Surf-Bits: Surfing For Great Mac Freeware
4. Maintenance Apps

Tim Verpoorten
(June 08)

There are a plethora of freeware Mac maintenance applications out there in the real world, which is a bit ironic because OSX really needs little maintenance beyond what it performs on itself. For example, if you leave your Mac on, it will perform all the daily, weekly and monthly maintenance scripts that it needs to stay healthy and alert. Even when you shut it down, OSX Tiger and Leopard are smart enough to realize that it missed running it's scripts while it was down, so it will run them as soon as you boot it back up again.

Then there is the matter of defragmenting your hard drive. The Mac HFS Plus file system works well to keep your files in one piece and even if it does fragment them, the new hard drives run so well that you'll hardly notice any difference between a fragmented file or an unfragmented file. Then let's not forget that we're told to delete the cache files. Cache files were developed to speed up the OS, so when you delete them, you're defeating the purpose to begin with. The only time to delete cache files is when you're having troubles with OSX, then you can repair permissions and delete cache files until your heart's content.

So after telling you all of this, why are we going to talk about freeware Mac maintenance applications? After producing the MacReviewCast podcast for three years, I've discovered that listeners want to know about maintenance programs for their Macs before any other apps. Also, if you're like me, you'd rather be certain that these maintenance tasks were done when you wanted them done. In other words, I just sleep better knowing that my Mac is the best that it can be. So after that scientific reasoning, let's take a look at the freeware programs that take care of your precious Mac.

Let's start with two utilities from Titanium Software: Maintenance and OnyX

Maintenance allows you to run several tasks of system maintenance: repair permissions, run periodic scripts, reset Spotlight's Index, rebuild the LaunchServices database, delete applications, font and system cache, and even check the status of the hard disk. It's a basic system maintenance and cleaning application.

OnyX is multi-functional, they say that it handles maintenance, optimization, and personalization. Other then handling the functions that Maintenance already handles, OnyX also verifies the start-up disk and the structure of its system files, it configures some hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, Dashboard, Expose, Safari, Log-in window and of some of Apple's own applications, it deletes caches, and removes a certain number of files and folders that may become overbearing on the overall CPU load. There are a few other tweaks that OnyX allows you to play with, but it's shining star is still the maintenance jobs that it handles.

Either Maintenance or OnyX will do a good job for you. I personally use OnyX because it does a good job of updating itself and allows me to run all the scripts and routines I need it to run and them will automatically reboot or shut down my Mac after it's finished.

The next freeware application that seems to be a real favorite is MainMenu.

MainMenu does all things that a good maintenance program should do, rebuilding your Spotlight library for faster searching, repairing permissions, cleaning caches to improve application performance, and even more advanced settings - such as enabling and disabling the Dashboard. But what makes this such a fan favorite is it's simple, and easy to use menu-bar interface. If you want an app that does it's stuff and gets out of the way, MainMenu is the one for you.

IceClean

IceClean is another freeware solution that has a lot of fans, it's new Cocoa interface make it as Mac-looking as you can get. IceClean is a powerful System Maintenance and Optimization Tool using only UNIX built-in System Tasks to help your Mac stay healthy and to keep it running smoothly. Besides the basic Unix maintenance tasks, IceClean can also monitor your network state and do traceroute. It gives you a quick and full CD/DVD erase. IceClean also contains a full system profiler. It's also important to note that like the three previous options, IceClean will update itself often and automatically to make certain your OSX is running safe and sound.

AppleJack

If you want to get your hands dirty and you are not using Leopard, AppleJack is a great maintenance app to have on your Mac. Using AppleJack, you can repair your disk, repair permissions, validate the system's preference files, and get rid of possibly corrupted cache files. The real asset in using Applejack is that you don't have to have access to your GUI to run the app, if your Mac isn't letting you log into your account, all you need to do is restart in Single User Mode (SUM), by holding down the command and s keys at start-up, and then typing applejack, or applejack auto (which will run through all the tasks automatically), or Applejack auto restart (which will also restart the computer automatically at the end of the process). I really wish a new version would be released that would work on a Leopard machine. AppleJack should be on all the older Macs, it's a great troubleshooter.

There are some other maintenance applications out there that will run the normal Unix scripts, but these are the ones that you'll run into most often, and between them, you'll have more then enough options to choose from. But I didn't want to leave without a few other freeware applications that can help keep your Mac and the software on it running at it's best.

Battery Health Monitor

Battery Health Monitor is a must have app for any Mac laptop owner. BHM monitors virtually every battery parameter and does it in an easy to read format. BHM will show you the Original capacity, which is an indication of the battery's storage when it was new. The current capacity indicates how much that original capacity has changed with use. The current charge shows the battery's current charge state while Charge Cycles indicates how many complete charge/discharge cycles the battery has experienced. The percentage value indicates approximately what portion of the number of total recharge cycles the battery has left. There are even more details about your battery that you'll find when you use Battery Health Monitor. I would say that anyone with a laptop should give it a try.

SpeedMail

When your Apple Mail seems to slow down, most of the time it can be contributed to the database. Speedmail is a terminal command that will clean up your Apple Mail database and give you a noticeable speed increase. It's nothing fancy, but it does the job.

HighLoad

Finally there's Highload. According to their website, HighLoad is comprised of a set of helpful processes designed to assist in troubleshooting your Mac. HighLoad will systematically begin to launch applications you would use when you're running your computer. This will simulate a real world high load environment to make sure items such as the virtual memory system, window server system, and other integrated processes are being utilized to the max. HighLoad will test available physical memory using memtest to make sure it is faulty free. No parameters to set or complex commands to issue, just one click. Highload will also take care of all the maintenance tasks that you need done, permissions, caches, pre-bindings and more.

So after you've tried all these programs and repaired permissions and cleared caches until the cows came home, what have you really accomplished? Probably not a lot more then if you'd never ran any of them at all. That may be a point of contention with a lot of Mac users, so I say it's better to be safe then sorry and find yourself a freeware maintenance program that you can live with and use it regularly. After all, your peace of mind is worth more then the cost of a single freeware application, right?