Tweak Freak 2.1

Reviewed by Harry {doc} Babad

Introduction

I have always been comfortable tweaking the interface of whatever Macintosh operating system I was working with. Whether I was adding alternative or new menu shortcuts, or restoring tools that apple had left out when updating to a new OS version, I wanted to play.

For OS X, my tune-ups have focused on haxies such as those created by Unsanity [http://www.unsanity.com/] such as FontCard, Fruit Menu, WindowShade, Labels X, Mighty Mouse and Menu Master. Other favorites include Marc Moni’s Smart Scroll, Yellow Lemon Software’s FolderGlance, and Steve Disbrow’s Screen Shots, all of which installed in the Macintosh OS X Systems Preferences pane.

In addition I have installed, as stand alone tools, David Lloyd’s iCan, Christian Gruenberg’s XMenu and Easy Find [Devon Technologies], Maintain’s Cocktail and Jake Pietrykowski’s FontNuke all of which enhance my OS’s capabilities. They do he things that Apple left out of the OS or provide added {needed} functions without going to the terminal application.

You the reader are likely well aware that almost all of the functions provided by Tweak Freak are either accessible within the Apple software installed on your computer or in third party applications, which I’ve found stable. Never the less, having all the functions integrated into one small footprint product, which allows me to perform both cleaning and customization functions, seems to make sense. No wonder that when I read about the product, it caught my attention.

Publisher’s Summary

Tweak Freak is a Mac OS operating system enhancement tool that gives you more options than Apple to tune the system to your needs. Some of its capabilities are listed below.

Working With

Installing this application is simple. Open its .dmg, and drag it you’re your applications folder. Below, I’ve provided four screenshots of its main screens to give you a taste of its interface.

An Important Observation — The software recognized my existing settings, some of which were applied by the stand-along applications previously disused. The few tests I ran went smoothly, and no conflicts or crashes occurred when I initially changed and reestablished my favorite finder configuration.

Of course cleaning browser files and emptying cache files is permanent. I used Tweak Freak’s cleaning feature to zap all of my Internet browsers’ caches and other storage hogs in one click. This worked well; I wonder how much hard disk space I regained? The negative side of this act, I’m going to have to reuse passwords on several favorite sites that remember them, since my cookies are all gone.

Only Allume Systems Internet Cleanup has such one-shot capabilities, but I’ve never been comfortable with that application and had de-installed it, after a few almost disastrous experiments. I also have used other shareware apps in this category, and the browsers themselves to clean chase files and the like as well, some of which have been reviewed for macCompanion.

Discomforts

Force Eject/Unmount Volume — I have an occasional problem when backing up my drive to an external partitioned 250 GB volume. At times, after using SuperDuper for the backup process, despite having all applications, except the finder, closed, the updated partition will not eject. To eject the partition, I must restart my computer. Now a tool to force dismount/eject a partition or volume, obviously not the startup volume, would be great. [Note, after writing this I discovered Semulov 1.0, a Unmount Volume Tool on MacUpdate, so next month I talk about it.

Network Cache Buffer Optimization Limitation — “By default, Mac OSX does not take full advantage of broadband connection'. This will optimize the network buffers for either type connection. Unfortunately, changes are lost upon restart.” Shucks! Jeff Ulicny further notes in his FAQ, “Q: Can you make the Network Buffer setting stay after restart? A: No. I've designed Tweak Freak to make as few permanent system changes as possible. Why? Damage control. I don't want to be responsible for permanently screwing up your system.” This tweak seems to give my downloads a speed burst, perhaps someone can write a script make this happened and pass it on to me.

Conclusion

I liked using Tweak Freak to clear my font and other cache files. It was easy to use; and with its free price tag, it's affordable, too. In addition to clearing your font cache, it also handles other system maintenance tasks, like clearing your log files, repairing permissions, removing Web browser cookie files, and more. I’m not sure whether I will de-install the other applications I own that perform some of the same functions provided by Tweak Freak, but it definitely a consideration. [The single function alternatives take up disk space; but until I am convinced there nothing lurking out there in crash-land, I stick with keeping the other applications.