“Instead of going the route of Leopard, which added more than 300 new features, [Apple’s forthcoming Mac OS X] Snow Leopard is designed to focus on the underpinnings of the operating system. The result, according to Apple, will be an operating system that takes greater advantage of multicore processors, is able to leverage the often-untapped power of graphics processing hardware for general computing operations and extends 64-bit architecture compatibility — all of which will deliver much higher performance over Leopard,” Ryan Fass reports for Computerworld.
“At the same time, reports indicate that Snow Leopard will actually slim down the code required by Mac OS X and its installed applications, not only improving performance, but also freeing up large amounts of hard drive space in the process,” Fass reports.
“It seems clear that Apple’s biggest focus with Snow Leopard is slimming down and speeding up its flagship operating system — both of which are attractive to any computer user. But why wait until Snow Leopard ships? There are a number of ways you can slim down and speed up your machine right now,” Fass reports.
“While the following tips probably won’t deliver the dramatic improvements we expect to see in Snow Leopard, they can make a noticeable difference — particularly on slightly older Macs or those where hard drive space is getting cramped,” Fass reports.
1. Get rid of the languages you don’t speak
2. Cut out the non-native code
3. Trim down iLife media libraries
4. Clean out logs
5. Delete unused applications and tools
6. Reduce log-in items
7. Do without the 3-D effects and animation
8. Remove the fonts you don’t use
9. Find and remove large files and folders
10. Increase RAM
Full article here.