Intro
ET OSX is a list of useful tools for the MacOS X, most of which live in the Applications folder on my startup drive. It started as a 'what's on my Mac' page on my personal site but quickly evolved into a blog of its own. I'm trying to focus most on of the tiny but useful utilities that sometimes save you lots of trouble and effort, and to omit for the most part the list of big guns, that one normally uses on a daily basis. The list serves two purposes, lets me easily answer 'how do I do this on the Mac' questions asked by other users, and helps me remember answers to the same questions myself.
When diagnostic a computer problem it often helps to isolate software from hardware problems. And although this age of low hardware prices we tend to forget about it, the rule used to be that one of the first things one should check is for a bad memory module. There are few tools that can help you out on the Mac with a problem like that, apart from Apple's own Hardware Test CD, which they used to ship with every computer. A tiny tool that will test each and every memory module is is Kelley Computing's Rember, which is based around the unix project memtest. Rember is free and available under the GPL. Check out the other cool utilities that Kelley Computing provides at www.kelleycomputing.net:16080/downloads/.
iAlertU (www.ialertu.com) - this is one-of-a-kind alarm system for the MacBook. It lets you lock your MacBook via the infrared Apple Remote that came in the laptop box. When locked (or armed) iAlertU will detect movement of the MacBook by using the built-in motion sensor, the device that is supposed to prevent hard disk data loss. Upon movement detection iAlertU can produce an audio and visual alarm (very much like your car alarm system), and if this sounds like innocent fun for you, it can take a picture of whatever is in front of the laptop (via your built-in iSight camera) and then send an email with that picture included to a pre-specified email address. MacBook thieves, beware!
coconutIdentityCard (www.coconut-flavour.com) - don't know how useful it might actually be, but this utility can show you exactly when and almost exactly where your Mac or iPod has been built. Mine says Shanghai, China. Made by the same German kid that gives you coconutBattery. PayPal donation-ware.
coconutBattery (www.coconut-flavour.com) - a nifty tool that can show you the current capacity of your notebook's battery, your current maximum capacity, the original maximum capacity and the number of load cycles your battery has survived. To cut it short, it can tell you if your battery is still good or not. Recommended for everyone looking into getting an used Apple laptop.
