RAM

Here’s the situation.

Your machine is running slow. A friend told you that a RAM upgrade will help, but you don’t know when asked how much RAM (Memory) you have and how it is distributed in your machine.

To find out how much RAM your machine has, just go to the Apple Menu and select “About this Mac”.

Next, click the “More Info” button to open the Apple System Profiler.

Once the Apple System Profiler has been opened select the “Memory” item from the left-hand side bar and this will display the desired info in the profiler window. It also (sometimes, but not always) displays the type of RAM your machine uses.

Monolingual

I have highlighted this amazing freeware many times in the past, but I think it is so useful that I will give it another mention.

As you all know Mac OS X is a multi-lingual OS, which means that the OS is translated into a multitude of languages which most of us will never use.

Also many software packages use these language translations, and all this boils down to about 2GB (you heard right) of diskspace which you have paid for and will (most likely) never use.

Monolingual, brought to us by Sourceforge.net, gives you the option to remove all these unwanted translations thereby saving all this diskspace for more useful data. For the record, those multi-linguists among us need not be put off by the name - although it is called “Mono” Lingual it gives you the option to keep as many languages as you like!

Download Monolingual here.

Change preferred application to open files

Sometimes your Mac may open certain files with a less preferred application, and you would like to tell it to use a different application from now on.

This is very easy to use, following these steps as illustrated above.

First, select the file (or one of the series of files) in the finder, and choose “File > Get Info” (or press “Command i” or Right-click and select Get Info) to bring up the “Get Info” window as in Fig. 1.

Then go to the “Open With” part of the Get Info window as in Fig. 2 and select the application of your choice. If your preferred application does not appear in the resulting pop-up menu (and you are sure it can open this file) click “Other” and select the application.

Once this is done you may want to click the “Change All” button (Fig 3.) which tells OS X to open this type of file with your preferred application from now on.

Quick calculations

A friend showed me this quick way of performing calculations on your Mac when you’re in a hurry and don’t have time to open your calculator app or widget.

Just click on spotlight and enter your calculation string there, and the answer will be displayed as in the above image.

Its the simplicity of this that I really like - give it a try!

Login items

Sometimes it makes a lot of sense to have your Mac launch certain applications upon startup - these will be items which are constantly in use such as your email. I do not really suggest having too many items as login items, especially if you are a little impatient and like to get started right away, as having a large number of login items can delay startup by a few minutes. 

Also beware of certain software which has the effrontery to automatically give itself automatic login item status - this really gets up my nose.

Anyway, to add (or remove) login items go to system preferences, select “Accounts” and choose the “Login Items” tab as in the images above.

Then to add a login item simply press the “+” button at the bottom of the list and select the application you wish to add, and to remove a login item select it from the list and press the “-” button.

Schedules

Sometimes you need to carry out a task, such as rendering some video or a similar long job, and you need to be somewhere else at the same time. Either that, or you simply need to find your machine switched on when you get in to the office.

Whatever the case may be, the Energy Saver system Preference has a built-in schedule app which can start up and shut down your Mac when you’re not there.

Bring up your System Preferences (Apple Menu > System Preferences) and choose the “Energy Saver”.

Click on Schedule and input the appropriate startup and shutdown times - note the highly configurable “Day” options - just choose the option that suits you best from the pop-up.

Simple as that - you’re done.

Accidentally deleted a Mac application

Rarely, a user may accidentally delete a Mac application (or it may become damaged and not work) - that is to say, an application which came with the system such as Address Book, Safari, iChat and others. I encountered a case like this last week and my client was convinced that he would need to reinstall his system. Not always so, as in this case.

Yes I know that you can’t find software such as this to download, but if you are using OS X 10.3.9 or later you can use the System Disks that came with your computer to restore these software titles. Before doing anything like this ALWAYS back up your computer as a precaution, even though you won’t be erasing your hard disk.

The first step is to load the Mac OS X Disk 1 (you have to use the disks that came with your machine - using a disk that came with a different model will not work) and click the “Install Bundled Software Only” link. You then need to select the destination volume (usually Macintosh Hard Disk”, click “Continue” and, very important, select the “Customize” option. This will allow you to choose which software you wish to install. Needless to say, do not reinstall any software which is already installed and working well as this may cause problems.

Once you are satisfied that all is well select the “Install” option to proceed and then follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

Once the installation is complete you may need to restart your Mac, and I then recommend that you carry out a software update to ensure you bring your restored software up to date.