Resolve slow Mac issues | Quick fix slow Mac OSX

-->

Now a days, slow performance of Mac machines is a common problem being faced very often. So, in-spite of having an advanced machine one could not guarantee the fast performance for ever. With the passage of time our Mac goes slower and slower. To get rid of the sluggish Mac one needs to go for optimizing Mac. As it will enhance your Mac performance. Here we discussing the causes and cures for slow Mac.

Reasons of slowing down Mac:

Everyone want his slow Mac to perform just like day one. But, usually it doesn't happen. Technically , its important to note that a drive must have free space equal to or greater than 10% of total size of drive. After a long duration, the items like log files,duplicate files,cache files,temporary files etc. accumulate in drive to reduce the free space.

To resolve these issues you may apply following tips:

1.Remove startup / login items:

Startup items are those applications which automatically open at every restart/login of your computer. List of these login items you can find out by navigating Apple menu > System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items.

2.Disable system preferences:

Preferences files are often cause of degradation of Mac performance as these files can become corrupt and can cause crash programs or run slowly. Disable the preferences which are not in use.

If yet, you don't close your 'other' system preferences,then go in bottom section of your Mac window, and turn off labelled 'other' in it.

3.Don't run several widgets together:

There are so many free widgets available with our Mac and we keep many of them open together while working on Mac window.Its okay with few, which we used frequently but others which are not in use often (like clock widget) should be disabled.Because running number of widgets together take RAM and processor power which lower down speed of our Mac.

4.Keep some free space in Hard drive:

Our all stuff including important documents,video,photos,etc. are stored in our hard drive, this day by day accumulation of data full our drive soon. When our drive capacity reaches upto 90% or more then it start effecting performance of Mac considerably. Mac OS X secretly uses the free space on your hard drive as 'virtual memory'. So, there are lots of ways to clean off but what you need to be keep is some free space in your hard drive to peak performance of Mac.

5.Tracking Activity Monitor:

How you found or identify other things that can sucking your RAM and hold your processor attention.To recognize those things you need to keep an eye on Activity Monitor. It will give information regarding about CPU usage, virtual memory usage, RAM requirements,and whether a given apps is a PowerPC or Intel build.

So, atleast checking it occasionally or keep it running for a few days makes us aware.

6.Restarting your Mac could fix slow Mac issues

Stellar SpeedUp Mac

The very first fix one could try – is restarting the machine. It helps you to clean the temporary items and thus maintain the speed of Mac. Log files are the files which keeps a record of all happening with the server,including:

• All requests made to server
• Getting idea from where traffic is coming
• How often visitor return
• How they navigate through site etc.

But, all these consume space and are not useful for user's point of view. But, for server administrator it May be useful. So, deleting these files could gain some free space and increase speed of our system.

7.Delete Duplicate files:

Sometimes either knowingly or unknowingly we create multiple copies of files, photos, songs etc. . These files occupy space and waste necessary resources on drive.

Although these tips help you to gain some speed but these are not all. There are many software available to speedup your Mac but among such tools, Stellar Speedup Mac, Onyx etc. Are the ones which can clean your drive and keep cache,useless applications, logs etc out of your machine.

iCloud- Beautiful feature of Mac Lion

iCloud is the name that refers a cloud storage (where all your data is virtually stored in a pool which is generally kept by some third party) and accessed, whenever you require your data. This Cloud computing service was announced on June 6, 2011 by Apple inc.

What iCloud does exactly?

iCloud allows you to access your data with all your devices whenever and wherever you want. It does all this in a smooth,easy and automatic way and you can entertain all the possibilities which you even never thought of doing till now. iCloud is ready to create the world where nothing will be impossible. You can access your data sitting on a beach and backup your drive even when your machine is at home. So, from any remote location you can operate on all the stuffs in your system. So, this is what iCloud provide which makes a novice user to have it in their device. 

 

iCloud is an internet-based service that enables users of iOS devices, Macs, and PCs to sync and access data between each of these devices. This is a wonderful service run on the iOS5.

iCloud is the latest branding of Apple's cloud computing services. First launched in 2000 as iTools, reborn two and a half years later as .Mac and then as MobileMe in 2008.

After June 30, 2012, MobileMe service is not going to serve anymore. The users having their MobileMe account will be extended to iCloud, free of charge. 
 
iCloud gained 20million users within a week after its launch.There are more than 200 features included with iOS5 operating system in addition to the ultimate features of iCloud that make Setting up iCloud more useful than expected. 

It seems like one could do anything with iOS devices and computers with an iCloud setup.

How to set up iCloud:

• Make sure your Mac is having the latest version of OS X Lion, in case you don’t have , you can purchase it from the Mac App Store.
  
• If you already have Lion, click ­-­-­-­->'Apple' icon (at the top left of your screen) and choose ­-­-­-­-­->'­Software Update' to get the latest version (OS X Lion v10.7.2 or later).
  

2.Turn on iCloud.

