You may not be familiar with a company named WunderMoosen, but Mac OS X users should get accustomed to the moniker. The company makes a variety of utilities for the next generation operating system, including The Moose’s Apprentice (TMA), “the missing Mac OS X utilities.”
“We consider TMA to be the Missing OS X Utilities because it allows you to edit important configuration files (like restricting user access to ftp and telnet, etc.) in a user-friendly graphical interface,” the folks at WunderMoosen said in their product information.
TMA lets you edit your UNIX configuration files. With its graphical user interface, you can inspect, edit, change, and create configuration files such as: hosts.allow, hosts.deny, motd, shells, ftp users, ftpchroot, ftpwelcome, and more. You can use it to enable or disable services in the inetd.conf file. TMA databases your updates in an encrypted format. However, you can’t make all these changes without the Mac OS X Administrative authentication (though you don’t have to be logged in as root to use the utility).
As a security measure, TMA has a backgrounds process that monitors the state of your files and verifies them against its last saved database version to protect your system against hackers. If there’s not a match, a “Hacker Alert!” goes off. TMA costs US$15 and is a 5.3MB download.
Of course, a lot of us Mac OS X users aren’t into editing configuration files. For us, WunderMoosen offers a variety of simpler product.
MoosePad is a $25 replacement for Apple’s NotePad. MoosePad also supports Speech and Multiple Memo Databases. It’s targeted to users who may reuse large amounts of text, or store an inventory of product serial numbers and software activation codes. Memos aren’t stored in clear text and can be password protected. It’s a 4.1 MB download.
MooseCalc is a multifunction calculator that allows the addition and subtraction of dates. You can use it to convert to Julian Day Number. You can show equivalent dates in Jewish, Islamic and Julian calendars. If you have Calendar 2000, MooseCalc, can present to you a list of all your Calendar 2000 holidays with a list of “number of days” until the event from the present date. It has a built-in Cities Database of cities around the world, their local time, Daylight Saving Time information, time zone, as well as GPS formatted latitude/longitude. Time mode can also be used as a Stop Watch and a countdown timer. What’s more, MooseCalc is a standard Numeric calculator with trig functions. It’s also a computer calculator that understands Binary, Hex, Decimal and Roman numerals. MooseCalc, a 5.6MB download, has a price tag of $15.
FontChecker is a font inspection tool that supports HTML, can be used to create a “favorites” database, and turns each font into a character palette. FontChecker shows you what key code you need to enter to reach the character but goes one step further. Just drag the desired character or the HTML character code from your FontChecker palette directly into your document. FontChecker allows you to database a collection of your favorite special characters across all fonts. The next time you need one of your special characters, you can simply open your FontChecker favorites and drag the character into place. It costs $15 and is a 4.0MB download.
Calendar2000 is a calendar utility that begins with the year 1, goes to 99999, and calculates Moon Phases, shows equivalent Jewish, Islamic, Julian dates. It has 20 built-in calendar Reform definitions, understands, calculates and automatically displays religious holidays such as Lent, Easter, Passover, Rosh Hashannah. Calendar2000 lets you define holidays that don’t occur on the same day every year (such as Thanksgiving). Plus it automatically calculates and displays such holidays. You can save a calendar as text or HTML. Calendar2000’s built-in databases include This Day In History, Hourly Planner, Address Book, Personal Memos for each Month. The utility is a 6.4MB download file and has a price tag of $25.