Continuing a series of reviews on how to save space, today we are looking at another valuable piece of software for Mac OS X. Today’s review is about Xslimmer from LateNiteSoft.

The Xslimmer Main Interface

When Steve Jobs announced the transition to Intel Processors at WWDC in 2005, the Universal Binary was born. Applications that were Universal Binary were natively compatible with both Intel and PowerPC architectures, and any application that wasn’t Universal Binary could be translated on the fly using Rosetta (like Classic; for Mac OS 9) on the new Intel architecture. So depending on the complexity of the application, by being a Universal Binary, the file size is increased; hence the nickname of ‘Fat Binaries’- a term left over from Apple’s transition from 68K to PowerPC.

Xslimmer is an application that scans through the code of your Universal Binary applications and determines, based on your computers architecture (be it Intel or PowerPC), what is unnecessary, and removing it. The unnecessary code Xslimmer removes would otherwise do nothing but take up space on your computer! By going through all your applications and removing the Universal Binary code, you will start seeing a significant amount of space coming back. For example:

Logic Pro 8: 335MB
Slimmed to: 95MB
Garage Band 3: 179MB
Slimmed to: 60MB

However, Xslimmer does more than just removing the unnecessary binary code- it can also remove unnecessary languages. Applications like Adium can have up to 20 differnt languages bundled within. This takes your applications on a strict diet- and for someone who has upwards of 300 applications, the difference can be very noticeable- especially if space is tight.

Xslimmer makes the process amazingly simple. When you launch it, you simply drag the application (or applications) you would like to slim down and it begins to analyze the amount of space it can save. When you are ready to slim your list of applications, simply press the “Slim!” button in the lower right hand corner; and wait while Xslimmer does the work for you.

Xslimmer can, however disrupt some applications and make them potentially unusable. However, the Xslimmer developers have created and maintain a blacklist of known applications that are effected by slimming. If you end up slimming an application that isn’t on the blacklist, you can simply report the application and reinstall it, which is why you should always back up your computer before slimming your applications (and is generally a good practice)! Or you can use Xslimmers built in backup system that will let you restore an application that you suspect has been damaged by Xslimmer.

i i i i (4/5)
Xslimmer is a very powerful application that will help you save space. Its simplistic design makes it easy to use and a must have for anyone wanting to free up every last megabyte on their hard drive. Xslimmer has recieved 4/5 i’s from theiLife.com; and is worth the $12.95.

Thank you to the Xslimmer team for letting theiLife.com staff try out Xslimmer for free!

To understand my switch to the Mac requires a little background.

I’ve been a dedicated Windows user since the DOS age. Onto Windows 95, to 98, to XP, I’ve never truly experienced another operating system. But over the years I’ve grown very tiresome of fixing the problems on Windows. Everyday seems like a new issue appears just to piss me off. Well I’m finally sick of it.

Needs more LEDs!

So what finally sent me over the edge was this year when I was (once again) trying to fix a memory issue my computer has been experiencing since its last reincarnation. My current rig actually started from the bones of a ’95. I inherited the computer from my brother at 11 years old in the winter of 2001-2002, as my brother got a overpriced Alienware (which he had to send back about 6 times over the course of its first year). Upon receiving the aged machine, I decided that I would build a custom computer with the help of my neighbor. New case, new motherboard, 1.4 gHz AMD Athlon processor, and a salvaged graphics card. It started out rocky, I had a 6 gb harddrive, half of which was reserved to run windows, the other half I had to conserve and manage. This was soon met with my graphics card already being outdated, as well as the release of XP and other problems.

2002 – new graphics card; new harddrive; XP
2004 – fried my motherboard (dust); new board, new graphics card, new cpu;
2005 – fried my motherboard (electrical short); new harddrive
2006 – new graphics card

Currently, I’m running a GeForce 6600, 2.8 AMD Athlon XP, a gig of ram.

This computer has run into numerous issues, I can’t even recall all the software problems I ran into that either caused me to need a hardware upgrade, or a reinstall of windows. And this latest iteration has a major ram problem which, after trying many different paths, seems to be a motherboard issue. It is not due to incompatibility, it’s due to the motherboard being lower quality than what I expected.

