock:
To add a Dock Tile to your Dock, you first need to open up Terminal, found in Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities. Terminal is a command line interface for OS X that allows you to, among other things, make changes to the operating system and how it behaves. If you want to learn more about Terminal then check out some of the other great articles on Terminal. For this Quick Tip, we won’t concern ourselves with learning more than needed.

The Terminal command to add a Dock Tile is shown below.
You can pick out some key information, mainly that the change (write) is going to happen to the Apple Dock (com.apple.dock), and the change tile type is a Spacer Tile: defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}' Copy and paste this command into Terminal and hit Return. A new command line should appear, indicating that the previous command was accepted. Done! Repeat this for however many Dock Spacer Tiles you want to add to your Dock. When you’re finished adding Spacer Tiles, you need to restart the Dock for them to appear, which you do by typing killall Dock into the Terminal command line that appears after the last command was accepted. When you’re done with Terminal, it is good practice to type “exit” into a command line before closing out Terminal to log you out of the current Terminal Session.

Using Your Dock Spacers
You use your Dock Spacers like any other Dock icon by clicking and dragging it around the other icons (you need to click the bottom area where the icon would be resting on the Dock, not the empty space where the icon would be). If you ever want to delete a Dock Spacer, you simply click and drag it out of the Dock and it poofs away like always. You can also right click and select “Remove from Dock.”

Siri Tips

Search the web using Siri

Here are some example phrases for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Looking up information

Search the web for Bora Bora
Search for vegetarian pasta recipes
Search the web for best cable plans
Google the war of 1812
Search Wikipedia for Abraham Lincoln
Search for news about the World Cup
Bing Alicia Keys

Using Wolfram Alpha

How many calories in a bagel?
What is an 18% tip on $86.74 for four people?
Who's buried in Grant's tomb?
How long do dogs live?
What is the Gossamer Condor?
What's the square root of 128?
How many dollars is €45?
What was the Best Picture of 1983?
How many days until Christmas?
How far away is the Sun?
When is the next solar eclipse?
Show me the Orion constellation
What's the population of Jamaica?
How high is Mt. Everest?
How deep is the Atlantic ocean?
What's the price of gasoline in Chicago?

Check the Weather using Siri

Here are some example phrases for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Checking the Forecast

What's the weather for today?
What's the weather for tomorrow?
Will it rain in Cupertino this week?
Check next week's forecast for Burlington
What's the forecast for this evening?
How's the weather in Tampa right now?
How hot will it be in Palm Springs this weekend?
What's the high for Anchorage on Thursday?
What's the temperature outside?
How windy is it out there?
When is sunrise in Paris?

Check Stocks using Siri

Here are some example phrases for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Checking Stocks

What's Apple's stock price?
What is Apple's PE ratio?
What did Yahoo close at today?
How is the Nikkei doing?
How are the markets doing?
What is the Dow at?

Create Reminders using Siri

Here are some example phrases for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Requesting reminders

Remind me to call mom
Remind me to call my mom when I get home
Remember to take an umbrella
Remind me take my medicine at 6am tomorrow
Remind me to pick up flowers when I leave here
Remind me when I leave to call Jason
Remind me to finish the report by 6

Make Phone calls using Siri

Here are some example phrases for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Phone calls

Call Jason
Call Jennifer Wright mobile
Call Susan on her work phone
Call 408 555 1212
Call home
FaceTime Lisa

Create and find notes using Siri

Here are some example phrases for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Creating and finding notes

Note that I spent $12 on lunch
Note: check out that new Alicia Keys album
Find my restaurant note
Create a reading list note
Add Tom Sawyer to my reading list note

Conrtol your music using Siri

Here are some example phrases for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Playback

Play The Light of the Sun
Play Trouble
Play Taking Back Sunday shuffled
Play Alicia Keys
Play some blues
Play my party mix
Shuffle my roadtrip playlist
Play
Pause
Skip

Send, Read and Reply to Messages using Siri

Here are some example phrases for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Sending Texts

Tell Susan I'll be right there
Send a message to Jason Russell
Send a message to Lisa saying how about tomorrow
Tell Jennifer the show was great
Send a message to Susan on her mobile saying I'll be late
Send a message to 408 555 1212
Text Jason and Lisa where are you?

Reading Texts

Read my new messages
Read it again

Replying to Texts

Reply that's great news
Tell him I'll be there in 10 minutes
Call her

Use Maps and Siri

Here are some example phrases for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Directions

How do I get home?
Show 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino California
Directions to my dad's work

Local Businesses

Find coffee near me
Where is Starbucks?
Find some burger joints in Baltimore
Find a gas station within walking distance
Good Mexican restaurants around here

Check up on friends using Siri

Here are some example phrases for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Checking Up on Friends

Where's Jason?
Where is my sister?
Is my wife at home?
Where are all my friends?
Who is here?
Who is near me?

Use Email and Siri

Here are some example phrases for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Sending Messages

Email Lisa about the trip
Email Jennifer about the change in plans
New email to Susan Park
Mail Dad about the rent check
Email Dr. Manning and say I got the forms, thanks
Mail Lisa and Jason about the party and say I had a great time

Checking Messages

Check email
Any new email from Michael today?
Show new mail about the lease
Show the email from Lisa yesterday

Responding to Messages

Reply Dear Susan sorry about the late payment
Call him at work

Check, Set and Use Alarms with Siri

Here are some example phrases for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Setting Alarms

Wake me up tomorrow at 7am
Set an alarm for 6:30am
Wake me up in 8 hours
Change my 6:30 alarm to 6:45
Turn off my 6:30 alarm
Delete my 7:30 alarm

Checking the Clock

What time is it?
What time is it in Berlin?
What is today's date?
What's the date this Saturday?

Using a Timer

Set the timer for ten minutes
Show the timer
Pause the timer
Resume
Reset the timer
Stop it

Add, Edit and ask about Calendar events with Siri

Here are some example phrases and commands for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Adding Events

Set up a meeting at 9
Set up a meeting with Michael at 9
Meet with Lisa at noon
Set up a meeting about hiring tomorrow at 9am
New appointment with Susan Park Friday at 3
Schedule a planning meeting at 8:30 today in the boardroom

Changing events

Move my 3pm meeting to 4:30
Reschedule my appointment with Dr. Manning to next Monday at 9am
Add Lisa to my meeting with Jason
Cancel the budget review meeting

Asking about events

What does the rest of my day look like?
What's on my calendar for Friday?
When is my next appointment?
When am I meeting with Michael?
Where is my next meeting?

Use the Address Book and Siri

Here are some example phrases for the iPhone4S's voice assistant Siri. Address Book Querying Contacts

What's Michael's address?
What is Susan Park's phone number?
When is my wife's birthday?
Show Jennifer's home email address

Finding Contacts

Show Jason Russell
Find people named Park
Who is Michael Manning?

Relationships

My mom is Susan Park
Michael Manning is my brother
Call my brother at work

Which apps does Siri work?

With which apps does Siri work?Siri works with almost all the built-in apps on iPhone 4S. And it's smart enough to figure out which apps to use to provide you with answers. It also uses Search and Location Services to help you with your requests. Here's a list of apps and services that Siri works with worldwide:

Phone
FaceTime
Music
Mail
Messages
Calendar
Reminders
Notes
Contacts
Alarms
World Clock
Timer
Weather
Stocks
Web search
Wikipedia search
Wolfram|Alpha (English only)
Find My Friends

Siri can also assist you with these apps and services but on in the US right now. If you are outside of the US you will have to wait at least until 2013.