As a follow up to Shane's Windows tips from our last newsletter I thought I would add a few hints to keep your Mac healthy. There are not many problems that arise compared to a Windows PC so I will be pushed to match Shane's 10 hints 
Hard Disk There is no defrag problem built into Mac as such, but there are commercial Mac defrag programs out there. After a little research around the web I discovered that the programs that do exist do not make much of a difference to boot up time on the mac so the advice here is let the operating system run without any interference.
Backup, backup, backup, yes sorry if it sounds as if I am stating the obvious. Within Mac Leopard there is one of the most advanced backup utilities I have ever seen in the Time Machine program and its so simple to use and all you need is an external drive which though they might not be cheap can save you so much grief if your main drive dies on you, this happened to me recently and I had no backup and I was the one with egg left on my face 
Memory Lots of RAM is needed ! As in Windows Vista, Mac OS X is a thirsty memory beast so upgrade to 1gb or more if possible
Security Programs There are anti virus programs out there such as Norton and ClamX but at the moment there are just a few isolated instances of reported Mac viruses and spyware, but this is not to say that will never be a threat to Mac in the foreseeable future
Updates Set your Mac to update frequently as you would in Windows, if there any security holes then the updates will soon plug them
Programs There is a good program called Onyx, it allows you to verify the Startup Disk and the structure of its System files, to run misc tasks of system maintenance, to configure some hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, Dashboard, Exposé, Safari, Login window and of some of Apple's own applications, to delete caches, to remove a certain number of files and folders that may become cumbersome and more.
AppleJack is also available and very useful, this is a troubleshooting utility for Apple Macintosh computers running Mac OS X
Startup Programs. Many programs like to start when OS X starts as in Windows. Generally there is no good reason for them. Go to system preferences, systems, then accounts and you can remove any unwanted start ups from there.
Free Space As Shane stated in the Windows article 'make sure you have at least 20% free space' on your drive !
Reinstall. Sometimes this has to be done unfortunately but if you use Time Machine backups then you have an entire disk image of your internal drive on your external drive, then bootup using your Mac OS X disc and choose install from Time Machine Backup
Hope these hints are of help to the Mac users on Team Ireland, if you have any more questions email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or contact us via the forum at http://www.irelandboinc.com
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