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Slightly Obfuscated question from a client:I have a G5 that needs a little work. I would like to update the operating system – currently has OS X, version 10.3.9. I would like to upgrade to Tiger or Leopard. I would also like to have MS Office Suite added to the system.Details about my G5 I purchased G5 4 years ago. It has a 1.6HHz processor and 1.25 GM DDR SDRAM memory. It has OS X, version 10.3.9. The hard drive It’s got a 75 GB hard drive and I also have another 100 GB external hard drive. It also has an airport to connect to wireless network - DSL. What can you recommendThe G5 computers are true milestones in Apple’s history, they’re fast, handle video and media really well and look good. Do you have a PowerMac or an iMac?OS X leopard retails for $129 from Apple and that’s what I sell it for too, it IS available from Amazon for $119 with free shipping, MS Office 2008 sells for $149 at the Apple Store or through me, from Amazon, it is $129 If you can, I would highly recommend using Apple’s iWork 08 over MS office, you can read more about it on my website, it’s $79 from Apple or $69 from Amazon If you require my direct consultations or work on your Mac, you can come to our office at 660 Alabama Street (that’s near 19th street), 94110.

“What does this mean?”  While you could replace your current hard drive with a larger model, or install a second internal hard drive if your Mac will support such, the following tips will help you to free some space without changing your hardware. Additional tips are provided for saving more space if you have a second internal hard drive or an available partition.

Determining available space on your startup disk

To check how much free space is available on your startup disk:

1. In Finder™, select your startup disk’s icon. For most users, this is Macintosh HD.
2. Press the Command-I keyboard combination.
3. The Get Info window for your startup disk will open. In the General pane, the Capacity, Available (free space), and space Used on your startup disk will be displayed, as seen in the following screen shot:
4. 

Simple ways to free space

You can employ any of the following tips to increase the free space available on your Mac OS X startup disk without altering your hardware.

Empty the Trash

As obvious as it may sound, some folks regularly Trash files but neglect to periodically empty the Trash. In Finder, select Finder > Empty Trash or, under Mac OS X 10.3 or later, you can also select Finder > Secure Empty Trash.Do not use the Trash as a “temporary” storage area. Only put an object in the Trash if you are sure it is no longer needed.

Archive old files

Archive — move, copy and delete, or backup and remove — files you do not use regularly to CD or another backup medium.If you have not done so already, this is an excellent time to consider implementing a comprehensive backup and recovery solution.Mac OS X 10.3 Panther® and later has a built-in function — Create Archive — for creating compressed archives of files or folders. These archives are generally far smaller than the original files they contain, provided the original is not already in a compressed format. To use this function, see the following AppleCare® Knowledge Base document corresponding to the version of Mac OS X you are using:

• “Mac OS X 10.4 Help: Archiving files and folders.”
• “Mac OS X 10.3 Help: Archiving files and folders.”

Clean up system logs and temporary files

Follow the advice in our “Running Mac OS X Maintenance Scripts” FAQ to regularly execute the Mac OS X maintenance routines that clean up System logs and temporary files created as part of the UNIX® underpinnings of Mac OS X.

Remove unused localization files

If you selected the Easy Install option when installing Mac OS X, localization files for over a dozen languages are installed. These files enable the Mac OS X interface to appear in a variety of languages. You can save roughly 200Mb of hard disk space by removing these localization files.

• If you only need to run your Mac in US English, download and run Bombich SoftwareDeLocalizer.
• If you wish to retain specific localizations — such as US English and Spanish — download and run the freeware utility Monolingual to remove only selected localization files.

Note: Be sure to thoroughly read the instructions before using these utilities. Only use versions which are compatible with the version of Mac OS X you have installed.

Delete the Previous Systems folder from a prior Archive and Install

If you have performed an Archive and Install of Mac OS X, a Previous Systems folder was created containing your prior Mac OS X System folder. Once you are satisfied that your Mac is functioning properly after an Archive and Install, you can delete the Previous Systems folder as follows:

• Mac OS X 10.3 Panther® or later:

1.  
   1. Using your Admin account, drag the Previous Systems folder to the Trash.
   2. Type your Admin password when requested to authenticate this operation.
   3. Empty the Trash.

• Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar: See the AppleCare Knowledge Base document “Mac OS X 10.2: How to Delete a Previous Systems Folder.”

Uninstall unused applications

If your Macintosh HD > Applications folder is cluttered with:

• Applications you are no longer using.
• Trial software that shipped with your Mac, but which you do not intend to use.

Then uninstall them.

