Mac maintenance

Avid Windows user. I just bought a macbook pro and after a few weeks I have this nag at the back of my brain saying I need to do some maintenance. This because of my PC experiences. Do I need to perform these functions? Clean up ads and spyware, viruses, and defrag the system.

On a second note. I have been using a 24inch monitor and i think it is making my mac run slower; is this normal or an anomaly? I have 2gb in the mac.

For the most part your Mac runs maintenance scripts at daily, weekly, and monthly intervals. If you want to do more you can download Onyx and it will perform not only those, but other things like cache cleaning and the like.

I don't know about your monitor. I run a 22" on my MBP and I haven't noticed a speed difference.

Have you done you software updates???

I can't see how using a larger monitor would affect performance not with todays modern hardware.

I felt like this when I first moved to the Mac but there really isn't the need to run all the maintenance that you would on the PC.

I just run repair disk permissions every now and again, this can be found in the disk utility.

Virus and spyware, I don't even check, never had a single issue on the mac. You have to remember that you are now using a superior computer system.

I use OnyX once a month. That does the trick for me.

Don't get too concerned about cache files, they are there for a reason. The Mac uses them to quickly access data, otherwise it has to hit the hard drive more often. Religiously deleting them actually slows the Mac down while they are rebuilt. This ain't Windows!