Utilities

Hard drive/storage malfunction is one of the more common computer problems. When it happens, it can be one of the most frustrating experiences, not only because of data loss, but because the whole system can stop working if the boot drive is compromised.

Drives can suffer from a variety of issues such as mechanical breakdowns when firmware and controller boards stop working, as well as filesystem structure corruption if input/ouput problems cause an improper write event to the drive. The system is constantly writing and reading from the drive by moving files around, editing them, and tracking changes … Read more

Our utilities update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems.

This week there are all of three updates available, and these are for the maintenance utility OnyX, the cleanup utility Tidy Up, and a new data recovery utility called Disk Drill.

The latest version of OnyX has been in beta development … Read more

Our utilities update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems.

Maintenance

Having at least one cache cleaning utility on your system is always recommended, for running general maintenance or other cleaning routines. Snow Leopard Cache Cleaner ($9.99) is one of the tried-and-true utilities for removing temporary and cache files on … Read more

Our utilities update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems.

Maintenance The maintenance utilities updated this week are Cocktail, CleanMyMac, OnyX, and MacPilot. Cocktail is a $14.95 utility with a free 10-launch trial that runs a number of cache-cleaning and maintenance routines for use when unknown errors with temporary files … Read more

CNET TV's Brian Tong takes a look at the latest in Apple news, rumors, and tips. This week, Brian checks out iPad rumors, the App of the week, and a bizarre story about Steve Jobs sneaking ninja stars onto his plane. Brian also gives us a sneak peak at iOS 4.2 beta for developers, including multitasking, AirPrint, Game Center, folders, and AirPlay.

… Read more

Our utilities update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems.

HardwareIf you love to monitor your hardware's temperature and other statistics (which is especially useful for servers--at home or otherwise), then you might take a look at Hardware Monitor, its Remote counterpart, and Temperature monitor. These utilities tap into the … Read more

Our utilities update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems.

Maintenance TinkerTool System is a collection of useful utilities for OS X, which can tweak and customize the Mac experience as well as run maintenance routines to correct any system slowdowns. The latest version adds a new "Emergency Tool" … Read more

Our weekly utilities update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems.

Maintenance

In Maintenance utilities this week, CheckUp ($36) was updated to improve alerts and fix known bugs, as well as to add support for the most recent Mac models. The OS X tweaking and maintenance program MacPilot ($19.95) has … Read more

When you get information on a file in the Finder, you can see numerous attributes including the file size. Under some circumstances, however, the size reported in the information window of the Finder may differ from the size reported by other file-sizing utilities.

We were recently contacted by a MacFixIt reader who was trying to get the size of a selection of files via AppleScript, and in order to do so was using the OS X "System Events" to grab file sizes with AppleScript code similar to the following:

tell application "Finder"     &… Read more