[Zoolook]

I definitely would NOT recommend reinstalling the entire OS every time you get a bit of slowdown. That 'solution' harks back to the days of Windows 95 et al, and doesn't actually solve anything. It's a bit like buying a new car every time it needs an oil change.

OS X happily keeps everything in order, given half a chance, but often MacBooks are put to sleep before they get this chance. Here's my advice

- Launch the terminal (it's in the Utility folder, or just go to spotlight and type 'terminal' and launch it from there.

To find out the last time any maintenance scripts ran, type:

ls -al /var/log/*.out

This will list the last time the daily, weekly and monthly scripts ran. To kick these off manually, type:

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

Press enter and then type in your password.

You could kick them off one at a time as well:

sudo periodic <daily or weekly or monthly or any combination>

This will do just about everything Onyx does, but save a bit of disc space! The whole operation may take a while, depending on the state of your HDD etc. The daily should take a few seconds, weekly maybe a minute or more and the monthly could take several minutes. There is no feedback, you'll just know when it's done when the terminal allows you to type more commands.

Oh, on the RAM, 2 gigs can help if you're using many applications.