Clean Restore? Good Idea?

So I've had my MBP for less then a year now but it's been bogging down a lot lately. I'm debating whether or not I should completely erase the whole volume and restore OS X to its clean an new condition. Will this do any difference to the overall performance of my laptop? I'm not sure what to do plus theres some third-party applications that I've lost serial numbers to so It's gonna be a hassle...

Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utilities are: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.0 is now Intel Mac compatible. TechTool Pro provides additional repair options including file repair and recovery, system diagnostics, and disk defragmentation. TechTool Pro 4.5.2 is Intel Mac compatible; Drive Genius is similar to TechTool Pro in terms of the various repair services provided. The current version, 1.5.1, is Intel Mac compatible.
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep.
OS X automatically defrags files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems.
I would also recommend downloading the shareware utility TinkerTool System that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old logfiles and archives, clearing caches, etc.
For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the commandline.
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. PsynchX 2.1.1 and RsyncX 2.1 (Freeware)
6. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware - 3.0 is a Universal Binary)
7. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
The following utilities can also be used for backup, but cannot create bootable clones:
1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
2. Toast
3. Impression
4. arRSync
Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of also backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility as are the other two.
Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.
Referenced software can be found at www.versiontracker.com and www.macupdate.com.

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A hardware failure could cause applications to crash ?? stack in respring during a safari work its iPhone 4..all the time crashing ...any idea will be gladly accepted.. it is not jailbroken. it is not a recovery thing i did a clean Restore

A hardware failure could cause applications to crash?
hi
A hardware failure could cause applications to crash ??stack in respring during a safari work
its iPhone 4..all the time crashing ...any idea will be gladly accepted..
it is not jailbroken. it is not a recovery thing. . i did a clean Restore without a Restor from backup? Version 6.0.1 ... Is there anything hardware-based Wide that could cause such phenomena?? What element or antenna or chip can do this ?. I'm really desperate I have never met such a bug.
thanks

A hardware failure could cause applications to crash?
hi
A hardware failure could cause applications to crash ??stack in respring during a safari work
its iPhone 4..all the time crashing ...any idea will be gladly accepted..
it is not jailbroken. it is not a recovery thing. . i did a clean Restore without a Restor from backup? Version 6.0.1 ... Is there anything hardware-based Wide that could cause such phenomena?? What element or antenna or chip can do this ?. I'm really desperate I have never met such a bug.
thanks

Why did you take away my REFRESH button in FF 29? How can anyone with a clue decide it is a good idea to remove a BASIC feature like a REFRESH BUTTON?

This is absolutely ridiculous. How can anyone think it is a GOOD IDEA to REMOVE basic features such as a REFRESH BUTTON from something called a WEB BROWSER?!
No, I do not want to have to go all the way over to no-man's land on the right hand side of the address bar to click a tiny little refresh button over there! I want to put it where it ALWAYS has been on ALL my browsers. ON THE FREAKING LEFT next to the back button.
The person who came up with idea should be fired.
The person who approved this idea should be fired.
The person who let the final build go out the door without including a simple and easy way to get the refresh button back as part of a "customize" feature should also be fired.
None of these people have clue about what people want in a CUSTOMIZABLE web browser.
No, I do not want to revert to some past "classic theme". That is not a solution That is ridiculous.
No, I do not want the add-on bar restored. That is not a solution. Do not tell me that it is a solution.
What I want, is a button, in the customize box, that is a refresh button, that I can put where I want it, like it should have been from the start!
Fix it!

That is not a solution.
I want it fixed (like thousands of other people).
I don't want to hack it up.. or use add-ons. I just want my damned refresh button back and I want it put it on the frickin left.
I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more.
Quit screwing around and fix this!

