Good Mac Housekeeping – Automatically: Macaroni 2.0.3

BY EDEN MAXWELL

President’s PDA

Computer
Connections

REVIEW
Macaroni 2.0.3

REVIEW
PNY Attaché
Flash Drive
Revisited

REVIEW
iRock 400 FM Transmitter

Photo Page

From My Keyboard

Volunteer for
Express!

LIKE MOST MAC USERS, I would be content to use my computer without knowing precisely how things work behind the scenes. But when it comes to computer good housekeeping, ignorance is definitely not bliss. Here is a bit of understanding that can keep your Mac ship-shape and spare you much grief.

Sweet Dreams

Most of us have used Mac OS X’s Disk Utility and its file-maintenance function Repair Disk Permissions. But did you know that the operating system (which is Unix based) automatically performs three Unix cleanup scripts to keep your computer running smoothly? These scripts work behind the scenes and are scheduled to run in the middle of the night. That’s okay if your computer is on full time, but if you shut down your computer or put it to sleep at the end of day, these maintenance scripts will never run and your computer’s performance will eventually suffer slow-downs, or worse.

You could, of course, set up a schedule so these preemptive Unix tasks would run whenever your computer is on, but that would mean investing some time in learning how to use cron, which is the name of program that enables Unix users to execute commands or scripts (groups of commands) automatically at a specified time/date.

Happily, there is a better way.

Night Shift Macaroni is a $9 shareware utility from Atomic Bird for Mac OS X (10.1.2 or higher) that enables all three Unix maintenance tasks to run on a regular schedule (or as close as possible) regardless of when your Mac is turned on. When you start up or wake your Mac, Macaroni checks to see whether a scheduled job is due, or overdue, and if so, it runs the script for that job in the background to completion at the next opportunity.

Since Macaroni operates only when your computer is on, and will execute a task only if your machine has been idle for at least five minutes, exact times of the various tasks will vary. Macaroni’s default setting will run scheduled jobs on your PowerBook or iBook only when the Mac is plugged in. If you’d prefer that Macaroni not wait in battery-only situations, you can disable these settings in Macaroni’s preference pane.

Macaroni installs itself as a Mac OS X startup item, so that it will run when your Mac starts up. You can access it in System Preferences. Double-clicking on the Macaroni icon brings up the main window, where you can view the status of any task. You can override any schedule and run a task immediately, and you can edit the schedules for these tasks. The progress of the most recently run task script appears at the bottom of the window.

Did you know that

the operating system

automatically performs

three Unix cleanup

scripts to keep your

computer running

smoothly? These scripts

work behind the scenes

and are scheduled

to run in the middle

of the night.

Immediately after installation, Macaroni goes to work transparently, automatically handling the following maintenance tasks for you: Daily Unix maintenance, Weekly Unix maintenance and Monthly Unix maintenance. These three tasks primarily involve cleaning up old temporary files and rebuilding various databases. In addition, Macaroni schedules Repair Permissions to run weekly by default. (This is the same Repair Permissions script that you can activate from the OS X Disk Utility, but it is handy to have it automated by Macaroni.) If you’re so inclined, you can also create a custom task by using the “New Job” button (accessed from the Macaroni’s main window) and writing your own scripts.

Parlez Vouz?

Macaroni also includes a fifth bonus maintenance job, which can be used to save a large amount of valuable disk space by removing language-specific localized files from your hard drive. This has to be configured first; you must tell it which languages you want to keep and which ones you want to remove. For example, the iTunes 4.0 installer includes Chinese (both Taiwan and mainland), Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish versions. If you’re not multilingual, you don’t need all those languages on your hard drive; the only language you can’t remove is US English, which OS X needs to work properly.

(Recently , after configuring the Remove Localized Files to delete all the non-US English files, I checked the job log for the statistic. Incredibly, Macaroni had removed 108,496 files and 29,063 directories to liberate a whopping 519.13 MB of disk space on my hard drive!)

Since other apps will also include many languages, you’ll want to run this job (or schedule it to run automatically) every time you update Mac OS X or install a new application that contains foreign language files.

Macaroni’s Main Window displays a list of scheduled jobs and the last time each was run. You can also check on recent maintenance, and change Macaroni’s default schedule. Selecting one of the jobs displays results of the most recently-run task on the lower pane.

Yes, You May

Repair Permissions deals with the functionality of each individual file. Mac OS X is at its core a Unix system. In Unix, every single file has “permissions” that determine what you’re allowed to do with it. There are three basic types of permission: “read”, “write”, and “execute” (formerly known as open, edit, and run). Things can and do go wrong with files and their permissions, especially during the installation of new software. If, for example, an application somehow loses the “execute” permission, the Mac will not run it. To avoid quirky and disabling side effects to your apps, you have to run Repair Permissions both before and after installing new software, and before and after a system update.

(Some time ago I had just this problem. I had neglected to run Repair Permissions before a system update and my Photoshop app would no longer launch. It took me some time before I discovered what caused the problem: during the system update: Photoshop had lost its permission to execute. I had to remove all the Photoshop files, then reinstall the app—so be forewarned.)

If certain configuration files, for example, have “write” permissions when they shouldn’t, system security can become compromised, and your computer could fall victim to a virus. One of the reasons you don't hear about Mac viruses the way you do about Windows, for example, is Unix's concept of permissions—which is yet another reason to Run Permission regularly, or, better, let Macaroni do it for you.

High Carb Workout

Not only is Macaroni a must-have utility that performs exactly as promised; it’s available at a bargain price. Get it and install it. You can fiddle with and override the default schedule settings, but I installed Macaroni and forgot about it, knowing that it is cleaning house in the background, which is its purpose. Like its namesake, this digital pasta is healthy for your Mac.

Macaroni’s Schedule Window: Double-clicking on one of the jobs in the main window brings up a Schedule Window pane, where you change the job’s schedule, schedule restrictions, and configuration. Note: the job name in this instance is Repair Permissions, which is scheduled to run weekly, on Sunday. You can modify settings to suit your needs.

About the author: Eden Maxwell is a fine artist and published book author. He has contributed to many publications, including Popular Science, Art Calendar Magazine, Drachen Foundation Journal, Popular Mechanics, MacStreet Journal Online, Omni, MacUser, MacDigest, and Computer Gaming World. His art has been exhibited on both the West and East Coasts and his work has appeared in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Eden is currently writing a book for artists to be published in 2004. Visit Eden’s Atelier and Gallery website. You may also reach him via .