TIPS THAT TAKE 20 MINUTES

18. Build a Better Clipboard (Speed Demons) - Want to stop clicking from your browser to Word and back again to paste information culled from websites as you research a topic? We’ll bet you do. Try Inventive’s iClip ($29), a Mac clipboard the likes of which you’ve never seen. It can store up to 99 clippings (text, images, and more) all neatly sorted into bins. Or try iClip Lite, the free Dashboard version.

iClip is the manly muscled version of your Mac’s clipboard.

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19. Don't Retype Passwords (Speed Demons) - Typing the same password over and over is so three years ago. If you’re forever forgetting usernames and passwords, or frequently lose software serial numbers, account information, digital sales receipts, and warranties, you need a safe and accessible place to stash this sensitive information. Install KeePassX (free), an encrypted, searchable database that lives on your Desktop. KeePassX even includes a built-in utility that will generate - and then store - secure passwords.

20. Keep it Free and Easy (Your Hard Drive, That is) (KIC) - OS X uses free hard drive space as virtual memory, and a stuffed drive will clog up your Mac’s performance. The OS wants at least 5GB of free space all to itself on your primary hard drive—the one where the operating system is installed - and more free space will make things run more smoothly. A good rule of thumb: Leave a minimum of 5 percent of the primary drive open for the system’s use. So if you want to leave 5 percent of a 150GB hard drive free, your magic number is 7.5GB (that’s 150 times 0.05, math genius). Here are a few tips for quickly taking back some of the wasted space on your hard drive. Each one should take you no more than 5 minutes.

1. Get rid of all the printer drivers that you don’t use from the /Library/Printers folder at your hard drive level (not your user level). If you can’t figure out which drivers to delete, download a copy of Printer Setup Repair ($30).

2. Purge your system of all unused language and localization files. Just set Monolingual (free) running and start your next project.

3. Dump the files in your user folder’s Library/Caches folder if OS X is still cramped. It’s not unusual to reclaim a gigabyte or two of space when you clear the caches. If you don’t want to risk dumping necessary bits and pieces, grab a copy of Tiger Cache Cleaner or Leopard Cache Cleaner ($9).

4. In a pinch just use Spotlight to find all the files over, say, 30MB on your drive and cautiously delete the ones you know you don’t need. Your threshold may vary depending on your line of work and thus the typical sizes of your files.

5. Move your older files off your primary drive to discs or another hard drive. Ruthlessly delete all the stuff you’ll never use again (if you’re undecided, burn it to an optical disc, then delete it from your drive). And don’t forget to empty the trash.

Removing the non-English localization and language files on our hard drive freed up almost 2GB of space.

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The Top 5: If You Do Nothing Else...

1. Drag your most frequently visited folders into the Finder’s sidebar for easy access and quick navigation. (5 minutes)

2. Clean off your resource-hogging Desktop clutter, ya slob. (10 minutes)

3. Make sure your Unix actions run using Maintidget, Cocktail, or OnyX. (5 minutes)

4. Give Quicksilver a try. It only takes a few minutes to download, but the more time you spend learning its capabilities, the more powerful it is. (5 minutes to install)

5. Keep your hard drive 5 percent empty for the system to have some leeway.