Tools, tips and toys

Mac OSX
For whatever reason, I was having awful trouble with Stuffit expander, it was nagging me to upgrade and crashing way too much. And you know me, I went looking for a free utility to replace it. I found it! I have been using The Unarchiver 1.6 for a while now and it works great. Plus it opens file formats that Stuffit balked at. Go get it here: http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html

Mac OSX
This next tool (tip? toy?) is actually pretty useless right now. In 2006 Macheist.com bundled a bunch of software together worth hundreds of dollars for $49. After a certain amount of users bought the bundle other apps were added. If you wanted the applications it was well worth the price. Watch the site, the sites says there will be another heist this year. Once they unveil it you will only have a week to make your decision.

Mac OSX
Dockables is a cool little application that may be just what you need. From the site: “Dockables provides you with one-click system event access right from the Dock in OS X.” You can “Shut Down, Start Default Screen Saver, Restart, Empty Trash, Eject Media, Sleep, Log Out, Close Applications, Hide Applications, Mute Sound, sleep display, and screenshot — bringing the total count of System Events that you can control through Dockables up to 12.” Find it at http://cocoaapp.com/products/dockables/

Upgrade your Apple hardware
With the help of my homie Ram-dog I upgraded my little 12″ iBook to a 160 GB hard drive, I was busting out of the 40 that came with it. Let me tell you the process was fairly arduous, involving taking apart both the underside and everything around the keyboard in order to get at the drive. Luckily we didnt have to feel our way around and try to figure it all out thanks to http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/which gave us step by step directions. The proof is in the pudding, two iBooks were upgraded and neither is the worse for wear- well there are some nicks but everything works.

Mac, Windows, general geekery
Where does the average user go when they have computer questions? Usually they go ask the geek in their lives, but what happens when they stop taking your calls? Ive got the answer:
http://ask-leo.com/. Leo takes on lots of different questions, some basic some involved. If you are too embarrassed or too lazy to fill out the form you can always search the site and see if someone has asked your question already, odds are with you they have. Here are some of the questions on the front page today.

I’ve received a popup telling me I’m infected and recommending a download to fix it. Should I?

So what should I backup?

Does sharing a computer mean that I’m sharing my Google web history?