How to clean tables in Ides database of Mobile Sales

Hello experts,
I'm working with Mobile Sales v 4 SP08, and SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition.
I have created a new extract for a site.
In order to go faster loading the new extract synchronizing MSA client, how could I clean the Ides database into MSA client ?
Best regards
Juan

Hi Pratik,
Thank you, but I'm not interesting in complete archiving process.
I only want clean tables into Ides database into SQL Server of MSA client, with SQL tools. From SQL Interprise manager.
When I create a new extract for existing user and synchronize it, the import operation is very slow because SQL server needs delete the old records in all tables and import new records.
As far as I know, detaching Ides database, saving it, ... some operations...., and restoring it, we can clean all records in tables. After that we will synchronize and will load new extract.
Kind regards
Juan

Partitionning Disk for OS X Server 10.5.4 - A good Idea?

Hi,
Is it a good idea to partition the Disk for a clean install of OS X Server (10.5) to put the system on one partition and other files (datas of groups and users) into the second partition?
If yes, please what size of partition should I consider for OS X Server to breathe freely?
TIA

If you cant get another drive in there (highly recommended) then yes I'd recommend that.
The problem is, the system keeps some data on the system partition (mail, for example is stored in /var/spool/imap) so if you truly want to separate the data you will need to move this folder (with the mail server off) and change the setting.
Id say about 20GB would be reasonable, that is enough for the system and anything you might add to it, and plenty for things like the collaboration tools which use so little space as to be not worth moving.
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Does that help?
James

Appcelerator Titanium? good idea? bad idea?

So in my attempt at learning Objective C and the iPhone SDK to build my own apps i have been directed to The Appcelerator Titanium program for Mac. Is this thing a good idea? It uses Javascript from what i understand is a bit easier to get behind than Object C or Java (which id like to eventually do Android apps to).
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Thanks

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Why does it take so long for microsoft to incorporate good ideas into programs, but then after they do no one elses software will work on the system?

Case in point: I can not use Xp any longer since it is not supported by microsoft, and latest lan driver requires xp service packs which are no longer available for XP or Vista. So my old software as of April 2014 is now worthless as internet access software(microsoft
will not provide support or service packs for xp). So I get a new pc with WIN7 op system installed and try to do traditional backups to protect myself should my system crash in the future. (usually this means cloning a hard drive or installing Faronics Deep
Freeze to protect my op system in case of catastrophic failure.) I try to install and use some of these utility software types including Acronis Disk Director 12, Avanquest Perfect Image, Partition Commander 10, and others True Image Hdd utility for cloning
hdds. Most of these I try to run turn out to be useless, and I get pop-up messages saying my software is incompatible with win 7 op sys! I am wondering if it is the software or the fact the op system is 64bit (not 32 bit) which means that if you buy any other
software to help with utilities it will be worthless because most are written for 32 bit systems not 64. No one tells you these warning signs when you buy the pc with the 64 bit software already installed. But for a Toshiba 15" computer that normally
costs 400$ and I can get it at Goodwill used computer store(1stStreet and Fairview in Santa Ana, Ca.) for 175$ I can not complain. Being an unemployed electronic technician, I have to stretch my dollars as far as they will go...Another frustrating thing is
I buy this device made by Apricorn Driveware that allows users to hookup a second hdd using a usb cable and a three connector module that will allow the user to connect any hard drive sata or ide or the 3rd type. I try to run it and make a backup copy of internal
hdd but I get error messages saying it can not copy hdds when there are minor differences such as total mbs on each drive or slightly different hardware issues such as my pc has 580 gb internal drive and replacement backup drive is 380gb. Such as shame because
hardware setup is a good idea but without compatible software it is useless! Perhaps if I was using it on my old xp op systems I would have fewer problems with software compatibility issues. I really hate the fact that MS does not provide support for known
good op systems like xp say 20yrs? When the products and markets change so fast they run the risk of alienating customers who can not financially keep up with technology changes especially during an economic depression such as the one we are in now( they predict
it will last 20 yrs). a curious thing about the Acronis disk director 12 software I installed. It seemed I could not get partion size on hdd to change no matter what I did. I found out that if I CHANGED THE DATA BLOCK SIZE ON THE NTFS PARTITION FROM 4 KB TO
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Due to phenomenal development in Windows, Microsoft released 4 generations of operating systems, succeeding Windows XP. Hence, on various aspects, Windows XP becomes too old to be used practically these days. So the support was pulled out.
I do agree that Windows XP is the most successful operating system ever, so far. But, later versions added more features, enhanced security and compatibility. Moreover, at this point, Windows XP becomes more vulnerable, although security patches are made.
Ultimately, we need to move to a more secure, feature-rich and highly compatible operating system.
With improved features in newer versions of Windows, the NTFS filesystem has also been improved, adding new features. Hence, certain feaures that are not availble in Windows XP are available in Windows 7, again, in Windows 8.1. So is the disk management
features.
As for Acronis Disk Director, it's a third party software and hence we can't comment on the features/its working.
Balaji Kundalam

