new mac user need general help

B

bickett

Registered
hi, i just got an ibook g4, it had 60gb's of space but when i checked it out i found that 15 had been used. therefore i wanted to ask a couple general questions
how do you remove software and applications on macs? (the purpose being to free up some space)

or rather how do you generally free up space
thanks
-nathan
 
Hi Bickett.

To remove an Application on your Mac, drag it to the Trash, then empty the trash. There is no need to worry about running an "Uninstaller" in the way that you would on a Windows machine.
The 15gb on a newly shipped Mac is mostly taken up with the freebies and stuff that ship with a Mac. This includes iTunes tracks, the full iLife suite with sample files, and GarageBand as well as a couple of games and other goodies. Anything you want to get rid of, just delete.

Welcome to Macintosh ...
Symphonix
 
The major part of software on a Mac resides in the icon in the Applications folder (if you control click or right click) on an Application icon you'll see "Show Package Contents". So Mac applications are self contained. so just dragging the application to trash will do.

However, there is a more through way. Just do a search on the Application you want to remove, then just drag the files from the search window to trash. Warning though, if you throw away Apple applications (i.e Quicktime, etc.) can cause some havoc with your system.

If you really want to get a real good basic understanding of OS X I would strongly suggest David Pogue's Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition. Plus, there is a couple easy steps to keeping OS X it tip top shape. They are not a guarantee to stop all application crashes, but they will help prevent a lot of future headaches.

1. Once a week and after every big software install (Apple updates or big program installs). Run Application->Utilties->Disk Utility and then highlight you startup drive then click "Repair Permissions". OS X is based on BSD Unix and unix loves permissions. Each software company installs like to screw with the OS X file permissions so Repairing Permissions with Disk Utility will set the file permissions correctly.

2. Stay far away from a old Disk Utility that has been discontinued. That companies product has a history of crashing many OS X systems. Just search this board and many others to see that.

3. A great OS X disk utility is IMHO Alsoft's DiskWarrior. Also, another companies disk utility called TechTool Pro gets high marks too.

4. A good site to see about hardware updates is call xlr8yourmac. If any has been done to a macintosh then the site has some soul who tried once and written about it. The site also has very good databases for searching for part compatibility.

5. A great ram buying site is ramseeker.

These are just a small sampling of hints. The book I pointed out will have many more. I would strongly suggest in buying the book. Good luck.
 
Me and my fiancee recently bought an iBook with a 30Gb HDD.
To free up some space i rinstalled OSX with the OSX CD's and just restored what i needed, E.G no game or stuff like that. I freed up about 6-7GB's up doing that.
this is my first mac too and i hope yo uenjoy it as much a mine! There are some really knowledable and helpful people here! :)
 
You might also consider removing unneeded localisation files with Delocalizer or Monolingual (search on www.macupdate.com). This can save up to ~500 MB I believe.

Try out Omni DiskSweeper (www.omnigroup.com) to see what is taking up most disk space (or use "du | sort -nr | head -10").
 
If you don't plan on using iDVD, that takes up a few GB by itself. I have it on an external drive and use it (with toast or via hack) when needed. Also, do the latest Macs come with Classic? (I got my G4 iBook in January and it was installed). If you don't have any need for Classic, you can trash that.
Normally, I'd say 60GB should be all right as far as space. The good thing is external drives are getting cheaper and cheaper.
If you have an iPod, you can manually manage your music and not have the tracks eating up space on the hard drive (though I have all my music duplicated on an external as well in case my iPod is ever lost or stolen). And if you have video for iMovie projects, that will eat up space quickly.
If you keep raw footage on an external drive, or burn it to CD (or DVD if you have a SuperDrive or an external burner), that will also save heaps of space.
 
Oh, I forgot one more preventative measure for OS X. Like I said before OS X is based on BSD unix. Unix has been around for some time now. It was originally developed for machines that never were shut off. since OS X is now based on BSD and BSD is based on unix there is some automatic log turners that run as unix "cron" jobs. These cron jobs run around 04:00 local time. Most Mac users (including me) either "sleep" or turn off their Mac when they sleep. That can cause a small problem over time. Luckily some enterprising Mac souls quickly figured this out and wrote some small one trick gui "cron" job runners that you can run at any time. Just go to versiontracker.com and do a search on cron. I personally use the one trick pony MacJanitor. That program is free, small and does only cron jobs. It has not failed me yet.
 
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