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                        -= Tweaking OSX for Speed =-

                           -= By Manic Velocity =-
                      -= manicvelocity@geeksyndicate.net =-
                           
                        -= http://www.2600slc.org =-
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Mac OSX is considered the world's most advanced operating system.  And in my opinion it is.  
It's Unix core makes it practically uncrashable and the GUI really nice to look at.  But with 
all due respect, OSX is a tad slow.  Compared to OS9, windows take a a bit longer to open, 
applications take a little while to load up, and Internet Explorer is a bit sluggish.

Thankfully, these problems are fixable.  After applying these three simple tweaks to my system, 
I've noticed that OSX has begun to run a lot snappier. 


¥Speeding up Broadband-

OSX is supposed to automatically adjust itself for the best performance.  Except when it comes 
to DSL or cable connections.  This simple tweak will adjust the sending and receiving buffers 
to handle larger packets of data.

Open the terminal and type this command:

sudo pico /etc/rc

This will open the /etc/rc file with Pico and give you root access to the file.  Using the 
arrow keys, scroll to the very bottom of the file.  The last line should read 'exit 0'.  
Position the cursor right above that line and enter these three commands (one per line):

systcl -w net.inet.tcp.recvspace=65536
systcl -w net.inet.tcp.sendspace=65536
systcl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0

Press Control-X to exit.  Pico will ask you if you want to save the file, hit Y and then Enter 
to confirm the file name.  That's it.  Check out www.broadbandreports.com to run some tests 
on your connection.


¥Speed up the Finder-

OSX stores the contents of each window in a portion of memory called a 'Window Buffer'.  This 
is what allows Aqua to perform those nifty window transparency effects.  On the other hand, 
saving the contents of each window in RAM takes up quite a bit of memory and can slow your 
system down a bit depending on how many windows you have open.  This mod will allow you to 
free up some memory by compressing your window buffer data.

Download a copy of Pseudo (aptly named as a pun on the terminal 'sudo' command).  This program 
allows you to open files and applications in the Finder as the root user.

Open the preference file named 'com.apple.windowserver.plist'.  It's located in the Preferences 
folder in the Library folder at the root level of your hard drive.  (Not the Library folder in 
your Home directory.)  Remember to make a copy of this file as a backup in case anything goes wrong.

Open your TextEdit app in Pseudo by dragging it onto the Pseudo icon in the dock.  Once in 
TextEdit, choose Open from the File menu and navigate to the com.apple.windowserver.plist file.

What you've got there is an XML file.  Scroll down and look for the first <dict> tag.  Put the 
cursor underneath the tag and enter this text:

<key>BackingCompression</key>
<dict>
	<key>compressionScanTime</key>
	<real>5.000000000000000e+00</real>
	<key>minCompressableSize</key>
	<integer>8193</integer>
	<key>minCompressionRatio</key>
	<real>1.100000023841858e+00</real>
</dict>

Save the file.  Log out and log back in.  You're now running with Window Buffer Compression enabled.


This is a very small number of tweaks that can be done in OSX.  There are other mods such as 
changing the appearance of the rainbow pinwheel, or modifying the color and transparency of 
the dock (mine is a nice transparent liquid blue).  But these require more time, effort, and 
knowledge of Unix.  

I hope any Mac users that didn't already know about these mods got a little something out of 
this article.  

Thanks for reading.

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