October 20th, 1999
5 Must Have Mac Utilities to Enhance Your Productivity. SlowyApp.com Productivity Apps. Apple is certainly one of the most popular tech companies of the world and it releases some of the best products of all time. One kind of product that is famous among users is none other than the MacBook. The 10 must-have utilities for macOS Sierra Default Folder. I can’t remember how long I’ve been using Default Folder ($35), because it’s been a constant companion. Computers are meant to reduce tedious repetition, and yet we often find ourselves acting like a computer.
Norton Utilities for Macintosh 5.0 Introduction If you've been using a Mac for any length of time, you've no doubt come across Norton Utilities, which was originally introduced on the Mac platform in 1989. This package has consistently provided utilities that complement and often surpass those included by Apple. Approaching its 10th birthday, we are pleased to see that this package is keeping up with the times. Version 5.0 enhances existing programs, and adds new features to the entire suite. Documentation The printed documentation consists of a booklet in the CD case. It contains info that will help you get started quickly. For more information, you can take advantage of the Norton Utilities Help and Norton Utilities Shortcuts guides, available after you install the package if you have Apple Guide activated.
The installation is very straightforward. You can choose an Easy Install, which installs all components, or a Custom Install, where you can select which components to install. We decided to go for the gusto and do an Easy Install. Once the installation is complete, you'll be given the option to Restart your system. Since many components will be activated only after a restart, you should choose this option. Be sure to eject the Norton Utilities CD-ROM after you choose Restart. Since the CD-ROM is bootable (useful if your system is really messed up and can't boot from the hard drive) many systems will boot from it if it is still in the drive. Operation During system boot time, you'll notice some extra icons marching across your screen. Specifically, several FileSaver components will be installed, as well as a Scheduler and the DiskLight utility. A Norton Utilities icon, placed in your Apple Menu, can be used to launch the main interface. From here, you can launch most other utilities, including Norton AntiVirus if available. In every application, a Utilities menu will allow you to quickly jump to any other Norton application.
During the restart, you'll probably notice the DiskLight component of the package. It displays a tiny hard drive icon in the upper left hand corner of your screen. It will flash when there's disk read activity, and show the same icon with a small 'w' next to it during a disk write. Good for those of us who remember the old days when all hard drives had some sort of cool blinking light. FileSaver Once you reach the desktop, a small window for the FileSaver utility will let you know that it is scanning you hard drives. FileSaver does three things. First is a scan for general disk problems. It can identify problems that the Mac OS scan may miss, plus it also scans volumes other than your startup volume. The second FileSaver feature updates disk directory info, and the third tracks deleted files and folders. These last two features can collect additional information which can be used by the UnErase and Volume Recover components, covered shortly. The scans can be scheduled during startup, shutdown, or after an improper shutdown. They can also be scheduled after a certain amount of idle time, or at a specific time. The defaults of At Shutdown and After Improper Shutdown should suit most users.
This is probably the most commonly used component of the package. It can check for defective media, partition table damage, directory damage, and problems with individual files. The defective media check is handy, but takes time since it has to scan your entire hard drive. In the Mac Observer Labs, the media check of a 8.5 GB drive took nearly 30 minutes. Unless you have a very old drive on the brink of failure, you probably don't want to do this check every time. Likewise for the scanning of individual files, which took about 10 minutes to scan the aforementioned drive with about 50,000 files on it. For most users, doing a regular scan of your partition tables and directory structure will prevent most mishaps. But if you have a drive which you think is seriously damaged, you can go to the Preferences menu and enable all checks. New in 5.0 is a Live Repair feature, which borrows from the latest Apple Disk First Aid, and allows repair of the boot disk without booting a CD. Another new feature is Undo, which can undo changes in case a repair makes things go from bad to worse.
