Although we all think that our macs are perfect, truth be told, they aren’t. Here are some basic tips to make sure that your computer is running as well as it can.

1. make sure that your desktop is not covered with items. OS X is based on Unix and there is some really complicated stuff behind why this slows down your computer, but long story short it does. Keep your desktop clean.
2. ensure that there is at least 10% of your hard drive free. How do you check this?
   • ctrl + click on the hard drive on the desktop (most likely named Macintosh HD)
   • select get info
   • do some basic math and check the used vs capacity numbers to make sure they are within spec
3. install any and all updates that are applicable. Select  –> Software Updates
4. repair disk permissions by opening harddrive –> Applications –> Utilities –> Disk Utility
   • select your hard drive from the list at left and then select repair disk permissions under the first aid tab
5. if things are really bad then you can select verify disk next to it and if it returns errors find your install disk and follow the instructions that are required to repair the hard drive from the disk.

Those are the first things that should always be checked in order to get a mac back in action. Anything beyond that will be addressed in a future post.