Freeware Gems

Great utilities that cost nothing!

The Macintosh world has a whole conglomeration of software for its users to obtain and enjoy. Some are obtained by purchasing outright through a retail store, catalog, or website, while others are of the “try before you buy” variety. However, there are also some fabulous utilities that are available to the Macintosh user that cost absolutely nothing! This article calls attention to just a few of these fabulous freebies.

BackDrop: This AppleScript droplet by John Burwell provides an easy way to change one’s desktop picture. A user simply drags a graphics file onto BackDrop’s icon, and BackDrop will take care of opening the Appearance control panel, changing the desktop picture, and closing the control panel again. This program requires Mac OS 8.5 or higher.

BBEdit Lite: This program by Bare Bones Software is BBEdit’s less powerful sibling and provides basic text editing functions. It also is great for cleaning up text files such as emails with its ability to cut out defined characters at the beginning or end of a line, remove line breaks, zap control characters, and more.

Clip Snippel: This handy utility by FMR Software makes managing clippings much easier. For example, by dragging text clippings into the Clip Snippel window, the text can be selected and/or edited. Additional clippings can be made by dragging selected text onto the desktop. Additionally, the contents of the clipboard can be dumped into the Clip Snippel window by clicking on the clipboard icon. Dragging the clipping icon onto the desktop creates a clipping of the entire contents of the window. Email, FTP, and website clippings can easily be created by dragging these addresses onto the desktop. It’s a very simple tool but definitely a useful one to keep at one’s fingertips.

Coaster: This application by Christian Roth is an audio program that records to the hard disk, thereby requiring much less memory than other audio programs. It provides a variety of features such as clip detection, sound-activated recording, automatic gain control, sound file segmenting, and control over the sampling rate and size, captured sound channels, and play-through volume. Coaster records audio in the AIFF format which can later be converted and/or compressed by another program. While it doesn't provide any filters or fading features, it is a solid program for recording audio clips, especially long ones.

Cookie Cutter: This great utility by Scott Burnham provides an easy way to slim down Netscape Communicator’s cookie file. Instead of just deleting it like several other utilities do, this one allows a user to examine its contents. After opening the desired cookies file in Cookie Cutter, cookies from a particular domain can be removed immediately, put into a list of cookies to always keep, or put into a list of cookies to always remove automatically when Cookie Cutter is opened. By using this utility on a regular basis, Netscape’s cookie file can be kept on a diet.

Eradicator: This new program by SearchWare Solutions lets users peek inside the forbidden Temporary Items folder, home to various files that have long since been forgotten by the system software. Normally when programs quit they delete scratch files that they have created while running, but if such a program crashes unexpectedly, these files are left behind. The Temporary Items folder is hidden by the Finder to protect users from accidentally trashing files that are currently in use, but this also makes it difficult to trash undeleted scratch files. The Mac OS usually puts files found in the Temporary Items folder after startup into the trash, but since the release of Mac OS 9, this “feature” hasn’t worked properly. That’s where Eradicator steps in by allowing users to see all scratch files and to delete old ones.

Inquisitor: The hard disk: a virtual dumping ground for a variety of applications, documents, and system files. Knowing how much space each section is occupying can help users determine which software tidbits are hogging the most room. The unique aspect of this utility by Ethan Jeremy Tira-Thompson is its ability to represent these details graphically. Inquisitor constructs a pie chart for an entire volume by default, but by creating a new comparision, files and folders can be dragged into the window to be added. The program is multi-threaded to give users an idea of an item’s size before Inquisitor is even finished calculating. Plus the number of files labeled can be increased or decreased depending on the level of detail desired. Graphs can also be rotated by dragging in order to keep labels from overlapping each other. Selecting a slice of the pie will display additional info in the right pane, and finally, double-clicking a slice will generate a new pie graph displaying its contents. It’s a great idea for visualizing the contents of a hard drive!

Mac OS Purge: This little beauty by E. Kenji Takeuchi was created several years ago but still functions even under Mac OS 9. When launched, it purges the system heap of any code no longer needed, thus freeing up some extra memory. It can really come in handy after closing a large program that doesn’t completely return all the memory it used. What normally would require a restart can be accomplished by simply launching Mac OS Purge. Launching this utility will bring the Finder to the foreground and display the “About this computer” window to show what it’s doing unless the command key is held down when Mac OS Purge is opened. It’s definitely worth downloading!

MemMapper: Knowing what’s occupying memory is helpful, but unfortunately the “About this computer” window doesn’t provide a detailed listing. MemMapper, a memory utility by R Fronabarger, displays visually and statistically what’s lurking in this precious resource. Besides applications, MemMapper also lists background processes and the Finder with the total amount of memory allocated, the amount of memory allocated that is not in use, and a graphical representation of both. Additionally, this utility can quit a process by selecting it from the list and choosing “Send Quit Event” from the File menu. Overall, MemMapper shows experienced and curious users alike a detailed list of the programs and processes that are sitting in RAM.

Reaper: This control panel by Akua Interactive Media AG provides some RAM managing enhancements. With it you can increase memory allocations to programs, automatically allocate temporary memory when a program runs out of memory, and dynamically adjust a program’s memory allocation as needed. Reaper is especially handy for allocating extra memory to applications residing on read-only volumes such as CD-ROM’s which otherwise can’t be changed. This memory utility can ultimately help make a system more stable by providing programs with a little extra breathing room, a commodity no Mac user can have too much of.

SoundApp: This sound player and converter by Norman Franke supports a whole smattering of audio formats. It can most popular audio formats like Windows WAVE, AIFF, MPEG Layers I-III, and Mac OS SND. SoundApp also supports various compression and encoding schemes such as IMA 4:1, MACE 3 and 6, µLaw, and aLaw. With QuickTime 3 or higher installed, SoundApp can play all QuickTime-supported codecs such as QDesign Music and Qualcomm PureVoice. Besides playing and converting files individually, this versatile program can handle play lists and batch conversion as well. SoundApp is an indispensible utility for anyone who enjoys listening and working with audio.

Jeremy Hoesly
ResExcellence Software Tester
Jan. 25, 2000