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Clean Up and Revive Your Bloated, Sluggish Mac [Mac OS X]

Posted on May 13, 2009
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A few years back you dropped significant cash to switch over from the virus-laden world of Windows to a shiny new Mac, but over time it’s gotten slow and crufty. Let’s clean it up.

Before you get started uninstalling this and deleting that, do yourself a favor: hook up an external drive to your Mac and back everything up with Time Machine or any other free alternative. The last thing you want is for your “clean up” to turn into “holy crap where did all my Documents go.”

Ready? Let’s get started. (PC user? You want this article.)

Find the CPU and Memory Hogs in the Activity Monitor

First things first. If your Mac is acting like a petulant three-year-old, dragging its feet, crossing its arms, and refusing to do what you ask in any reasonable amount of time, it's time to fire up the Activity Monitor (in Applications > Utilities). Here you'll see a list of running applications and processes. Sort the columns shown in the screenshot to find out what apps are hogging the most CPU time (Firefox, in this case), what apps are for Intel or PowerPC (it's a good idea to use Intel-only apps on Intel Macs), and what apps are running at all. If there are processes running for software you don't need, note them down. Also, if an app is a runaway CPU and memory hog, quit it and restart for immediate relief.

Clean Up Your Startup

Whether or not the Activity Monitor is showing processes you don’t recognize, it’s a good idea to audit what programs start up automatically when you log onto your Mac. In System Preferences, Accounts (I know, unintuitive placement), click on the Login Items tab. From there, make sure each and every app listed is something you need and use. If it isn’t? Just select it and click the minus (-) sign. (Rule of thumb: Generally you want to keep things called “SomethingHelper” where Something is an app you use, like iTunes or Growl, as shown.)

Uninstall Unneeded Apps (and Related Files)

Just like your Login Items, you want to cruise through your Applications folder and trash anything you don’t need or use any more. To be clear, this won’t speed up your Mac, but it will reclaim hard drive space.

Before you get to dragging and dropping unneeded applications to the trash, though, it’s a good idea to install a, well, uninstaller program. Strangely Apple still hasn’t shipped a proper uninstaller with Mac OS X, but a few free and pay-for apps will clear out related files when you send an application to the Trash. While the irony of having to install something in order to uninstall something isn’t lost on us, keep in mind: your Mac will be fine if an extra plist file gets left behind by an app you once used.

But, in case you’re a neat freak, you want to check out the likes of AppTrap (free, our review), AppDelete (used to be free, now requires a minimum payment of $5 after a few uses, our review), or AppZapper ($13, our review).

Personally I prefer Hazel, which will set you back $22 for a license—however, in addition to clearing away application files on uninstall, Hazel can make your Mac self-cleaning, too, which makes it worth the cost.

Do Some Maintenance

Now it's time to make sure your disks are in tip-top shape, and luckily, you can do this without any extra software. Simply run Disk Utility (in Applications > Utilities) to verify and repair disk permissions (which determine what apps can do what with what files on your Mac) and verify and repair the disk itself. These operations take some time, and you can't do them while other applications are running, so set 'em in motion before you head out to lunch or to grab coffee.

To run some more hardcore and detailed maintenance tasks, download the free OnyX (our review). While OnyX does lots of fun Mac customization (see the Parameters tab for that stuff), you want the Maintenance and Cleaning tabs. There you can do things like manually run your Mac’s daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance scripts (which don’t on their own if you shut down your Mac at night), and clear out log files and system caches. You can also fix system application-specific issues, by rebuilding Spotlight’s or Mail’s index, if those apps are acting particularly wonky.

Reclaim Hard Drive Space

While you’re on a cleaning spree, figure out exactly what’s taking up all that space on your Mac with a visual tool that maps what’s what. Disk Inventory X (free, our review), is your best bet in this area: it creates what’s called a “tree map” of your hard drive usage that will unearth things like 10 gigabytes of video files you just don’t need any more.

