It happens incrementally — the crud of missed software upgrades, permissions errors and outdated memory cards. Over time, these issues can seriously bog down your computer. I don’t know what the threshold is, but at some point it begins to bug. For me most recently, it began about three weeks ago. Immediately I started to dig around. I ran the Mac OS X Disk Utility (a couple times), ran Applejack (also a couple times). I saw slight improvements, but something was still amiss.
A friend suggested updating my RAM. He had a point, as I was still using the original cards that shipped with my MacBook Pro. And when I plunked down the $100 for an upgrade to double the RAM [RAM is so cheap now!] I saw a huge difference right away.
But what escaped my attention for the longest time was my font management software. I use Linotype Font Explorer and it had not been updated in, well, a very, very long time. I simply overlooked it. And that’s no small thing, as font management impacts every area of your workflow.
Now we’re zipping along again. Hopefully I can remember to remember the next time this happens …