• Choose ­-­-­-­-> 'System Preferences' from the Apple menu.
  
• Click 'iCloud' -­-­-­> enter your 'Apple ID', and select ­-­-­-­> 'services' ,you’d like to enable.
  

3.Make Free iCloud email account.

• With iCloud, you get a me.com email account that’s ad-free, it makes you up to date everywhere you check it, and includes webmail at iCloud.com.
  
• Just select-­-­-­-­> 'Mail & Notes' in iCloud preferences and then follow the onscreen instructions.
  

4.Enable Photo Stream in iPhoto.

• Open iPhoto ’11 (version 9.2 or later) and
  
• click ­-­-­-­-> 'Photo Stream' icon( in the left column)
  
• Then click -­-­-­-­-­>'Turn On Photo Stream'.
  

5.Enable Automatic downloads in iTunes anywhere.

• To enable automatic downloads for your music, apps, and books:
  
• Open -­-­-­-­-> 'iTunes' and choose­-­-­-­-­-> 'Preferences'.
  
• Then click ­-­-­-­-­-> 'Store' and select­-­-­-­-­-­-> Music, Apps, and Books.
  
  

6.Turn on icloud:
Now turn on iCloud for the rest of your devices to get the most out of iCloud, set it up everywhere.

Limitations of icloud:

With iCloud setup, you have the ability to customize and control functions and applications of iOS devices and systems running OS X Lion, Vista, and Windows. Along with various other bright colours, it has some gray area also. Only the compatible apps, such as those added during iCloud setup, will be backed up to the cloud.

The limitations of any technology neither had nor will limit the technology. So, leave the cons behind and enjoy the beauty of iCloud.

Why partitioning of Mac disk is necessary

Today, most of the computer users save their work ,both professional and personal,at their machine.It adds value to their system and signifies the process of managing and maintaining computer hard drive in good health.

Partitioning of hard drives means to divide the hard disk into many volumes. Partitioning makes the OS to treat every volume differently as an individual drive.Some users will choose to partition their drives by Disk utility-an inbuilt application of Mac while most of the user will prefer third party tools for easy,fast,and secure management of their partitions.

But, why we need to partition our drive?

One of the main objectives of creating partitions on hard drive is to separate user files from system files. By this, during reinstallation of operating system, files necessary to host will be in single drive and without any interference from user files .

If you need to create multiboot system on your desk you should definitely go for partition manager.

Multiboot system means having multiple operating systems (like Linux,MacOSX,Windows etc) on a single machine.

Multiboot system itself has so many advantages and some few vital ones are:

• If one of the Partitions is corrupted then it does not affect data stored on other partitions.
• Integrity and privacy is maintained. It can be explained through an example where single system is accessed by multiple user through different login account and there is no interference in their personal data.
• Frequently used files are kept together which reduces the time consumption in searching in whole drive.

The Mac partition manager I have ever used possesses features like Create,delete,format,resize and hide&reveal a selected volume in my Mac. The basic operations on Mac partitions can be done through disk utility. But in some circumstances it fails to perform required tasks. In such cases , one needs to opt for some advanced partition manager software like Stellar partition manager.The best feature I found in it, is its automatic shifting of free space to bring them together.

To know more about this software,visit http://www.stellarpartitionmanager.com/

Is my data secure on iCloud | Security issues with iCloud storage

Is my data safe with iCloud – A genuine question by iCloud users who worry about their data stored at some other locations. They ask questions related to the security and authentication of their private data.

iCloud

Apple set a new milestone in the field of Cloud Computing Technology. Although the Technology is not new but the way it is implemented by Apple on June 6, 2011, is amazing. The service allows users to store their data of any kind like music,video,documents etc. on remote computer servers which can be downloaded via multiple iOS-based devices, and computers running either OS X or MS Windows.

This Technology was first launched in 2000 as iTools, then again in 2003 as .Mac and as MobileMe in 2008. MobileMe is still in service but, will be discontinued after June 30, 2012.

How cloud computing works?

Application servers are directly connected to Database storage and also connected through computer networks.All these (Database storage,Application servers, computer networks) separately connect with control node by which client computer is connected in order to retrieve information/data.So that is how this stuff works.

But, inspite of giving many services the question arises about the security of our data stored. For this apple takes data security and privacy of our personal information very seriously.As iCloud is built with strict policies and industry standard security practices. But this service is not meant for someone who routinely send and receives mails about National security.

Today, cloud storage is helping to solve the need for more storage space to keep all of our digital property including,photos,music,documents,contacts etc.

As far as we concerned about this service security is most important issue related to iCloud about which every apple user wants to know whether their personal data is safe or not.

We should consider some important points that password protection is not so safe as password can be hacked and also, they are vulnerable to Brute force attack(when someone is trying password again and again in order to access forcefully with the help of dictionary which consist no. of commonly related used passwords lists). Due to this reason many systems have adopted the technology of blocking the access after 3 or 4 unfair trials.

iCloud Security:

iCloud secures your content by encrypting(converting plain text to cypher text) it using secure sockets layer(SSL) via WebDAV, IMAP, or HTTP, while transferring over the Internet, storing it in an encrypted format, all data except e-mail and notes. Here you don't need to type password constantly for accessing although secure authentication tokens are created on your iphone to retrieve information from the Apple server.

