Defrag/System Check/Shutting Down Questions

Hi,

I just switched to a Mac a few days ago (PowerBook G4...love it!) and was just wondering if you need to defragment Macs like you do Windows-based machines. Also are there system checks you can run to make sure everything is okay? Is virus software or something like AdAware necessary for a Mac?

And finally, I'm accustomed to just putting the machine to sleep at night. Is it better to shut it off at night, or is sleep mode okay? (I would shut it off if I were going away for a few days).

Thanks!

cindy said:

Hi,

I just switched to a Mac a few days ago (PowerBook G4...love it!) and was just wondering if you need to defragment Macs like you do Windows-based machines. Also are there system checks you can run to make sure everything is okay? Is virus software or something like AdAware necessary for a Mac?

And finally, I'm accustomed to just putting the machine to sleep at night. Is it better to shut it off at night, or is sleep mode okay? (I would shut it off if I were going away for a few days).

Thanks!

Click to expand...

OS X doesn't require defraging the way Windows machines do. However, it's a good idea to periodically run the built-in maintenance tasks and to repair the disk permissions. You can easily run the maintenance tasks using the free application Maintenance and repairing disk permissions can be done using the Disk Utility application included with OS X.

Putting the machine to sleep at night is perfectly fine, and that's what I do with both my Macs. In fact, I almost never fully shut down mine unless they won't be used for long periods of time.

I should note that if you're running Tiger, Maintenance isn't currently compatible. I couldn't tell from your post whether your machine was brand new or not.

macjanitor is a nice little tool for running the scripit and works with tiger

as your comin from a M$ world you will need these website

www.google.com/mac
www.versiontracker.com/macosx


and as for virus scanning, dont bother yet there is no real need