12-14-01
This special series of Holiday
Buyer's Guides is dedicated to the holiday shoppers that
also happen to be terminal procrastinators. Every day through
the 21st, we will post a new guide covering gift ideas from
a variety of categories and price ranges.
Today,
we decided to look at gifts for the often overlooked member
of your household, your Mac! There are very few things your
Mac needs to keep humming along smoothly, but if problems
do arise it is essential to have an arsenal of repair utilities
handy. Below, we list several different packages that will
help repair or avert damage to your Mac, tune it up so it
is peak condition, and recover files that you though were
lost forever.
Of the four, Rewind is the only one trick pony, but what
a trick it is... Rewind silently tracks the changes that occur
on your hard drive (files added, modified or deleted for example)
on gives you the option to "rewind" individual files
or the entire drive to a previously saved state.
TechTool is just one program, but contains a comprehensive
test suite that can check for hardware and software problems.
In the case of disk drive problems, TechTool can effect repairs.
Mac Care Unit and Norton System Works, from Casady &
Greene and Symantec respectively, are suites of several programs
designed to repair, backup, optimize and keep your Mac happy
in general. Mac Care Unit offers a slightly more comprehensive
list of programs, 7 unique titles to Norton's 4. when it comes
to effecting repair, however, a diversified approach is best.
One utility may be able to fix problems that another cannot.
Notable Quotes
Mac Care Unit (Classic)
"DiskWarrior and PlusOptimizer protect, fix, and optimize
your hard drive, while Conflict Catcher organizes extensions,
keeping your Mac running smoothly. VirusBarrier, one of the
most elegant antivirus software programs we've seen, effectively
stands guard against malicious code. NetBarrier's personal
firewall keeps intruders at bay, and CopyAgent backs up data
in a snap. ... Mac Care Unit's value proposition is nothing
short of Freakin' Awesome!" — MacAddict
Rewind (Classic)
"Rewind's main function is still to track every file
change made on your Mac and allow you to return specific documents
or volumes to a previous state. The program also keeps the
simple tabbed palette that holds lists of modified files and
a calendar enabling you to negotiate previous saved states."
— MacUser
UK
Norton System Works (Mixed, Classic & OS X)
"No Mac owner should be without a good disk-maintenance
tool and virus protection. SystemWorks offers an excellent
combination of solid tools at a very competitive price. Norton
AntiVirus and Utilities alone are worth the price of admission,
but adding Dantz's Retrospect Express (for backing up your
files) and Aladdin Systems' Spring Cleaning (to trim the fat
and cleanse the detritus from your drives) rounds out this
one-stop box for your utility needs. " — MacAddict
TechTool Pro (Classic)
"TechTool is still the best full-featured Mac utility
on the market; it simply has no peer. If you need to repair
an existing problem, or if you simply want to lessen the likelihood
of a system disaster, go out and get yourself a copy of TechTool
Pro. You will not be disappointed." — macHOME
"The Swiss Army Knife is proof that you can sometimes
solve almost any problem using a single tool. Micromat's TechTool
Pro 3.0.3, comprising dozens of utilities that do everything
from testing RAM and video to checking for viruses and conflicts,
is another such tool. While tools like Norton Utilities optimize
and repair hard-disk problems, TechTool goes the extra mile
by including tools to test virtually every component in your
computer." — Macworld
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Today,
we decided to look at gifts for the often overlooked member
of your household, your Mac! There are very few things your
Mac needs to keep humming along smoothly, but if problems
do arise it is essential to have an arsenal of repair utilities
handy. Below, we list several different packages that will
help repair or avert damage to your Mac, tune it up so it
is peak condition, and recover files that you though were
lost forever. 
