Find large files fast

My 80Gig MacBook hard drive fills up fast. A lot faster than I realize at times. Being the type that likes new music, tv shows, and movies on my devices. Throw in a movie and sound editing project or two and space is gone in a flash. So last week when my drive was full, I deleted a few things but it just seemed like there should have been more room on my drive. For the life of me I couldn’t find where my hard drive space had gone.

There has to be a better solution than scouring through my folders looking for something I missed. So I hit google and found GrandPerspective. A great app that shows a block view of your hard drive and its files. It lets you see in a glance where files are hiding, and with a click you can find where they are on your drive. In the end, I found that I had some duplicate movies as well as some large files in my Drop Box I had forgotten about.

I now consider GrandPerspective a must have utility. Im sure it will be a no brainer the next time I need help clearing some space. With drives getting bigger and cheaper, its more likely you’ll forget about that monster file hogging space somewhere on your computer.

On a side Note, I am seriously planing an upgrade to my Macbook Pro’s hard drive in the near future. With 250Gig drives for under $100 at newegg.com (250Gig Macbook Pro 2.5 SATA 9.5mm thick HDD $80) why wouldn’t you? Maybe because its a pain in the rear to open the Macbook Pro (Macbook Pro HDD replace tutorial). But I’m gona do it one of these weekends. Ill be sure to post an article when I do. Note that the MacBook can utilize the larger 12mm thick drives (400Gig MacBook 2.5 SATA 12mm thick HDD $99). Also the Macbook HDD has a much easier install (MacBook HDD replace tutorial).

half day at Apple

Like an old fuzzy TV with no signal. My Mac seemed as if it would be out for weeks. I have never had a hardware problem (that I didn’t cause myself) on any of my Macs for as long as I can remember, and I got my first Mac in 2000. After a week long vacation I cam back to the office with the idea of catching back up. I moved the mouse which woke up the screen and as soon as I clicked on Firefox the screen went to a white fuzzy flashing mess. I went through a series of troubleshooting ideas, the first of which was the coincidence of being gone from the office. Is someone playing a joke on me?

After booting from the Mac Install disc and seeing the same problem, I concluded that it was not a software issue. Getting caught up on work was not going to happen today.

Tuesday morning I logged on to apple.com/retail to find my favorite Apple store and set up an appointment to see a Mac Genius. The worst part was carrying a Mac Pro 2 x 2.66 Dual-Core Intel Xeon through Sax Fifth Avenue and into the mall to get some help (those things are heavy). Read the rest of this entry »

Its Friday!!!

Here’s some cool FREE stuff to play with.

iMedia Browser

Download iMedia Browser

My Favorite, or at least most used, app this week is iMedia Browser, from Kareli.com. Not just another window on your desktop. iMedia Browser waits prowling in the corner till you need media. In whatever app your using, Photoshop, Mail, Quicktime, iMedia Browser supports drag and drop ease to all your apps.

Use it whenever and wherever you need to access your library of photos, music, videos, and bookmarks. Read the rest of this entry »

Mozy, Free Backups

Mozy said, “one in every ten hard drives fail each year.” I don’t really know if that even means anything!? Do you mean Hard Drives that are a year old? Or just ten random Hard Drives that failed within a year? Or maybe we shouldn’t think about it because hard drives do go out and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

If your not out to spend a Hundred bucks on MobileMe this year, but you still want to back up your Mac. You may want to give mozy a try. Mozy is a simple and safe way to back up all the important stuff on your computer. A copy of your data is stored in a secure, remote location for safekeeping, so that in the event of disaster your data is still retrievable.

When I replaced my work computer I used Mozy to restore all my contacts, email, key-chains, miscellaneous settings and some important data to its fresh installation. It worked great and was easy to set up. The best part is that Mozy gives you 2Gigs FREE!!! However, if you need more space You’ll be paying close to MobileMe prices anyway.

Mobile Me

Apples Moble Me service has had its ups and downs since its launch. I have had a mobile me account for about a month now and haven’t been affected by some of the described problems aside from a few momentary outages of Mail and Homepage. Nothing as drastic as losing the contacts from my iPhone, as was the case after a sync bug struck Monday morning. The bug was caught and fixed by the afternoon and most where not aware the problem existed.

This after Steve Jobs announcement to the Mobile Me team at Apple., “It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store,” he says. “We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence. The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services,” Jobs says. “And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year.”

I bought Moble Me mainly for its sync capability, and have been happy with the service. Knowing that every change I make to my iPhone will be moved to my other computers without a second thought is worth what I paid. Oh yeah I got my Dad and my Brother to pitch in and we share a family pack. I would suggest getting some family or friends together, or even sell off those 4 sub accounts in the family pack. A Hundred Bucks is a lot for one account. Family pack is the way to go.

All in all, I am excited to see what MobleMe rolls out in the next few months. Some great improvements from dot Mac include, the ability to add a domain name to your website, iWeb is much better than the old online web editor. Making online galleries and uploading photos is improved. However there is still much room for improvement and that overall feeling of Apple reliability. Check out a 60 day trial of mobile me at www.me.com