I just had a chance to listen to the latest episode of the Mac Attack where my friend, Steve Stanger, spent considerable time coming up with a sensible Mac maintenance plan. Steve is Apple certified both with software and hardware and I've always founds his advice spot on.

Steve also wrote out his steps, which I will reprint below. Regardless, I strongly recommend adding the Mac Attack to you podcast list where you will undoubtedly learn even more. And if that isn't good enough, you may even hear my dulcet tones on The Mac Attack.

Steve's Mac Maintenance Plan:

General Mac House cleaning

- keep your software up-to-date (Mac OS and applications)
- back up before performing any maintenance
- before performing maintenance quit all applications

Recommended monthly maintenance

- repair system/disk file permissions
- manually run daily, weekly & monthly maintenance scripts

Recommended six month preventative maintenance

- zap parameter ram (PRAM) - hold down Command, Option, P, and R
- rebuild LaunchServices
- clear or delete System, User, Internet, and font caches