Weekly Utilities Update: Drive Genius, IPNetMonitorX, Cocktail, more...
Our Weekly Utilities Update report is a list of all the updates for many Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though utilities can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems. This week we have updates for hardware monitoring and management utilities, as well as significant updates to drive and system maintenance utilities.
Our Weekly Utilities Update report is a list of all the updates for many Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though utilities can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems. This week we have updates for hardware monitoring and management utilities, as well as significant updates to drive and system maintenance utilities.
Hardware monitoring and managmenet
A few popular hardware monitoring and management utilities have been updated this week. Temperature Monitor, Temperature Monitor Remote, and Hardware Monitor have been updated to support the latest MacBooks and features of the latest Intel CPUs such as TurboBoost mode. Many who use these utilities may also find CoolBook useful, which allows you to monitor and adjust CPU frequency, voltage, and temperature thresholds. CoolBook has been updated to fix compatibility bugs with OS X 10.6.3.
Beyond strict hardware monitoring, there is a small compatibility update for the audio port selector "Audio Switcher," and Display Maestro has been updated to use standard property lists for its preferences and fix a few minor bugs.
Networking
In networking, an IPNetMonitorX update fixes startup problems where the program would give "network not found" errors and improperly load interface elements, and Bonjour Mounter has a small update that addresses problems with SMB resources not resolving properly on the local network.
Drive maintenance
A big update for Drive Genius is available. The program is at version 3.0, and adds numerous new features, including full 64-bit support, enhanced defragmenetation and repartitioning features, and monitoring options for drive health. It also does real-time scanning of the drive for bad blocks, and now supports both hardware and software RAID arrays.
The file sizing utility DaisyDisk has also been updated as a 64-bit application in Snow Leopard, and optimizing its memory footprint. This utility is similar to WhatSize and GrandPerspective, and allows you to find which files are using the most space on your drive.
System Maintenance
Lastly, the maintenance utilities Cocktail, OnyX, and MacKeeper have been updated. Cocktail is a bug fix that addresses the inability to apply network optimization on AirPort cards in OS X 10.6.2 and greater. MacKeeper is a significant update, that adds new interface elements and view options, as well as implementing drag-and-drop support and other OS X behaviors such as Quick Look. Finally, the popular cleaning utility OnyX has a new beta out, which improves user and internet cache cleaning, as well as implements numerous small modifications and bug fixes.
This week's utility updates:
- Temperature Monitor 4.9 - (Free!) Displays all accessible temperature sensors.
- Hardware Monitor Remote 4.9 - ($7.00) Monitor remote hardware sensors.
- Hardware Monitor 4.9 - ($7.00) Read out accessible hardware sensors.
- Audio Switcher 1.5 - (Free!) Status bar utility for changing audio input/output device.
- IPNetMonitorX 2.5 - ($60.00) Monitor & troubleshoot net connections.
- CoolBook 2.17 - ($10.00) Monitor & modify MacBook/Pro CPU parameters.
- Drive Genius 3.0 - ($99.00) Storage management: maintain, manage, optimize.
- DaisyDisk 1.5.2 - ($19.95) Analyze disk usage and free up space by finding and deleting big unused files.
- Cocktail 4.7.4 - ($14.95) (Snow Leopard Edition) General purpose system modify/repair utility.
- OnyX 2.1.5b1 - (Free!) Maintenance, optimization and system personalization tool.
- MacKeeper 0.9 - ($39.95) Set of clean-up utilities, standalone tools, online services.
- Display Maestro 1.1.2 - ($4.95) Access all display resolutions and bit depths.
- Bonjour Mounter 3.0.9 - ($15.00) Mount AFP, SMB, CIFS, FTP, WebDAV network shares silently in the background.
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