Other Sites
if you leave your system up and running 24/7, those Unix cron scripts will run automatically in the wee hours of the morning at the specified intervals, but my Macs get put to sleep earlier than that with very rare exceptions such as an overnight download, and I expect that the same would apply to more users than not, particularly laptop owners, so it is necessary to run the scripts manually, which can be done with Unix commands in a terminal ( something I've never done), or much more conveniently with a system maintenance utility that can also initiate other maintenance procedures from a convenient graphical user interface.
There are well over a dozen of these utilities available from third-party vendors (Apple's OS X Disk Utility can run Repair Permissions). Some are commercial software, usually offered as shareware, while several others are freeware/donationware. They all offer the same basic maintenance functions, along with a variety of other features that may or may not be of interest to particular users. Personally, I have gotten excellent service from several of the freeware system utilities, especially OnyX and MainMenu, and have not perceived any deficiency or inconvenience, or even lack of interface sophistication and attractive appearance in using them rather than the applications that require a license fee, although the ones of those I have tried, such as Cocktail and Mac Pilot, do an excellent job as well.
However, unless you are smitten with a particular feature that is only available on a certain program, there seems to be no compelling reason to not use the freeware utilities for routine maintenance chores.
Dean Shavit, a Partner at MOST Training & Consulting, a firm specializing in cross-platform IT and Open-Source software solutions The developer is Dean Shavit, a Mac OS X Trainer and Consultant, and columnist for MacTech Magazine contacted me regarding a new system maintenance utility application he has developed called Mac HelpMate.
I knew I was going to like Mac HelpMate from the moment it started up, with its very attractive interface window's greeting: "Hello, Charles Moore, your boot disk has 2.3 gigabytes left," and also noting the amount of uptime since the last restart, and the user load averages.
The Optimize panel has a pull-down menu that lets you initiate Repair Disk Permissions for both OS X and OS 9, and Update Prebindings.
The Clean panel's menu facilitates selection of a variety of cleaning and maintenance tasks.
The Disk panel does the same for a variety of disk-related chores.
In order to activate the menus in the preceding three panels, you must click on the little lock button at the lower right of the application window and authenticate with your administrator password.
The main purpose most users put system maintenance utilities to is addressed in Mac HelpMate's "Auto" panel, in which you can make multiple selections for Repair Permissions, running the cron scripts, dumping various cache files and logs, and so forth. You can configure the tasks to run immediately, later, or to autoexecute at specified time intervals.
In the Prefs pane, you can configure the Dock's orientation, set your screen capture image format, select the desired window minimization effect, toggle a variety of user interface features, toggle debug menus in Server Admin, Safari, and the Address Book,and specify a SU server.
The ASR panel allows you to configure the server data rate, Client data rate, port, TTL, and interface settings, and more.
A very slick feature is the Search panel, which does very quick word searches on a specified volume, returning occurrences and file paths. Much quicker than either Spotlight or the OS 10.4 Tiger Find dialog. It also, blessedly, doesn't start searching until you stop typing and hit the "OK" button, which makes it much nicer to use than the Tiger Finder search engines. On the downside, returns are not clickable to open - it's Unix filename data; you have to navigate to the desired file manually in the Finder.
[UPDATE: Dan Shavit tells me that the Search feature in Mac Helpmate can open found items.
"Just use the “Services� menu, then Finder, then choose reveal or open item, and bam! it’ll open for you (I’m still trying to find a slicker way of doing so, along with a better display for the find results)."
Thanks, Dean.
CM]
I found that MacHelpmate ran the slate of maintenance routines I configured quickly and efficiently. The only complaint I have is the lack of a progress bar, but perhaps one will be added in a later release.
Mac HelpMate features:
* Mac Helpmate cleans up "trash" files
* It allows you to "peek under the hood" of Mac OS X and much more
* It saves a lot of time typing commands in the Terminal
* It provides quick solutions to problems that could otherwise be very difficult to solve
* Mac HelpMate makes remote technical support easier
* It acts as a multicast ASR server for mass deployments (10.4 only)
The release version of Mac HelpMate will have one version, which supports OS X 10.2 through 10.4, whereas other utilities require separate versions
The Mac HelpMate Engraved Edition will be special edition of the program that requires an annual subscription, incorporating many features Mac support professionals desire such as connecting consultants with their customers, and functioning as a Mac Consultant's calling card.
