If that AC cord coming out of your computer goes directly into a wall socket, you're putting your Mac at the mercy of the power company, your home's wiring, and all the things that can go wrong in between: brownouts, voltage spikes, lightning, you name it. Your Mac's power supply is pretty robust, but a single random power surge can still fry its circuits. Even when the electricity appears to be flowing correctly, imperceptible fluctuations in the current can cause computer components to deteriorate more quickly than normal.
So please, take the basic precaution of using a surge protector. They come in many shapes, sizes, and pricessome with every bell and whistle, and some quite plain. Not all work equally well, so look for a model with a good warranty that covers not only the protector itself but also the equipment attached to it, in the event of a surge.
Better yet, consider buying a small UPS (uninterruptible power supply). A UPS contains a battery with enough juice to power your computer for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, along with circuitry to convert the battery's DC output to AC and switch over to the battery instantly and seamlessly in the event of a power outage. If the power goes out for more than a very brief period, the UPS sounds an alarm so that you will know to save your work and shut down your computer safely before the battery goes out. (Some UPS units include software to handle automated shutdowns.) In addition to protecting your computer from power outages, a UPS conditions the electricity flowing through it and absorbs surges.

A Conversation about Surge Protectors and UPSes

Do you really need a surge protector? Is a UPS worth the extra money? The experts weigh in:
Sharon Zardetto Aker: In 20 years of having multiple Macs (there are a half dozen in use in the house right now), 10 years of which was in the country where power came and went with strong breezes, I've never had a surge problem affect any Mac, nor do I know of anyone who has ever had that problem, so I'm a little uncomfortable with this recommendation.
Dan Frakes: Consider yourself lucky! In my humble opinion, no computer should ever be run without a surge protector. All it takes is one incident to make a believer out of you!
Kirk McElhearn: I agree with Dan.
Adam Engst: Personally, I never use surge protectors, but I wouldn't run a Mac without a UPS. Power flickers too often for my taste, and preventing the lost work is worth it.
Tonya Engst: I've found that an important side effect of running a UPS, in addition to allowing a graceful shutdown at the beginning of a power outage, is that I can work on days when the power flickers frequently. In Seattle, probably once a month or more, and here in Ithaca, certainly once every 6 weeks, the power goes out maybe 8 times, for about 20 seconds each time, over the course of an afternoon. Without the UPS, I wouldn't be able to work effectively on those days.
Geoff Duncan: I feel more comfortable recommending a voltage regulator or a power conditioner instead of consumer-level surge protectors, which are usually pretty useless. UPSes are even better.

My favorite UPS manufacturer is APC (American Power Conversion). To find one of their models that suits your needs, use their product selector at www.apcc.com/template/size/apc/. Other UPS manufacturers that offer Mac-compatible software include:

• Belkin (http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatSectionView.process?IWAction=Load&Section_Id=76)
• MGE UPS Systems (www.mgeups.com/selector/ups/index.php)
• Xantrex (www.preparedwithpower.com/backup/)
• Perform Daily Tasks
• If you performed all the preliminary steps, your daily maintenance ritual consists of at most two tasks, and at best, none!

Back Up Changed Files

In the type of backup system I recommend, your backup software begins by copying all your important files to some sort of external mediapreferably a hard drive. What counts as "important" is up to you; it could be everything on your disk, just the contents of your home folder or your Documents folder, or just the files you're actively working on. But at a minimum, you should make a daily copy of any files you could not re-create in a matter of minutes, such as your saved email, photographs, and any documents you've spent hours working on during the day.
I advocate performing additive incremental archives. This means that after your first full backup of all the files you want (creating the archive), each successive daily backup copies only those files that are new, or have changed, since the last time (that's the incremental part); and it keeps the previous copies of your files, so you can go back to an earlier version if you accidentally modify a file you shouldn't have (that's the additive part; it also means that files you delete on your hard disk remain in the archive).

