1. Permissions Check & Verify Disk: @@
Info:
Permissions Check:
Macs are very secure. But one of the things that makes them so secure is how particular they are regarding permissions to various files. The system that runs the Mac is made up of a variety of "users" and groups, and each system file can be accessed only by specific users and groups. So permissions are assigned to each file, meaning that only certain users or groups can "read" or "write" to those files, while other have no access at all. Keeping track of all these permissions is an involved process and prone to errors, since all it takes is the flipping of a bit from a 0 to a 1 or vice versa to change the permissions of a file from, for example, being able to be read to not being able to be read, which can cause real problems. The analogy here is a high security place like the Pentagon in which different personnel have different access to different areas of the facility; if their security swipe cards were to stop working properly, the facility would cease working properly.
So, on a Mac you should check and repair the “permissions” regularly - I'd suggest once every two months. Go to Applications, Utilities, and run “Disk Utility”. Select your hard drive, and under the “First Aid” tab, which should be selected, click the “Repair Disk Permissions” button. (You may wonder why the "Verify Disk Permissions" is there too; just use the "Repair" one, since almost always you will have at least minor errors which need to be corrected.)
Verify Disk:
In the same place (Disk Utility, First Aid), you should also click Verify Disk. This does not take too much time to do, and only rarely finds a problem, but when it does, it's a pretty serious one that needs fixing. You cannot fix the disk while it is in use, so the only way to "Repair Disk" is to start up the computer from your Mac OSX install DVD. You do this by inserting the DVD and holding down the C key while you re-start it. Then, from the Utilities menu, choose Disk Utility; it's the same as the one you used to verify the disk, only this time, the "Repair Disk" button is available to use. The only caution here is that you should back-up your important documents before doing this, as occasionally there can be problems. But one way or the other, if there is a problem, you need to fix it this way before your hard drive fails completely.
To Do In Class: Run a permissions check. And verify disk - if there is a problem, the tech guys next door have install DVDs to run the Disk Repair.
2. Auto updates: @
Info:
It is very important to keep all you applications as up-to-date as you can. As new applications are made, or as existing applications are upgraded, other applications which interact with them in one way or another have to keep up. Furthermore, there are often security holes that come up, which should be addressed, and it is the updating process that does this. Go Apple, System Preferences, Software Update, and make sure both buttons are checked in the Update Software section. You should check for updates weekly.
So why are people often lax about updating? "Ohhh, it takes too long." "Yeah, but it slows down my computer." "Ohh, it has to be plugged in." "Yeah, but I've got to restart it." etc. Well, for starters, by checking the box for downloading important updates automatically - which for security purposes you definitely should do - you won't have to wait as long as you think for downloads. And since you should indeed be plugged in to an electrical source, you will likely do the updates at home. So just start them at a time when you are getting up from your computer to do something else, or even start the update before you go go bed. In fact, getting into a regular habit of doing it the same way each time is a good idea. And in terms of the restart inconvenience, A. sometimes you don't have to, B. it's really not that big a deal, and C. you should be re-starting your computer once a day anyway.
And definitely do follow the advice of leaving your laptop connected to an electricity source. Which brings up an important point, never cancel or disrupt your computer when you are updating; this can cause real problems. One other point is that you should update iTunes too, even though it is constantly asking to be updated; it's quite possible that keeping iTunes up-to-date will keep other Apple software on your computer working properly.
Not only do you need to update the Mac OS and other Apple software, such as iLife and iMovie, you need to keep other applications which you use frequently updated. For Microsoft Word, go Help, Update, and then check Automatically. For Firefox, go to Preferences, Advanced, and check the "Automatically download and install the update" box, if it is not checked. And if it wasn't, then you should go up to Help and "Check for Updates" now. Similar things should be done with other browsers you use.
To Do In Class: Check to make sure your auto update feature is still checked. And while you're at it look at the other Security options, such as disabling auto login.
And open Microsoft Word and Firefox, and any other applications that may need updating, and make sure they are set to auto-updated
To Do At Home: Update anything that needs to be updated.
