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Opening
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Every year around this time I take a some time to go through my Macs and try to clean things up a bit and prepare for the new year. I noticed my friend George Starcher was doing the same thing, so I thought it was a perfect opportunity for a show. Here's some ideas, tips, and tricks for performing some yearly Mac maintenance.
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Backups
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You should already have a backup plan, if not now is a good time to start one. If so, it's a good time to check and review.
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Making a plan.
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Onsite and offsite
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What kind of backup? Clone vs. Time Machine vs. Selective (archive)
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SuperDuper
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Carbon Copy Cloner
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ChronoSync and ChronoAgent
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What kinds of media?
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DVD
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Hard Drives (Spindle vs SSD)
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Flash
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NAS or Drobo
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Time Capsule
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What do you backup offsite and how? (Services vs. "sneakernet")
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CrashPlan
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Verify your backups and recovery
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Spot check recovering files from various backup systems
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Run Disk Utility or similar tools on drives
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Drive Genius
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Disk Warrior
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Consider replacing older drives (3-5 years?)
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Files and Documents
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Take older projects and files and consider moving them to archival storage
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DVD, Drobo, NAS, external drive
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Compress older files/projects
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Look for large files that you might no longer need
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Grand Perspective
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OmniDiskSweeper
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Daisy Disk
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Check ~/Library/Application Support and ~/Library/Preferences for old or removed App support files
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Check ~/Library/Mail Downloads for attachments you no longer need
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Consider breaking up large iPhoto Libraries into small chunks.
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Duplicate the iPhoto Library with a tool like iPhoto Library Manager
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Could also burn sets of images to DVD. I used to use a smart album filtered by year for this.
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Analyize your Apps
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Take a look at all the stuff that piled up in your Applications folder
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Use unistaller or app like AppZapper
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Make sure the stuff you are using is up to date
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Consolidate your order and Serical number data
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Cleanup and Maintainence
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Using a tools like Onyx or Cocktail
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Onyx
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Cocktail
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Clear system and user caches
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Kernel, CUPS (Common Unix Printing System), Font, Virtual Memory Swap, Dock, Temp files
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Clear and rotate log files
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This should happen normally
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Rebuild Launch Services and/or Spotlight databases?
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Networking and Wireless
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Reboot or reset modems and routers
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Remove old devices from the network.
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Consider statically IP addressing devices or enabling DHCP reservations
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System Preferences > Network
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Next, click “Advanced” in the lower right corner, and then select the Hardware tab on the right.
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Note or copy the MAC address for the machine
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Applications > Utilities > Airport Utility
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Select the Airport and click 'Edit'
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Select the “Network” tab and note the DHCP address range.
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Under DHCP Reservations, click the “plus” button
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Give the assignment a description, such as "My Mac" and make sure that "Reserve Address By" is set to "MAC Address".
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Fill in the MAC address you noted earlier and assign an IP address that is in your LAN range, but the range used by the DHCP address range.
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Closing
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