To get down to the unneeded-megabyte level, Macworld has some detailed advice for where to find redundant system files and Dashboard widgets. You can also reclaim space taken up by unneeded language files using the free Monolingual (our review).

Care for and Troubleshoot Your Battery and Memory

If you’ve got a Mac notebook and you’re having trouble with your battery, a few troubleshooting techniques might help. First, to get the longest life out of your battery, calibrate it to make sure your life-o-meter is giving you the right readings.

If your Mac’s battery is cutting out before issuing the “You’re running out of power” warning, you want to reset the SMC or PMU, which cleared up that very problem on my MacBook.

Finally, some problems can be resolved by resetting your Mac’s PRAM and NVRAM—but this is generally a last-resort just-short-of-the-Genius-Bar troubleshooting technique for that inexplicable problem your Mac's having.

Beef Up Your Memory and Get the Latest System Updates

This should go without saying, but the more memory your Mac has, the snappier it will be. If you’re thinking about an upgrade and you’ve got a MacBook, check out Adam’s guide to adding RAM to your Mac.

Also, it's generally a good idea to stay up-to-date with OS X patches and versions—and normally Software Update runs on its own and does just that. (Note: Yesterday the 10.5.7 update came out, and while I had no problems with it, Gizmodo reports that some people are having issues. As always, back up your stuff continuously to avoid disaster.)

Got any tales of victory or defeat when it comes to cleaning up and speeding up your Mac? Tell ‘em in the comments.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker’s founding editor, has a MacBook Pro that’s a bit snappier today than it was yesterday. Her weekly feature, Smarterware, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Smarterware tag feed to get new installments in your newsreader.





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One Dozen Super-Useful (and Free!) Android Apps [Android]

Posted on April 15, 2009
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Six months ago we pointed out the best Android apps to boost your mobile productivity, but since then more free applications have appeared in the Market that offer useful features you don’t want to miss.

Let’s take a look at a few notable free apps that make getting things done with your Android handset easier and more fun. All of these are available in the Android Market on your phone; the apps that have dedicated web sites are linked below.

Gmote: Turn Android into a remote control for your computer and its music and movies with Gmote. Perfect for controlling your media center PC under the television from the couch, Gmote can browse what media files you want to play and offers regular play, pause, rewind, and volume controls (as shown). Alternately, you can go into Gmote’s touchpad mode and drive the mouse on your computer screen with your phone, launching and switching applications. Gmote requires that you install server software on your computer as well as the Android app to work.

Sticky: Android doesn’t come with a built in notes application, but Sticky will give you colored digital Post-Its you can hide or show, drag and drop around your Android home screen.

Nightwatch: If you charge your phone on your nightstand while you sleep, you want Nightwatch. Nightwatch converts Android into a fullscreen clock automatically when you plug it in to charge.

Hungry!: Simplify your visits to the supermarket with Hungry!, a grocery shopping application. Enter the list of items you need to pick up at the grocery store, and check them off as you buy them with Hungry!. You can email your shopping list to your spouse with Hungry!, and see your purchase history and top most-bought items, as well.

Shake Awake: One of Android’s annoyances (that will hopefully be fixed in future releases) is lack of easy access to the keypad when you’re on a call. Right now, when you’re on a call, Android slips into sleep mode, which means you have to mess with the wake button to punch in numbers on the keypad (like a teleconference PIN or to use any number-driven menu system). Shake Awake is here to fix that annoyance: While you’re on a call, a quick movement of the handset wakes up Android for easy keypad access.

Useful Switchers: Easily toggle and configure Android’s settings with Useful Switchers, an all-in-one settings panel. Set your ringer behavior (sound and/or vibration), toggle your Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Airplane Mode, and GPS on and off, set your screen brightness and timeout, and even launch a handy flashlight (bright white screen) all from one pane in Useful Switchers.

