10 Quick and Easy Ways to Optimize your System

The simplest way to a faster Mac is by installing extra RAM. Before you buy, check the maximum RAM capacity of your Mac. Like I always say “memory is like money and good looks, you can never have enough!”

Many Macs will give you a speed boost if you install matching RAM modules in pairs. Some Macbooks and MacPro towers actually require the installation of pairs of modules, though most other Macs will allow the use of an odd number, with the provision that you won’t get the fastest possible performance from them.

Installing a faster solid state drive (SSD) as the boot drive on a Mac will yield performance gains. The solid state drive (SSD) is a new and relatively niche storage medium, solid state drives offer some big advantages over hard disk drives -

• Extremely fast random accesses
• Absolutely silent operation
• Ability to withstand tremendous amounts of shock, vibration and atmospheric pressure (or the lack thereof)
• Less Power Usage

And did we mention FAST, FAST, FAST.

SSD drive have been steadily dropping in price this year, Some functions on an SSD drive can see a 50%-100% performance increase.

Upgrade you older hard drive in your Mac for a newer much faster SSD drive and put some life back into that Mac.

All you need is the Sewelltech Mac HelpMate Application (Download it here free), an Internet connection, and the ability to click a single button.

Mac HelpMate has over 200 troubleshooting, performance, and optimization features, including checking Hardware Sensors, Free Memory, Security Report, and many more. Oh yeah the cost, is Free. What a deal from your friends a Sewelltech.

When buying RAM you’ll often have the option to buy faster memory, which of course comes at a higher price. Although it may technically be faster on paper, in reality you may not notice a huge speed bump in real world, everyday use. Spending the extra money on faster hard drives would be a better idea for most users.

One of the Best ways to keep you Mac humming along is you keep you software current and up to date. Now that Apple gives away OS X Mavericks, you have very few reasons not to upgrade to the new OS, unless your system does not support it, then its time to talk to Sewelltech about a new Mac. Apple has published a list of the Macs compatible with Mavericks.

Fancy extras like using an animated screensaver as a desktop background are a huge drain, especially on the CPUs of older Macs. Similarly, having extra users logged in the background and even using Dock magnification can slow down struggling older machines. If you forego these luxuries, your old Mac screen may look a little dull but it will perform to its best abilities.

In terms of applications you can safely delete more or less anything, since the apps themselves don’t contribute to the running of the system, with a few minor exceptions like System Preferences. You should leave the Utilities folder alone as well, since it contains assistants and the AirPort Utility to help you.

Deleting duplicate or unwanted tracks from iTunes is also a great space saver, while clearing out obsolete photos from iPhoto will help. The Find function in OS X can be helpful here, as it lets you search using multiple criteria. So, for example, you could search for all items over 50MB in size that were last opened over one year ago, or something similar

Don’t leave programs open after you’ve finished using them as they will continue to consume system resources.