Review: Ten for X

Reviewed By: Kirk Hiner

Review Date: September 22, 2002

Genre: Utility suite

Format: CD

Publisher: Aladdin Systems

Minimum Requirements: PowerPC and Mac OS X v10.1

Mac OS X Compatibility: Required

Retail Price: $49.99

Availability: Out now

There's a trend going on right now that really bugs me. In the old days, bands used to tour with one opening act. The opening band would play for about forty minutes, the roadies would take twenty minutes to set up the stage, then the headliner would play for two hours. Sometimes, there'd be no opening act the headliner would stay onstage for three hours. Vive le rock!

Not anymore. These days, everyone tours in these stupid festivals. There are anywhere from three to thirty bands, and no one stays onstage for more than an hour. You have to sit through at least two crappy bands to hear the one you like, only to have them leave the stage after digging no deeper into their catalog than the obvious hits. Why is it that only artists over 40-years-old are willing to stay on stage for more than an hour these days? Rock is truly dead.

Know what's not dead? Mac OS X. Remember when the public beta was released? How so many people were whining and crying about how it moved this and how it didn't have that? In fact, I think some are still crying. Me? I dig OS X. I've dug OS X since I first tinkered with that developers' kit that mysteriously arrived in my mail one day. Sure, OS X had its problems, and it still does. But, as I've said before and I'm bound to say again, so did Classic. What I think most people are forgetting when they decry OS X is that Classic was only truly useful with the addition of third party extensions and control panels. Many of the features I loved about Mac OS 9 either weren't Mac OS 9 features or were originally third party programs that Apple adopted. The perfect OS is difficult to achieve, and it certainly can't be achieved in two short years and by just one company.

It can, however, be helped along, and that's the goal of Aladdin System's Ten for X utility suite. As the name implies, Ten for X includes registered versions of ten utilities designed to improve--or at least customize--the Mac OS X experience. Do they do the job? Well, throw enough spaghulities at the wall and you have to figure that at least one of them will stick.

See, it's like the concert festivals. Get enough acts, and you have to figure that at least one appeal to everyone. Of course, concert festivals actually cost a lot more than a regular show. Ten for X's greatest benefit is that it's actually a deal. At only $49.99, this collection pays for itself even if you end up using only half.

Aladdin did a good job of selecting the utilities. Some return the Classic functionality missing in OS X, others take advantage of OS X's power and capabilities, and a couple are simply handy utilities that could have fit in well in either system:

• AlarmClock S.E. - alarm clock
• FruitMenu - customizable Apple menu and contextual menus
• iClean - web browser cookie management
• ideaSpiral - project management
• Limewire Pro - file sharing
• piPop - navigation and file sharing
• PrintMagic X - printing utility
• Pseudo - System Administrator utility
• WindowShare X - U.I. enhancement
• Xounds - appearance sound utility

More information on all of these utilities can be found at Aladdin's website. More information on the suite can be found below.

Installation of the suite works just the way you want it to. After launching the installer, you're presented with a dialogue box that asks which utilities you want to install. To help you make your decisions, Aladdin provides brief descriptions and key features for each program. They also include the URLs of the developers' sites in case you'd like to learn more. Of course, you can always take the Hiner approach and just blindly install everything, eventually throwing away what you never use. This is a good strategy for computer utilities, I've found, but I don't recommend it for grocery shopping.

Registration is a mixed bag; some programs are ready to go, while others require you to enter the registration codes. Aladdin provides all the proper information, of course, but it's certainly a lot to type in and keep track of. In fact, despite registering nearly all of the individual programs, Aladdin requires that you also register the entire suite as a whole. How's that for overkill?

As I mentioned earlier, the key to this collection is the diversity. Whereas few people will end up using all ten, even fewer will not be able to find a use for any of them. Classic lovers will be thrilled with FruitMenu, for example, which returns and expands upon Classic's Apple menu. WindowShade X brings back Classic's WindowShade functionality. People want this, I know, but I didn't find much use for them; I'm happy with OS X's way of thinking. What I did like, however, was Xounds. This handy program brings back and improves upon the appearance sounds. It offers the expected customization, but I was mostly pleased with its ability to import the sounds from Mac OS 8 or 9. And honestly, it handles sounds better than Jaguar, with which Apple has brought them back.

A couple of my other favorites are ideaSpiral and PrintMagic. In the tradition of control panels, extensions and utilities of yore, these provide functions I didn't know I needed until I tried them out. ideaSpiral is an excellent way to keep track of ideas, jokes, and other snippets of info you'd eventually like to add to your projects. PrintMagic--along with from bringing printing back to the desktop--makes it much easier to print snippets of text from web browsers and such. No more wasting ink and paper on ad banners and unnecessary graphics. PrintMagic also allows you to add notes to that which you're printing. How's that for an easy way to keep track of your sources?

These programs would cost around $170.00 individually, so you're saving over $100.00 with Ten for X. Of course, that's provided you would have bought them all to begin with, which I bet few would have done. Ten for X is a good value, but only if you'll be using the majority of the programs included (or at least the more expensive ones; some sell for only $7 individually).

To their credit, Aladdin wants to make sure you'll find uses for the programs as well. Their website contains links to each of the developers so you can get a good feel about the pieces that make the whole. Try them out. It just could end up that a couple may be more useful than you'd think.

And that, of course, is the beauty of a utility suite. If the publishers have done their homework and picked some quality programs, your computer experience will benefit. Aladdin, I'm happy to say, has done their homework.

Now, if only concert promoters would do the same. Grouping Aerosmith with Kid Rock and Run D.M.C.? Who would want to see...uh...I mean, if you're going to pay to see...well...

Actually, that is a good grouping. I wouldn't pay to see any of them.

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