Ever have the problem of Mac OS X running slowly and can’t seem to figure out why? For the first six months of using Mac OS X I used Activity Monitor when my computer was running slowly to find the program that was a resource hog and shut down the program overusing resources. Although Activity Monitor works perfectly well, I found a easier way to keep check on out of control programs with iStat menus. Using iStat menus I can keep track of my CPU, memory, hard drive activity, and network traffic from the menu bar. Additionally, iStat menus enables me to view specific details with just one click. I’m going to show how to install and configure iStat menus to show the most information in the smallest amount of space.

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Albeit, Mac OS X does a pretty good job of maintaining itself there are many different ways to squeeze a few more megs of free ram and a couple extra processor cycles out of Mac OS X. Additionally, if your your running low on disk space or are having some performance troubles these tips can help too. These tips will also help to maximize the battery life of a laptop. I haven’t done any formal testing, but I can tell a noticeable difference on my 2.1 Ghz. MacBook with 2 Gigs of ram. These optimizations can also free up hard drive space. I start with simpler tips and move on to more challenging tips as the article progresses.

The first step to improving OS X’s start up time as well as resource consumption is too disable all unneeded start up items. Go to System Preferences (link to a tutorial showing how to launch System Preferences) and then the “Accounts” section. Upon entering accounts select the “Login Items” tab. To remove a item, highlight the item that is to be removed and click the minus button. In my experience I found that I could safely remove all of my start up items.

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In OS X the System Preferences pane is where most system and some application settings can be found. To get to the system preferences go to finder, navigate to the applications folder, and then launch system preferences.