Contacts Clean-up: If you’re the type who likes all of the dollar bills in your wallet smoothed out, all facing the same way, and sorted by denomination, then you probably want all your contacts’ phone numbers to be in the same format, too. Contacts Clean-up does just that: you enter the phone number format you like best (with or without dashes, dots, country codes, etc), and Contacts Clean-up will sweep through your contacts list and reformat them all in one shot.

ActionComplete: Practitioners of David Allen’s Getting Things Done productivity system should check out ActionComplete, and GTD manager for Android. Set up your projects, next actions, wait list, and pending lists in ActionComplete, and associate people, places, and tags with each. ActionComplete will notify you when something is due—or if you've got location-awareness on, if you're in the place you've got something to do. (I haven't tested the location awareness/places feature thoroughly myself, but head into the app's preferences to turn on location awareness.) ActionComplete's web site says a web-based version of the app is "coming soon" as well.

No Signal Alert: When you walk into any dead zone where your phone’s got zero bars of cell reception, No Signal Alert lets you know. Especially useful for when you’re expecting that important call that just isn’t coming (because it can’t!), No Signal Alert offers audio, vibration, and status bar alerts when you’ve got no bars.

Free Dictionary Org: Ok, it’s not the fanciest dictionary we’ve ever used, but it’s free and it works like you’d expect: you enter a word to look up (and it suggests words as you tap), and Free Dictionary Org displays a definition fetched from the web (so it doesn’t work offline).

Weather Channel: While it’s not the prettiest weather application you’ll ever see, the Weather Channel app is serious about giving you the current conditions, hourly, 36-hour, and 10-day forecast. Set up multiple places in this app for easy crowing about how perfect it is in San Diego while your relatives are getting hailed on in Oklahoma.

Locale: Make sure your ringer switches to vibrate during that weekly meeting, but goes on full blast at home with Locale, a location-aware settings manager for Android. Based on conditions like battery power, location, date, or time, Locale can change Android’s settings automatically for you.

Even six months later, previously mentioned Compare Everywhere, Shazam, and AnyCut are still prime free Android apps, as well as Secrets password manager and GV for Google Voice users.

Special thanks to the folks at Android and Me and the commenters on this Smarterware post for informing this article. If you’re feeling like some more Android eye candy, check out my Show Off Your Android Flickr group.

What are your favorite useful and free Android apps? Let us know in the comments.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker’s founding editor, loves a good free Android app. Her weekly feature, Smarterware, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Smarterware tag feed to get new installments in your newsreader.





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Killer Typography Tools and Free Font Downloads [Fonts]

Posted on March 25, 2009
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Whether you’re putting together a resume, flyer, or web page, everyone needs to find and compare fonts some time. Here are some tools that can help you find the perfect font.

In all we’re looking at a slate of excellent tools you can use to organize your fonts and identify and compare them; then we’ll take a quick look at some great resources for downloading new fonts; and finally, we’ll show you how you can make your own font, pixel-by-pixel or from your own handwriting.

Organize and Preview Fonts

Every operating system comes with a built-in font viewer and installer, but sometimes the out-of-the-box options don’t cut it for serious font work. Take a look at a few alternatives.

All platforms with Adobe AIR: Test out words in any font already installed on your system using the free Font Picker application (original post). Enter the text you want to preview and scroll down the list of available fonts, and clear away the ones you don’t want using the X to narrow down your list of choices and compare the finalists in a single window.

Windows only: Organize, preview, categorize, and install fonts on your PC with the free AMP Font Viewer application (our original review). Particularly useful after you feast on the free font downloads listed below, Amp Font Viewer can categorize fonts and even install certain types for a single session, or save uninstalled fonts into a particular folder for archiving and backup. Windows users in search of the perfect font manager should also check out Cfont Pro (our original post).

Mac users, OS X’s built-in Font Book is pretty good for managing fonts, but don’t forget you can also use Quick Look to preview fonts. Linux users, check out Fonty Python (our original post).

Identify and Compare Fonts

Stealing is the sincerest form of flattery, so when you see a killer font and think, “I want that!” you also want to hit up one of these tools.

