Let’s face it: chores are chores. However, most chores are essential to life, liberty and care-free computing. Here are routine maintenance chores you can use to ensure that your Macintosh doesn’t bark-and-swallow all your word processing files, spreadsheets, and games, all the way back to 1991. Each of these tips apply to Macintoshes using System 7.0.1, 7.1 or 7.5. If you are happily using System 6.0.8 or earlier...well...good luck to you. By adopting these little tips as habits, you can really lower your chances of a devastating hard drive crash or loss of essential time and data.
Shutting Down and Restarting
Before we go on, there is one and only one way to correctly Restart or Shut Down your Macintosh, and that is from the Special menu in the Finder. Do not use the button in the back of the machine unless there is no alternative, such as when your machine freezes up on you. If there is no alternative, turn off the machine from the back, then turn it on normally. Wait until it has completely booted up and then Restart it once more from the Special menu. During the restart process your Mac performs some housekeeping and will clear up any Memory problems you may have left over from your original crash.
Today
Go through your computer, file by file, and throw out all the junk. This includes old programs, old files you have since archived, those random MacPaint drawings you created in 1989, etc. Be ruthless, but use some common sense before discarding someone else’s files. While you are at it, now is the time to throw out the following Control Panels and Apple Menu Items: Easy Access, CloseView, A/ROSE, DAL Preferences, Numbers, and that silly Puzzle. Another place to search is the Preferences folder within your System folder. I will wager that you will find at least half-a-dozen Preferences files for programs and games which you long ago discarded. Drag them all to the Trash, and select Empty Trash from the Special menu. Oh, yeah: never, ever have more than one System folder on your hard drive.
Every Day
Restart your computer (from the Special menu, of course). It’s that simple: by restarting your computer at least once a day, you rebuild the RAM memory allocation from scratch. This will also turn off all unused, but still running, programs. Further, this action will prevent you from getting those out-of-memory messages quite so often. Also, some filesaving utilities (such as the one from Norton Utilities) only operate on restarting. Shutting down (say, at the end of the day), works just as well.
Once a Week
Back up your hard drive. You can even do this one more often. Although you can drag folders to a separate drive icon, a back-up program is more convenient. I will refer you to the appropriate manufacturers for this information, but do not neglect this important chore! Once we lost an entire hard drive to a crash. Poof! It was gone. We were lucky (?) enough to have back-ups for most of our applications and files.
Every Two Weeks
Run a disk utility/maintenance program. One came with your Macintosh, on the disk called Disk Tools. It is called Disk First Aid. Try to use version 7.2 or later, as it can uncover and fix problems earlier versions do not. Two commercial programs are Norton Utilities 3.1 and Disk Tools 4.0. Ideally, run both Disk First Aid and one of the commercial programs, since each focuses on slightly different problems. For a short time, Apple Computer had another disk utility program, MacCheck, but they no longer support it. Each of these programs scans the hard drive for physical problems, then goes back and re-scans it program-by-program in order to fix-up little inconsistencies and problems before they create chaos. Usually such a utility can detect and fix a growing problem that might eventually lead to a hard drive crash.
Every Two Months
Back up your hard disk, then run a disk defragmenter like SpeedDisk. SpeedDisk is a utility program that comes with Norton Utilities. MacTools has one that is similar. As you read from and save to your hard drive, the individual sections of your programs, documents and files do not necessarily get saved in contiguous chunks. Instead, bits of them are saved at various locations on the hard drive as space is available. Over time (say, two months) this fragmentation of programs gets to be enough to actually slow down disk access and mess up virtual memory schemes. A defragmenter reorganizes the files on your hard drive, and puts everything back into working order. As you might imagine, this takes a while, so bring a good book. Important: remember to back up your hard disk first!
Every Two Months
Rebuild your Desktop. You could do this right after you run SpeedDisk. The Desktop file is an invisible directory file that your Macintosh System creates to keep track of the location and icon of your programs and documents. If you are having any problems with icons being incorrect, the Desktop file is the culprit, and must be rebuilt. To rebuild the Desktop, just Restart your Macintosh. Wait until the last Extension loads up, and then, as soon as the screen goes blank, hold down the command and option keys at the same time. The object of this game is to hold down these two keys just before the Finder menus start to show up. You will see a little dialog box asking if you really want to rebuild the Desktop. Click OK, and then go and get a cup of coffee. This will take about five minutes.
Every Year
Zap the PRAM. Yeah, I know this sounds so cool that you will want to do it every day, but once a year is usually enough. PRAM means parameter RAM. Parameter RAM permanently remembers hardware preferences such as the time and date, how fast your menus blink, and your favorite desktop pattern. These are all things you change with the various Control Panels. There is actually a little battery that keeps these things alive in memory. Once a year or so, you should reset these. Before you zap the PRAM, write down all your favorite control panel settings, as they will be lost. To zap the PRAM, restart your Macintosh while holding down the following magical keys at the same time (you might need someone to help you): command, option, P, and R. After you Restart, go about the business of setting all your Control Panels back to the way you like them. Available online is a neat little freeware application called TechTool 1.0.7. TechTool will store your PRAM settings, then zap them automatically. TechTool is also good at rebuilding the desktop.
Well, this is a new column, so there are no questions right now. However, please send in any technical question you have about the Mac and we will try and get an answer to you as quick as possible. If the question is really good, we might even print it. Send the questions into rtfm@onramp.net with MacMedicine as the subject.
