A trio of recommended new utilities by Ted Landau
A trio of recommended new utilities by Ted Landau
I confess. I am a "utility addict." I am constantly scouring the Web for that next utility jewel that impresses me enough to add it to my "permanent collection." In the last few weeks, I have added two polished jewels and one diamond in the rough.
I had a chance to preview Data Recycler X at the Prosoft Engineering booth at Macworld Expo last month. The utility looked excellent, but I wanted to reserve final judgment until I had a chance to work with it on own machine. I have now had that chance. The verdict: Data Recycler X is the first must-have utility of 2003.
There is not a Mac user out there that could not benefit from what Data Recycler does. What it does is protect you from your own mistakes when you delete files. If you delete something and later decide that you want it back, Data Recycler X will get it back for you. I don't mean it will get it back only some of the time, or perhaps only recovering a partial copy of the file. I mean it will get it back 100% of your files, 100% of the time. And it does it all unobtrusively in the background, with no perceptible CPU slow down.
It gets better. Data Recycler X preserves more than just the files that otherwise vanish when you Empty Trash. The program also saves files that are automatically trashed by the system, such as temporary files. Finally, for those of you who use the Terminal, get this: Data Recycler X can recover files that get deleted via Unix's rm command!
My understanding is that Data Recycler X should also save files that are deleted by applications, such as iPhoto or iTunes or the Installer, even though these deletions bypass the Finder's Trash. Similarly, if you use the Save As command to save a new document with the same name as an older one, replacing/deleting the older one, Data Recycler X should save the now replaced file. [If you use Save to save a modified version of the same file, Data Recycler X cannot recover this.] However, when I tested these features out, the deleted files were not saved. I am still looking into this issue.
Setting up Data Recycler X is simple. After you launch the application, select the volume you want to protect. Next, to preserve files that you Trash, enable the "User's trash protection" option. To preserve other files that may get deleted, enable the "Systemwide file deletion recovery assistance" option. Data Recycler X can also check for possible disk damage via its E.W.S. (Early Warning System) option. When enabled, this option reads the disk's catalog file and checks for conflict between the catalog and Data Recycler X's own deletion tracking. If it finds a conflict, it puts up an alert message.
{MacFixIt_StoryBox}How does it do all this magic? Here's how:
From the Data Recycler X application, you select an area of your drive for storing deleted files. The area can be any size up to half the size of your hard drive, assuming that the space is currently unused. If you should ever fill up the area, the files that have been there the longest get permanently deleted to make room for the new additions. Aside from that, everything is saved unless and until you select to "Unprotect Files." At any time, you can use Data Recycler X's "Undelete Files" option to recover a selected file.
Actually, if you wanted, you could also recover files via the Finder. The deleted files are stored in the following directory location: /.DataRecycler Folder/.DataRecyclerCache. Although this directory is invisible in the Finder, you can use the Finder's Go to Folder command to open its window. You can then navigate through the visible folders located there to find the file you want and drag it out. Voila! The file is back. Still, using the Data Recycler X application to recover a file is usually simpler and preserves the hierarchical folder structure from where the file was deleted (so you know exactly where to place it after it has been recovered).
The Data Recycler application need not be open for its protection features to be active. The deletion tracking runs in the background, compliments of two Startup Items: Data Recycler X Daemon and DataRecyclerBackend, located in /Library/Startup Items. Lastly, for dealing with the rm command, Data Recycler substitutes a new rm command, renaming the original one realrm. Both commands are stored in Unix's /bin directory. Now, whenever you enter rm in Terminal, Data Recycler X's rm command is invoked. This causes a copy of the item(s) to be preserved in Recycler's storage area before they get "removed." [Note: Data Recycler X includes an uninstall utility. Should you decide to remove Recycler, it is important to do so by running the uninstaller. This makes sure you get the old rm command back.]
A couple of caveats:- Data Recycler X may not protect a document if you Trash it immediately after placing it in the Trash. Recycler needs some time to find the file in the Trash and copy it to its cache.
- I would prefer if Data Recycler could display a simple list of protected files, without each file buried in its folder hierarchy. That way, I could check for recently deleted files without having to navigate to where I believe each file was located. It would also help if Data Recycler's window size could be adjusted.
Otherwise, Data Recycler X works exactly as advertised. Prior to this, Norton Utilities' UnErase option was the only competing utility available for Mac OS X. Data Recycler X has more features and less overhead. If you ever wished you could easily and reliably recover deleted files, Data Recycler X has just granted your wish.
Spell Catcher XCasady & Greene have released Spell Catcher for Mac OS X. If you used this utility in Mac OS 9, you'll be happy to know that virtually all of its features have been preserved in the Mac OS X version. It can spell-check for selected text or interactively. It includes the best dictionary and thesaurus I have seen on a Mac. And it provides options to modify selected text in a variety of ways, such as making a selection all lowercase or all UPPERCASE.
Best of all, it works across virtually every application on your drive. This means you don't have to bother learning how to use and maintain four different spell checkers so that you can check your spelling in GoLive, Word, AppleWorks and TextEdit. Admittedly, Mac OS X includes a spelling service (called AppleSpell) that can work across applications. However, the current reality is that it only works if an application developer chooses to support it (most have not). And it is not nearly as good as Spell Catcher in any case.
One new feature in the OS X version of Spell Catcher, as stated in the Read Me file: "A Check Selection window shows you the text that you are checking. This window gives you a list of all errors it finds, which you can sort by the error kind, number of occurrences, alphabetically by typo, or in the order they appear in the document."
What most impressed me about the new version of Spell Catcher is how well it takes advantage of the new features in Mac OS X. This is most evident in the multiple ways that you can access Spell Catcher:- If you launch the Spell Catcher application, you can select most of its options (such as Check Selection, Modify Selection) from its Dock menu.
- A Spell Catcher item is added to the Input Menu pane of the International System Preference. Turn it on and a Spell Catcher item is added to the Input menu in your menubar. Select it, and a separate Spell Catcher menu appears next to it. You can now access all of Spell Catcher's features from this menu.
- There is a Spell Catcher item in the Services menu (found in the application name menu). However , it only works if the application supports services, such as TextEdit.
From wherever you use it, Spell Catcher is ready when you are to make sure you avoid those dreaded typos.
I won't say much about the third in this trio of recommended utilities. To truly appreciate it, you need to download it and try it yourself. Essentially, Konfabulator is the parent application (more accurately, it's a "JavaScript runtime engine") of a collection of Widgets. Each Widget performs some useful or fun task via a small on-screen interface. Widgets that ship with Konfabulator include Weather Widget (my personal favorite, it shows a constantly updated temperature readout and weather icon), a digital clock, a stock ticker, and more. However, the best reason to get Konfabulator lies in its future. The developers have provided instructions on how to make your own Widgets. This should lead to an exploding variety of intriguing Widgets in the months ahead. Who knows, you may even be motivated to write a Widget yourself.
As there is virtually no documentation that comes with Konfabulator, here is a tip: Control-click on a Widget to close it or access its preferences settings. To add a Widget, select Open Widget from Konfabulator's menu.Resources