At Look Back After 2000 Episodes

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost episode number 2000! 

That's right. 2000 episodes. So let's take a look at some of the best advice I've given out over the last twelve years.

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Hi, this is Gary Rosenzweig with MacMost Now. This is going to be a semi daily program where we talk about all sorts of things having to do with Macintosh, iPod, and iPhone. Now I stopped numbering MacMost videos awhile ago. You don't see the numbers in the titles anymore or anything like that but I do, kind of, keep track of it still so I know this is episode number 2000. That's a lot of episodes. I started in 2007. Changed the formats a few times. Sometimes it's been three episodes a week. Most of the time it's been five episodes a week. I've given out lots of advice. Some of those episodes are pretty old and obsolete. They deal with old operating systems, old iPhones and things like that. But some of those old episodes really hold up. So let's take a look at five old episodes where I've given out advice and that advice still holds up today.

So first, all the way back in episode number 240, I posed the question do you shutdown your Mac or put it to sleep. Let's take a look at one of the biggest dilemmas to face Mac users. Shutdown or to sleep? Of course the answer is you put it to sleep. A lot of people still think that you need to shutdown your Mac at the end of everyday or even if you're not going to use it for a few hours, or something like that. In fact you should let your Mac sleep because there's a lot of maintenance it does in the background. It does that while it's sleeping rather than using up the processor while you're trying to use it. One of the reasons people experience slow Macs is because they shutdown their Mac the minute they're finished using it then start it up and start using it again. This means it can't perform those maintenance tasks like Spotlight Indexing and backing up while it's just sleeping and being idle. It has to do them while you're working so it slows things down.

Now in episode 357 I asked the question do you need anti-virus software. On this episode I'm going to address a controversial topic, do you need antivirus software for your Mac. My answer is NO. You just need to follow three rules. This is where I came up with the three rules and I've been talking about those every since. I've come out with a free book, a free course, everything and they are all based on these three rules. The three rules are only download software from sites that you trust. So starting with the Mac App Store and then maybe a couple of companies like Microsoft, Adobe directly from their sites. 

Rule number two is to keep your Mac updated. A lot of people say I don't want to update to the latest operating system or I don't want this update because I'm busy and I don't want it to do that. But updates include security improvements. So you want to make sure that you stay up to date. Not just with the operating system but with the software as well because older versions of software could have security flaws in it too. The third thing is to just to keep up to date with the news because you know the press is going to be all over it if there is a major security issue with Apple. If anything major happens that you need to know about to protect yourself it will be there and you can take whatever steps are needed.

Now right around episode 577 I did a couple of videos where I talk about not stressing about things. I noticed that people were stressing a lot about their Macs. I did a series of videos while I was on vacation with beautiful Hawaiian backdrops and one of them was don't stress about rumors. A question I get all the time is is it the right time to buy a new Mac or an iPhone, iPod, or iPad. People hear rumors and they think a new one might be coming out soon and should they wait or should they buy now. I saw lots of people stressing about like oh I need to get a new Mac but there's a rumor that they are going to change the Macs in some way and do I wait. 

So basically I said, look they're always going to be rumors about updates and there are always going to be updates. Get a Mac when you need it. There's always going to be a next Mac that's going to make yours the older model. It's always going to happen. You could keep waiting forever for a new Mac to come out. Use common sense. You can check rumor sites and things like that. But people stress so much about that. The truth is if you get a Mac and a couple months later a new model comes out it's probably only a little bit better than the one you've got now and then there will be another after that and another one after that. But if you wait you're still spending all those months using an older Mac and not getting as much work done.

Now I think the very next video I did was don't stress about batteries. I saw people stressing about their MacBook and iPhone and iPad batteries all the time. How do I get the most life out of it. Do I have to condition it? Do I have to do something special to make it last longer, be better, or whatever? Let's talk about stressing over your Mac or iOS battery. The truth is that you don't have to worry about any of that. People stressing over nothing. The batteries in Apple's products are really smart. The hardware is smart, the software is smart. It's handling it all for you. Use your Mac plugged in when it's convenient. Use it on the battery when it's convenient. People are wasting a lot of time and energy trying to use their Macs and their iOS devices in special ways maybe just to eek out another 1% of their battery. Now I've done a ton of videos on this since then because it keeps coming up. The most recent one is episode 1957.

Now another thing I get asked about and I first addressed it in episode 722 is do you need a cleaning program. Let's talk about whether or not you need Mac cleaning programs. I still get people asking me this. Should I download this Mac cleaning program that I've seen an advertisement for? The answer is NO. Years ago, decades ago, computers kind of needed these cleaning programs to keep things, you know, from getting too cluttered from the machine slowing down. But operating systems today take care of all of that for you running maintenance in the background. A lot of these things these cleaning programs are doing are actually counterproductive. Some of them are just outright adware or malware just spamming you with all sorts of things. Taking your money from you. You don't need any cleaning software with your Mac. Just ignore those ads. Don't download any of that stuff. No maintenance software on your Mac. It's just as true today as it was way back in that old episode.

So over the last 2000 episodes a lot of things have stayed the same. Some things have changes. There's a lot more gray in my beard and Macs have gotten more awesome than ever. I'm looking forward to the next 2000 episodes.