I Love Mac Apps » System

MacPilot – Tweak Your System

admin — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 17:55:04 +0000

I like tweaking my system. I want to change in a way so I can get the most out of my computer. I hate it when I have to use another persons Mac and it is not the way I like it. Most of the tweaks I make are either done with Terminal or done with a program like MacPilot. MacPilot is one of the best apps which you can use to change every little setting on your computer.

Lets Get Tweaking

Using this program is very simple. At the top of the screen there are 10 tabs. Each tab controls a various part of the operating system. These tabs include, General, Disks, Network, Login Items, Startup, Spotlight, Power, Logs, Tools and Info. Most of the tweaking is done in the General section. This section includes all of the hidden Terminal commands that you input. Most is done through the use of check boxes and drop down menus. There is hundreds of different commands within this section. You could spend all day changing and tweaking your system

This program does more than reveal hidden features, you can also use it for making sure you system is optimized and runs as well as possible. In the tools section you can run various commands to make sure your files have the correct permissions, links are correct or an application only uses one type of binary (Intel or PPC). This section is very useful for making sure your computer works as well as it can.

Conclusion

This program is really good. There are hundreds of settings, and tweaks. You can spend all day getting your system just right. The only problem I do have with this application is that it tends to be a little slow. As a result you tend to be waiting a couple of seconds as a tab loads.

This program is great, but a word of caution. Make sure you back up anything you like. Since your are playing around with settings and preferences that you were not originally designed to do, you could break something important. As a result make sure you have a Time Machine backup if you break anything that you can’t recover from. Having said that, this program is good and you probably wont experience any problems.

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MacPilot – Tweak Your System

Clips – Get The Most Out Of Your Clipboard

admin — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:44:57 +0000

Everybody uses the clipboard. It is one of the best features of a computer. But there is one major downside. You can only really have on item on the board at one time. For more of a history of clipboard items you need to use something like Clips. It’s an excellent program at showing you what is on your clipboard and gives you loads of features to let you really customize and take advantage of a clipboard history.

Copy and Paste

Before I start this review I must say that this program has hundreds of features. It takes advantage of the raw power of a Mac with lots of eye candy, overlays and effects. What you see in the screenshots is just how I have set this program up. You could do it in a completely different way. That what is so good about this program. You can customize it, with the preferences, to really meet your needs.

The idea behind this program is simple. You copy something to the clipboard, anything. Clips will then pick this up and store it in its history. You can then copy other things, adding them all the time to Clips’ history. You can then, through the wonder of a click, retrive a past clipboard item and paste it into what every you were doing. Simple.

There is three main parts to this program. Most do the same thing. The main areas are the overlays, which is two separate items, and a window which you can use to organize your clips more effectively. The overlays are designed so you can quickly add a clipboard item into the document you are using. There are two types, the full screen version, which acts in a similar method to the dashboard overlay. Where you can easily see all of your clips. As well as this there is a smaller panel which floats on top of other windows, which you can use as a quick shortcut to paste items.

In the image above you have two main areas. The left hand sidebar is used to quickly organise the clips you have taken. They are organized by application, Spaces and then any special clipboards such as flags and a special save area. The main area is an overview. You can use this to see exactly what you have copied. You get a small screen shot of what the items you have copied. As well as this you can also customize how you view the clips, for example in a grid as shown above, randomly or in a circle. Every time you click on a small square as shown in the image above it will paste it into your current document.

You can also use Clips as a normal application. Here you can use more of the advance features of the application without accidentally pasting items all over your work. Some of the advance features include abbreviations, flagged and dropped clips. You use abbreviations to save time in pasting items. For example you could type “lorem” and it could paste an entire story of Lorem Ipsum. Flagged clips are clips which you can save for later. Dropped clips is used as a drop box. You want to save something for later. You simply drop it into the drop box. In the application interface you can also interact with the program using Quicklook to see extra details and a whole load of other small features.

Conclusion

I really like this application. It uses all of the technologies that are good for Mac. Quicklook, overlays etc. As well as this it is really well thought out. It has plenty of shortcuts for you to use. Lots of way to access and use the program. There are a couple of problems with this application. For example the defaults shortcuts tend to overtake existing ones on your computer, such as Quicksliver, so it is really annoying if you don’t catch the on setup and you have to go and change them. As well as this the application interface as shown above doesn’t act as an application. For example it doesn’t have a dock icon and you can’t Command + Tab into it. This, personally, is really annoying and spoils what is normally a good program. Try it out and tell me what you think in the comments.

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Clips – Get The Most Out Of Your Clipboard

Hyperspaces – Customize Spaces

admin — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:30:54 +0000

I am not a big fan or a big user of Spaces. I have been using it more and more frequently since my desktop and screen is getting a bit cluttered. But one of the problems with Spaces is that you can’t customize the individual Spaces, as well as this the amount of shortcuts present to you are rather small. This is where Hyperspaces comes into play. It is designed to give a couple of extra features that you wouldn’t normally have.

