I get the error "your startup disk is almost full." and it interrupts my safari sessions, do have to do something to fix this or not. if so what do I need to do?

You need to begin removing files from your disk right now.

Move movies, photos, all larger files to another disk until you are down to about 10% avaialble space.

Get Info "cmd-i) on your hard drive icon and tell us "capacity" "available" and "used".

Sometimes the larger files are hidden, and you can find those hidden files by unhiding them here:

http://www.mikesel.info/show-hidden-files-mac-os-x-10-7-lion/

Also, don't forget to empty the trash in iTunes and iPhoto. they are separate from the trash in the dock.

First, reboot. That will temporarily free up some space. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB free for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data.

Use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space.

Proceed further only if the problem hasn't been solved.

ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To really see everything, you have to run it as root.

Back up all data now if you haven't already done so. No matter what happens, you should be able to restore your system to the state it was in at the time of that backup.

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ If you’re running OS X 10.7 or later, open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.

After installing ODS in the Applications folder, drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:

sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper

You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.

I don't recommend that you make a habit of this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. When you're done with it, quit it and also quit Terminal.