ARTICLE: Mac OS X Maintenance
ARTICLE: Mac OS X Maintenance
- Subject: ARTICLE: Mac OS X Maintenance
- From: Victoria Maciulski <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 20:18:31 -0800
Mac OS X Maintenance
by Victoria Maciulski
Mac OS X, because it is UNIX, does its own maintenance by automatically
running background tasks (on a pre-determined schedule) to do such
things as delete temporary files, clean up log files, and remove system
files that are no longer needed. These system maintenance procedures
can help prevent problems on your computer and keep certain log files
from becoming too large, keeping your computer running smoothly.
The system maintenance is broken into three parts: daily, weekly, and
monthly maintenance. By default, your OS X has it scheduled to occur at
3:15 A.M. everyday, 4:30 A.M. on Saturdays, and 5:30 A.M. on the first
day of each month (in your local time zone). However, these tasks
cannot run if your computer is shut down or in sleep mode. So, if you
regularly have your computer off or asleep at those times, you dont
get the benefits of that maintenance.
If you dont want to keep your computer running overnight, you can
perform these procedures manually, on your own schedule. A few programs
are out there to help you do it easily.
Try MacJanitor, a free program that allows you to run maintenance tasks
whenever you want. Download it at:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10491.
Another one is XJanitor-PL, but it doesnt seem to be as simple to use
as the others mentioned in this article. Its more for the techy
minded. Download it at
http://theapotek.com//teknotes/downloads/XJanitor-10.23.sitx.
A fairly new one is OnyX 1.4. It runs on Panther only. No OS X prior to
Panther will run it. Use it to run maintenance, optimize and
personalize your system. You can also configure hidden parameters in
the Dock and Finder. Its Free. Download it at
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11582.
Doktor Kleanor 10.2 runs on Jaguar (10.2 10.2.8) only. It will do the
maintenance, clean caches, repair permissions and verify (and fix, if
needed) problems with mounting disk images. Its also free at
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13256.
I use Panther Cache Cleaner. It runs on both Panther and Jaguar. In
addition to running the maintenance scripts, it can repair permissions,
clean the caches, rebuild prebindings and a whole bunch of other very
technical stuff. You can download it at
http://www.northernsoftworks.com/panthercachecleaner.html.
If you are an advanced user, you can use Terminal to run those
maintenance items.
Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal).
Type: sudo sh /etc/daily and press the RETURN key. (Note: To run the
weekly or monthly tasks, type weekly or monthly in place of daily.)
When prompted, enter your Mac OS X Administrator password and press
ENTER.
Quit Terminal when the task is complete. Monthly tasks may require
more time to run than weekly or daily tasks.
)2004 Victoria Maciulski, Newsletter Editor, Conejo Ventura Mac User
Group (CVMUG)
email@hidden, iChat: toriamac
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