OS X Software: Cocktail
Cocktail is a free, simple system utility that should be on every OS X user's machine. Housed in a clean, simple interface, Cocktail replaces most other free system utilities by offering a one-stop solution for many tasks including file prebinding, enabling / disabling of the journal file system, manually running Cron scripts , file and folder permission repair, force empty trash, system cache removal, an Auto Pilot function, and more. And, oh yeah, it's free too.
Comments
Just being a newbie; why would I need to do prebinding and journaling?
Posted by: Joseph J. Finn at February 26, 2003 1:02 PM
Yes, it would be helpful if I knew what prebinding, journaling and cron scripts were. Can you recommend any help documents that explain those?
Posted by: Joshua Kaufman at February 26, 2003 1:11 PM
A cron job/script is a command that is periodically run at times you specify usually to automate tasks such as opening your mail program just before you get to work.
Posted by: Philip Carlson at February 26, 2003 1:24 PM
The cron scripts in question here are particular scripts that Apple has installed on your computer that like to run in the middle of the night--things like cleaning up error logfiles and the like. For laptop users or people who turn their computers off overnight, Cocktail (and other utilities like MacJanitor) allows you to run them whenever you like to help keep your system tidy. it doesn't excuse Apple from making it clear what your computer will be doing without your permission, though.
Prebinding is not something "normal" people need to do; in OS X before Jaguar it was an extra step you could take to speed up applications. In Jaguar, installers do it automatically. It's the "optimization" step that happens at the end of an install.
Journaling is still a concept that is beyond me. I'll leave that one to somebody else ;)
Posted by: Brian W at February 26, 2003 1:54 PM
A journaling file system is a fault-resilient file system in which data integrity is ensured because updates to directories and bitmaps are constantly written to a serial log on disk before the original disk log is updated. In the event of a system failure, a full journaling filesystem ensures that the data on the disk has been restored to its pre-crash configuration. It also recovers unsaved data and stores it in the location where it would have gone if the computer had not crashed, making it an important feature for mission-critical applications.
That being said it impacts your machines effeciency, not a problem if you are running a dual 1.43 G4, but maybe if you are running anything below an 800.
Chris
Posted by: Chris J. Davis at February 26, 2003 2:09 PM
Thanks for all the info, folks!
Posted by: Joseph J. Finn at February 26, 2003 2:13 PM
oh, cocktail is free too.
even if you're a core unix/linux newbie, grab this program. drag n' drop symbolic links. that should say it all...
Posted by: Jason at February 27, 2003 1:18 AM