New in Mac HelpMate Beta Release v .96a, released 11/12/05:
* Fixed compatibility issues with 10.4.3 (-1762 error)
* Added tail/head options to Command Output window and fixed cosmetic error with window widgets
* Added Mac Helpmate action log located at: /Library/Logs/machelpmate.log
* Fixed miscellaneous random errors
* Admin functions grayed out until authentication
* Info tab is now first in the main window
* Authentication now manually initiated (click lock icon)
* Added Software Update Server preference feature for Tiger
* Changed some appearance stuff - new gray inlays - new drop down menus on main tab
* Added automation tab
* Added prefs to save automation view
* Feedback sheets are now resizable
* Scheduling of automated tasks via cron
* Added support for Growl Notifications
* Code Optimizations for speed and stability
* Added preference toggle for expanding save dialogs across all applications
* Added hardware sensor data
* Added show free RAM function
* Added preference toggle for Dashboard
* Added Easter egg
* ASR Multicast server now requires 10.4.3 (many new features)
* Added "reset" button to Multicast ASR Server
* New Multicast "loop delay" property for 10.4.3
* New ASR multicast "client timeout" setting for 10.4.3
Mac HelpMate is free. You may donate to support development.
For more information, visit:
http://www.macworkshops.com/machelpmate/
While we're at it, I'll update my latest perspectives on a couple of other freeware system utilities that I've found useful.
OnyX 1.6.5 Disk OS X Maintenance Utility
OnyX, which was last updated to version 1.6.5 in early November, is another OS X utility offering maintenance, optimization and personalization for Mac OS X. Like Mac HelpMate, OnyX makes it possible to configure certain hidden parameters of Finder, Dock, Safari... to remove a certain number of files and repertories become cumbersome, preview the different logs and CrashReporter and more, and it's freeware.
OnyX utilizes an attractive and stylish appearance theme � an elegant user interface that makes puts many commercial software application interfaces to shame by comparison. Very snazzy and professional for a freeware app. And it works really well too.
The Onyx interface displays eight tabbed panels, Appearance, Maintenance, Cleaning, Automation Logs, Info (about the computer) and Preferences.
• Appearance - Allows you to customize scroll bar arrows, label lines, toggle appearance between Aqua and Graphite, show hidden system files, put a Quit Menu Item in the Finder menu, activate application and window zooming, delete certain preferences, and force empty the Trash, with or without destruction, the Dock position, alignment and minimization options, and to activate hidden and system files, transparent icons for hidden applications, animate opening applications put a menu item Quit Finder in the Dock, and relaunch the Dock., Exposé, Safari, and more.
• Maintenance - Lets you verify and repair Permissions, run chron system maintenance scripts, optimize the system, and update system databases
• Cleaning - Options to dump various caches including browser caches, logs, force empty the Trash. The browsers recognized are: Safari, Shiira, Internet Explorer, Omniweb, Camino (formerly Chimera), Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox (formerly Firebird and Phoenix), Opera, iCab and WamCom.
• Automation - Regroups the main functions of panels 'Maintain' and 'Cleaning,' lets you verify and repair permissions, run chron scripts, optimize the system, and dump system caches
Log Files - Displays and can delete CrashReporter, Archived, and System logs selectively
Unix Utilities - Mac OS X contains several hundred Unix commands. These commands, accessible by the Terminal, are abundantly documented in the manuals. The 'Man' panel allows you to format and display the manual pages.
Info - With five sub-panes showing information about your computer:
- Computer - its model, its identifier and its code.
- Hardware: Info on the Hardware of your computer (processor, bus, cache and memory).
- Disk: This tab displays information about the startup disk, its name, its capacity, the free space available, space used and the state of journaling. A little button allows you to enable or disable the journaling.
- System: Info on the kernel and the Operating System.
- User: This tab displays misc info about the user (full and short name, name on the network, identifier...).
Preferences - Configure OnyX interface options
There is also an excellent and comprehensive OnyX Help manual included explaining in detail every OnyX function. One of the best I've encountered in any software, and certainly the best among these utilities.
OnyX is Freeware, and version 1.6.5 works with all Macintosh computers running Mac OS X version 10.4.2 or later. Older versions of the utility may still be downloaded to support OS 10.2 and OS 10.3.
• OnyX version 1.5.2 for Mac OS X (10.3)
Available in French, English, Italian, German, Spanish, Catalan, Swedish, Dutch, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Hungarian, Czech and Turkish.
• OnyX version 1.3.1 for Mac OS X (10.2)
Available in French, English, Italian, German and Japanese.