This component will help defragment the files on your drive. Over time, files stored on your drive may occupy noncontiguous sections of the drive, increasing access time. SpeedDisk will reorganize the files so they occupy contiguous portions of the drive. A Check Disk option will graphically display your file layout, and calculate the degree of fragmentation. You can choose from several different optimization profiles, such as General Use, Multimedia, Software Development, CD-ROM Mastering and Recently Used Files. There are options to verify the media, directories and data before the optimization. This is strongly recommended since optimizing a damaged drive can make your drive inaccessible. We say this from experience, since previous optimization attempts with various utilities have resulted in unusable disks. Just to be safe, make a full backup! Fortunately, the Speed Disk operation successfully optimized the drive in the Mac Observer Labs, without any damage whatsoever. New in 5.0 is the option of also optimizing your directories, which can provide a greater performance boost than just rearranging files.
The UnErase utility will allow you to recover files or folders that have been accidentally deleted. If you are also running FileSaver, it will greatly increase the chance that you'll be able to recover a lost file or folder. Filtering allows searching for lost files based on name, type, content and size. Although nothing can replace regularly scheduled backups, UnErase can help in a crisis. If you have a disk that you can no longer boot from, or can no longer see on the desktop, then Volume Recover may be able to help. Like UnErase, it can do a better job if you are also running FileSaver. LiveUpdate New to 5.0 is a LiveUpdate feature. Like similar technology found in the Windows version of Norton Utilities, QuickTime 4 and, more recently, Mac OS 9, you can either manually check for or schedule updates to the program's components. If you have Norton AntiVirus installed, it will also update this program and, more importantly, your virus definitions. System Info, Wipe Info, Fast Find System Info can be used to benchmark the CPU, FPU, disk and display performance of your system. You can then compare this info to profiles available for other common Mac configurations. For the paranoid and/or security conscious, the Wipe Info component can erase a specific file or folder, disk, or unused space. Once you get rid of something with Wipe Info, not even Norton Utilities can recover it, so be careful! Fast Find is similar to the Find File feature of Sherlock. Although it can only search by name or kind, when searching by name, we found it at least 50% faster than the Apple counterpart. FireWire Norton Utilities 5.0 offers support for FireWire devices. Conclusion Norton Utilities offers a comprehensive package of utilities to help with device repair, data recovery and optimization for your system. Despite frequent backups, bad things happen to good people, and these tools can help you get up and running quickly. We are pleased to see that Norton Utilities is maturing with such features as Live Repair, Live Update, Undo and FireWire support. Norton Utilities 5.0 should be a part of any Observer's suite of tools.
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Here’s my list of applications I can’t live without on my Mac. It’s the first thing I install when setting up a new machine. Maybe you’ll find one you like?
Fantastical is a great calendar utility for your Mac. You get a calendar in the menubar with natural language entry, easily accessible with a keyboard shortcut. You can write, “lunch with Pete next Tuesday at 1” and Fantastical will automatically add an entry for it in your calendar. Top 10 Best Mac Apps & Utilities for 2020. Disk Clean Pro (Best Mac Cleaner & Optimizer) An all-in-one solution to keep your Mac machine clean & optimized for smooth performance. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard (Best Data Recovery Tool for Mac) 3. Systweak Anti-Malware (Best Anti-Malware.
Fantastical
Fantastical is a great calendar utility for your Mac. You get a calendar in the menubar with natural language entry, easily accessible with a keyboard shortcut. You can write, “lunch with Pete next Tuesday at 1” and Fantastical will automatically add an entry for it in your calendar. But what if you want to select which calendar you want the entry in? End the sentence with / and the first letters of the calendar name. For example /w for work.
Naturally, you can still edit entries the standard way if you like or if you want to add attendees or notes. Fantastical is available on both Mac OS X and iOS, and I use it on all my devices.
Fantastical works with iCloud, Google Calendar, or Yahoo Calendar accounts.
LaunchBar
LaunchBar is the first application I install after setting up a new machine. Instead of having to click around to get things done, you press a hot-key and then enter an abbreviation to open a document, start an application or a host of other actions. You can now work without leaving the hands from the keyboard, making you operate faster. It automatically learns your abbreviations while you use it so it gets smarter the more you use it. You can have it do multiple steps, like selecting a folder, compress it and then send it via email.
