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Untried, Untested

Some titles that can be worth a shot. Or not. Proceed at your own risk.


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Alarm Clock
Current version: 2.1.3 Download: 4.7 MB [sic]
Five meg for an alarm clock? This has to be some kind of record. And is it free? As long as you donate, Bubba. This one's in a class of its own.

AppZapper
Current version: 1.0 Download: 626 KB
'Making uninstalls as easy as installs.' Promising. Site looks as lickable as the app. Does not run in background and does not need to be installed and running before you install other stuff, but looks for ancillary files to programs you want gone in standard locations. Evidently the authors see great things for this app: they're planning on hanging out at MWSF. $12.95 and the freebie gets you five free 'zaps'.

BBC Weather Widget
Current version: 0.9.5 Download: 913 KB
You gotta love these widgets. BBC's weather service is here. It's free and doesn't take any disk space. If you're so lame you junk down your disk with JavaScript applets that take more space than ordinary applications to do trivial things your browser manages in a fraction of that time - go ahead: we'll sell you a new hard drive and a brain repair programme.

coconutBattery
Current version: 1.2 Download: 178 KB
'Mac OS X apps with coconut-flavour'? OK... This dude uses the new Core Data to read off the stats on your battery, can show how much of the original maximum capacity you have left, figure out how old your notebook is, and so forth. Freeware.

FileGeek
Current version: 4.0 Download: 1.4 MB
$15.95 and it does everything you don't need but nothing of what you do. It has creator code, file type, a few of the 'Finder' flags in the catalog file - it even shows file sizes to six decimal digits [sic]. But it doesn't show owner, or group, or POSIX permissions, or extended attributes, or sticky bits, or set ID bits - or anything. Outdated by about ten years. Avoid at all costs.

Fix Permissions By SW
Current version: 2.5 Download: 36.8 KB (expands into megabyte DMG)
Another gem from the Beaver. Seems the Beav has the Apple Installer on the brain. [See below.] Again he imbues confidence with the lead-in 'install at your own risk'. [Ironically it's relevant with this junk.] No URL provided because this stuff is just too stupid - and dangerous. This menace is going to have to be put out of everyone's misery.

Google News Widget
Current version: 1.0 Download: 123 KB
Collates eight separate news feeds from Google News. Free.

iFreeMem
Current version: 2.0 Download: 3.9 MB [sic]
One assumed - evidently incorrectly - that this type of nonsense was gone from the planet for good. This is purely and simply a $25 rip-off. There is no way any user land application can access RAM. Period.

KeychainHelper
Current version: 1.0 Download: 184 KB
Isn't quite as random as you'd like: the author forgets to seed the engine. Using the program is a sure-fire way to get compromised, as hackers will simply integrate this flawed algorithm into their existing password attack programs. A classic case of not knowing what you're doing and not testing what you've done either.

MainMenu
Current version: 1.5.2 Download: 300 KB
This is what you always wanted, isn't it? Ordinary Unix system maintenance scripts run from a menulet? Then this one is for you. We won't say a word. The price? Quote the author: 'MainMenu is, at the moment, free'. So donate now to keep it free!

Service Scrubber
Current version: 1.1.2 Download: 387 KB
Watered down version of ACP Service Manager Pro for Panther 10.3.9 and very pretty too. Modus operandi is a bit strange and it's written in Java, meaning overhead is more than what's immediately apparent. (ACP Service Manager Pro takes only 112 KB on disk and does several times what this one does. It's Cocoa and good Cocoa at that.) But ACP Service Manager Pro is geared for professionals and Service Scrubber might be a better choice for ordinary users.

Show&Hide
Current version: 1.0 Download: 87.8 KB
Formerly called 'iPod -> Folder' as in 'we can copy your iPod songs to a folder on your hard drive'. Actually it doesn't copy anything - it just takes out the Finder flags that keep you from seeing your songs in that application. Package is a sloppy mess and you guessed it - it's just a sleaze wrapper for an AppleScript (obfuscated so you supposedly can't read it) but Xstrings can.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
killall Finder

So yes it might work but then again those flying pigs might soon break the sound barrier. Better to copy out the first and third above lines and hit enter at a Terminal prompt.

Sinbad
Current version: 1.0b4 [sic] Download: 541 KB
Why does the author redirect downloads to MacUpdate so MacUpdate can redirect them back to him? Could it be he wants more downloads to show up at MacUpdate? Whatever: this app is free - for now as many point out - and it's a variation on Sherlock and Watson, and the screenshots are available at the above link as well.