3. Firewall: @
Info:
Make sure your Mac OS X firewall is running. In Mac OS 10.5, go System Preferences, Security, and choose the Firewall tab. Select “Set access for specific services and applications”. Then, whenever a site or application tries to access your computer, think about whether you trust it before clicking “Allow” on the message that comes up.
And in Mac OS 10.6, go to System Preferences, Security, Firewall, Start, and from the Advanced button, make sure the "Automatically allow signed software...". This way, applications which have been verified and certified as being safe will be allowed to connect to your computer, but all others will not be. But - and this is a big But: just because an application is verified does not mean that you want it connecting to your computer. The notable case here is Frostwire. Yes, this is a legitimate application (at least for now, in 2013), but you Do Not want Frostwire or bittorent sites to be hacking your computer. So from the list, block (red button) any applications like this.
And basically, one important rule of thumb for security concerns is: Do not run any service or application (which might open a certain "port") which you don't have to.
Another good security rule of thumb is to use 64-bit devices (and 64-bit applications) whenever you have the option to; they are much harder to hack.
To Do In Class: Check the list of allowed and blocked in your Firewall, by clicking Advanced. Any that you no longer use, don't recognize, or know are risky sites, switch from Allow to Block.
Or... if not on in the first place, turn firewall on, don't have Allow Signed... checked, and re-start to see and allow connection requets.
And go over some of the other General Security preferences, like requiring password when waking and disabling auto-log-in.
4. Check RAM Amount: @@
Info:
Check to see how much RAM your computer has. Go to the apple in the corner of the screen, and select “About this Mac”. If you are running Mac OS version 10.5 or 10.6, you should consider upgrading to 1 or 2 GB if you presently have less (as of January 2011). The safest way is to have a tech-savvy person install more RAM, though on some Macs, it can be quite easy – see your instruction manual, if you dare. But, actually, for your laptops, you will be unable to do so without voiding the warrantee. The best solution to the RAM issue is to make sure you get the highest amount suggested when you first purchase a new computer. If you find that at some point you don't have as much RAM as you would like, but don't want to bother with the hassle and expense of getting more/replacing it, then just don't have too many applications running at once.
To Do In Class: Launch all the applications you regularly use at one time, and then launch "Activity Monitor". Sort the table by Real Memory from highest to lowest, and you'll see what's taking up most of your RAM currently. (Remember that 1000 MegaBytes equals 1 Gigabyte.) And then, down at the bottom, click on System Memory, and look at the graph. The most important parts to note are the red and yellow slices. Red represents stuff you currently have open that has to be in RAM memory (and cannot be transferred to the hard drive as "virtual memory"), and the yellow is the rest of memory currently active in RAM. As long as these two parts of the pie chart aren't too much you're Ok. The green part is the RAM that is totally free, and the blue is the part of RAM that was active a while ago but is not now.
5A. Check Hard Drive Free Space: @
Info:
Check the amount of free space you have on your hard drive. The best way to regularly check is to have the total and free space showing as information under your hard drive icon on your desktop. If the hard drive icon is not showing, go to Finder, Preferences, General, and check "Show..." Hard disks. And then to show the information under the icon, select it, and go View, Show View Options. Currently (late 2010) this doesn't work so well, since all the information doesn't show properly. So the other ways to get information about free space on your hard drive are simply to press the space bar, or go Command (Open-Apple)-I with the hard drive selected. If you have more than 80% of the hard drive full, you need get more free space. (To appreciate, a bit, what the problem with a full hard drive is, imagine what it's like to move around a really full room, particularly if you're a group of people moving around a full room... A computer also has to move stuff around and re-organize its hard drive, and it has more trouble and takes more time when the hard drive is approaching full.)
To Do In Class: Check the amount of free hard drive space you have, any way you wish.
-->
But the best would be with GrandPerspective (a free download).