Note

In addition to automated daily backups, it never hurts to make extra copies of files you're actively working on. If you take a moment to drag such files to a network server or iDisk (or even make an extra copy on the same drive) whenever you stop to take a break, you'll add yet another layer of safety to your valuable data.

If you configured your backup software to run on a schedule, this happens automatically every day. You may, however, need to intervene in some cases, such as these:

• If you back up to optical discs, in which case you must insert new media as requested
• If you back up to a server that requires you to log in manually
• If you back up from, or to, a computer that's not always available at the same time of day (such as an iBook, PowerBook, or MacBook Pro)

Download Software Updates

Earlier, I suggested setting Software Update to check for, and download, any new updates from Apple daily. If you followed that advice, any important updates download in the background, and Software Update informs you when they're ready to install. So your daily task is more of a don't than a do: on the days when that inevitable alert appears, asking if you want to install the latest software updates, read about the updates but consider postponing installation for a few daysin other words, click Quit instead of Install.

make changes to Z's settings. For this reason, I find Saturday mornings especially good for updating software.
Second, in the unlikely event that an update contains a major erroras has happened a few timeswaiting gives you a safety buffer. If you check sites like MacInTouch (www.macintouch.com) or MacFixIt (www.macfixit.com), you can get a sense of whether an update has raised any serious issues for other Macintosh users. However, take isolated reports of problems with a grain of salt. Updates can failor appear to failfor many reasons, including user error. The fact that one or two people cry wolf should not dissuade you from applying an update.

A Conversation about Software Updates

Many people install software updates as soon as they appear, but I recommend doing it once a week instead. Here's what some other experts have to say on the subject:
Kirk McElhearn: Daily isn't always best for updatesit means you're on the cutting edge and, since we've seen a handful of Apple updates that were pulled or quickly revised in recent years, it might be more risky than it's worth.
Andy Affleck: I agree with Kirk; daily software updates are very risky. I generally check MacFixIt and MacInTouch for a few days after each update to be sure it's a safe one. Doing software updates weekly is safer.
Tonya Engst: I usually run Apple's Software Update utility during the weekend, because if an update involves restarting it's too much time out of the day, plus it's a distraction from getting my work done.
Chris Pepper: In my department, we have the "Never on Friday" rule. The gist is that you should (a) assume that any work might go horribly pear-shaped, and (b) never start a process you're not prepared to see through to its conclusion. Since we don't like staying late Friday night or working Saturday, we don't start major upgrades on Friday afternoon (unless they're scheduled to run through the weekend). For any substantial maintenance (weekly, monthly, and especially annual), it's probably worth running or checking a backup first, and making sure you have twice as much time as you expect to need, so you don't start a process on Friday afternoon and suck away your weekend if the upgrade doesn't go smoothly.
Geoff Duncan: I check on Mondays but usually don't install anything at that point. Security updates have highest priority with me; I might apply them as early as Wednesday. Anything else has to wait until immediately after a backup and, following Chris's postulate that it's going to take at least twice as long as I think it will, until I have time.

3. Perform Weekly Tasks

Your daily maintenance tasks are minorand perhaps they even happen automatically. Once a week, however, you should set aside time for some more in-depth housekeeping. Depending on your work habits and system specifications, these weekly tasks might take 15 minutes or they might take a couple of hours. If you find that you can't finish them all conveniently in one sitting, feel free to stagger themone each day of the week, for exampleas long as any given task occurs about once every week.

Clean Up Your Desktop

I want to ask you a personal question. How many iconsnot counting hard disks, network volumes, and removable mediaare sitting on your Desktop right now? (My answer: 11, though I usually try to keep it closer to 6. Ask me again tomorrow, after I've performed my weekly housekeeping.) I know lots of people who regularly have dozens or even hundreds of icons on their Desktops, who use it as a catchall for downloaded files, work in progress, email enclosures, and everything else that needs a temporary home. This is a bad idea! Here's why:

• Mac OS X considers every icon on your Desktop a window, and because every open window uses up a certain amount of RAM, more Desktop icons means greater RAM usage.
• Exposé shortcuts notwithstanding, putting files and folders on your Desktop makes them harder to find, because they're so easily hidden behind windows. (You can, of course, access the contents of your Desktop folder in a regular Finder window, but some people put items on the Desktop specifically to avoid working with Finder windows.)
• Your Desktop displays files and folders in icon view, unlike the more efficient list and column views available in other windows. (Yes, I know, you can view the contents of your Desktop folder in a window too, but work with me here...)
• Tossing lots of files into a single big storage area (wherever it may be) creates more work later on when you try to locate specific files.
• If you use your Desktop to hold important items that you want to keep "in your face" at all times, you'll lose that effect when the files become too numerous.