Apple promises in its privacy policy that it takes precautions against unauthorized access, alteration, and destruction including administrative, technical and physical measures—to safeguard your personal information against loss, theft, and misuse.

How to Backup your Mac drive: Cloning and imaging

A few years ago, data disaster news used to be very common causing huge loss for organisations. But, if you are still facing the same problem inspite of having advanced backup technology available for your vital data, then you must hurry to have this thing which I am going to explain. 

 

But, before I discuss the advanced areas of the technology, its necessary to introduce Cloning . It refers to making a bootable copy of entire drive or volume. Wheareas Image of a Hard drive consists of copying the contents but not creating the bootable backup. Sometimes it leaves certain files, like some supportive files and temp files etc.
 

When I compared options to backup in Mac and Windows. I realized that Mac users have more options of cloning than Windows users. As far as need of Cloning software is concerned, Time machine is available as inbuilt application in Mac OS X. But, users don't find it much friendly to use and search for some third party tools for backup.

The third party Cloning applications offer options to save clone to another volume, folder, or a network drive.

Limitations of Time Machine:

It only makes you to restore your system after reinstalling OS X in your machine.
So, what happen if disaster hits, imagine..!! when you don't have this kind of facility?

Difference between cloning and Imaging along with benefits:
As we discussed above that Clone is making exact replica of your drive while in imaging sometimes certain files are left to clone. So, question arises why it is so? Actually imaging of drive/folder/volume is done in compressed form(some supported files,temp files left).

Even then Imaging is very beneficial and often users and professionals prefer to image to save time. Other than this, Imaging leaves bad sectors in our drive/volume on which we applied it as it make image of only OK things present in our volume. 
 
Apart from this, Imaging takes less memory compared to cloning and about half of time require by clone for the same volume.

Clone is bootable backup of your Mac’s drive that provides facility to boot a machine. It means you can boot our system by making clone of our operating system. But you can't boot our system with an image.

Ability to get up and start working just in minutes after a crash,data disaster or system update is really appreciateble and useful thing.

Clone provide a way to rollback installation of your Mac OS X. If need arise you can use your clone to boot another Mac also and can keep updated your clone using synchronization software which perform incremental updates.

Types of Cloning :

1.Block level

2.File level

Requirements for cloning:
The volume being cloned, generally needs either the same size or larger at destination drive. The disk should be large enough to hold all cloned data on destination with some free space available.

Third party cloning tool:
Now a days many advanced and user friendly cloning software are available to backup your drive. The softweare I have tried is Stellar Clone. Its a convenient,efficient and pocket frendly as compared to others.
This software have advanced option to resize volumes on the destination drive while cloning. A complete support for cloning OS X Lion boot volume including Recovery HD.
This utility ensures you that your data has been protected and secured as it offers safest means to clone your Mac drive.

Do I need to be concern about Defragmentation in Mac Drive:

Defragmentation is allocation of related data in contiguous memory location in order to avoid fragments of data. We know that, in Mac OS X HFS+ file system is advanced enough to handle fragmentation but upto 20MB only. So, as such , there is no inbuilt tool available for defragmentation of data in Mac.

Many Mac users think that its not necessary to defrag Mac. It doesen't need any third party tool to defragment. Newcomers to the Mac OS might also wonder whether they need to, and how they can, defragment their machine’s hard-drives.

Technically, if you edit large files regularly, like audio and video, there increases chances of fragmentation of files. In such cases, you must defrag your Mac regularly.

My friend is facing problem of slow Mac.Everytime he runs applications it take about 5-10 minutes to start which used to take hardly a minute. So programs are running very slow and sometimes hanging with no responses at all which make situation more terrific.

HFS+ file system doesn't use recently freed space on a disk. Instead, it looks for larger free areas that already present on the drive, thereby avoiding fragmentation of data by fitting them into available space.

OS X's HFS+ dynamically gathers cluster of small files and combines them into larger areas automatically.

How Data is fragmented in Drive:

According to system properties in memory block, files are placed in an unorganized manner, anywhere in various sectors of Memory Block. So, due to this when we run any process or apps , (supportive files) files required to open that particular apps, So those related files when placed away from each other(scattered) then this is obvious processor take more time in searching and then running process as processor have to search by going sector by sector.

Importance of Defragmentation:

1.Easy to install application

2.Fast access

3.Minimize chances of failure

4.Increase efficiency of Mac

In order to defragment Mac drive, most of the Mac users look towards third party defragmenting tool like Stellar Drive Defrag. One can choose to defrag a specific volume , a single large files or an entire disk, to defragmentation.

To know more visit:http://www.stellardefragdrive.com/