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General discussion

Two quick questions about OSX.

Nov 9, 2005 11:21AM PST

How often should maintenance scripts be run, and which ones? I heard something about CRON scripts, and I'm not quite sure what they are or how to run them. Also, does entering ''sudo periodic daily weekly monthly'' under terminal run the correct scripts?

And, should I shut down my computer or put it to sleep when I'm finished? I've heard conflicting reports on it. I have a mac mini (had an Imac a while ago, but I had to sell it to pay the rent Sad), so I'm not sure if perhaps I should shut it down at night because it has a laptop-esque HD. Thanks in advance.

Discussion is locked

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Cron Scripts
Nov 9, 2005 12:10PM PST

If you leave your machine on, overnight, the necessary CRON scripts will run automatically.
There are Daily, Weekly and Monthly CRON scripts that run in the small hours of the morning.
Leaving your machine on, and asleep, should not be a problem. However, if you feel more comfortable turning it off, do so.

Hope this helps

P

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Thanks.
Nov 9, 2005 1:04PM PST

So long as the scripts still run when it's asleep, I'm good to go. Thanks for the info. By the way, have you ever considered working for Apple? You're certainly more than knowledgeable enough to do so.

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Nice of you to say so,
Nov 10, 2005 2:03AM PST

I appreciate that

P

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Maintenance
Nov 10, 2005 11:21PM PST

As another pointed out, OS X runs the cron scripts on its own. However, there is other maintenance you might want to consider that is not run automatically. My own regimen is to do a permission repair and full clone backup at least weekly. This system has kept me out of trouble with macs since 1984 (back then it was diskette backup of course). Several free or low-priced utilities such as rootmachine, SuperDuper(and several others) will do the cron maintenance, clean up cache files and much more. Best of luck with the maintenance.

Brian Stevens
Mac Shareware Developer (none of products mentioned are mine)