Is buying in the US a good idea?

Hello,
I currently live in the Netherlands, a small country next to Germany. In about 2 years I will go to college and will need a laptop. As I'm going to an industrial designers Academy I am going to need a laptop with quite some graphic capabilities. Apple intermediately invaded my mind with their super laptops, the mac book pro in particular. Now my question is if it's a good idea to buy the mac book pro 15" in the US? From what I've heard I won't have any repair warranty for in the Netherlands. But is this a big issue? I don't know if the mac book pro brings a lot of issues with it because it will be my first apple computer. I only have experience with apple through my ipod touch 1st gen. Whenever I had problems with that I just went to the internet and found an answer there to my problem.
It is a big difference if I buy it in the Netherlands or in the US because the price differs from the dutch price 2100 euro's (3108 dollars) for the mac book pro 2.8 GHz and in the US 2300 dollars (1554.05 euro's).
That differs 808 dollars or 545.95 euro's.
So does the mac book pro have some problems and are these easily fixable by yourself with a little internet help?
So what will it be?
buying in the Netherlands with a higher price but a active warranty. so with lower risk of a unsolvable problem?
or buying in the US with a much lower price but a chance on unsolvable problems?
please help me and give arguments.
thank you.
Message was edited by: Davinovic

Hi and welcome to both these forums and when you arrive to the United States. Your question concerning the warranty should be addressed to Apple Support just to make sure, but I would agree that wherever you purchase your Macintosh the warranty should be world wide. Considering the price difference I'd recommend the US. I suspect the difference in price has more to do with EuroUnion VATs than anything else. We don't have VATs here in the states, though you'll have to pay any local sales taxes (I know, the difference escapes me). Though once you're here buying online often avoids even that tax. In the US taxation is largely voluntary (ok ok, think about it). That means if you order online from a company in California and have the item delivered in, say, Indiana the California company will inform you that you have to pay Indiana sales tax on the item, but will not collect it at the time of sale. The burden of paying the tax is upon you, voluntarily submitting the tax to the Indiana Dept of Revenue. While some states are really trying to tighten this up it is still very common practice to simply not pay the local sales tax as no one is tracking this information. This sort of thing relates to the unique relationship between the Federal government and those of the individual, nearly sovereign, states.
Now as for the MBP I contend you cannot buy a more solid, reliable, fast laptop, period. Firstly, Apple is the number one computer company in consumer satisfaction. AppleCare is worth it. I've had several experiences personally and with friends and family with Apple's warranty fulfillment and it is totally awesome. The MBP itself is state of the art, sleek, and the best industrial design out there (OK Sony comes close, but no one else does). The OS is virus free and very easy to use. You can run Mac OS X, Linux, Unix, and Windows of any flavor, so if you absolutely have to use some vertical market Windows based program it's easy as pie to launch bootcamp or other VM OS and you're in windows.
I got my first Mac back in '86 and haven't even considered another OS (I did have a PowerComputing clone for a while and frankly even then Apple was better built). The average PC lasts about 2.5 yrs. The average Macintosh about 4.5 years, more than enough to get you through college.
Keep hitting these forums as you'll find a wealth of information and thousands of helpful hands.
Again, Welcome!

