MacFixIt Toolbox Awards: 2002

It is time, once again, for the MacFixIt Toolbox awards. This year's troubleshooting all-stars essentially made Mac OS X viable as a primary environment for many users - filling in the crevices in Apple's incremental updates, and making Mac OS 9 veterans feel right at home.

Since Apple decided to embrace and endorse open-source initiatives with Darwin and other forays, it comes as no surprise that some of this year's most useful utilities are borne out of the same spirit.

As with years' past editions, the 2002 MacFixIt Toolbox awards are divided into Commercial and Freeware/Shareware offerings. However, we've combined enhancement and troubleshooting classifications, as the line between these categories is beginning to blur in Mac OS X. Congratulations to every one listed. Thanks for making using a Mac an easier and more problem-free experience.

Shareware/Freeware

Gold Winner: Gimp-Print (by Gimp-Print)

This small package has been the saving grace, in many cases, for Mac OS X 10.2.x's printer compatibility. With the general release of Jaguar, printers from a broad range of manufacturers - including Hewlett Packard, Epson and Canon began to malfunction or cease operation alltogether. This set of open-source drivers allowed many Mac OS X 10.2.x users to turn their printers from veritable paperweights, to working output devices. Though functionality for some printers is limited when compared to the native drivers, Apple should thank the open-source community for providing this patch for a serious hole in the latest releases of Mac OS X.

Silver Winner: Invisible Finder (by Rage Software)

For some users, Mac OS X represents the first opportunity (or necessity) to get down and dirty with invisible files. Though they existed in Mac OS 9, invisible file manipulation was generally not required for general troubleshooting, and certainly not for routine system enhancement or add-ons. Invisible Finder can scan any Mac OS X volume for invisible files, display the path of the invisible files listed so that you can easily see what volume the invisible file is located on and more importantly, exactly what folder the invisible file can be found in.

Silver Winner: Alfred(by Inferiis)

The Extensions Manager in Mac OS 9 was a troubleshooter's haven. Toggling extensions and control panels on and off often made the difference between being able to startup your Mac, or never moving past the splash screen. Performance gains and conflict resolutions could also be accomplished through the manager. In Mac OS X, managing extensions to the kernel and the system is more difficult, but can be accomplished with a small shareware utility like Alfred. This tool can install, remove and manage any kind of plug-ins like screen savers, preference panes, fonts, and more.

Silver Winner: Labels X(by Unsanity)

For those of you yearning for Mac OS 9's labeling functionality, look no further. Unsanity's Labels X allows you to label folders by color. Additionally, Labels X shares file label information with Mac OS 9, so no matter, where you label your files - you will see the labels in both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. There is a contextual menu to quickly change colors, and a simple preference pane to change names and colors.

Commercial/Bundled Software

Gold Winner: Apple Disk Utility(by Apple)

Norton Utilities, TechTool Pro, Drive 10 and other disk maintenance have all be put through their paces in Mac OS X - with mixed results. No single utility seems to solve more problems, regain more performance, or ensure smoother operation than Apple's Disk Utility, included with Mac OS X 's basic software bundle. By repairing disk permissions prior to, and after most software installations, users can avoid a rash of issues from startup hiccups to Classic failure. This utility is free with the $129 Mac OS X purchase.

Silver Winner: Move2Mac (by Detto Technologies)

This winner is actually a hardware/software combination that makes migrating from the PC to the Mac an easy process for those who don't want to deal with synchronizing data for each individual application. Though faster throughput options, including FireWire target disk mode and Ethernet networking, exist; Move2Mac's USB implementation (500 MB in 15 minutes) is reasonably fast and simple for novice users. The device/software combo is priced at $59.95 with USB connectivity and $49.95 with Parallel connectivity for the PC.

Silver Winner: Synchronize! Pro X (by Qdea)

Creating bootable backups of Mac OS X can be accomplished with a number of utilities, but none do it as succinctly, or simply as Synchronize! Pro X. The tool can backup your OS X startup disk to another hard disk, so that the backup disk is bootable, or it can synchronize with other Mac OS X volumes - your work and home machines, for instance. A demo version allows you to backup and synchronize for folders containing 10MBytes or less. The full, unlimited version if priced at $99.95.

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