So, I replaced the hard drive in my MacBook

Instead of 80GB I now have 160GB. Yum.

However, I noticed a problem with my system; it seemed slow. Wait, no, that’s not correct – it was S L O W. Over a minute to boot and log in. Applications were taking a long time to start, and some just stopped working altogether. I was seriously starting to worry that my hard drive was working perfectly… but was just slow – which just means that I could not return it.

Thankfully I was totally wrong.

It turns out that Application Enhancer – “APE” – really did not play well with others. Application Enhancer is a plugin that allows you to run some very nice interface enhancements like WindowShade and FruitMenu. Sadly, turning off APE returned my MacBook to its former glory – fast boot times and nearly instantaneous logins.

Now, if my other problems could be solved this painlessly. I also got rid of a number of startup items that were slowing things down. Perhaps if I get rid of all the other software on this system I could … nah.