--> And why not also use AppCleaner
5B. Delete
or move files when your computer becomes full: @
Info
In other areas of life, when containers become full, you may
or may not have problems. But in
computers, for specific technology reasons, close to full is definitely
problematic, and results in a much slower computer. This is related to the de-fragmentation issue. As a hard drive becomes full, it gets
harder and harder to store files all in one place, and so reading and writing
to the hard drive takes longer and longer. So do try to never let your primary hard drive get more than 80%
full.
When you hard drive gets full, your options are to delete large files (collections of songs, high resolution images, and feature length movies, in particular), or move them to CDs/DVDs, or buy another – probably external - hard drive.
If you decide to get rid of applications you no longer use, usually on a Mac, you simply drag the folder in Applications to the trash. But there are some applications which actually have to be uninstalled. Check in the application folder or with Spotlight for an uninstall app.
Another thing to mention in passing is to not forget to empty your trash/recycle bin. Remember that it is just a temporary first step to removing files; you must go Finder, Empty Trash to complete the process. And always check your trash/recycle bin first to make sure you don’t inadvertently loose some important files. If there are so many that you can't be bothered to see what's there, sort them by kind, and then only look through the .doc files for example.
To Do In Class: Do a search for files over 100 MB, and trash any that you don't need. To do this you may have to add "size" to the search options when you do an old-fashioned Find. Go Apple-F in the Finder, click on "Kind", select "Other", and then find "Size" and check the check box beside it. BE VERY CAREFUL and DO NOT trash any files which you don't what they are. Rather, you are looking for big image and movie files in particular which you can move to an external drive or the trash. The other category of files you could safely trash is install files, which will have the following extensions most often: .dmg, and .pkg. So then, check what's in the trash, and empty it.
A great alternative approach to this is to download an application such as Grand Perspective, which will visually display how your hard drive space is used up, and you can delete large un-needed files from there.
6. Anti-virus: @ (optional)
Info:
You should have Anti-virus software installed, even though as of 2011 there are no major Mac viruses. In fact most Mac users thus get by quite nicely without anti-virus software because of this fact. But you never know when a new and possibly severe virus will hit, so you want to be prepared for when it (invariably) does. With anti-virus software, make sure it is
scheduled to update the virus definitions frequently; at least once a day. And
make sure that it is scheduled to regularly check your computer for viruses;
once a month should be sufficient for a Mac.
If you don't currently have Anti-virus software, there are free alternatives, but I’d suggest a proven one like Sophos, or McAfee, or Norton which can be downloaded from the Internet; the for purchase versions are always the best, but do note that now-a-days the price is usually per year. Cnet.com is always a great place to go to get reviews to determine any IT purchases like this. The one free antivirus application that the school has used in the past is Clam-Xav. But the version for 10.6 is only in beta release right now, so you should wait for the bugs to be worked out first. If you do get Clam-Xav eventually, when setting it up, the most important thing is to make sure it's auto-updating; you do this by going to Preferences, Internet, and checking update. The other one that I'm suggesting now (mid 2011) is the free version of Sophos.
To Do At Home: Download Avast (in 2013). Possibly make settings changes such as changing the update from every hour to every day, for example.
7. Directory Repair: @@@ (& optional)
Info:
Of all the files on a computer which needs to be in good shape, the directory file, also called the registry is most important. The directory/registry is the file that has a list of where all the other millions of files are. So if it has a problem with it, certain files may not be able to be run at all, causing certain applications or the computer itself to freeze. When you run the permissions check (detailed above), the registry will also be checked, so this is a good start. But there are other things that might go wrong with the registry file, so if possible, you should regularly try to fully check and repair it.
There is not much to choose from that is free, and there’s only one for purchase I’d recommend, but I do recommend it strongly: "Disk Warrior" - it costs around $100 USD. To properly repair the directory/registry is analogous to performing open heart surgery, since the files that must be repaired are files that are already in use. So you'll need to insert the CD and re-start the computer from the CD (hold down the C key when starting up) in order to fully take advantage of it. The other way to do this would be to have a second start-up hard drive - perhaps an external hard drive you also use for back up; in the lab I just use a second hard drive that is in the computer. Most Mac users don't know about this kind of utility, but if you can get a hold of one it can really make a difference, particularly as your Mac gets older.
