If you’re like me, you like having your computer boot-up as fast as possible. There’s not much worse than turning your computer on in the morning, going grabbing some coffee, and returning only to find your computer still chugging away, loading your desktop. This isn’t necessarily a problem for those lucky enough to have enormous amounts of RAM and excess processing power, however for most of us, loading numerous programs at start-up takes longer than desired.
This is a problem that users of all platforms share, however here I’ll be focusing on what I did for my MacBook Pro. On my Mac, there are a few programs I always have running besides Mail, my web browser and any documents I may be working on. These include Dropbox, Quicksilver, and Twitteriffic. One solution would be to disable all these programs from running at startup. Doing this would mean that every time I turn on my computer, I would have to open all those programs manually; something I’d rather not spend time doing.
I had seen Windows applications that allow you to specify a time-delay for startup programs so your system doesn’t get bogged down trying to launch everything at once. I didn’t find a program like this for Mac, however the Mac Tips and Tricks blog pointed out how you could write your own such program easily using tools already included with the OS.
Their solution was to use either Applescript or Automator to force applications to start after a pre-set delay. I won’t repeat the instructions as they are available here. Currently, I am using the Applescript solution as the Automator (while easier to do) resulted in my apps’ menubar icons being placed awkwardly in the middle of the menubar as opposed to their usual spot near the system clock.
All in all, I think this is a pretty cool trick and has prompted me to play around a lot more with Automator and Applescript. Any ideas or suggestions?
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