Software Update By SW
Current version: 2.5 Download: 32.1 KB (expands into megabyte DMG)
Another gem from the Beaver. Seems the Beav has the Apple Installer on the brain. [See above.] Again he imbues confidence with the lead-in 'install at your own risk'. [Ironically it's relevant with this junk.] No URL provided because this stuff is just too stupid - and dangerous. This menace is going to have to be put out of everyone's misery.

Trash It!
Current version: 3.6.1 Download: 813 KB
Too bad good old Marquis de Sade didn't relish ontological pain - he'd have found this one exquisite. How for that matter can you get all the way to version '3.6.1' with something as simple as this? Ah how the wannabes leave us mystified! And the blurb with this one is almost better than the program itself.

Description

This AppleScript force-empties your Trash. Especially useful if you have files or folders in the Trash with permissions set incorrectly, locked Trash items, want to securely delete a stuck item, or trash items from other partitions. If you drop files or folders onto the Trash It! icon, it will delete them immediately. If you double-click on it, it will clean out your Trash can. Trash It! should be used when:

  1. You can't get rid of trash items manually.
  2. You can't move items to the trash.
  3. You have a large number of items to delete (i.e., previous system folders).
  4. You just like using cool scripts.

WhatSize
Current version: 10.2.6 [sic] Download: 330 KB
339080 bytes on the download expanding to 91 files and about 2 MB. If you only need one language and can trim the package out you'll get it down to under a third of that.

What does this app do? Basically the same thing as another app from Omni does, except this one is free and the Omni one is not, is crippled, and is a real nag: it sizes your file system hives - it shows you where most of your disk free spaced has gone off to.

This app isn't really complete, despite its advanced version number: a number of functions on the menu are not yet implemented, the images need to be trimmed, there's something wrong or missing with the toolbar callbacks...

2005-11-28 00:13:45.190 WhatSize[11902] <AppController: 0x256af0> toolbarDefaultItemIdentifiers:, <NSToolbar: 0x85240>

At least one toolbar item might disappear the first time you click it (just take out the config sheet and restore the defaults), the browser view is screwed up (drag on the resize corner to fix it) and so forth. And it would be nice if the data sorted any way you wanted.

But the author, originally from Romania and now living in Florida, has his heart in the right place and knows a lot about NeXTSTEP. And again: it's free.

Word Counter
Current version: 1.8 Download: ?
Hi! Billy Macy here for Word Counter! I found out about this gem through a tip at Mac OS X Hints submitted by Rob Griffiths himself! Rob couldn't use the command line to count words in his 'Panther book' and so he found us! Great!

Nothing was really done - anywhere at any time - in the world of Unix before the Maccies came along. No word processing or DTP or anything like that! Those PhDs? What did they know? Thank goodness for the Maccies!

This gem is written in APPLESCRIPT - which should explain why the Bell Labs gurus could never get near something like this.

This app is FREE - but wait! There's more! If you act within the next five minutes, you can get the program - as a DASHBOARD WIDGET!

Call now! Our operators are waiting!

Some blurbs from the Word Counter site:

'There is no warranty for this program.'

'As of version 1.6 or later, Word Counter will tend to be CPU intensive. This is because of the newly added feature to be able to update the word counts on an ongoing basis. This CPU usage will likely exist even if the auto update feature is off.'

'Word Counter has occasionally crashed when a word count is performed on the Word Counter window and no text has been typed into it.'

'Sometimes, if Word Counter seems stuck on a small file that should appear in the multiple file count window, simply clicking on the window seems to 'nudge' Word Counter to finish its task. I have no idea why this occurs.'

'Word Counter bases its word and character counts on how AppleScript defines a word and a character. Thus, the ampersand ('&') will count as a word. Likewise, '&&' will count as two words.'

'Special characters are usually counted as separate words in Word Counter.'

'Word Counter may not launch properly at first (the icon will bounce a few times but no window will appear). This problem can usually be solved by fixing permissions on your computer and then re-downloading the Word Counter application.'

'Currently, Word Counter can perform a count of a subset of text if it is highlighted only in the main Word Counter Window. Word Counts on TextEdit documents include all of the words, regardless of whether a subset of the text is highlighted.'

'If a word count is conducted on a large volume of text, the count may fail if some of the 'non-standard' options are chosen, such as the option to count words above a certain length.'

'Word Counter can now handle files larger than 32k in size.' [<-- Read again.]

'The ability to open some file types requires OS X 10.4 Tiger or higher.' [<-- Read again.]

'Previously intolerable waits have been reduced to a few seconds.' [<-- Read again.]


Doesn't that sound GREAT! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!

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