Whenever I notice my Mac is starting to run a little sluggish or when my laptop’s small solid state drive is running low on space I usually run one or the combination of Cocktail and CleanMyMac. Also, because I have a Macbook Pro and a Hackintosh the MacBook Pro is only used when I’m traveling or at a remote location where I can’t use my Hackintosh. The problem with this is OSX runs daily, weekly, and monthly scripts that get skipped if the laptop is not on, causing things to slow down a bit.

Cocktail - Pilot Tab

Cocktail

The first one I want to talk about is Cocktail. Cocktail is the free one of the two and by itself can do most of the work. All you need to do is download the app, install it, open it and go to the “Pilot” tab. From the “Pilot” tab select all the check boxes and hit run. This will run all the tasks at once. You can have it play a sound or quit when it is done as well. If you don’t want to do things automatically you also have the option of going through each one of the settings and doing them that way. Cocktail will run those daily, weekly, monthly scripts I was telling you about as well as clear caches, repair disk permissions, and clear log files. There is also a bunch of other cool things it can do such as tweak your Network settings and enable/disable certain default Mac settings that could slow or speed up your computer.

CleanMyMac

CleanMyMac

While this next one is not free, it is also not that expensive, only costing $14 dollars for a 6 month membership or $29 for a lifetime membership to the application. It is also not absolutely needed to get your Mac running smoothly but it is nice to have as a backup to catch what Cocktail misses. When you get this and open it just click the green “Scan” button and when it is done scanning hit the blue “Clean” button and your done. When it is finished it will tell you how much space you saved. The Application itself cleans your Caches, Logs Unneeded Langauge Files, Universal Binaries, System Junk, and Trash. It also comes with a Quick Erase to quickly erase files and an Uninstall Applications utility ,and lastly it comes with a Extensions Manager. So overall you are getting more features than just some basic maintenance program. 

According to TechCrunch Netflix is now cracking down on users streaming their instant movies service to simultaneous devices. Even though according to Netflix FAQ and Terms of Use you are not allowed to do so they have just recently decided to actually enforce it. What this means now is if you share your account with your family (Like I do) or with friends you can only have one device watch an instant movie at a time. So for example sometimes my parents are watching a Netflix movie the same time I am but it is no longer possible.

Lifehacker has also reported the same story with an update saying:

Update: Netflix is now saying, in an email to GigaOM, they are not enforcing this concurrent stream limitation. The error messages some users have been seeing are just a glitch, apparently, and some Netflix customer service reps may also have been supporting the crackdown rumor—”an error” that the company is correcting. However, this policy, albeit unenforced, of only allowing one stream at a time, depending on your plan, still exists.

If this glitch never goes away or turns out not to be a glitch but them actually enforcing their terms will you still use the Netflix service? For me the answer to the question is a simple NO.

I just read an email saying that Parallels Desktop 7 for the Mac is going to be coming out very soon. Parallels has also said that if you are a current owner of the software you are entitled to an upgrade for just $49. This is a good chance for you Parallels 5 owners who are running OS X Lion because that version and prior versions are not compatible with Lion. If you have version 6 I recommend you just stick with 6. I run version 6 and have no problems.  

Here is what the email said about the new features:

FASTER – Performs 60% faster than Parallels Desktop 6.
NEW – Support for OS X Lion Fullscreen mode, Launchpad, Mission Control and more.
ENHANCED – Faster graphical user interface built on 64-bit technology.
FASTER – Display graphics 45% faster than Parallels 6.
ENHANCED – Start, stop and resume Windows more quickly.
ENHANCED – Access and work faster with Windows and Mac files.
NEW – Run even more games and 3D applications with support for up to 1GB video memory.
NEW – All new help and documentation makes it easy to find the information you need.
ENHANCED – Support for all Mac OS printers now available in Windows.
NEW – Run OS X Lion as a guest OS.
ENHANCED – Reduced CPU usage improves notebook battery life.
NEW – Support for high-quality audio formats up to 192KHz.
NEW – Purchase and download Windows from within Parallels Desktop.
NEW – Immerse yourself in games, music and videos with 7.1 Surround Sound.
NEW – Easily share your iSight or FaceTime HD camera between Mac and Windows applications.
Plus – 90-day money back guarantee

And much, much more

According to WinRumors Microsoft will be making a beta public release of Windows 8 next month. The best part about it is Microsoft has confirmed it will be easy to get. By the way “Public” means everyone gets it. But beware betas do expire so I do not recommend using it on a PC where you hold valuable data.

The software giant is currently preparing a Windows Developer Preview build of Windows 8 to be made available next month. Microsoft’s official BUILD Twitter account revealed on Friday that pre-release bits would not be secret and easy to get hold of.

According to WinRumors, “Microsoft revealed on Monday that it plans to fully support USB 3.0 in Windows 8.”.

USB 3.0 is the latest standard for USB connectivity. USB 3.0 supports transmission speeds of up to 5Gbit/s, 10x faster than USB 2.0 (480 Mbit/s). A number of laptops now support USB 3.0, including models from Sony, Toshiba and Dell.

Todays app over at App of the Day is Print to PDF that allows you to easily print anything you could normally print on your iOS device to a PDF file. This makes it very easily to look up what you printed to PDF such as a website or email for future references. Simply launch the app to start the printer, go to the Mail, Safari or any app with AirPrint support and use the ‘Print’ function to save your information as PDF.

Price: $3.99

Yes, that is right, I have 5 more invites for Spotify to give out. This time I’m going to make it a little bit harder to get a free invite. First 5 people to respond with the answer to the question asked in the full version of this article gets a invite.

The Question: How long was i in the Military and when did I get out?  What are three ways you can contact me?

CLUE: The answer is somewhere on the site

Don’t forget to Google Plus and Facebook Like this article!

If you don’t know what Skitch is, it’s probably the best screen capturing tool for the Mac and now Android. It has now been acquired by Evernote and made free to use. Also there is no longer any more advertisments or restrictions on the free version.  Skitch also works well with Evernote making it easy to draw or capture screen images and quickly edit them and drag/drop them into Evernote. Skitch is not a “must have” for the Mac when running Evernote.

You can grab Skitch for free at the Apple Store

Hurry up and head on over to Engadget for the chance to win some really cool prizes in their “Back To School Sweepstakes“.  Some of the items they are giving away includes, laptops, phones, tablets, subscriptions to services like Spotify, and much much more. It is also really easy to enter you just basically have to be a US resident and be able to comment on the post, so what are you waiting for?

With Lion Tweaks by iFredrik you can easily fix or change some of the annoying features found in OS X Lion. This is a must have if you miss some of the old features like the built in FTP server or natural scrolling, and you just need a quick way to get the “Work around”. The best thing about this tool is its completely free, just head on over to iFredrik and grab it.

What you can change is:

• Enable/Disable the user Library folder.
• Change to a 2D or 3D dock.
• Enable/Disable system window animation.
• Enable/Disable mail reply animation.
• Remove/Add Reading List Icon in Safari.
• Enable/Disable Spelling Correction.
• Enable/Disable repeating keys.
• Enable/Disable permanent scrollbars.
• Show Hidden Files.
• Disable Crash Dialog Pop-Up.
• Get a new Stack List View.
• Highlight Stack items on mouseover.
• Change iCal leather interface to aluminium
• Change Address Book leather interface to aluminium
• NEW: Disable resume for a single app
• NEW: Enable the hidden FTP-server
• NEW: Customize Launchpad folder background