nCity File Organization

About the Desktop:: The desktop is a place of transition, where files sit temporarily until they are put away or dragged to the trash to be deleted. The desktop is shared by all volumes; an icon for each mounted volume - hard disks, CDs, DVDs, iPods and such - appears on the desktop, as does the trash and the Dock. The first sign of a well-organized computer is a (relatively) clear desktop. It's a good place for downloads to arrive before being installed or filed away (or trashed).
: One of the biggest problems with storing a bunch of stuff on the desktop (including aliases) is that making a backup creates two of everything on the desktop: The original, and the backup copy (which can be a mess to sort out).

Good Housekeeping:

No joke: Weed-out those emails, uninstall that unwanted (and un-paid-for) shareware, copy-off photos and music for storage on CDs or DVDs (or additional dedicated drives), and always empty that trash. Set your email program to empty trash and delete spam on quit (Mail preferences). While you're at it, remove emails from your ISP's server, too (Mail -> Accounts -> Advanced). Clear out browser and application caches periodically, and delete those orphaned aliases and empty folders.

Best to deal with housekeeping "on the fly," or, as my old boss used to say, "do it as you go by." Which brings us to organization, because you have to put all that stuff somewhere.....

Five easy reasons to clean up those files:

Your primary hard drive - or boot volume, if you prefer - requires a certain amount of free space to run efficiently. Deleting unused/unwanted files frees up space for file and volume optimization (defrag) processes to take place. (Most OSX installers optimize as a final step of installation.) A crowded, near-full hard drive will be sluggish; a full drive will eventually refuse to even startup.
Searching thru organized files is easy. When you save a file, pay close attention to where it is going, and be sure to send it into the proper folder - where you're most likely to look for it. Whatever scheme you use to sort and organize things is fine, as long as it works for you. The Operating System creates a Home Folder for each user, along with root-level folders for Applications, Documents, Music, Pictures, Movies and the like, so there's a good place to start.
A neat, well-organized drive makes for a neat, well-organized backup. You _do_ have a backup in place, don't you?
A nicely organized drive lends itself well to customization. A nice desktop photo and screen saver, custom window colors and fonts..... Since you'll be creating special folders to hold special files, why not create custom folder icons while you're at it? (Folder icons should look like folders so they can be identified as such; file icons can look like just about anything.) Shareware apps are available for creating icons, or you can download a ready-made set of custom icons. One of the best places to find such things is the Icon Factory <www.iconfactory.com>. Or google "custom icons."
If a drive fails - Heaven forbid! - a tech will have a much better chance of recovering your data if your files are well organized and properly named. Directories get overrun, drives get fragmented, files grow so large they have to be copied off, things can get really ugly in a hurry. Good thing you have a backup, huh.

Run Disk Utility Periodically:

At the first hit of trouble, launch Disk Utilities (located in Applications -> Utilities folder) and repair permissions. I've seen freezes and hangs, cursors and keyboards that refuse to respond, printers on the fritz, all sorts of weirdness - cured - just by repairing permissions. (If I can figure out what caused the problem, I'll be happy to tell you.)

By the time you see a blinking question mark on startup, odds are things have gone beyond Disk Utility's abilities, but it never hurts to run DU from your System CD and try its disk verify/repair function.

Another reason to get organized.....
Other utilities for identifying gremlins:: Back to the Applications -> Utilities folder, where you'll find a host of goodies for monitoring and checking most System functions, from the Activity Monitor to Network Utility to the (dreaded) Terminal. Actually, the Terminal has quite a bit of friendly advice built into it (if a command line interface can ever be considered friendly). It helps to know what you're doing - there _is_ a certain amount of risk here, after all - but it's not hard to pick up a few nerdly tricks from Mac magazines, books and web sites. (See Technical section for some recommended reading.)
: Experiment with some of the goodies found in your Utilities folder; they will certainly come in handy eventually. Find out what your DSL "speed" really is (Network Utility), see which processes are running at any given moment (Activity Monitor) and take a peek at "hidden" or invisible files (keeping in mind that invisible files are usually invisible for a very good reason).

Setup multiple accounts for multiple users:: If you share your Mac with family or friends, taking the extra steps necessary to create individual user login accounts can help keep things organized, too. Accounts may be limited in a variety of ways to protect young eyes, preserve privacy, and prevent inadvertent disruptions. Each user can setup the Mac just the way they like it without changing things for everybody else.
: By the way: It's a good idea to have a secondary Admin account for troubleshooting purposes, even if you are the only one using your Mac. If the primary account gets wonky, having the opportunity to log out and log back in thru a "backup" Admin account can be a lifesaver.

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