On May 27, 2009, at 3:05 AM, Mac G4 wrote:

>
> Thanks Kris.
>
> The funny thing is that I don't have have any issues that I can see.
> Aside from the HD freeze when I was trying to format it everything
> else works as expected - especially since I removed the bad HD.

What you're undergoing is known as 'Windows Decompression Syndrome';  
that haunting feeling that everything is about to blow up in your  
face, even though things are OK.

WDS sufferers are often found in Mac forums wondering about the 'best  
diagnostic software, or what are the best OS maintenance tools, etc'

OS X is a far more robust OS than it usually gets credit for. There  
really is no 'maintenance' needed...it's not Windows :-)

The only thing to do is maintain current backups (which is a sensible  
thing to do regardless of the OS) and shut it down properly, ie:  
select Shutdown from the Apple menu or press the power button and  
clicking on the Shutdown button.

Seriously.

I've been using OS X since the day 10.2 came out and I could get my  
hands on it. I've re-installed OS X on my machines 8 times since then  
to my recollection. 5 of these times were when I got a new computer,  
and did a clean install before transferring my user data.

Once was because I managed to drop my hard drive from the desk onto  
the concrete floor. Edge on. All it ever did after that was make a  
funny squealing noise.

I've only ever twice had to re-install because of an OS issue. One  
time was traced to a flaky DVD enclosure I was upgrading from, which  
means in 7+ years of using OSX on a succession of systems I've had to  
re-install the OS because of corruption issues once.

I never run permissions repair, disk repair, etc etc etc unless I have  
a problem.

An excellent backup solution for 10.4 is Carbon Copy Cloner and an  
external hard drive, or additional internal hard drive. 
<http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html 
 >

The other thing to do is create another user on your system, for  
testing purposes. If you experience a problem, log off and log in as  
the test user. If the problem persists, then the problem is system  
wide, if not, it's somewhere in your user stuff, either prefs or start- 
up items.

Many people will tell you to zap the PRAM, repair permissions, do this  
do that, etc. 90% of the time they're wrong.

As a rule, problems on a Mac can usually be traced to messed up  
preferences or settings or flaky hardware.

Windows users work on their computers; OS X users work with their  
computers.

-- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs



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