A cluttered Desktop slows you down, so take a few minutes once a week to organize most (if not all) the items on your Desktop into other folders.
I know of numerous organizational philosophies, but I have no wish to impose a rigid system on you. Instead, simply consider these suggestions for keeping files off your Desktop:

• If your chief concern is keeping track of a few important files, use the Finder's label feature (select a file and choose a color label from the bottom of the Edit menu) to mark all high-priority files in a given color. Then, use a smart folder to display all files on your disk labeled with that color. Choose File > New Smart Folder, choose Color Label from the first pop-up menu, and click the color you used to label the files. Then click Save and give your smart folder a name. The folder automatically updates itself to display all the files labeled with the selected color, wherever they may be stored on your disk.

Tip
For details on using smart folders, you can read an article I wrote for Macworld magazine titled "Cut through the Clutter" (www.macworld.com/2006/01/secrets/febworkingmac/).

• If you store downloaded files on your Desktop, instead make a new folder named Downloads, put that on your Desktop (or somewhere else convenient, such as in your Documents folder), and keep the downloaded files inside it.

Tip
To change the location to which Safari downloads files, choose Safari > Preferences, click the General button, and choose a location from the Save Downloaded Files To pop-up menu (choose Other to select any folder on your disk).

• Check your Desktop for files you no longer need, such as software you've already installed, PDFs you downloaded and printed, or outdated text clippings, and delete them.
• Several Mac OS X applications function as excellent snippet keepers, giving you a much better place to store things that might otherwise go on your Desktop (URLs, saved Web pages, text clippings, PDF and text files, and so on). Examples include:
• DEVONthink (http://devon-technologies.com/; Personal edition, $40, or Professional edition, $75)
• NoteBook (www.circusponies.com; $50)
• SOHO Notes, (www.chronosnet.com; $70)

•  
• Yojimbo (www.barebones.com; $40)

One way or another, try to get your total number of Desktop icons below a dozen or so. You'll be surprised how much this simple step improves your efficiency.
Tip
If you keep files and folders on your Desktop because you find it difficult to work with Finder windows, you may be able to improve your experience considerably by customizing the default Finder window. You can learn about Finder customization in Matt Neuburg's Take Control of Customizing Tiger (www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-customizing.html).

Back Up Everything

You already back up important changed files every day to an archive, but a thorough backup plan also includes a bootable duplicate of your entire hard disk, which enables you to recover almost instantly from even a complete drive failure, with all your files intact. You can certainly update this duplicate every day if you wish, but because the process typically takes longer than updating an archive, I suggest updating your duplicate at least once a week.
If you configured your backup software to run on a schedule, your duplicate should update itself automatically every week. If you opted for manual duplicates (or if the drive you use for duplicates isn't always connected), update your duplicate now.

Note

Most backup software, when duplicating your drive onto an external volume, automatically performs an incremental backupcopying only those files that are new or changed since your last duplicate, and deleting files from the external volume that are no longer on your internal disk.

Rotate Backups Offsite

I recommended maintaining at least two sets of backup mediafor example, two hard drives, each with a partition for a duplicate and another to hold your archives. With two copies of your backups, you can keep one next to your computer, ready for the next day's backup, and another in a safe place offsite. That way, if disaster strikes your home or office and takes out one of your backups, you have another to fall back on. If you swap your backup sets weekly, you'll rest secure knowing that even in the worst possible case, you'll lose no more than one week's data.