¿Dónde está more hard drive space?

Want to add an extra GB (or more) of available space to your hard drive? Got 15 minutes?

Then download Monolingual:

(From their site:)

"Monolingual is a program for removing unnecessary language resources from Mac OS X, in order to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space."

When you launch Monolingual, you can choose which languages you want to keep and which ones you want to ditch. Watch in amazement as it quickly runs through every installed application, library and system file removing thousands of MBs worth of useless files.

I just finished running it and I went from 6.42 (available) GBs to...

... :: drumroll :: ...

... 8.17!! That's a grand total of 1.75 extra GBs!

Important!: The ReadMe document (easily accessed via the Help menu), contains the following bit of pertinent information regarding Adobe applications. They really should have made this a default function (who reads those "ReadMe" files, anyway?), but, nevertheless, please complete this step before proceeding:

"Adobe's newer applications have a self-heal feature which checks for the existence of certain files and refuses to launch the application if one of those files is missing. This feature does not distinguish between files that are critical components of the program and those files which are not needed, e.g. localization files. Therefore, you should exclude Adobe's (applications) from being processed by Monolingual. Open Monolingual's preferences window, add "/Applications/Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional" (for example) and deselect the checkbox next to the item."

Uninstalling MAC apps... for real!

No doubt you've seen programs like AppZapper before. And I'm sure you thought to yourself (as I recently thought to myself): "Why would I need a special program to delete applications from my MAC, when all I have to do to uninstall them is to drag the app to the trash?"

Well, yes, that's true -- but not entirely. If you drag an .app to the trash, the application itself is deleted, but what about all the other files associated with it, like install preferences, caches, and other support files? Do you really want to spend the time to locate and delete those files yourself? And then how do you know, for sure, that you're deleting the right files? This is where AppZapper comes in handy.

From the site:

"AppZapper is for people who want to confidently try new apps while knowing they can uninstall them easily. Drag one or more unwanted apps onto AppZapper and watch as it finds all the extra files and lets you delete them with a single click."

Sure, it's not harmful to have these "extra" files sitting on your hard drive, but they can take up valuable space. For example, several months ago, I decided that while GarageBand is a terrific program, I was just never going to use it and I preferred to have the space instead. I dragged GarageBand.app to the trash and figured that was it. Today, I typed "garageband" into spotlight and found several (large) support files associated with the program.

From this day forward, I can guarantee that as long as I own AppZapper, I will never drag an application to the trash ever again. Today, I removed over 250MBs of useless files from my hard drive. And boy, does that feel good!

Cost: $12.95 USD (free upgrades for life)
Requirements: Tiger

Twitter Treat

I don't know if I "get it", yet -- but I'm certainly willing to give it a fair shot.

TUAW describes Twitter as "... a real-time presence sharing site that allows users to quickly and easily tell their friends what they're up to."

There's now also Twitterific. This TUAW article does a good job explaining what it is and does so I won't bother.

So... why would you want to constantly update people on what you're doing? Because, with apps like Twitterific, it's really, really easy... so, why not ask yourself... "why not"? In short, it's a complete waste of a very insignificant amount of time.

Despite my above admission, it does have a useful function; away or status messages are a good way to let colleagues know what you're up to; that you don't want to be disturbed or that you're out of the office and unable to be subject to their disrupting. But, since I work from home (and approximately 8 feet from my only colleague), it isn't, at all, necessary to notify him of my every move.

Perhaps I will invite people I know to sign up so I can see how interesting (or not) it is to track their daily lives. As Twitter has become more popular, spoof accounts for "celebrities" like Darth Vader and the new iPhone have begun popping up. Equal parts stoopid; equal parts entertaining.

Also, a good thing to mention; if you want to use Twitter, others don't need to sign up for an account to see what you're doing. All you have to do is post a badge on your site. As you update (either via the Twitter site or using the Twitterific app), it updates. Just check out the column on the right of the main page ----> and you'll see what I mean.

If the creators of Twitter or Twitterific happen by this post, I have one suggestion: since I have two internet persona's (one real, and one fake), I created 2 Twitter accounts. It would be... terrific if either Twitter or Twitterific would allow me to sign into both accounts (and post to both accounts at the same time) or to at least to run/manage each account simultaneously.

Anyway, if you find this post and you decide to sign up, look me up and we'll see if this app is worth all the Twitter-Chatter it's garnering. (Sorry. Habit.)

Edited to Add: Just to clarify; you do not need to be a MAC-user to sign up for Twitter. You can post via the site. (Twitterific, however, is a MAC app.)