Delete old iTunes Library file backups

Recent versions of iTunes® create a backup of your current iTunes Library file whenever the iTunes application is updated. After you are satisfied that an iTunes update is performing nominally, trash old iTunes Library files with your Home > Music > Previous iTunes Library folder, then empty the Trash.

Trashed iDVD or GarageBand? Don’t forget the loops and themes…

If you plan to uninstall iDVD® or GarageBand™ by moving these applications’ icons from the Macintosh HD > Applications folder to the Trash, be sure to also trash the corresponding iDVD or GarageBand folders within the Macintosh HD > Library > Application Support folder. These folders contain iDVD themes and GarageBand loops and instruments, respectively, and consume several gigabytes of disk space.

Uninstall Mac OS 9

If your PowerPC™-based Mac can only start up into Mac OS X and you have no need for Classic mode, you can uninstall Mac OS 9 using the instructions in the “Uninstalling Mac OS 9” section of the “Mac OS 9” chapter of Troubleshooting Mac OS X.

More ways to save space if you have a spare partition or second hard drive

If you have an available partition or a second hard drive, you can also save space on your Mac OS X startup disk with the following additional tips.

Move your iTunes Music folder to another disk or partition

To change the location of your iTunes Music folder, carefully follow the instructions in the AppleCare® Knowledge Base document “iTunes Moving your iTunes Music folder.”Laptop users may want to consider having two iTunes libraries: a small library of current favorites on their computer, while their complete library resides on an external hard drive. Utilities like iTunes Library Manager enable you to easily have multiple iTunes libraries you can use with your account.You can investigate other solutions for managing multiple iTunes libraries by searchingMacUpdate and VersionTracker.

Move your iPhoto Library folder to another disk or partition

To move the iPhoto™ Library folder to a new location, employ the instructions in the AppleCare Knowledge Base document from this list corresponding to the version of iPhoto you are using.Laptop users may want to consider having two iPhoto libraries: a small library of current, favorite photographs on their computer, while their complete library, or archives of older photos are saved on an external hard drive. Utilities such as iPhoto Buddy and iPhoto Library Managerenable you to have multiple iPhoto libraries that you can use with your account.You can investigate other solutions for managing multiple iPhoto libraries by searchingMacUpdate and VersionTracker.

What about moving my Home or Users folder?

The UNIX underpinnings of Mac OS X make it possible to move either your Home folder or the entire Users folder to a different disk or partition. While this seemed to work well for some users in the early days of Mac OS X, it has become problematic with respect to Mac OS X Updates.For example, we know of at least one Mac OS X Security Update that expected the Users folder on the Mac OS X startup disk. Those who had relocated Users to another partition had problems installing this update. Consequently, we do not recommend moving either your Home or Users folders to a different disk or partition.However, if you want to throw caution to the wind, advanced or expert users will find these instructions from Bombich Software useful in relocating a Home folder to another partition.

Finding lost disk space

If you find your Mac OS X startup disk has become full unexpectedly:

1. Check Console for clues. In particular, examine the various Console logs for large blocks of identical, repeating messages. Such blocks of repeating messages often indicate a runway process is logging excessively due to either a flaw in the process itself, its logging parameters, or a problem with your Mac. Excessive logging can result in log files growing without bounds.
2. The freeware utilities OmniDiskSweeper and WhatSize are great for finding large, invisible files. Take care to be sure you understand the purpose of a large file before you delete it. In particular, Virtual Memory (VM) Swap files, located in the /private/var/vmdirectory, should not be deleted while your Mac is running. VM Swap files are created and released dynamically by Mac OS X.

Blocking out ads makes your web pages load 50% faster, graphical ads take up an average of half the total size of a web page and sometimes much much more.

To beat the advertising blues, follow this great tutorial by Neil Lee, it gives you a super lightweight and simple way to not see the ads that fill up a lot of our favorite pages, Nytimes, SFgate and others. And it works for the best browser on earth, Safari, as well as Firefox and OmniWeb.

A common occurence, a Mac at home, an XP PC at work and a Palm or Treo for travelling with, many people have other portable devices including Razr’s, Blackberry’s, Windows Mobile devices and iPhones. (Psst, this site uses iwPhone theme so looks awesome on an iPhone, if you’re using Wordpress, look up iwPhone and plug it in)

To keep your calendars in sync across these devices, the first thing to do is decide which computer will be your primary (or master) computer.

Second, you’ll only sync your device with this master computer.

Thirdly to do some transparent synching between Google Calendar and iCal or iCal compatible calendars, you’ll need either Spanning Sync or an open source alternative that’s also free called GCAL daemon.

Here’s a question I received recently, for the benefit of all of my San Francisco and international clients and readers, I’ve posted my answer with it.

