Q Memory use in Activity Monitor is always in the yellow, and my Mac keeps grinding to a halt. Can you see anything in my logs to account for this?

A The most important figures are page ins and outs: OS X manages memory very efficiently and may seem to be using it close to the maximum at times; it should do so!

Your logs contain traces of Intego NetBarrier X5 (X8 is current), and you should rely on your modem-router’s firewall rather than a local software add-in, if possible. You Mac is running postfix, which is a mail server and should be unnecessary. CleanMyMac is another utility which could be stealing lots of CPU time and memory.

With a bit of effort spent cleaning these issues up, your memory use should drop significantly, and your Mac should feel much swifter again.

Updated from the original, which was first published in MacUser volume 30 issue 8, 2014.