By Rachel Atwood.

For more wallpapers check out these stories:

1. Distraction Free Desktop

2. New Desktop Wallpapers

3. Free Desktop Wallpapers

1. Always Keep at Least 5 GB Free
A computer needs about 10% free disk space at any time. One thing we’ve noticed on our machines is that anything less than 5GB is going to land us with problems. Essentially, computers need breathing room. Without that free space, there’s nowhere for temporary files to be stored. Also, when the RAM gets full, it will start swapping things in and out of memory by using your hard drive. If it’s full, then not only can you not save stuff, but your computer has no where to dump stuff from RAM. To top it all off the worst thing that can happen as a result of a drive with no space? Data can get corrupted. Want to find out what applications are taking up a bit of space? We love using DaisyDisk for this purpose. This application is by far the nicest and easiest way of seeing what files are taking up your space on any drive. As you are cleaning out your files, just make sure not to delete any files or folders with the name “Library” in as they normally contain settings and can result in you losing contacts and other media depending on the file. Another great application we love is Xslimmer. Xslimmer gets rid of Intel/PowerPC code and additional language files that your machine doesn’t use/need to free up space and improve performance and load times.

2. Really Remove Applications
Since not all applications come with an uninstaller, it’s important to really delete the applications you want to remove. For a majority of applications on the Apple side, generally moving them to the trash works well but often they leave other files lying around on your system. To really remove an application on a Mac, Drag and drop an application into a program like AppZapper and it will find all the associated files and remove them for you. It’s branded as “the uninstaller that Apple forgot,” and we are pretty big fans. For PC users, CCleaner will do a similar job and will also take help take care of #5.

3. Leave Your Computer on Overnight
Would it surprise you to learn that your computer tunes itself up overnight? For example, between 3-5am Mac OS X will run scripts to clear out cache files which in return improve performance. Many of the “tune up” applications that are sold are just running these scripts on demand.

4. Defrag
While this tip is not applicable for Mac users since OS X does defrag automatically in the background, this tip is an important part of the Windows users experience. Check out these posts for more info on how to defragment your hard drive.

5. Remove Unnecessary Login Items
It may not come as a surprise to you that removing unnecessary login items will help your computer run better. Lots of applications will try and make themselves run at startup and this dramatically slows down boot times and also uses up memory which you may need for something else (also it is kind of a nuisance). To remove these on a Mac, go to System Preferences -> Accounts -> Login Items. Ignore the hide check boxes and just click on the login item you want to remove and click the “-” button underneath. Next time you restart, they won’t automatically launch. A good rule of thumb is to leave anything printer related and iTunes Helper as login launch items. Without iTunes Helper, your computer can’t auto-launch iTunes when you plug in an iPhone or iPod and this can also disable automatic iOS device backups.

Backup, Backup, Backup!
As we’ve said before, the importance of backing up cannot be stressed enough. Hard drives are consumable parts, just like your battery (if you have a notebook computer). They have moving parts, the platters/discs inside usually spin at 5,400 or 7,200 RPM, which wear out over time or from your computer being knocked/dropped. Regardless of whether it’s a PC or Mac, the hard drives are the same. Just like how cars or washing machines can break down because of moving parts, drives can do so from any point from within the first month or possibly after 6 years. Your warranties like AppleCare will cover this (and other faults) up to three years (compared to the standard 12 month warranty) and while that is great for the cost of replacing the drive, it does nothing for recovering the lost data.

What are some of your tips to keep your computer running well?

IrfanView: Great for beginners and experienced users, IrfanView is a freeware graphic viewer that has many unique and interesting features. This application supports a plethora of file types including Adobe Photoshop filters. For the incredible price of free, it’s hard to find a better option for the last majority of your photo needs (pictured above).

VirtuaWin: The vast majority of us no longer work in one application at a time. All too often we find ourselves switching between a few browser windows, an email client, photo editing software, and maybe even word processing documents. If this is the case using VirtuaWin to create virtual desktops is a great solution. Similar to Spaces on Mac, VirtuaWin gives you up to 9 virtual desktops to help reduce clutter on your screen.

