[X-Newbies] Re: Utulities and such in OS X.

[Charles Martin]

> From: Brian Durant <globetrotterdk at gmail.com>
> I am curious as to which utilities, etc. people are using in OS X.
> Norton SystemWorks, Drive 10,  TechTools Pro, Norton AntiVirus, Virex,
> Virus Barrier, und alles. Coming from OS 9, I don't really know if any
> of these are necessary anymore or not, particularly on a brand
> spanking new G5. What is hype and what is fact?

AVOID NORTON AT ALL COSTS.

Okay, now that we got that caveat out of the way, here's my view:

There's a freeware utility called OnyX that's great for "maintenance" 
work. I run it about once a month.

There are similar utilities like MacJanitor, Cocktail and Macaroni, but 
all of them either cost or don't do as much.

For emergencies, I still recommend that clients buy DiskWarrior and 
Tech Tools Pro (note that I mentioned both of them).

DiskWarrior is unsurpassed at dealing with directory corruption, and 
one buys this product knowing they are unlikely to ever use it, but 
it's a wonderful thing to have handy when you DO need it.

Tech Tool Pro can do some other things -- most notably defragmenting -- 
that DW cannot do, so I suggest it also.

The FACT of the matter is that with light maintenance (like OnyX) and 
regular backups (I use SuperDuper for this, but Carbon Copy Cloner is 
also good), you are unlikely to have ANY serious problems during the 
life of your machine. Buying things like DW and TTP are just 
"insurance," you know?

I should mention something about virus checkers like Virex. I run it 
only because I got it free from my .Mac account and found out how to 
make it almost completely unobtrusive. Virus checking is completely 
unnecessary for OS X as I write this, but I suppose that could change 
at any time so I'm glad I have this handy. As a rule of thumb, however, 
it's not needed.

_Chas_

FL-MUG: central Florida's Macintosh User Group.
Meetings: second Thursday of the month, 6-9pm,
at the Orlando Science Center.
http://www.flmug.org