Hello Brendan

I keep getting an error message that my startup disk is almost full and that I should delete some files. I have deleted some and still get this message. Any thoughts on why this is suddenly occurring and suggestions for what specifically I should be deleting? That would be much appreciated as I would not want to lose anything if possible. Thanks!

Randi

Hi Randi,

Thanks for writing, as a first step, make sure that you are “Emptying” the “Trash”, when you delete files, they are actually sent to the “Trash”, and, once a week or month, that bin should be emptied, to do this, click on the small icon of a trash container in your dock. Once that window pops up on screen, you’ll click “Finder” in the Menu Bar and then click “Empty Trash”

If you still have trouble making space on your Hard Drive, we could have a meeting or phone support call at your convenience.

Thank you very much for getting in touch Randi,

I’ve recently witnessed the Airport Extreme, that is, Apple’s latest revision of the Airport Extreme, complete with Four Gigabit Ethernet ports, 802.11n Wifi (Wireless Internet), performing in the extremely harsh and dusty environment of the Nevada Black Rock Desert.

One feature of the sleek Airport that hadn’t been noticeable till today was that it has no ports or holes for dust to come through, it is completely encassed in a beautiful Ivory white case that is impervious to dust. Contrasting this to the many other wireless internet routers on the market shows a vast difference in the design philosophies between Apple and other Tech companies.
The linksys routers are peppered with holes to keep them cool, as are the D-link and Cisco wireless routers, after all, a wireless router is going to warm up beaming 802.11n Wifi (Five times faster and Twice as Far as previous generation routers), despite this challenge, Apple designers figure out a great design that keeps the router cool without exposing it’s sensitive electronics to Dust. This is one of the reasons why Three year old Apple Airports still sell for $75 (See Pic) while Two Year old D-Links and Linksys routers are found for $25 and under.

Remember this wonderful quality of the Airport Extreme when you’re choosing your next wireless router, the Airport is almost perfectly hermetically sealed and retains perfect working operation for many years through dust and harsh environments and will concurrently retain it’s value when you’re upgrading in three to five years.

People often ask how they can get longer life from their iPods, iPhones and MacBooks.

There are a couple of simple things that apply to almost all of todays modern devices, modern electronics use Lithium Ion Batteries that have differrent properties to old fashioned Nickel Cadmium Batteries.

On a daily basis: Turn the brightness of your devices screen as low as you can tolerate it, on most devices this won’t allow you to go much below the default but Apple iPods, Macs and iPhones have incredibly bright displays to please the eye and only require to be on the lowest setting for most use.

On a Monthly basis, remember to ‘Calibrate’ your battery, this is a simple procedure that consists of fully discharging and then fully charging your devices Battery, this should be done as often as once a week but at least once a month, laptop/notebook, cell phones and iPods should all have their batteries completely cycled once per month, this makes your battery last much longer in daily use and also in lifespan.

Matt Cutts gave a great talk at wordcamp on Saturday, regarding Whitehat Search engine optimization. I checked his blog today to find what else he’s been writing about and he has written a good piece where he explains that rmail has been taking too much of his time and gives some examples of how he’s been trying to manage it, many of these will be useful for you if you’re just starting to think about more carefully managing your email.

I’ve tried all kinds of tricks to reduce the email load:
- I archive any mailing list that I don’t really need in my inbox.
- I try to check email fewer times during the day.
- I write replies to emails, then save them as drafts for a while before replying, so I don’t get stuck in a cycle of replying, getting a response, and quickly emailing again.

This week (with a little prodding from a friend), I realized that it’s still not working. I’m barely keeping my head above water, email-wise. I need a different approach. I can see a couple options:

1. Go “lossy.” Let a few emails drop on the floor. I’m already doing this from time to time, like when someone emails out of the blue asking for an interview or something that would take too long.
2. For emails from outside Google, shard the workload and ask for help.

Please, please, folks, please go and read this article, before doing your software updates, We all know it’s a good idea to not run any other programs while Software update is running, but did you know it can make your Mac completely unbootable!?

Here’s the bottom line: Mac Software updates are important and you MUST do these as soon as possible after they are released by Apple as they contain many security fixes as well as system enhancements but remember this rule:

Every single time you install an update to Mac OS X whether it be an iTunes update, a QuickTime update, an update for daylight saving time, a security update, an Airport update, or an actual Mac OS X update, you can be hit by this bug. In order to prevent yourself from being smacked in the face by this bug, follow this simple rule: When “Optimize System Performance” appears during the update process do not touch your computer and definitely do not launch any applications. Just back away from your computer box as if it were a swarm of bees. Yes, it does mean that if you install the Mac OS X 10.4.9 update, you may get hit by the bug.