Cocktail

Cocktail is a good and free app to help clean up some things. Check macupdate.com or versiontracker and you'll find plenty of other stuff to help tweak the system and keep it running smoothly. And if you haven't already, use Disk Utility and repair permissions, especially if you've done any major software installation and/or upgrade.

Ok, I did the reinstall with Archive option. The original dock is back, but I still can't get into the Finder or any of the hard drive folders (such as Disk Utility). I'm currently installing the os x update combined but I'm not sure that'll do the trick. Could the Finder prefs have been corrupted? How would I fix those if I can't run Disk Utility. I'm getting worried. I'm...

How much ram do you have? If you're maxed out and still slow, then you might consider a dual g4 or g5 to better suit your needs. Or wait a few weeks and see what the new PB lines are going to offer. You could swop a hard drive, but it isn't cheap. It might be worth it to sell your PB and get one more amped. If you haven't maxed your ram, I'd suggest that. And there are some...

Cocktail is also good. And there's a new version of OnyX out at MacUpdate. Repair your permissions also helps if you're adamant about not using Jag, which would be the easiest solution, imho.

Repair your permissions, if you haven't already. Once you've done that 2.6 seems to run great. If you have, have you tried cocktail (the app, not the drink, though both could help).

Thanks, guys. Those are both excellent suggestions. I especially am thinking that the USB issue may be the problem; I will check out that possibility. With regards to the possibility that some other program may be causing the problem, I have indeed thought back to the time-frame that this first became an issue, and believe it was right after I ran a utility called 'Cocktail.'...

-Remove ANY haxies or software that changes the OS X way of doing things (or even themes) -Reinstall OS X 10.2.6 Combo Update (NOT the simply 10.2.6 Update) -Check/Repair possible permission problems -Check/Repair possible disk problems -By using a maintenance utility like Cocktail, MacJanitor, et al, empty your system caches, run the system scripts, etc. -If you...

There's also some apps (check versiontracker or macupdate) that will force empty the trash without having to go into terminal. Trash It is one that comes to mind that has worked well for me when something just doesn't want to leave. I believe Cocktail also has a force trash feature on it (I'm at work on a yucky PC right now, so I can't check).

Sounds like a 'user prefs' problem. A couple of hints, download one of the utilities that allow removing cache files (can help with perfomance and other issues) such as Maintain1 or Onyx or Cocktail - or through terminal if you're comfortable with that. Also repairing permissions can be helpful, but this one may take other drastic measures. (Try the simple ones first)

And you can play some samba music at the same time as you cocktail, in case you're worried if Samba or not.