MacBook fix-up to fend off the urge to upgrade

The upgrade-itch is familiar to all mac enthusiasts.  No sooner have you gotten your shiny new mac product out of it’s well-designed box, and Steve Jobs is unveiling the Next Best Thing!  I got sucked into the new product lust when I abandoned my perfectly functional 2 year old iBook for a MacBook, and although I keep casting lusty glances at my hubby’s unibody MacBook, I definitely cannot afford to upgrade this time.  So my mantra is “make the most of what you’ve got.”

I’m fixing up my 2.5 year old white MacBook in hopes of making it purr like it’s just out of the box again.  Here’s what I’ve done so far:

0. Upgrade memory

(I did this when I first acquired the MacBook – installed 2GB memory)

1.  New battery

The rechargeable battery in my MacBook had gone from achieving an impressive 5 hours of run-time to a measly 2.5 hours.  It took forever to recharge and then drained pretty quickly.  After 415 charge cycles, that’s pretty normal.  So I ordered a new battery, calibrated it, and I’m back to a happy amount of battery time.

2.  Clean out the cobwebs

I bought software called “Clean My Mac” that made short work of all the junk taking up space on my computer.  So far it’s recovered 2.07 precious GB of space.

3. Upgrade iLife & Office for Mac

iLife ’09 seemed worth it.  The update to iPhoto was excellent, with the new “faces” and “places” features and all the great photo book templates.  I’m looking forward to trying out iWeb too.

And since hubby was buying a copy of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac for his macbook, I upgraded my old version too.  I already really liked the old version (especially the “notebook” view in Word), but 2008 is even better.

4. Organize my photos and music properly

I wasn’t using iPhoto properly.  Instead of importing directly into iPhoto, I was first importing to folders within my Photos folder, (a hold-over from my PC days) which meant duplicating my photos in the iPhoto Library folder and using a ton of space.  In some ways it’s easier to use the folder system, but I decided to relinquish a bit of organizing control to the iPhoto software to make life more simplified.

Similarly, I had a few folders of music in my Music folder that weren’t within the iTunes Music folder, so I imported those and deleted the out-of-place folders to simplify things.

5. Organize my out-of-control Firefox bookmarks

Still working on this one.  I bookmark so much stuff!  But I’ve been trying to go through and consolidate all the odd bookmark folders such as “dec16tabs” and “nov14blogging”.

That’s all I’ve done so far to try to make my MacBook good-as-new.  I would welcome any other suggestions people have.  The best defence against new Mac lust is to make your current Mac as awesome as possible!