To Do At Home: Convince your parents to buy it only if you have a Mac in the family that really does need some attention.
8. Back-up of
Files & Automated Back-up @
Info:
In spite of your best efforts, it is possible that your computer will have problems. If it’s your hard drive that crashes, you will doubtlessly lose data, though it is sometimes possible to restore some data by taking it to a computer repair shop. But one way or the other, you should be backing up your hard drive regularly. There are several destinations to choose from for your backups: you could create an extra hard drive partition, you could purchase an extra hard drive, you could simply burn CDs & DVDs, or use on-line back-up. On-line backup is similar to on-line storage of photos and music on sites like Picasa and Facebook, only you do it for all your important files, not just media files. "Time Machine" on Macs is the best solution for backup, as long as you have a separate drive for it.
With Time Machine, you can revert the state of any file or folder to the way it was in the past. And if your whole hard drive crashes, you can restore the entire contents of your hard drive. It is possible to set up Time Machine on your laptop by partitioning your hard drive and making one partition the Time Machine backup. But the problem with this approach is that if the hard drive crashes, you lose your Time Machine data too. So the best solution for a laptop is to get a separate external USB or Firewire hard drive for your Time Machine backup.When you plug in a new external hard drive, you can very easily choose it to be your Time Machine drive. The best advice would be to get a large capacity hard drive, partition it in two with Disk Utility, and then set up Time Machine manually on one of the partitions - go to the Time Machine System Preference to do that (it's easy). And you can use the other partition of your hard drive for big files that are not crucial, such as movies and music. Meantime, if you want to get really schmantzy, you can get an Apple Time Capsule hard drive which will wirelessly keep your Time Machine backup up to date.
If you have a Mac desktop computer, and your hard drive was formatted with the Mac operating system 10.5 (Leopard) or 10.6 (Snow Leopard), you can actually consider partitioning the hard drive at any time. This means you could make a Time Machine partition right on your one and only hard drive, but I would not suggest this for your laptops, since their laptops are a limited size.
One other important point with using Time Machine is to "Keep both" when you restore a file or folder. That way if you have picked the wrong one to restore, you always can go back to the way it was before restoring.
If you can't get Time Machine going for one reason or another, an easy low-tech route would be burning back-up
CDs or DVDs. This is fine as long
as you remember to do it. So best
of all would be to have a backup utility - as is included in most maintenance
suites (like Norton 360) - prompt you, or even automate the process. Doing it this way, you may find it most
convenient to keep all your most important stuff up in one folder that you’ll back up - you can sub-divide that folder as
you wish. Note that Blue-ray disks have even greater storage capacity than
DVDs, if you’ll be backing up big files like videos, and have access to that
kind of drive.
And, by the way, definitely back-up your Flash drives regularly. They are generally poor quality, and prone to going bad.
To Do At Home: Back up some way that you would prefer. And if you have an external hard drive, set it up as a TimeMachine backup disk.
9. All-in-one Maintenance Apps. @@
Info:
There are a couple of all-in-one options that will do many of the things mentioned above. The one that is getting a lot of attention lately is called Onyx. Much of what it can do is unnecessary, and much of what it can do can be done other ways with Disk Utility etc., but the all-in-one approach is nice, and it does do some minor things which are hard to accomplish any other way. Best of all, it's free. Be careful of MacKeeper, there are many who think it is almost more maleware than a good maintenance application, for a variety of reasons.
10. Other Things to Remember @
Remember the following other things entioned when we did a preliminary health check of your laptop near the beginning of the course; in particular:
Plus,
to be added to later on here, or elsewhere in the Maintenance unit:
- Network security, wireless etc.
- Importance of logging out… clear
cache/personal information, can do
the same thing.
- Firefox preference which shows all passwords...