The Tasks, etc.

[Gregory Cortelyou]

I have lately been unduly obsessed with the so called "cron tasks" that 
take place automatically if you leave your Mac on all the time. I 
wonder how important they are, if those of us that are more savvy are 
just more neurotic too. I use Mac Janitor on my PowerBook as I don't 
wish to leave it on overnight. My G4 had been left on 24/7 for the past 
year, but one of the fans is starting to make noise and I want to 
preserve the life of the computer so I started leaving it asleep at 
night and perform the tasks manually via Mac Janitor. Last night I got 
out of bed to make sure it was asleep because I was afraid if I had 
left it on, the automated task would repeat what I had already done, or 
maybe would be on a different schedule and screw things up. Is that 
even possible? (It was asleep by the way.) I have also started to 
contemplate most of the other Mac OS X users I know who have never 
heard of, don't care about, will not be bothered with such things as 
"cron tasks", permissions and other thing we are obsessed with, and 
seem no worse for the wear. My mother who has an iMac and lives in an 
area that experiences frequent power outages, leaves her computer off 
most of the time and wouldn't perform a daily Mac Janitor routine if 
they paid her. Yet her system works fine. Apple does not mention these 
tasks in any of its readily available user information and you will not 
find anything if you type in cron tasks in the Mac help search area. I 
will continue my faithful routines regardless, but is there really any 
harm done in not doing them? Sorry for the length.
Greg