On to the second article…
- Back it up If you aren't using Time Machine, IMHO you should be and your Time Machine drive should be two to three times the size of the drive you are backing up. This has little or nothing to do with improving performance, it is simply good sense.
- check login items I will combine this with the next step
- identify and eradicate offenders Download and run the freeware application EtreCheck It scans your system and identifies potential problems. If you can't interpret the results post them here and someone will be happy to help. There is another app that is very useful to me when I am in a housekeeping mood CleanApp. It isn't free but it is on sale for $5. It will cleanly delete all traces of applications, identify unused files and applications and a number of other housekeeping tasks. Personally I would not fool with getting rid of language localizations as the article suggested. Too much work and too little gain.
- clean up your hard drive That is mostly what we have been talking about so far.
- add RAM Assuming you are running Mavericks as long as the "Memory Pressure" bar in Activity Monitor is green you are golden. Mavericks memory management is very different from previous versions of OS X and most of what we knew is no longer valid. Just watch the Memory Pressure and if it is yellow start pricing additional RAM. If it turns red it is definitely time to buy.
The third article is largely a rehash of the first two and as far as I can tell adds little or nothing to the discussion, so I won't go into it in detail.