When you’re dying to know what hot font that web site or magazine is using, upload a digital image to the amazing WhatTheFont webapp (original post), a font-identifying system. If the font you’re trying to ID appears in an image on a web site (like a header), just enter the URL of the image and let WhatTheFont do its magic. If you’re looking to do some font identification on the go, you may also want to the WhatTheFont for iPhone. You’ll have to help WhatTheFont identify what letters are what in the image, and its results will include a few similar options to choose from. Keep in mind WhatTheFont won’t work for custom typography (like in Lifehacker’s header).

To find a font from memory, try out Identifont, a simple webapp that asks a series of questions about the font you want and narrows down the field to options that match your description. You can also enter a known font name and get similar fonts, or a font designer or publisher to get the fonts they’ve created.

Designer types trying to ID fonts from memory who notice things like whether it’s monospaced or serif should check out TypeNavigator webapp. Start by choosing the font form, name, or designer, then check off various attributes of the font down the line in the left sidebar, and TypeNavigator will display fonts that match on the right side.

Web page makers (or bloggers tweaking their CSS) should check out Typetester, a web-based screen font previewer. Enter your sample text into Typetester, and try out up to three different fonts (separated into web “safe” and otherwise), at different sizes and styles side-by-side. When you’ve got the family, size, and style you want to use on your web page, Typetester will spit out the CSS you need to hook it up on your page.

If you're working on an ongoing project that requires choosing fonts—or you just want to get more familiar with typography—consider printing out this nifty “Periodic Table of Typefaces” for your office wall (original post).

Free Font Downloads

There are countless places online to both purchase fonts or download them for free. Here are a few good sources for font freebies.

If you’re suffering from font overload, rely on the experts’ picks for best fonts. Designer Vitaly Friedman lists his 25 best free quality fonts here. (Got another quality list of free fonts? Post ‘em up in the comments.)

Make Your Own Fonts

Finally, if someone else’s font doesn’t cut it for you, there are a few ways to make your own.

Turn your handwriting into a font: with YourFonts (free, our original post), or Fontifier ($9). Back in the day I gave Fontifier a test run; see how it works and download my (terrible) handwriting font from my 2006 article, Make your own font.

Design your font pixel by pixel: If your chicken scratch won’t make a good font, you can design a custom font online with the easy FontStruct (our original post). While it’s not a pro tool, FontStruct lets you draw your font pixel-by-pixel in your web browser and download the results. Do the whole alphabet or a single letter, and browse the typographical creations others have created there.

What’s your favorite font or typography tool? Let us know in the comments.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker’s founding editor, could spend all day playing with fonts. Her weekly feature, Smarterware, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Smarterware tag feed to get new installments in your newsreader.





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Todo.txt CLI Manages Your Tasks from the Command Line [Lifehacker Code]

Posted on February 18, 2009
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Dozens of fancy point-and-click task managers promise to organize your to-do list, but so often power users find that nothing outdoes that trusty old classic: the todo.txt file.

If you’re a command line lover who skips checkboxes and drop-downs to dash off notes and tasks in a regular old text file, or you’re intrigued by the idea and wish your todo.txt chops were stronger, read on.

I’ve been a heavy todo.txt user for years. Back in 2006, I started developing a command line interface (CLI) to my todo.txt which lets me add to and check off items without launching a full-on text editor. Three years of daily (or at least weekly) use later, version 2.0 of the script is now available. It offers basic to advanced commands for managing your todo.txt and other text files you might use to capture information, like ideas.txt or maybelater.txt. Let’s take a look.

Who This Is Meant For: If you’re comfortable working in the terminal, changing permissions on a file, and working with Unix-style text commands, then the todo.txt CLI is for you. If you don't spend a good amount of time at the command line—either in the Terminal on your Mac, or using a Unix command line or emulator on Windows—you're going to think this whole thing is arcane and confusing. (In that case, we highly recommend getting organized with Remember the Milk. If you want to boost your command line chops on Windows, check out our introduction to Cygwin.)

