Skip to content
Thoughtful, detailed coverage of everything Apple for 33 years
and the TidBITS Content Network for Apple professionals

Speed Up Your Mac and Solve Problems with New Take Control Ebooks

Imagine if Dr. Gregory House was not just a brilliant diagnostician but also a likable and articulate fellow who moonlighted as a fitness trainer. The real-world Mac-expert version of TV’s “House” character might well be our own Joe Kissell, who has just completed the third ebook in his Mac Fitness Trilogy, the 196-page “Take Control of Speeding Up Your Mac,” which joins the just-released “Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac, Second Edition” and last month’s “Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Second
Edition
.”

Take Control of Speeding Up Your Mac” dives deep beneath your Mac’s aluminum casing to reveal the secrets and dispel the myths of what makes a formerly speedy Mac lose its zip. Joe takes you on a guided tour of the components that contribute to a Mac’s performance — the role of RAM, the part your hard disk has to play, your network connections, the software you run — and explains how to evaluate and adjust each to run your Mac at peak efficiency.

Along the way, Joe also explains some common misconceptions about what contributes to slowdowns. Will defragmenting your hard disk help make your Mac speedier? (For most users, probably not.) What about repairing permissions? (No, it may solve other problems, but slow performance is not one of them.) How about clearing caches? (Not really; caches help your Mac perform better in most cases.)

Instead of relying on anecdote and hearsay, “Take Control of Speeding Up Your Mac” shows you how to examine your Mac scientifically to find the causes and apply the cures for slow performance, without guesswork: At every step of the way, you learn how to measure exactly what is going on and to see the effect that each change makes.

Frankly, “Take Control of Speeding Up Your Mac” may be the most useful book we’ve ever published.

But what if speed issues are not the only problems your Mac has? That’s where the newly released second edition of Joe’s “Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac” comes in. This 110-page ebook provides 17 basic troubleshooting procedures and shows you how to solve 15 common problems, as well as giving you the knowledge you need to solve less common problems. Covering a range of Macs and Mac OS X releases going all the way back to 10.4 Tiger, and also including some preview tips for 10.7 Lion, “Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac, Second Edition” is the first place you
should look when your Mac misbehaves.

Of course, an even better situation is if problems never crop up at all, and regular maintenance is the best way to ensure that. In the 103-page “Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Second Edition,” Joe describes a commonsense approach that explains how to start on the right foot with keeping your Mac running smoothly; what should be done daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly; how to prepare for Mac OS X updates; and how to monitor your Mac’s health to catch potential problems early.

The $15 “Take Control of Speeding Up Your Mac” and the $10 “Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac, Second Edition” are available together for 20 percent off, or you can add the $10 “Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Second Edition” and save 30 percent on all three (look in the left column of each book’s page for bundle discounts). If your Mac is slow and cranky, these ebooks may be just what the doctor ordered.

Subscribe today so you don’t miss any TidBITS articles!

Every week you’ll get tech tips, in-depth reviews, and insightful news analysis for discerning Apple users. For over 33 years, we’ve published professional, member-supported tech journalism that makes you smarter.

Registration confirmation will be emailed to you.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA. The Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.