Re: im about to start a Per (and other sages) Question

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

>> Turn off the screen saver. If you use a Mac laptop, also turn off the
>> energy saving function. I think that's it.

On 30 aug 2007, at 21.15, Jeff Larson wrote:

> Wireless networking?

Well, I forgot about that because I don't use it. I actually didn't  
know my Powerbook had built-in bluetooth until the day I received a  
mysterious picture from a cell phone chatting woman out in the street  
as I was indoors leading a Logic course for music teachers. They all  
had their Macs connected to the school's network by cables. I, the  
only not networked person, suddenly received this picture file just  
out of nowhere. Spooky. So that's how I learned that my mac has  
wireless. Maybe I should turn it off. Will do that if I ever use that  
box on a gig again. Thanks for the tip!

> How about that thing that pops up every few days telling me
> I need to update iTunes, there must be a background process
> running similar to Windows Update that you want to turn off.

Oops... I never use any background stuff. The OS X system preferences  
is very easy to understand and it takes you only a couple of minutes  
to set it up the way you want it. My choice is to check out software  
upgrades manually. That's why there are no such pop-ups. BTW, I set  
up my Windows laptop the same way, don't even have internet on it.

> Spotlight relies on the indexing of files, similar to the way Find
> works in Windows, though probably better.  Still this indexing has to
> happen sometime, is there a background process for this you need to
> turn off?

You mean it starts searching for something just like that -  
spontaneously?


> You probably want to disable activation of the Dashboard with
> hot corners unless you're going to be very careful with the mouse.

Oh darn.... forgot about that too. It was so long ago that I disabled  
the dashboard on my Powerbook. I'm not sure I would do that on a  
modern Mac though. Mine is a 1,25 GHz G4.


> Many of the Windows tuning tips involve disabling flashy graphics
> like window open/close animations.  Does this not apply to
> the Mac "genie" animations?

No, I don't think so. But anyone who has a Mac handy can try if  
stability and performance is affected by keeping the "genie" active.


> In general I'm not convinced that a Mac inherently never requires
> tuning.  Maybe out of the box it is much less bloated than Windows,
> but you can make Unix be just as unstable as Windows if you're not
> careful about what you install.

 From what I've heard with Mac users a new OSX system needs a period  
to "settle" before reaching its best performance. I think that has to  
do with the Unix processes for self maintenance.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)