There is also an excellent and comprehensive OnyX Help manual included explaining in detail every OnyX function. One of the best I've encountered in any software, and certainly the best among these utilities.
New in version 1.6.5:
• Error -1762 corrected
• Prevent .DS_Store file creation over network
• Code of Show Bookmark Icons Safari modified.
• Show the URL of links in the ToolTips.
• Deleting the iMovie HD caches and old Mail caches
• Deleting the Desktop Web Browser, TrailBlazer and Flock caches.
• Direct access to news of OnyX and known issues in the Help menu.
• Point the link arrows of iTunes on Music Store or Library
• Code modified when you type the password
• Show/Hide any menu items
• Commands faster
OnyX is freeware
For more information, visit:
http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html
MainMenu 1.4.4 Maintenance, Cleaning & Optimization Menulet
Another free system maintenance utility I like is MainMenu, which is a bit different than the two applications reviewed above, offering than three dozen different Mac OS X maintenance, cleaning and optimization tasks conveniently from your menu bar
Like the others, MainMenu can repair permissions, update prebindings, clean system and users caches, empty many browsers' caches/history, clean logs, and more. Most MainMenu tasks provide feedback in a log window during execution. The batch task function, which you configure in the preferences, allows you to run many routines at once.
Primary Features
• Repair OS X Permissions
• Run System Maintenance Scripts
• Update Prebindings
• Clean System, User & Browser Caches
• Clean Logs, Preferences & Trashes
• Feedback in Log Window
• Repair & Eject Disks
• Batch Task Execution
• Much More
I haven't tried all the functions, but the ones I have checked out seemed to work fine. It's extremely convenient to just be able to run the desired function with a quick and easy menu selection rather than having to start up an application. I also like it being so easy to just activate one particular task, and the batch task feature facilitates setting up your own custom maintenance routines.
New in this version:
• Menu has been compacted even further (and all the features are still there!
• moved all cache cleaning commands into a submenu, moved eject/repair disk into a "Disk Management" submenu, Disk Utility related commands [Repair permissions, disk management] have been moved under a submenu named "Disk Utility"). Many thanks to Paul Schumann
• Menu dropdown time is now twice as short as it used to be (noticeable when many volumes are mounted). Thanks to Siskel & Ebert and Wayne Clodfelter
• Updated Japanese localization, thanks Toshitaka Osawa
� Browser cache cleaning can now be added to the batch task list, thanks to Pete Paxton for the request (I'll put your other requests in soon)
• Ejecting disks should now be much more reliable. Volumes located on the boot disk should be able to be ejected now as well. Thanks again to Paul Schumann
• Show/Hide Finder Invisibles now has a keyboard shortcut (Command-Option-I), thanks John Frotscher for requesting this
• New feature: Redo Prebindings (force update). Update and redo prebinding menu items now are located in a "Update Prebindings" submenu. Thanks to headbirth on MacNN Forums
• Erasing free space tasks (zero, 7-pass and 35 pass) can no longer be cancelled (the cancel button will be greyed out). The reason for this is because too many users do not read the warning dialog before continuing the task, and after canceling erase free space, lose their disk space (which can be recovered, however, it requires us to take the time to help the users to do this).
• MainMenu's current task can now be seen from the menu, where "MainMenu: Authorized" usually is. This allows the user to see the currently running task without displaying the log window. Thanks Chad Baus for requesting this
• Confirmed compatibility with Mac OS X 10.4.2 (MainMenu 1.4.3 still worked on 10.4.2 though)
• Bug fix: MainMenu's repair/eject disk lists were not updated properly after a disk was mounted or ejected. The submenu had to be selected again, to see the changes to the disk list. This has now been fixed (bug was only in Tiger)
• Startup window (splash screen) can now be set not to appear in the preferences, once the user knows where MainMenu is located.
• New feature: MainMenu now has a menu item to check for updates (check for updates at startup is not implemented yet, but will be very soon). Thanks to Terence Worley and David Zwerdling for the requests
• Updated Font Cache Cleaning, more thorough. In previous versions, some font caches could be missed if many user accounts existed. Font cleaning in Tiger works better now as well
• The log window's width can now be resized
System requirements:
• Mac OS X 10.3 - 10.4.2
• Administrator name and passphrase
• BSD subsystem (installation default)
MainMenu is freeware
For more information, visit:
http://www.santasw.com/products.html
Charles W. Moore
Tags: Hot Topics ï News ï Reviews ï Utilities Reviews ï MooresViews ï