For list of examples run rdesktop without parameters.You can install rdesktop via MacPorts.org or Fink.com.However, this is a Unix Command Line based utility, and as with most Unix oriented documentation, it leave a lot to be desired.If you are interested, maybe you can find a more detailed description how using rdesktop and smart cards via some Google Searches.Your Mileage May Vary. 
It would require using X11 for the display windows.rdesktop has an -scard option which is why I mention it.-r scard:=;.Enables redirection of one or more smart-cards. To do this youcan use optional parameters as described: - devicename in Linux/Unix enviroment, - device name shownin Windows enviroment - optional device vendorname. You can providestatic name binding between linux and windows.
Some of the functions that programs like LaunchBar, Quicksilver and Alfred is now integrated into Apples Spotlight Search, but LaunchBar is much more advanced. You get a lot out of it by just using the basics, but you continue to discover new great features all the time. LaunchBar has been around for a long time, and it comes from a great developer, Objective Developer
1Password
Tired of trying to remember a hundred different passwords or even worse, use the same password for all your accounts? With 1Password you only need to remember one password, and you can have long randomly generated passwords for each website account, server or devices requiring a password. The application includes a password generator where you can set up precisely how many characters, symbols or numbers you want the password to contain. The app comes with plugins for all major browsers so with just a keyboard shortcut you fill out the username and password when logging in. You can save your personal information so signing up for a new account makes it easy, having 1Password enter all the info. You can also collect your credit card information in 1Password which makes your shopping online easy by filling out those pesky fields with one keystroke.
There is built in sync between Mac and iOS devices, so you always have access to your login information even on the go. The information is encrypted, so if someone manages to get hold of the password database, they can’t get to them.
1Password – No More Sticky Notes
1Password for iOS
It’s easy to set up syncing between your desktop and your iPhone and iPad, so you always have your encrypted information with you.
Growl
Growl is a notification system that has been around for a long time on the Mac. It’s a great utility. In fact so good that Apple introduced their notification system in Mountain Lion. But Growl gives more fine-grained information from applications that support it. So you can get notifications when a file in Dropbox is updated, when Transmit has finished an upload or when Transmission ends a torrent download.
HardwareGrowler
And here’s my favorite use of Growl, because with HardwareGrowler you get information when you lose a network connection, USB devices connects and disconnects, volumes mounts or unmount. When you attached new hardware to your Mac, you know that it worked and you also know if something detaches. Losing an Ethernet or wifi connection, and HardwareGrowler will tell you so. HardwareGrowler is a great utility.
iStat Menus
Find Utilities On Mac
Want to know if an application is taking up too much CPU usage? Getting low on system memory and want to see which is the offending application? Need to look at the transfer speed of your network connection? With iStat Menu you get access to that and more directly from the menu bar. You can configure it to suit your needs. You can even check the temperature of all the sensors in your computer. It’s a great way of getting status on how your system is running.
This application is not available in the Mac AppStore
TextExpander
This utility lets you make abbreviations and have it expand to longer texts called snippets. It’s great for email signatures, boilerplate answers for letters and email. I use it a lot for blogging for inserting Markdown code and often used graphics in HTML that is hard to remember. It saves a lot of time. It even has statistics builtin so you can check how much time you have saved from not having to type out all the text. On the Mac, it’s system-wide, which means that you can use it in any program. There’s also the ability to sync your snippets with Dropbox so you can share them between several Macs or even iOS devices.
Norton Utilities For Mac
This application is not available in the Mac AppStore
TextExpander Touch for iOS
There’s a version of TextExpander for your iPhone and iPad as well. Most of the functions work, but it’s not system-wide due to Apple restrictions. But a lot of the best iOS apps support TextExpander for iOS, and it even has a unique keyboard in iOS 8, so you can use it with any app.