Zen and the Art of Battery Life « iFixit Blog. The lithium-ion polymer batteries shipping today are amazing creatures, packing greater energy density than both the nickel-based cells of yore and the first generation Lithium-ion cells. Yet most people are unaware of how to properly manage the life of this new technology. What you do on your laptop is your own business, but following these tips will let you do it longer (that’s what she said!). Most of this info holds true for iPod batteries as well, so you might as well learn the ropes now and reap a lifetime of rewards — at least until scientists come up with new, better, battery technology. Step 1: Learn The Tech LiIon cells charge in two stages.
Stage one is a fast charge at constant amperage and steadily increasing voltage. Apple's visual description of charge stages Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t matter whether you completely drain and completely charge the battery every cycle, or grab a few minutes of charge time whenever you can (with regard to battery life, at least). How to reset your Mac OS X password without an installer disc. Posted by Ant on August 3rd, 2009 | 331 Comments Let’s say you totally forgot the password to log on to your Mac. Or maybe you purchased a used Mac from someone else and they’ve got it locked down. There are numerous ways to reset a password with no OS X discs. This tutorial may ruffle some feathers, but it addresses a topic that a ton of people ask about all the time. The information here has previously been made available from many different sources online and is presented with the intention of helping people with legitimate reasons for resetting their Mac OS X password.
Important Note: This tutorial was written for Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6. Reset 10.5 Leopard & 10.6 Snow Leopard password Power on or restart your Mac.At the chime (or grey screen if your chime is turned off), hold down Command+S on your keyboard to enter single-user mode.This step is optional, but it’s a good idea because it checks the consistency of the hard disk before moving on. Reset 10.4 Tiger password. Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space. If you have a limited amount of either RAM (memory) or available — free or unused — space on your Mac® OS X startup disk, you may encounter problems including kernel panics, the inability to burn CDs or DVDs, or the apparent loss of application preferences. This FAQ, which is derived from a chapter from our book Troubleshooting Mac OS X, describes the basis of these problems and solutions for such.
Memory management in Mac OS X Applications and processing on your Mac require physical RAM to work. The more applications you launch or the larger the files those applications work upon, the more physical RAM is consumed. To efficiently use your available RAM, Mac OS X employs a strategy common to all modern operation systems known as Virtual Memory (VM). Paging is a key activity of VM. To free RAM for other applications and processing, data is copied from RAM to a swap file. Swap files are created and released dynamically and are saved in the /private/var/vm directory. Slow performance. Tuning Mac OS X Performance. This FAQ provides recommendations for optimizing Mac® OS X performance. Additionally, it provides advice and links to advice for troubleshooting certain Mac OS X performance problems.
Comprehensive advice on this topic can be found in the "Performance" chapter of our book Troubleshooting Mac OS X. Optimizing Mac OS X performance RAM, RAM, and more RAM Mac OS X loves RAM. Maintain ample free space on your startup disk Mac OS X makes extensive use of Virtual Memory (VM), which requires free disk space on your startup disk, aka your boot volume. See our "Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space" FAQ to determine if you have sufficient RAM and free disk space to get the best performance from Mac OS X. Turn off the eye candy While I imagine everyone is impressed the first time they see a window minimized to the Dock with the Genie effect, this entertainment has a performance cost. Make the Dock less entertaining Open System Preferences > Dock. Disable or remove unnecessary fonts. Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM.
Languages Learn about your Mac's PRAM or NVRAM, and when and how you might want to reset it. Your Mac stores certain settings in a special memory area even if it is turned off. On Intel-based Macs, this is stored in memory known as NVRAM; on PowerPC-based Macs, this is stored in memory known as PRAM. Information stored in NVRAM / PRAM includes: Speaker volume Screen resolution Startup disk selection Recent kernel panic information, if any If you experience issues related to these functions, you may need to reset the NVRAM or PRAM. For example, if your Mac starts up from a startup disk other than the one you've specified in Startup Disk preferences, or if a "question mark" icon appears briefly when your Mac starts up, resetting NVRAM / PRAM may help. Note: OS X does not store network settings in NVRAM / PRAM. Shut down your Mac. After resetting NVRAM or PRAM, you may need to reconfigure your settings for speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, and time zone information.
Mac Dev Center: AppleScript Overview: AppleScript Utilities and Applications. Apple provides a number of utilities and applications in OS X to enhance the features of AppleScript and your scripts. You can get additional information on some items described in this section by searching in Mac Help in the Finder or by going to the AppleScript website. AppleScript Utility AppleScript Utility, located in /Applications/AppleScript, is an application that first became available in OS X version 10.4.
Starting in OS X version 10.5, this utility is itself scriptable. AppleScript Utility helps you manage several AppleScript-related features in OS X that were formerly available separately. For example, AppleScript Utility provides an interface to: Folder Actions Setup Folder Actions is a feature that lets you associate scripts with folders. Folder Actions Setup, located in /Applications/AppleScript, is an application that first became available in OS X version 10.3.
This utility helps you perform tasks related to Folder Actions, including the following: Image Events. Home. API Reference: Mac OS X Manual Pages.