cleanup

A couple years back, iTunes faithful were rewarded with TuneUp Companion, a handy plug-in that makes filling in, cleaning up, and correcting ID3 tags for tracks in one's music library a cinch. Now, those who prefer Windows Media Player for their music management and playback have been invited to the party. As of today, users will be able to download a version of the software for WMP from the TuneUp Web site. Even better, the first 50 CNET readers to e-mail TuneUp will receive a code to activate a Gold account, which regularly costs $29.95.

Those who opt … Read more

Prevx offers to clean up your computer by tracking down harmful viruses, spyware, and more. While the program looked to be a winner, it was impossible to know because of its substantial trial limitations.

Prevx impressed us immediately with its professional interface, which features a small collection of commands. We never visited the Help file because navigation felt intuitive at every step of the way. We successfully scanned our computer for corruptions with a single button. When the scan finished, Prevx listed each issue, where and what it was--we found only spyware--and the level of threat it posed. Another aspect … Read more

Hazel is a flexible utility designed to help you tidy up files and folders--especially in your Downloads, Desktop, and Trash--and keep them organized with rules that you specify. You access Hazel through a System Preferences pane, where you can create Mail-style rules to execute a wide variety of actions. For example, Hazel's built-in sample rules include options for cleaning up your Downloads folder, such as automatically moving images and music into your Pictures and Music folders respectively. These sample rules only hint at Hazel's capabilities, though, and you can set the app to automatically import into iTunes and … Read more

Everyone has a wire box -- that container you toss random wires, plugs and other tech junk into. It's generally all the useless stuff that you just can't bring yourself to get rid of just yet. Being in "the biz," my wire box is actually a set of four interlocking plastic storage containers, which had become a serious closet hazard, to put it mildly. Here's how I spent part of my MLK weekend -- the dreaded annual wire box cleanup.

A couple of times a year, I check the list of autostart programs in Windows XP's System Configuration Utility (aka Msconfig) to see if any apps that I don't need to start automatically have snuck onto the roster.

The older my PC gets, the more important it is to avoid slowing down XP's start-ups as the OS loads programs I'll probably never use.

(Note that the $30 WinPatrol, the free CCleaner, and many other Windows utilities can be used to prevent applications from starting with Windows.

Here, I'm focusing on the tools built into XP. … Read more

I had occasion to open the C:Windows folder on my old XP machine, and was immediately struck by the number of folders whose names began "$NtUninstall". They were from several hundred kilobytes to 10 megabytes in size, and there were more than 150 of these bad boys just taking up space on my hard drive. There were also a few multi-megabyte files whose names began with "$MSI31Uninstall" or "$NtServicePackUninstall". Some of these folders dated back to when I bought the machine in 2003.

If Explorer won't show you the contents of the … Read more

Greer Park in upscale Palo Alto, Calif., isn't what you would call dirty.

Nor is it sprayed with graffiti, broken down, rusty or disheveled. In fact, nothing on the surface would indicate the need for a concentrated effort by Google employees and friends participating in Google's first International Cleanup Weekend, an endeavor born in part to publicize the MyMaps application and KML, the XML-based markup language used to make Google's interactive Web maps.

Yet here were eight of us, stooping to harvest bottle caps, gum wrappers and cigarette butts from the tanbark and grass at 9:30 … Read more

Google has just announced the latest project to bubble up out of Google Earth--International Cleanup Weekend, a coordinated global effort taking place Saturday, October 13, and Sunday, October 14, 2007, at locations throughout the world.

Who's doing the organizing? You are, naturally, using Google Maps to plot cleanup sites.

What began as an internal corporate eco-venture for local involvement has now been embraced by communities in 15 countries. Google Earth's outreach team is asking groups of six to 10 people to pick a modest project close to home, do it, then share their accomplishments by posting photos and videos to the team's Google Map.

Individuals can coordinate their own events or try to contact Google's partner organizations, like Idealist.org, Sierra Club, and The Scout Association in the U.K., which are urging their members to form local projects.… Read more