HT1222 I like the new iOS 7 for iphone... But i think it's not a good idea to allow switch the iphone on flight mode when it is locked.. What happens if your iphone is stolen or lost? You couldn't be able to locate it using find my iphone... Can i remove

I like the new iOS 7 for iphone... But i think it's not a good idea to allow switch the iphone on flight mode when it is locked.. What happens if your iphone is stolen or lost? You couldn't be able to locate it using find my iphone... Can i remove this from the bottom menu?

And have your phone set to require a passcode before it can be accessed.

I want to use a fantom diamond as an external hard drive for my mac, is this a good idea?

Using a Macbook pro, with Snow Leopard (I think), and my memory is full so I want to store my stuff on an external hard drive. I found a 2T Fantom Diamond EHD, but I'm now learning that I have to convert to NTFS-3g. I'm not computer savy so I want to know if this is a good idea, or should I look for something different. Also, can I set up the EHD as the default path for itunes?

This is not the forum for MacBook Pro owners.
You just need to reformat the drive in Disk Utility and erase the drive and have Mac HFS.
If you did need to use NTFS then you would not want -3G but Paragon NTFS for OS X x. 10.0
Or buy something that isn't pre-formatted to Windows NT file system.
First though make sure you have backups of your system. TimeMachine being used now?
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-TimeMachine-drive.html
http://www.apple.com/support/timemachine/
Maybe cleanout some files you don't need.
Install a larger notebook hard drive even.
http://www.macsales.com/firewire has a lot of choice in Mac compatible drives and enclosures so you don't need to worry about Fantom not working at some point.
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.6_snow_leopard

I accidentally erased my phone from Find my Iphone App and I have a sim lock on my phone - now it wont let me restore. any ideas? Thanks

I accidentally erased my phone from Find my Iphone App and I have a sim lock on my phone - now it wont let me restore. any ideas?
When I try to connect to itunes, It states ''The sim card of this phone is PIN locked - please enter the PIN code of your SIM card and connect again to iTunes" however I don't have the option to enter the Pin code on my phone as on my phone screen it states "your iphone could not be activated because the activation server is temporaily unavailable"
PLEASE HELP AND THANK YOU

With a sim lock,
you'll have to contact your carrier for the PUK code, as described here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1316

What is the lifespan of a Macbook Notebook Hard Drive, and is it a good idea to replace them more then once?

In specific, I own a 2007 Macbook Notebook, and it is an Intel Core 2 Duo MB21.00A5.B07. Last year, it became necessary to replace the hard drive, and was informed that the reason for the replacement was that the hard drive had reached the end of its lifespan.
My question is how long do Macbook notebook hard drives typically last? This also is in the context of frequent use of the notebook.
Additionally, is it a good idea to replace the hard drive more then once, or will the hard ware on the notebook, after I'm assuming about six or so years, be too out of date to accommodate a second or third hard drive replacement?
Also, since the replacement was still covered under an applecare plan (it's expired now), the general cost of replacing a Macbook notebook hard drive is not known? What is the cost generally expected of a hard drive replacement? This is in relation to repairs conducted at an applestore location (as opposed to a third party repair center).

justinfromlos angeles wrote:
Also, this means that, the settings of a system like Snow Leopard, in addition to all other personal settings from a current hard drive, can be copied to and from an external hard drive?
Your entire system can be copied to an external HD in bootable form. It's generally referred to as cloning, and there are a number of applications available to assist in the task.
SuperDuper
CarbonCopyCloner
LaCie Silverkeeper
To name but three.
Furthermore, once cloned, should you have to replace the internal drive, it's easy to boot from the external and clone the system back to the internal.
justinfromlos angeles wrote:
If so, do you know where one can purchase an external hard drive and a replacement hard drive?
As I don't live in the US, it's difficult for me to reccommend retailers, but any computer store (including Apple) can supply external HDs. Be aware that not all HDs from some manufacturers will play well with Macs; Western Digital I believe needs careful selection of the correct model. There are plenty of contributors who can no doubt help on that front. Personally I use LaCie and Iomega. Note that these are purpose built externals and come with their own enclosure and all cables reqd.
One thing you will need to do with most of them is to use Disk Utility to partiton them correctly (GUID system for Intel Macs) and set the file system to Mac Extended (journaled) before cloning.
justinfromlos angeles wrote:
There is one last question. Say I've replaced the hard drive on the same computer for nine years or so. Despite the hard drive being new, would the hardware of the computer be too out of date to accept an up to date replacement hard drive?
The hardware of the computer dictates what sort of internal drive you buy; earlier models used IDE interfaces, current models use SATA and these are not interchangable. However System Profiler will tell you what sort you have. It's still possible to buy compatible HDs for the early iMacs, c. 1998/99 so there's no reason to believe your model will suddenly become defunct.

