HELP Again please...

[Lany]

Hi,

I use my ibook G4 (stats- Machine Model: iBook G4
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.2)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.33 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 768 MB)

For mostly photos (I'm a recreation Photographer) I have about 4,000-5,000 photos in my iphoto, but I did a search and deleted all my original folders of photos I cleaned up or changed etc. But I still find the computer is taking forever to close and open programs like the photoshop elements I like to use, and the iphoto itself, not to mention it takes forever for any application really.

I've already used 37.75 GB from the Capacity of 55.76 GB. Before I threw away the photo original files I had only 13.00 GB to use.

My question (sorry so winded) I was wondering if there was some free program out there where I can scan my whole computer, and it will find and throw away any viruses, bugs, or duplicates I have on my computer that I can't see, which will bring me more space and free up my applications?

Please reply if you can.

Thanks
Lany

 

[Ric]

Hi Lany,

what version of iPhoto are you using ? On a my G4 PowerBook iPhoto 5 takes 2.5 secs to open with 2895 photos...slighter faster processor. But yours should be similar !

I know that there was a few problems with the speed of iPhoto 4...iPhoto 5 has fixed these.

Before I suggest any 'Maintenance Software' or how to do a bit of 'housekeeping on your Mac'...do you have backups of all those pictures ?

regards

Ric

 

[Lany]

Hi Ric,

I'm using iPhoto 5.0.4 I have a iBook G4, not a Powerbook, I dont have backups for all my photos yet.. but I've been working on putting them on cds just have the recent ones to do now. But I'm not thinking its just the iphoto application, and think there might be a bug or something on the computer because everything seems slow. I don't want to download a bad virus scanner, and some are difficult once you get them to know how to delete the bugs once you find them...

 

[Ric]

oops, even so, a 1.2 G4 GHZ iBook is still a speedy machine. RAM is plenty !

iPhoto 5.04 is current version. I honestly wouldn't do anything till 'all' your important stuff is backed up !

Most software that 'fixes' the things that you want fixed, can also have the potential to mess things up !!!

As for Virus scanners, you don't need one. There are currently no known virus threats against Mac OS X. Whilst some companies are selling Anti-Virus software there is no point buying any at the minute. Don't bother downloading any.

There are some 'maintenance' tasks that you can do yourself without buying any software.

Again: whilst these should not do any damage...back up first !!!

Some things to try:

Repairing Privileges

Open the Disk Utility located in your Utilities folder and click on the First Aid tab. Then, select the Mac OS X partition — not the whole hard drive — and click on Repair Permissions. You do not need to Verify first. (The screen grabs below are Tiger, but your is similar)

You should always do this before and after installing new software !


Forcing Periodic Maintenance

You may or may not know that every night, Mac OS X (Panther) runs periodic maintenance tasks to get rid of unused logs and cache files. It also backs up some UNIX files.

However, these maintenance tasks were programmed to run at night, at 3am, 4am, and 5 am. That is, unless your computer is turned off or asleep. If it has never been on at 3-5am then these tasks will have not run !

Running them may free some of your disk space.

Open your Terminal and type :

sudo periodic daily

then press return

and then you will have to type in your password, and press return !

now wait till the cursor returns, then do the same process again but typing:

sudo periodic weekly

and then

sudo periodic monthly

Once you have done that reboot.


Updating the Prebinding

Sometimes, for some unknown reason, your computer slows down.
In that case, you may want to "update the prebinding." This means forcing Mac OS X to go through all of the application files and make sure that they are correctly linked together.

Open the Terminal again and type:

sudo update_prebinding -root / -force

Then, enter return, type your password, and enter return again.

lots of code will flow up the screen...this is normal !

Then do another reboot !

See if this helps before we try anything else...

regards

Ric

 

[jkevinwolfe]

Lany,

it could be your camera. Do you have a Nikon, Casio, Pentax or Minolta? Certain models have a MakerNote attached to the JPEG that's about 40K per image. iPhoto 5 stores a copy of these MakerNotes in the Library.iPhoto file, which is opened with iphoto and saved when iphoto closes. So if you have 1000 photos, there could be a 40Meg Library.iPhoto text file opening and saving with iphoto. Once it gets this big it takes a while to open and slows things way down.

Others with Canons and other models by the same manufacturers don't have this problem and have Library.iPhoto files of less than a meg. It's an unfortunate way that apple chose to handle this file in iPhoto 5. Hopefully it will be fixed in next year's iPhoto. Do a quick search for the file and see if it's the culprit.

Kevin

 

[MikeCaine]

Can I deviate slightly and ask how iPhoto works with the image files?

I keep all of my photos in the Pictures directory, sorted into various subdirs. I use PhotoMechanis to ingest them and sort through the keepers and ones to delete. If I want to edit one of them I try to use Photoshop (either Elements 3 or CS) but I often find myself leaning over to my PC and using Breezebrowser / Paint Shop Pro to do the job

Does iPhoto work with the files in Pictures or does it copy them into its own folder / file structure? If I use iPhoto to delete a photo does the original go or just a copy?

I've really only used iPhoto once to create a book

 

[Ric]

Hi Mike, to get you started with iPhoto have a look here, https://www.mac-help.com/ilife.htm these are some of the VTC training videos, scroll down to the iPhoto section, just click on a link and you should see nice movie...

...I'll answer the other questions once ankle biters in bed !

regards

Ric