I mainly do two things on my Mac, editing and web surfing. Once in a while, I was in trouble: I couldn't save my editing, even when the file size is less than 300 kb. I knew it's a memory problem, but I didn't know how to clear the memory; there went my 20 min worth of work, since I had to restart the Mac to clear the memory, the only way I knew how.

This happened again last Saturday. Suddenly, I remembered that I paid for unlimited tutoring for a whole year. So, I signed up for a 30-min private session even though I really only had one big question--how to avoid losing my work.

Terri is a beautiful young lady, but she does not care to show it. She talked slowly in a nice manner, and walked me step by step, to open up my Mac's "Activity Monitor." She told me that simply quitting the Safari window does not mean I actually quit Safari, the same for Word. Both could clog the memory. I could tell she is right. (Today, I proved she is right, by quitting Word for good. I could tell the memory has increased after that.)

So, do you know how to really quit Safari or Word? Ask me, if you need help.

ps. If you turn off your Mac every day because you need to carry it to work, then you will not encounter this problem.

pps. The same is true for cell phone, which is why I restart it from time to time, just to clear the memory.