My name is Mike. I live in New Zealand. My username is waipukurau1. I downloaded MacBook booster from the prompts. Was this a good idea and good for my MacBook Pro? Please answer.

My name is Mike. I live in New Zealand. My username is waipukurau1. I downloaded MacBook booster. I write to ask was this a good idea? Was this good and correct for my MacBook Pro. Please answer.

ashish35,
No one from Apple here - we're just users like you. All I can tell you is that electronic fail and with MacBook Pros (and most notebooks) the components are so integrated as to make a repair to the logic board practically impossible, hence the high prices charged for repairs.
Only you can decide if you want to have your computer repaired or put the money towards the purchase of a new computer. If you do decide to purchase a new unit I would suggest that you also purchase the AppleCare Protection Plan which increases your warranty from one year to three years.
Sorry and good luck,
Clinton

Is it safe (or even a good idea) to download Wine for Mac OSX? Windows apps on Mac

I've been considering "Wine" lately, it sounds great, but I don't know if its safe to download. Would it expose my computer to malware?
Even if it does work fine it seems very difficult to install.
Has anyone had any experience with Wine?
Thanks!

It is a good idea only if the applications you want to run work in Wine. Not everything does so you are going to have to test it first.
Allan

Is it good idea to store video files in database?

Hi,
In my project I am storing everything in database BLOB column.
Everything includes images,documents,videos and any thing uploaded from form.
Someone suggested me that video should not be save in database.
I want to know it is good idea to store everything in database BLOB column?
- Thanks
Zohaib.

But I don't Recommend to store video in Database , Which it will effect on your Space and performance .That is the silliest thing I have ever heard. The alternative to storing it in a database is to store it on the file system, which takes up space and performance just as much.
Store away - BLOBs are fine for storing videos in the DB
Someone suggested me that video should not be save in databaseUnless they told you why, and backed it up with actual facts, I'd discount what they said by about 99.9999%

Use of "Rel" Attribute in Links -- Good Idea?

Hi --
I was reading about various SEO methods recently and came
across several
pages which advocate the use of the "Rel" attribute on a
hyperlink. The idea
being that the "Rel" may influence how a search engine views
a link and
possibly help with ranking. For example: <a
href="help.html" rel="Help">
need help?</a>.
Sounds like a good idea, but the more I read the confused I
became. A Danny
Sullivan article about use of the attribute "nofollow" used
by major search
engines made sense. It was the other article I read which
used all
different types of attributes that confused me such as
rel="met colleague",
rel="alternate". Is there someplace I can go to find a list
of widely
accepted attributes?
Anyone have any experience with this?
John

Thanks, Joe. Yep, the source is the best place to start.
Should have
thought of that myself.
I suspect you're assessment is correct...won't hurt, might
help.
Thanks again.
John
"Joe Makowiec" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:[email protected]..
> On 02 Apr 2008 in macromedia.dreamweaver, Tarvardian
wrote:
>
>> Is there someplace I can go to find a list of widely
>> accepted attributes?
>
> How 'bout the source?
>
>
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#adef-rel
>
> Note that it has a set of defined values:
>
>
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#type-links
>
> In looking over the documentation, and given my
understanding of the way
> things work in the here and now, I suspect that it's one
of those "Won't
> hurt, might help" kind of things.
>
> --
> Joe Makowiec
>
http://makowiec.net/
> Email:
http://makowiec.net/contact.php

Clean Restore? Good Idea?

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