You’ve already got CLI religion? Good. Let’s get started on some hot todo.txt command line action.

Quick Start Guide:

  1. Download the Todo.txt CLI 2.0 zip file and extract it. You’ll get two files. Place both todo.cfg (the configuration file) and todo.sh in your home directory.
  2. Open the todo.cfg file with your text editor of choice. Set the TODO_DIR variable to the right path for your setup. For example, on my Windows PC, this line reads:
    TODO_DIR="C:/Documents and Settings/gina/My Documents"
    On my Mac, this line reads:
    TODO_DIR="/Users/gina/Documents/todo"
  3. Make the todo.sh file executable by using the command: chmod +x todo.sh
  4. (OPTIONAL) Alias the letter t to todo.sh to save keystrokes while you use it. In your ~/.bash_profile file, add the line:
    alias t='~/todo.sh'

Now you’re ready to put this script to work!

Basic Usage

Before we start, keep in mind that this CLI isn’t trying to reinvent the text editor. If you want to do big bulk edits to a lot of items in your todo.txt, just open it up in your favorite text editor to do so. But for quick, one-hit access to add items, mark items as complete, or slice and dice your list by project or priority, todo.sh is for you.

For example, to add a line to your todo.txt file, at the command line, type:

$ t add "Pick up milk"

Add a few more items for good measure:

$ t add "Pick up the dry cleaning"
$ t add "Clean out the inbox"

Now, to see all the items on your list, use:

$ t ls

The output will look like this:

$ t ls
03 Clean out the inbox
01 Pick up milk
02 Pick up the dry cleaning
--
TODO: 3 tasks in C:/Documents and Settings/gina/My Documents/todo.txt.

Now, you can reference each item by its ID—which is actually the line number it lives at in the todo.txt file. For instance, to prioritize task 1 to the highest level—priority A—use this command:

$ t pri 1 A

To mark task 2 as complete, use todo.sh‘s do action:

$ t do 2

Since a video is worth a million words, see this in action in this screencast demonstration of a to-do list you might find for a crew member on Battlestar Galactica. (Go full-screen to see what’s being typed more clearly.)

If this video clip isn’t clear enough for you, try this alternate high-res location.

Advanced Usage

Once you’ve got the basics of working with your todo.txt down, it’s time to dive into more advanced tricks. Here are a few more things this CLI can do.

  • Replace or delete a task; append or prepend text to a line. When you want to re-word a task or add a context, project, or additional info to it, use the replace, append, and prepend actions to do so. For example, add “ready at 3PM” to your “Pick up the dry cleaning task” with this command:

    $ t append 2 "ready at 3PM"

  • See all the contexts and projects in your list. If you’re using the + and @ sign format to signify projects and contexts, use the listcon and listproj (or lsc and lsprj for short) commands to see a short list of all your contexts or projects in your todo.txt.
  • Move items from your todo.txt to another text file. Say you've decided that the "Learn how to speak French" task is actually something you're not quite committed to doing—yet. Use todo.sh‘s mv command to zip that task from todo.txt to another text file in your todo directory. For example, this command will move it into a maybelater.txt file:

    $ t move 10 maybelater.txt

  • List the contents of another text file. Since I got so used to working with todo.txt this way, there’s now support for working with other text files. For example, you can list the contents of your maybelater.txt file using the command:

    $ t listfile maybelater.txt

    Likewise, you can add a line to another file using:

    $ t addto ideas.txt "My bright idea"

    You can also search the contents of another text file by adding a keyword after the list command, ala:

    $ t lf ideas.txt apple

See all the options available to you using the todo.sh -h command. The full usage manual is available here.

Further Info and Related Projects

The todo.txt CLI has lived over at its official homepage, Todotxt.com, for years now, and although I haven’t posted an update there since 2006, an active mailing list of over 500 members is still going strong. Since this project is open source, happily several other todo.txt projects have sprung up over the years, including Task, which offers even more features than my little script does.

