Utilities Tips

Burn CDRs or CDRWs with Toast

There is more CD-burning software on the market now than there ever has been before, but for my money the best and easiest to use is Adaptec's Toast. It will burn Mac, non-Mac and dual-platform CDs with a minimum of fuss, and is great for compiling collections of your favorite music!

Check it out HERE.

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Utilities to Rebuild Your Desktop

Like most Mac'ers, I've used the command-option method of rebuilding my desktop file for years. However, now there are more effective and safer ways of doing it. Although it's never happened to me (knock on wood), the command-option rebuild can go awry, particularly if you're like most netsurfers and download tons of files to your desktop, then toss ‘em if they don't hold what you need.

There are several apps available which will do a better job. I'd recommend File Buddy, Tech Tool or Norton Utilities' Disk Doctor for better, safer ways to rebuild your desktop file.

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Resetting Created and Modified Dates

A utility called FileTyper, available at http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~dazuma/filetyper/ will let you tweak the creation and modification dates of files.

Why would you want to? Well, let's say you started a project quite a while back, dropped it for other pursuits, then returned and completed it, and now you want to market it. Being able to make your creation and modification dates match up on all parts will make your new product more professional-looking.

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MacBinary for Binhex files

Keep a copy of MacBinary around, particularly if you like downloading shareware from the Net. It will handle binhexed files (.bin) with ease.

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Old Expanders to Keep Around

If you work with outside files or take in disks from other sources, these expansion utilities, though outdated, can still come in handy: DDExpand and uuUndo. You never know when someone might wander in with a mystery file ...

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Get Stuffit Expander!

Recently I ran into a problem with a download from the Apple website ... no matter what I tried, it downloaded in a format I'd never heard of and couldn't expand! I asked around, and eventually someone said "Did you try Stuffit Expander?" I said "Well, I tried Stuffit Deluxe and nothing happened ..." and was told "Try Expander. Expander's smart."

My friend was absolutely right. The file expanded into the download I was looking for: no fuss, no muss, no bother.

You probably have Stuffit Expander(tm) floating around somewhere on your hard drive. It comes packaged with most browsers. A quick check told me I had FOUR copies of it (woops, time for some housekeeping)!

I now keep an alias to Expander on my desktop; the current version (6.0.1) can handle over two dozen compression formats, including .zip, .tar, .sit, .sea, .hqx, .mime, .as, .pf, .pkg, .img, .smi and more.

So before you chuck a mystery download and grumble about your ISP or those clowns that put up a bad file for FTP ... drop it on Stuffit Expander(tm) and see what happens!

(If you don't happen to have it, you can download it FREE from the Alladin site: Click HERE.)

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Stuffit, the Industry Standard for Compression

If you're new to computers, you might not realize that it's possible to compress files so they don't take up as much space on your hard drive. If you've been around a while, and particularly if you're in the habit of downloading from the net, you probably already have some version of this indispensible utility. "Unstuffit" is a freeware version, which will decompress a lot of downloaded files for you, but if you want to create your own archives to store installers, graphics, or any other large files, you should pick up a copy of Stuffit Deluxe.

Learn more about it at: http://www.aladdinsys.com/deluxe/

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Viewing AVI Files

If you're experiencing problems viewing .avi movie files you've downloaded from the web, try the DivX Player. You can download it at versiontracker.com

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Norton Utilities Keeps Peace with Your Hard Drive

Norton Utilities is my number-one favorite disk utility; it's versatile, powerful, and easy to use. It will diagnose your disk surface and the files which reside on it, defragment and optimize, and bail you out of any number of sticky wickets caused by corrupted files or software. It's very rare to run into an item Norton can't fix. When run in combination with a more hardware-oriented utility like Tech Tool Pro, you can be pretty much assured that, if it ain't fixed, it ain't fixable.

Find it at: http://www.symantec.com/product/home-mac.html

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ShrinkWrap for Disk Images

Alladin's ShrinkWrap is a utility application to let you create and/or mount disk image files, or write the image back to another disk. Take advantage of Aladdin's industry-standard StuffIt compression to reduce the size of the images you create.

Find out more at: http://www.aladdinsys.com/shrinkwrap/features.html

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Hard Disk Toolkit

Hard Disk Toolkit is another great utility from FWB. It features support for iMac, iBook, and the latest G4 models, RAID array creation, full HFS+ compatibility, FireWire fixed and removable drive management, and significant additions to IDE/ATA support, and is easy to use.

Lean more at: http://www.digitalriver.com/dr/v2/ec_MAIN.Entry17c?CID=32682&SID=3848&SP=10007&PN=5&PID=253874&DSP=&CUR=840&CACHE_ID=32682

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CD-ROM Toolkit

Your OS will include the drivers you need for your Apple CD drives, but if you pick up an external drive, replace your Apple CD with a different brand, or just want more speed, CD-ROM Toolkit is an excellent choice. It can mount and operate a wide variety of drives (check to be sure yours is one of them at the site) and has several handy utilities built-in.
Check it out at http://www.fwb.com/cs/cdt/main.html

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