Weekly Utilities Update: MacPorts, CleanMyMac, Pacifist, 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. While utilities can be any tool that helps you perform a task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our main foc
Our Weekly Utilities Update report is a list of all the updates for many Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. While utilities can be any tool that helps you perform a task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our main focus in this column is to bring you those that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems.
In the past week since Snow Leopard's release, a number of these utilities have been updated to support the new operating system. We indicated here which ones have specifically added Snow Leopard support, but please check the developer's site for specifics because some may not fully support Snow Leopard yet, and these updates have just fixed crashes to get the current version running.
Staff Pick: MacPorts
OS X has a large Unix subsystem that supports many open source Unix programs. While you could find the source code and install these programs yourself, MacPorts offers an easy way to find and install a number of open-source projects that will work on your Mac.
To compile programs from source code you will need to install the Apple developer tools, but many programs are available in precompiled binaries that will not need this. Others may require you to install the "X11" Unix window system that should be available on your OS X Installation DVD as an optional install.
MacPorts has just been updated to version 1.8, which adds and fixes a number of features and issues from version 1.7, which can be read here. You can download the latest version from the MacPorts website or by using the built-in updater if you already have version 1.7 installed.
Other Recent Utility Updates:
- DiskSpy 1.5 - Virtual disk LED that shows reads/writes in the menu bar.
- DiskSpy Solid 1.5 - Virtual LED that shows disk and network status in the menu bar.
- Boomerang Data Recovery 2.1.11 - Recover lost data from hard drives, flash cards, iPod and others.
- Sponge 1.2.2 - Reclaim disk space by removing apps, sweeping large files, finding duplicate files.
- CleanMyMac 1.5.4 - Clean up your Mac & free up hard drive space with a few clicks. (SNOW LEOPARD)
- MacPorts 1.8.0 - Install various open-source software packages on Mac OS X.
- TinkerTool System 2.1 - Professional all-in-one maintenance tool. (SNOW LEOPARD)
- DiskWarrior 4.2 - Maintain, repair, and recover system disk/drive data. (SNOW LEOPARD)
- Drive Genius 2.2.1 - Storage management: maintain, manage, optimize. (SNOW LEOPARD)
- Apple ODBC Administrator Tool 1.0 - Enables database administration of ODBC-compliant data sources. (SNOW LEOPARD)
- SuperDuper 2.6.1 - Backup, clone, and restore your information. (SNOW LEOPARD)
- Yasu 2.6.3 RC1 - Run system shell scripts to perform maintenance routines and clear cache files. (SNOW LEOPARD)
- MacCleanse 1.4.7 - Scan and delete unnecessary files on your Mac. (SNOW LEOPARD)
- Spotless LE 2.0.5 - Disable or enable Spotlight volume indexing.
- Spotless SLE 3.0 - Disable or enable Spotlight volume indexing in 10.6. (SNOW LEOPARD)
- Print Therapy 6.0.7 LE - (Leopard) repair printing system problems.
- Snow Leopard Cache Cleaner 5.0 - System maintenance, optimization, antivirus. (SNOW LEOPARD)
- MenuMeters 1.4b1 - Menu extras: CPU, disk, memory & network monitoring. (SNOW LEOPARD)
- Rember 0.3.5b - GUI wrapper for the Memtest CLI memory/RAM tester. (SNOW LEOPARD)
- Pacifist 2.6.3 - Extract individual files out of installer packages. (SNOW LEOPARD)
- SleepLess 2.6.3 - prevents sleep without changing system settings. (SNOW LEOPARD)
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