If you’re a programmer who wants to add to this script or a user with questions or ideas about the todo.txt CLI, either post them here or consider joining the mailing list for support. For a full history of this script's development—including its three-year hiatus—see its full changelog.

Think using a command line interface to a text file is insane or fantastic (or both)? Tried out todo.txt? Tell us what you think in the comments.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker’s founding editor, is still married to her todo.txt file even after a sordid affair with Remember the Milk. Her weekly feature, Smarterware, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Smarterware tag feed to get new installments in your newsreader.






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The First-Timer’s Guide to Building a Computer from Scratch [DIY]

Posted on February 11, 2009
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If you've never done it before, the idea of building a computer from the ground up can seem very intimidating—but it's one of the most satisfying projects a tech enthusiast can take on.

Being more of a software gal than a hardware geek myself, I was the only Lifehacker editor who had never built a PC from scratch. So when I needed a new PC late last year, I took the plunge and built my custom system. I'm so glad I did—the project turned out to be one of my proudest accomplishments of 2008. If you've cracked open your PC before to install a new hard drive or TV capture card, but you've never built a whole new system from the ground up, it's not as difficult as you might think. Here are my notes for first-timers who want to build instead of buy their next computer.

Why Build Instead of Buy

“But computers are so cheap these days,” you say. “Why waste the time and energy building your own system when you can get a great machine fully assembled and shipped to your door?” That’s a great question. Building your own PC will not save you time. It might save you money, but that’s not even the best reason to do it. For me, it was a fantastic hands-on educational experience. It gives me a deep sense of satisfaction every single day when I press the power button on my tower, watch it light up, and know that I plugged in the wire that goes from that light to the motherboard. Building your PC takes the mystery out of what’s going on inside that black box you spend hours on per day.

There are other good reasons to build instead of buy, too. With your own build you can customize your system just how you like and make your perfect media center or gaming machine. You can save money if you already have some parts (though see my warnings on the dangers of a “Frankenbuild” below). Upgrading your PC in the future becomes easier and cheaper since your parts aren’t tied to a particular manufacturer. With a custom build you can do fun stuff like overclock your CPU and get more bang for your buck, or install OS X where it was never intended to run.

In short, building your own PC makes you feel like a badass.

What You’re Getting Into

Don’t get me wrong, though: building a PC (for the first time especially) takes research, time, gumption, patience, and a willingness to deal with several WTF moments. If you’ve never cracked a PC’s case and installed parts, like a new hard drive or a video card, start there first. If you’ve got that experience under your belt, you might think that building a new PC is just a matter of snapping together a few parts. It is, but building from the ground up takes much more than an hour or two. My build took two full days, one online order, one returned motherboard, two trips to Fry’s, one condescending sneer from a sales associate when I asked a newb question, and one trip to Radio Shack. If that sounds like a lot, well, it was, and there were moments in the process when I wished I’d just bought a Dell. But when it finally all came together, all the sweat makes the results even sweeter.

Where to Start: Researching and Buying Your Parts

You scared off yet? No? Good. Let’s get down to it. There are a gadzillion articles on the internet about building your own PC, but many are way out of date, or just don’t get specific about what exactly you should buy. When I had to start researching what parts to purchase, of course I turned to savvy Lifehacker readers to help me out. Several readers mentioned Ars Technica’s excellent system buyer’s guide, which breaks down exactly what parts you’d want for one of three levels of computer: a “budget box,” a “hot rod,” or a “God box.” The 2008 guide published last fall; make sure you use the most recent one when you start your research. I started by plugging parts from Ars’ “hot rod” system list into Newegg to get a sense of price and see if there were any deals, coupons or upgrades. In the end I didn’t use Ars’ exact recommendations, but it was an awesome, up-to-date, jumping-off point.

Your research into parts is the most important stage of the process. For first-timers it can be bewildering, and you will have questions. Just keep reading, take notes, consult with forums or sales associates, and remember that if you make the wrong purchase you can always return it for the right one. In the photo to the left you’ll see my build’s case, motherboard, power supply, CPU, and RAM. (I had a video card, DVD drive, and a hard drive from an old machine I planned to use in my new build.)