Before I start this review and small demo, Hyperspaces is in public beta. Which means stuff might change and it could be a little unstable. But there is a good feedback page bit so most bugs will get sorted out. Having said that you can still purchase this product to get its full features. So keep them in mind when you are playing about.

Engage the Warp Drive

The idea behind Hyperspaces is very simple. This little program (run from the menubar) enables you to change your individual spaces background. As well as this you can also add some ever laying text saying which space you are on. One of the big bonuses is the ability to have a couple more shortcuts. For example you can add shortcuts to add and remove columns and rows of spaces as well as a couple of other cool features.

Probably one of the biggest features of this program is the funky little shortcut that brings up an overview of your spaces. Although you can get such a feature with the F8 shortcut this little window stays present as you click around the screens. It is also more graphical so you can clearly see which space you are in. With the abilty to change backgrounds this makes using spaces a lot easier.

Conclusion

This application is pretty decent. It is cheap, does quite a few cool features and sort of fills the void where spaces should really be. But like any application there is a couple of downsides. For example the free version only allows you to customize two spaces. Which is OK for myself since I only use two spaces (two many to keep track). As well as this I feel more features could be implemented. It just feels like it falls short of what could be achieved. As well as this there seems to be a small bug that i will not enable you to have Spaces specific text on the desktop while running GeekTool, they must conflict on a code level.

I am personally going to keep an eye on this program. It has a lot of potential. A few more kick ass features and it may be worth the asking price.

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Hyperspaces – Customize Spaces

CheckUp – Get Your Mac To The Doctors

admin — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:05:23 +0000

I like my Mac to be 100% clean and up to date. I hate slow downs and anything which compromises my system. As a result I use a lot of tools to keep my Mac working perfectly. One I am going to show you today is CheckUp. I have just found this program, and it is pretty cool. It also has one of the best GUI interfaces and effects I have seen. It is designed to show you your systems resources information in a easy to use manner.

Monitoring Your Health

CheckUp is designed to show you all of your systems health and performance issues quickly and easily. The program is split up into six panes. When you switch between them you get a cool 3D effect. The tabs are designated profile, system, processors, memory, disks, network, processes. Each tab does a different function of your machine.

For example the profile tab enables you to find a lot of simple and basic information such as IP address, Mac address, and serial number. System show you which drivers, applications and other programs you have on your computer. Processors is a very visual method of showing your CPU resources and probably the most fun to use. Memory on the other hand is pretty boring in comparison. It does show you how much memory you have and how much is being used but not by what. Disk is again very similar to memory although it does give a good break down of how each disk is partitioned. Network is similar to CPU, it shows you a visual input/output graph of what is being used, again very visual and pumped up on the eye candy. Finally processes is a combination of memory and CPU usage.

Checkup does more than just show you your basic system processes in a funky looking way. There is the ability to set up notifications, as well as run system tools and scripts. As well as this there is the abilty to remotely monitor a Mac by installing this program on more than one computer.

Conclusion

Overall I do like this program. It has a lot of good eye candy (which you can change) as well as being clear on what is displayed. You are not overloaded with hundreds of numbers or graphs. It is very simple. The only problem I do have with this program is that it is simple. I would like to see more advance data information, for example more customization options. As well as this it is a little CPU heavy, lots of graphics tend to take up resources. As well as this I feel that free programs like iStat can give you the same amount of information for free.

Check out this program out if you want a system monitoring software, it looks good and will probably impress any Windows users you have floating around.

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CheckUp – Get Your Mac To The Doctors

TinkerTool – Hack Your Mac w/out Terminal

admin — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:34:27 +0000

There are hundreds of Terminal commands out there. For example on my other site I mention a Top 50 List Of Terminal Commands. The problem with Terminal commands is that they are long, hard to remember and when you type them in incorrectly either nothing happens, which is confusing and annoying, or it screws up your system. What we need is a small program to do all of the hard work for us. This is where TinkerTool comes in.

Tinkering Under The Hood

Its not hard at all to use this program. Its a case of looking through the options and check boxes. Clicking a few check boxes and pressing OK every so often. The program is split up into 9 sections, with one section as a reset. Each section is dedicated to a specific part of the operating system. These include Finder, Dock, General, Applications, Leopard, Fonts and Font Smoothing, Login Items and Safari.

Overall it works very well. It isn’t a complex application at all but is designed to show you a couple of features of your operating system that are usually hidden. As a result you can make your system just that little bit better.

Conclusion

Overall this application is good for the new user who isn’t confident to use the Terminal command. The only problem with this application is that it is a bit short on the actual commands. I know there is a lot more Terminal commands out there and it isn’t represented in this program. That is the only problem I have with it.

Did you know that you can get more information about an application at the end of the post? Visit the post to find out more. Post from: I Love Mac Apps

TinkerTool – Hack Your Mac w/out Terminal