So after 7 years of reboots and reconfiguration, I think it is time to retire my machine, and aim for something that I don’t think I’ll have to spend the next couple years fighting to get into working shape. In (hopefully) less than two month’s I’ll be ordering a brand new, shiny MacBook Pro! I will detail my switch over the coming weeks in more detail and certainly keep you all posted about my new MacBook Pro.

I had the pleasure of seeing a lecture at Columbia University by Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora.com and current Chief Strategy Officer. Pandora.com started in January of 2000 as The Music Genome Project, in an effort to characterize all music by attributing hundreds of musical ‘genes’ to songs. These include things like type of vocalist, guitar sound, rhythm structures, etc. A typical rock song has around 150 ‘genes’, while jazz songs mainly have upwards of 350 tags associated with them. Pandora.com was created to use this system and an additional algorithm to provide its users with a personal radio station.

Basically, a radio station is created when a user searches for a certain song or artist, and Pandora cues up a playlist that is made up of songs that match the musical ‘genes’ of the original query. Then, every time a song comes up, a user has options to give it a thumbs up or thumbs down to tell the algorithm whether he/she wants to listen to the song or songs like it. This type of recommendation system has done the company well, with over 7 million users and over $22 million in venture capital and debt financing. Also according to Compete.com, Pandora has increased the total number of people visiting their website by 126.2%. The lecture was primarily about the business tactics of the company, and how they struggled and fought to finally make it profitable(for two years most employees didn’t even work for a salary). It solidified my ideas that traditional radio and satellite are both dead. My reasoning after the jump!

Read more…

Yesterday, I wrote about the Psystar Open Computer, which ships with a Hackintosh version of OS X Leopard. Today, I am writing from the opposite perspective; why Apple offers a superior package.

A great combination.

Traditionally, the technology industry is divided into two sectors- hardware and software. There are hardware companies like Intel, AMD or Nvidia; and software companies like Microsoft, Adobe or Oracle. Very rarely do the hardware and software companies work closely together- and a company that produces both hardware and software bundled together is extremely rare. Apple happens to be one of the few remaining examples, and a unique one at that.

Over the past years, Apple has seen an increase in demand for its Macintosh line of computers, following the success of it’s iPod music player. What makes Apple unique is the combination of hardware and software into a tightly controlled package. This ensures complete compatibility and reliability of both the hardware and software. Everything is controlled by one company, which is also a bonus for customer support.

If you look at the current state of Microsoft; you see Vista and its failure as the successor to Windows XP. You see users petitioning Microsoft to keep the 6 year old operating system alive. Much like Windows ME failure, Vista has proven a nightmare for those purchasing new PC’s and the faithful who have upgraded. While the exact failure of Vista can vary by who you ask; some of the less subjective issues are the compatibility problems with existing hardware and the high system requirements. If Microsoft controlled the hardware, two major issues with Vista could be solved. Apple’s strategy of keeping the hardware and software tightly allows for a smooth computing environment.

Apple’s coupling of software and hardware is a far superior model- and it has finally come time to prove it to the world. Over the past years, Apple has been gaining market share with its iPod, Mac and iPhone. Through the iPod and now thanks to Vista, more and more people are discovering the benefits of controlling the hardware and software together on the Mac; and the consumers aren’t lying. While the Hackintosh may be a cheap alternative for some, the Mac is here to stay.

Apple released Safari 3.1 this past Tuesday, among speed increases and support for HTML5 and CSS2, Apple included a few more enhancements not known to all.

Safari 3.1 was released on Tuesday via Software Update to both Mac and PC’s.

Today, I’m going to be giving a couple small hints regarding Safari 3.1. If you have already software updated to get it, good for you! Otherwise, I recommend you do a Software Update, or check out Apple’s website for the installer.

One of the most interesting, and certainly attractive features of 3.1 is the Element Inspector. Meant for developers, you can select individual items and see its place in the code. This can particularly useful when debugging a website across multiple browsers or looking at why something doesn’t appear correctly. There is also a host of tools that allow you to see how large your website is to load, how long it took your computer to load scripts, images and more!