See this entire comment thread for more resources on deciding what parts to buy for your budget.

Get Down and Dirty

Once you’ve got your hot little hands on all the parts you need, the real fun begins. There are two stages to your build: the hardware stage, and the software stage. Adam’s already covered how to install each individual hardware component. Here’s the list:

Once you’ve got everything plugged in and mounted inside your case, leave the case sides off and plug in your keyboard, mouse, monitor, and power, and press the On button. This is the moment of truth. The first time you see the lights come on and the system setup appear on-screen, you’ll feel like you’ve just arrived at the top of Mount Everest.

If the machine doesn't power on, or there's no video signal, or the keyboard doesn't work—just unplug everything and check your connections. It took me a few hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing attempts to get my new build to boot properly. If it doesn't work the first time, take a breath, unplug it all, and try again. Don't cry; that won't help.

Once you’re into the machine’s BIOS setup, key around and make sure the motherboard recognizes your DVD or CD drive and your hard drive. You’ll need those working in order to install your operating system. Everything there? Now set your boot sequence to check your optical drive first. Insert your operating system’s disc into your CD or DVD drive, and restart the machine. Now your operating system’s setup will launch on boot, and you can install away.

In the meantime, blast very loud rock music, strut about the vicinity, arms upraised, and revel in your greatness.

Mistakes I Made That You Can Avoid

When you build your first PC, keep a few things in mind I wished I’d realized before I started.

  • Beware of the “Frankenbuild.” A great way to save money on your new PC is using parts that you’ve already got around. But I was overly optimistic about what items from my very old Dell tower would work in my new system. I assumed my hard drive would work (it did, but it was an IDE drive, which I wound up replacing with a faster SATA model), I hoped my video card would work (it didn’t), and I thought my DVD drive would work (it did). In the end I wound up buying parts I thought I’d be able to reuse, so my total price wasn’t as low as my initial estimate.
  • Expect mishaps. I bought the wrong motherboard. Well, not the wrong one, but one that didn’t have a FireWire port, which I wanted. Well, I had a FireWire card, but it didn’t fit into the motherboard. Anyway, I figured all this out after I installed the CPU, which meant I had to remove it from the board, break the thermal compound seal, and ship the motherboard back. When I got the new motherboard and reinstalled the CPU, because the thermal compound left there didn’t work anymore, the machine would start and within 10 seconds overheat and shut itself off. Next thing you know I’m scraping hardened thermal compound off the CPU with Goof Off and a credit card, and reapplying fresh from a tube I had to pick up from Radio Shack. Lesson: there will be mishaps. Expect crap to go wrong. Be confident in your ability to fix it after you Google the solution to the problem hundreds of people have had before you did.
  • Read the frakkin’ manual. With years of tinkering in my PC’s case under my belt, I went into my build eager to start working and only skimmed the user guides and online howto’s before I started. Don’t do that. Open and read the full-on manual that comes in the box with every single one of your parts. If you’re not sure about something said manual includes, do your research before you plug anything in.
  • Buy locally if you can. My initial parts order was from Newegg, which was great price-wise, but really sucked when I had to return my motherboard, because I had to pay shipping fees and a restocking fee. With a Fry’s down the road, I regretted not just buying everything at the store itself from the get-go to to make returns easier.
  • Give yourself lots of time. I wrongly assumed I’d be able to finish my build in a day, but it took two whole days and stressed me out because they were work days. Don’t build a new PC when you’re on deadline or otherwise pinched for time. Give yourself a whole weekend and a clean and spacious work area that you can leave filled with packing debris and electronic parts strewn about for a few days.

Have you built your own PC? Are you considering taking the leap? Let us know how it went or what you’re thinking in the comments.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker’s founding editor, loves turning on her new PC every single day. Her new weekly feature, Smarterware, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Smarterware tag feed to get new installments in your newsreader.






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