Mac OSX Utilities

NOTE: For my clients using the older OS's, such as OS9 and below, and for those of you who are still using a computer with a pre-G3 processor, the following information is not applicable to your circumstance. Information for   your situation will be included in another document on this site.

One of the most common questions I'm asked is "what utilities should I use to maintain my Mac?"

In the distant past, my stock answer was "Norton Utilities". However, computers and operating systems have changed, and in recent years I have strongly discouraged the use of this utility.

The question remains as to what I do recommend that my clients use. As with all things technical, the answer is not exactly simple - although it's far simpler than it was in the past. With the advent of Mac OSX: 10.2 (Jaguar), 10.3 (Panther), and 10.4 (Tiger), the Mac has moved into the most stable operating systems it has ever accessed. One of the great things about these OS's is that there are built-in maintenance routines, which require no thinking and no manipulation on the part of the user. However, no system is perfect, and in order to properly maintain and troubleshoot these systems, there are still some routines we must perform for ourselves.

As computers have several components, and each component has several levels, I feel that we must use several utilities to properly maintain our OS. For these purposes, my preferences are: Apple's Disk Utility, Alsoft's Disk Warrior, Micromat's TechTool, and Prosoft Engineering's Drive Genius.