Hi Rosie! I know what you mean about life getting in the way of things!
Ok, you really need to create another user account in Sys Prefs ~> Accounts and set it as a Standard Account. Then log out of the Admin Acct you've been using for every day websurfing/emailing etc, and log into YOUR new account ... a Standard type account. Make sure you have a really strong password for the Admin acct and don't use that account for every day stuff. It's bad security to do what you've been doing but I wouldn't worry about it, just carry on in your new account and have fun!
You can go out and buy a Snow Leopard disc for around about $30 - $40, depending where you live. That's dirt cheap compared to previous OS's ... the new OS, Lion, will be the same price too. That's all you need. You will be buying a Full Retail or Universal disc in the case of Snow Leopard & Lion and just forget about the original System Install discs that you can't get your hands on.
I'm using Snow Leopard and I absolutely love it. It's up to 10.6.8 now so there are little if no bugs left. I would strongly recommend it over Leopard. You just need to know which programs you most rely on and think about whether they work in a new OS version or not. That's where you need to google the apps name plus System Requirements. You'll find the info you need there.. so Rosie there's nothing to worry about there. If you are going to upgrade, just pop back here and we'll sort it out so you don't lose any photos or files etc.
With OnyX, I always boot my Mac up into safe mode
(hold the Shift key down upon hearing the startup chime) and just fire up OnyX from the Admin Account and run the
Cleaning & the Maintenance options.
Click for large view
Click for large view
So you run through the Tabs and just leave things set as they are and click on Execute to perform the tasks. There are a few restarts along the way and because there has been some cleaning done, your Mac will seem to take forever to start ... it will show the grey window for a while but believe me it WILL eventually go to the log in screen .. it only takes forever to boot up to this screen the once ... don't think your Mac is broken or if it is going to never start up. It will, I promise Rosie. That's OnyX for you, just leave all the settings as they are ... please look at them all as there is a option to show hidden files need you ever want that. You can also display some text at the log in screen like :
this mac belongs to Rosie ..... xx miracle drive Heaven etc etc ... this is incase your mac is stolen and someone takes it into a computer shop for repair etc.
AppTrap just runs in the background and if you delete an app, then AppTrap shows you some related files and asks you if you would like them to be deleted ...
Just make a note of any 3rd party app that are in your Apps folder and post it back here & I'll check it out. Or really Rosie, you should just look and ask youself if you need it. BUT please ask here before you delete anything.
Take care
