Do I need to do anything to this Mac?

I have been a full blown switcher to Mac now for 6 weeks. Very happy with my purchase and just love how it works. I read the new Mac user threads and stickies, great info.

I do have a few questions though.

In the past 6 weeks, using my Macbook for perhaps 6hrs per day upwards. I have not had any crashes or freezing or software not working. I found out how to uninstall software. Which is really nice and easy.

On a Windows machine, removed software always leaves behind traces / folders buried in the actual system. I worked in a PC Technician store as a developer, so I have experience with all that. We use to go in and manually remove all that. Do i need to do this on my Mac?. I have the newest macbook with snow leopard.

Do i need to maintain my hard drive in a certain way on mac?. Is there anything similar to defrag on a mac that needs to be run every so often?.

I gotta be honest. I feel rather dumb when it comes to Mac's. Such a new world to me. I used Windows all through University and current studies. I studied for my compTIA and now doing my Computer Science degree, but it is all windows or Linux based.
I love that Mac has a terminal and it is similar to some distros of linux that i use for my studies, however i feel like i am perhaps not looking after my mac correctly. Can I really just use it without any problems?.

6 weeks of constant use and it is flawless. Feels like I am missing something. Does that make sense?. So use to constantly maintaining my windows systems. Any tips would be great.

I use to spend fully 25% of my time tweaking and maintaining my windows systems. I went thru withdrawal during my first month or two not finding all the things to tweak and services I needed to stop, etc...

About the only thing you'll really want to do, is grab Onyx or MainMenu. Both utilities to help clean up your Mac. Initially I ran one of them about once a week. Eventually that slowed down to once a month. 3 years later... I run Onyx only when I notice a slow down or start to see the spinning beach ball when I shouldn't be. Initially, you could just head for the Automation tab, check off everything in the Maintenance and Cleaning sections. There is a lot there in Onyx, and you can check out all the different areas that may help with your specific use of your machine. That really is all the maintenance I do beside the occasional reset of my browsers.

Also 3 years later, my MBP with an upgrade to a 7200RPM drive and 2 operating systems later is running as fast, if not faster than it was when brand new.

1. Firstly I would download Onyx for the version of OS X you have here.
Titanium Software
That is very nice Application. And one of the only OS X maintanance tools you'll ever need. But be sure to read the documentation that comes with the App and on the App's website. Then you'll know which maintanence function to use and when to use it.

2. There is no need to defrag the OS X partition of a drive. OS X does not fregment up hard drive much at all. And it've never been an issue to me in my 10+ years of using Macs.

3. Appzapper - AppZapper - The uninstaller Apple forgot.
Appdelete - AppDelete by Reggie Ashworth
These are 2 different Applications with the same basic function. They delete an Application. But with the application they also delete the other associated files with the Application liek preference files and similar. I prefer Appzapper personally. But both work just fine. And that will help your "removed software always leaves behind traces" issues you have on winddows machines. As in they will not happen on OS X with these 2 apps.

No you don't have to delete those associated files left behind. Usually it's just like 100kb of files left. But if you want them gone use one of the 2 apps I linked to above.

3. "Can I really just use it without any problems?"
Yes. Macintosh is designed with that exact idea in mind. The machine just works. And most of the time that is true.

If you have any other questions ever feel free to ask.

Things for the reply folks and the link to these apps. Going to get Onyx and the Appzapper.

Mac-forum is my only source of contact for the Apple world. Everybody I know are all PC users. I try to tell them what they are missing out on. Seems to fall on deaf doors most of the time.

bobtomay said:

I use to spend fully 25% of my time tweaking and maintaining my windows systems. I went thru withdrawal during my first month or two not finding all the things to tweak and services I needed to stop, etc...

About the only thing you'll really want to do, is grab Onyx or MainMenu. Both utilities to help clean up your Mac. Initially I ran one of them about once a week. Eventually that slowed down to once a month. 3 years later... I run Onyx only when I notice a slow down or start to see the spinning beach ball when I shouldn't be. Initially, you could just head for the Automation tab, check off everything in the Maintenance and Cleaning sections. There is a lot there in Onyx, and you can check out all the different areas that may help with your specific use of your machine. That really is all the maintenance I do beside the occasional reset of my browsers.

Also 3 years later, my MBP with an upgrade to a 7200RPM drive and 2 operating systems later is running as fast, if not faster than it was when brand new.

Click to expand...

That is so true, It is like having withdrawals lol. My uses my main PC that has the whooping $330 Vista Ultimate 64 bit installed ( biggest waste of money ever ) and I am always having to fix it. I keep Windows available at home for if I have to use it for my college work. Plus also to help stay up to date with my Windows knowledge for my future career after college and the military.

Just remember to use Bootcamp on your Mac notebook. So you can have Windows and OS X on the same machine. Just a word of warning. The windows partition of your Mac hard drive (if you do choose to use bootacmp) is as vulnerable to viruses and bugs as a windows PC is. But the OS X partition will still be 100% clean no matter what.

All I'm saying is take care with bootcamp as you would a windows PC and you'll be jsut fine.

And remember if an application, particularly the larger ones like Office and Adobe suites, come with an uninstaller, use that. Also if you ever fall for the antivirus software marketers line and you wish to uninstall that, go to their web site and download their special uninstallers.

neonmac said:

Things for the reply folks and the link to these apps. Going to get Onyx and the Appzapper.

Mac-forum is my only source of contact for the Apple world. Everybody I know are all PC users. I try to tell them what they are missing out on. Seems to fall on deaf doors most of the time.

Click to expand...

That is so true. Everywhere else I post that I have a mac, its like, so do you like just browsing the web? I hate how people think that Mac's can't do anything.

Speaking of maintenance...
I read Macs do their defragging routine in the wee hours of the morning. Then I read HFS+ doesn't need defragging.

Who is right?