Fences: On your PC the desktop tends to get cluttered rather quickly. While some go out of there way to keep their desktops clear, for most this isn’t practical. Instead of trying to remove everything from the desktop, use Fences to keep everything organized. Fences helps you create logical groups of the different icons floating around your desktop.

Force Empty Trash: If you use your computer long enough, you will inevitably run into the problem where you can’t empty your trash because a file is supposedly in use. If you have seen this then you know the frustration that it brings. Fortunately there a nifty little program called Force Empty Trash that overrides your system to empty the trash. Just make sure you know what is in there and that you are not trying to delete important system files.

Alfred: An incredibly useful productivity tool, Alfred allows for you to navigate and search your Mac as well as web apps within seconds. Alfred also allows for quick keyboard shortcuts to increase the speed at which you can navigate your machine. A great replacement for Quicksilver and Spotlight, Alfred is one of the best productivity tools available for Mac.

Laundry: Desktop backgrounds help set your computer apart and give it a unique style. Unfortunately, no matter how awesome your background image, after a while it becomes old and boring. Instead of letting this happen, liven up your desktop by using Laundry to rotate your desktop background in predetermined intervals. Laundry is able to pull from RSS feeds or even from Flickr to keep your desktop images lively and exciting.

Honestly, reading the findings, we can’t really argue with the infographic. Sigh, we guess we do fit the profile (or stereotype), Limonata, bahn mi, indie films, Dwell magazine and all.

By Gregory Han

[via Mashable]

If you’re wondering how to transfer files quickly over to your new laptop, then using a direct cable connection is the fastest way. Here is how we transfered over gigabytes of files. One of the main perks of having both at home is that you never have to find compromises to get your stuff to work. For example, we ran into trouble when trying to find Microsoft OneNote equivalents on OS X. MS OneNote is Windows only for now. If you still have a PC at home, it’s not really a problem.

We prefer the way that OS X handles Apps, maybe because it’s a new way of going about things, but in comparison with the PC, it simplifies things. The new MS Office on Mac also has some improvements, including the fullscreen mode, which is excellent to use for creative writing since it allows no distractions.

Main Uses for a Mac

1. Twitter Client The new Twitter client that’s available for free from the Mac App store is easy to use, and its features make up for the lack of a zoom.

2. Creative Writing Although we do research with both computers, we’ve found that unplugging the Internet and taking the MacBook to bed is a very productive way of writing creative fiction.

3. Reading ebooks The new free Kindle app for Mac allows you to read a lot of free ebooks on it. That and a variety of PDF reference books makes the Mac the only way to do this.

4. Image Edition From Lightroom to Aperture, including the latest Photoshop, we’ve got them all installed on the Mac. The PC is another story.

5. Gaming While gaming has never been a strong suit of Macs, the only games that we have currently installed on our computers are on the Mac: Angry Birds and Civilization V.

Main Uses for Our PC

1. Internet Whether it’s checking up on things on Wikipedia, or writing up facts and important details in files, our main way of navigating the Internet is the PC.

2. Email We rarely use the Mac to check our email, as the PC is the computer we consider using for most work-related tasks. The Mac is used more for leisure.

3. Watching Movies & TV Shows Most of the time, we use the 24-inch Widescreen Viewsonic display to watch movies and TV shows. The resolution if fine, and although the screen is going to be replaced this year, it’s still suitable for this.

4. Uploading & Downloading Whenever we do any uploading (photos) or downloading, we use our PC, mainly because the PC serves as a hub for all of our photos and media files, since it’s got a lot of storage available.

5. Media Hub Most of our current photos, music and video files are located on the PC. All of our external USB hard drives are plugged into it.

(Images: Flickr member Stéphane Soulat licensed for use under Creative Commons, Flickr member Pablo Bigatti licensed for use under Creative Commons)