Spring Cleaning 9.0
Allume Systems
Price: $49.99 (demo available)
Pros: Utilities to organize and clean a hard drive.
Cons: Slow performance, high price.
by Drew Bailey, 1st Lt, USAF
I realize how useful a laptop can be every time I go TDY. During one of my recent TDYs I noticed that my iBook G4 only had about 2 of the 30 GB total Hard Drive space remaining. In order for my iBook to be useful, I needed more space. I was not ready to upgrade the hardware nor did I want to by an external hard drive. There is already to much to take TDY as it is without worrying about taking an external hard drive and the cables necessary to use it. My solution was to maximize the use of the existing 30 GBs currently on the machine. SmithMicro's Spring Cleaning 9.0 is advertised as a useful tool for organizing and cleaning a hard drive.
Spring Cleaning 9.0 is basically a query system that allows the user to look for certain file types. It allows the user to search their system for widgets, fonts, empty folders, duplicates, music, internet files, etc.. A user can look for all empty folders that take up space on the hard drive. These items can be deleted once they have been found. I found the Language Finder to be very useful in freeing up hard drive space. This application looks for all the languages that the computer supports. I deleted all but the English files, freeing up several gigabytes of disk space. I also found the Universal Application Finder to be useful. This application looks for all applications that contain code for both Intel and Power PC systems. Once these have been located, the app will allow the user to remove the code for the unused system. I was able to remove Intel code from many of the programs I use everyday, thus freeing up hard drive space.
In addition to file search applications, Spring Cleaning contains some system utilities. It allows the user to clean the system cache, check for corrupt files, find broken aliases, and more. I liked the FileChecker application. It allowed me to look for any files that are corrupt and delete those which were. Spring Cleaning allows the user to schedule certain tasks to be preformed at a specified time. For example, you can set the system cache cleaner to run once a week.
Overall, I am satisfied with the software. Many of these options could be preformed using the Finder, however Spring Cleaning is able to speed up the process of cleaning up the hard drive. I did have an issue with the amount of time some of the queries took. Some of the searches took a few hours to complete. SmithMicro did include a few extras with the software. A copy of Stuffit was included on the install CD, as well as Internet Cleaner.
The price of this software is around $50.00, which strikes me as too much. There are several other programs out there that perform such tasks and are much cheaper. Although useful, I do not recommend this software due to its price-tag. It is not really any faster to use the software than it is to search through your files and delete those you do not need.
System Requirements:
* Mac OS X 10.4 or later