Posted on August 18, 2008
Every copy of Mac OS X (or any Unix-based system) ships with a Terminal application. Terminal lets you run commands and access deeper tools than what’s available through most applications with a GUI. But, many have also complained at the lack of features that the default Terminal has. This is where iTerm comes in. iTerm has a ton of features like AppleScript support, custom background pictures, Bonjour support (with bookmarks), mouse focus following, rearrangeable tabs, a customizable interface, and even the ability to send a command to multiple tabs. The list goes on. iTerm is an amazing app that’s nearing its 1.0 release, which I really look forward to in the near future.
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Posted on August 13, 2008
Split & Concat is an old Mac freeware favorite of mine. While it hasn’t been updated for some time, it’s still a very useful little app. Pretty much it lets you split files into smaller sections (useful when uploading large files online) of the size of your choice. Or, you can “concat” files (short for concatenate), which will stitch split files back together. It can even repair damaged archives using the Unix tool spar and par2. Overall, this is a nice app that should be a part of any Mac freeware junkie’s collection.
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Posted on July 20, 2008
7z is an extremely high compression file archiving algorithm that’s recently become much more mainstream. Put simply, you can compress some files far beyond what simply zipping them can do. For example, I compressed a 700 MB folder of files down to 180 MB with Ez 7z, a Mac 7z archiver that I recently discovered. The only downside is that it uses the Terminal outside of the app to do all of the work (visibly) instead of actually running the command inside the app. Still an excellent freeware pick, though.
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Posted on July 11, 2008
MainMenu is another essential Mac app for those of you who want to keep your Macs running like new. MainMenu sits in your menu bar, and lets you run many maintenance scripts or repair disk permissions. Many other maintenance tasks are included (rebuilding the Spotlight database, cleaning caches, etc), and Growl support is an added plus. Definitely a must-have.
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Posted on July 5, 2008
This is a message from a friend of mine that should help clear up any speculation about the recent AppleScript Trojan that has been going around (or so we hear).
I am a long-time user of UNIX based OSes and thought I would give my opinion of the ARDA exploit.
DISCLAIMER: These statements are simply my opinion, and have no warranty nor guarantee.
There has been a LOT of talk and speculation about the ARDA exploit. Let’s separate the facts from the rumors:
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Posted on June 24, 2008
Preferential Treatment is a simple tool that goes through all of your preference files, and alerts you to anything suspicious or corrupt. From there you can delete the preference file, or do what you want with it. It uses the UNIX tool plutil to search for these inconsistencies. In the rare occurrence that some sort of bug or virus exists in your preference files, you’ll be the first one to know with Preferential Treatment!
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