I have six Mac Mini’s that I use in my digital storytelling workshops. Before each workshop when I update the software to the latest version one thing always impresses me. They are fast. I’m not talking about Intel Core 2 versions. They are three year old Power PC models with 1.42MHz processors.

Of course, they would be relatively slow on a benchmarking test, but they start quickly, open the iLife apps fast and generally get on with the job at a respectable pace.
I put it down to not having any extra software installed apart from Photoshop Elements and Audacity. No fonts, nothing loading at log in, no Safari caches files, bookmarks or network drivers. No printer to find or music and image libraries to load. Just a bare bones Mini box.
In comparison my MacBook Pro takes ages to load and my 20″ iMac 2MHz PPC groans under the weight of all those plugins, fonts and widgets that I have running.
So the moral of this tale. Keep your Macs pure and undefiled, you’ll save hours and drink less coffee waiting for the log in prompt and for the beach ball to stop spinning.