You can access the element inspector by right clicking an item on a page in Safari after running this command in Terminal (and then quitting and relaunching Safari, if it is open):

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitDeveloperExtras -bool true

Not only does Safari 3.1 improve upon the already rich experience in Safari, it takes the Safari for Windows out of beta! In version 3.1, Safari on Windows has transformed into a very rich browsing experience- and this isn’t just Apple speaking. Over the course of the past few days, I have read numerous reports about Safari’s growing strength on Windows- how it has become a real contender to Firefox and Opera.

You might have also heard about the recent controversy surrounding Apple Software Update for Windows. Basically, Apple is pushing Safari 3.1 upon anyone who has Apple Software Update installed- making it appear as an update to QuickTime or iTunes would. While I think the concept of spreading Safari for Windows is good, I feel that Apple should have only suggested users download Safari. Either way, Apple is seriously preparing to increase competition in the Windows and Mac browser market.

You can look at some recent reviews of Safari 3.1 for Windows:
PC Magazine
ArsTechnica

Or read about the controversy surrounding Apple Software Update and Safari:
Macworld

Often times, people request features for the iPhone. What about features found on the iPhone but not the Mac?

With the release of the iPhone firmware version 2.0, Apple has launched a set of enterprise features aimed at companies with mobile cell phones- support for Exchange servers, Cisco IPSec VPN and more. While this may be great for the iPhone, and help gain support from large companies and professionals alike- what about the Mac? If Apple supports these features for the iPhone, why can’t they give native support in OS X?

The initiative from Apple to open up the iPhone to developers and natively support a wide host of enterprise features is welcomed by all, as this is something Apple usually stays away from. In the past, Apple has typically made anyone wishing to use such enterprise features found in the iPhone firmware 2.0 relay on 3rd party developers such as Microsoft or Cisco. Why can’t Mail have Exchange support?! If Apple is going to continue to add features to the iPhone, will the Mac be left in the dark?

There is a long standing rumor that Leopard was delayed because of the June iPhone release date. This wouldn’t be the first time that Apple has neglected the Mac over the iPhone- but with good reason. The iPhone marks a new chapter of Apple, one that is showing a more mature Apple- and could become extremely successful over the coarse of the next few months. All I ask from Apple is- can we have all the iPhone features on the Mac?

Over the past few years, I have always wondered- how far can Mac OS X go?

Mac OS X was first released in 1999, with Mac OS X Server 1.0. In 2001, Mac OS X version 10.0 was released for desktop consumption. Based on UNIX, and taking many hints from NeXTSTEP, the NeXT Operating System, OS X brought us Aqua- a new GUI that reflected Apple’s colorful product lineup at the time. Now, almost ten years later, what has become of OS X?

Speaking about the recent Mac OS Tiger v10.4 release at WWDC 2005, Steve Jobs said:

Funny, that makes a lot sense- with last October’s release of the latest iteration of OS X, 10.5 Leopard- we are not even halfway into the 20 years Steve mentioned, but halfway through the 10.x cycle. In 2007, the Mac saw its market share rise to almost 8% by years end. Apple sold almost 4 million iPhones worldwide. Both product lines rely on OS X for software. From its inception in 1999, this is significant progress. OS X has become more than an Operating System- it is working its way into the core of Apple.

Last week’s iPhone Road Map event is a great example of the power in OS X and what it can do beyond the personal computer. The iPhone SDK will probably become another landmark event for OS X, as developers harness the power of the software running in the iPhone. Intern, not only will that sell more iPhones, but it will expand and solidify Mac OS X’s presence.

Later this year, we will see more and more integration of OS X into Apple’s other products that aren’t a desktop or laptop. For example, last year, we saw the iPhone, iPod Touch and AppleTV introduced- all of which run OS X at the core. This year, and as we continue into the future, we will see more devises shipping with OS X and continue to see it’s market share increase.

With more products running OS X, and continued demand for these products- be it iPods, Macs or iPhones- OS X has a very bright future. The shear fact that one OS is powering a Phone, an iPod, a set top media box and personal computers demonstrates its power and potential for future devices. The question is… what will OS XI bring us?