It’s been a while since I posted about a free gem, so today’s is Disk Inventory X. It has not only a sweet X at the end of its name, but also an icon that is too futuristic for anyone. I’m constantly trying to keep at least 60 gigs of free space in my harddrive, but sometimes it’s hard to know what’s using it all up. Disk Inventory X scans over every directory and file, detailing how much real estate they take up. It lists which folders use up the most and color-codes the files by kind in a wild topographic map of the harddrive. If you’re looking to start Spring cleaning a bit early, be sure Disk Inventory X is by your side.

Today’s a good day for a free gem. Fluid takes web apps to the desktop and then some. Enter the URL of a website and Fluid will compile it into either a native desktop application or menu item. It’s extremely handy for web apps that are frequently visited or kept open such as Gmail. I use Fluid for Gmail, Google Reader (using Helvetireader of course), and Springpad. It let’s you customize the application’s icon, which prevents it from standing out on the dock like a OS 9 Classic app. Check it out!

I realized it’s been a while since I posted about the free gems I find useful. I’ve known about this little diddy for a while, but never thought I’d find it useful—what a fool I was! Quicksilver has allowed me to reduce my dock down to the finder and the trash. In short, it’s a hotkey application launcher, but so much more—it can quickly open files as well. I used to live by the dock’s stacks feature to keep my apps organized, but I soon found myself having more stacks than apps! Now, all I do is hit option space, type the first few letters of the app I want and there I go. It’s especially handy for those apps that are useful, but not everyday useful. I haven’t dug into Quicksilver too much other than it’s primary purpose, but I know it offers a whole lot more.

Happy Thanksgiving! I felt the need to post something today, so why not another Free Gem! MainMenu is my little set it and forget it app for running batch maintenance tasks. The key to a long computer life is repairing permissions. You don’t need MainMenu to repair permissions, but it makes it a lot more convenient and then some. To name a few, a batch can be set to: repair permissions, run cron scripts, update prebindings, clear caches, and clean archived logs. The only downside to this app is that when it’s almost done, it focuses itself about 3 or 4 times. It’s not a huge deal, but when I want to run it in the background, it should stay in the background. Regardless, check it out.

Also, I’ve added comments and enlarged images to Destroy Today v2, so just a little bit more and it’ll be ready. There are only a few images that can be enlarged at the moment, but I’ll sift through and apply to all images that call for it.

I feel the need to share more of these little finds, but I don’t want to bombard my posts with only free gems. I’ll try to keep it to a weekly post. I’ve been using Yemuzip for well over two years now and I’ve never had a single complaints. For Mac users, you can easily right click and select compress to zip a file or folder, but the unzipped result doesn’t look too nice on a PC. Yemuzip creates a PC-compatible zip through drag and drop, making it a breeze.

I’ve fallen in love and couldn’t wait to tell someone. Springpad is my new favorite web app. I was planning on making an Adobe AIR task manager, but Springpad already has everything I could ever want—well, almost. I contacted them suggesting a public API, so I can make a lightweight widget to see what’s on my agenda. Now, I’ve only dipped my feet, but I plan to dive deeper tonight and see what else they have to offer. I think the task manager was enough to rave about.

So I realized I rarely post about anything unrelating to Destroy Today. I’ve tried to keep things central to my work, but I think it’ll be okay in this instance. Every now and then, I come across an extremely useful application that is both lightweight and free. Those free gems make life so much easier, attributing to an essential part of my workflow. My applications have been promoted by others—why not lend a hand to the ones I use?

Starting off this new category of posts is an add-on called Sound Menu. At work, I sometimes find myself needing to switch between my headphones and the internal speakers. It used to be such a drag to unplug my headphones each time, or go into system preferences, knowing I’ll be switching it back five minutes later—this is where Sound Menu comes in. I found him on VersionTracker, and he’s already gotten a really solid amount of positive ratings. Simple and to the point, it allows you to switch your audio input, output, and system sound output. If I want my music to play through my headphones but the little frog sound to always come from my internal speakers, consider it done. (In all honesty, I use the Funk alert sound)

[update] When I got into work this morning, I realized I use a different menu for switching audio—SoundSource. It’s equally as simple and convenient, and I must admit, I prefer its menu icon to Sound Menu’s—headphones are in, speakers are out.