Or at least one man’s very own way of riding the hype shortly before Russia’s own Apple store opens it’s doors. Nevertheless, the box looks slick and guarantees at least a laugh from the ladies.

While this app from Arcana Research is already around since 2004, the latest version 1.1 has recently been adjusted by it’s japanese developer to work just fine with Mac OS X Leopard.

StartupSound (originally called StartupSound.prefPane) installs itself under ‘system prefrences‘ below the menu ‘other‘  at the bottom of the window. It’s interface looks very clean & simple.

The check box on top turns it on & off and the slider below lets you decide how loud your mac should sound off at start up. I like it simple and just check the mute box. Sweet silence at last.

While this is not an essential piece of software for many, it most definitely is for me. Hell, I would even pay $2 for it (multiply that with the amount of users and imagine the smile on that japanese dude’s face).

It works flawless (but may fail once at the first startup after a fresh Leopard installation) and you will never notice it is on your hard disk at all. Best of all, it comes totally free. 5 out of 5 seems the only solution.

Pro:

• super easy to handle
• works flawless
• comes for free

This little snitch doesn’t only blow the whistle when your apps try to call home uninvited, it puts a restraining order on them. To what degree is totally up to you.

The trouble is you usually don’t know if an app is just checking for updates or transmitting sensitive user data. Take any media player’s log file or any mailing lists as an example.

This is how little snitch assists you:

1. An app tries to call anywhere and is immediately put on hold by little snitch.

2. Little snitch asks you if your app is allowed or denied access

a) only ‘during this session‘, ‘while the app is running‘ or ‘forever‘

b) to a ‘particular server‘ or ‘any network connecton‘

Once you’ve set this parameters for your usual suspects (which pop up by themselves on their first call) you won’t even notice that little snitch is running in the background protecting your privacy.

Little snitch might even assist you in keeping more bandwidth available since unknown traffic in the background is a thing of the past.

Even though it has a freeware feel to it, it’s not. You may use it free up to 3 hours each session, after that you’re on your own. Here’s the actual (imho hefty) price list:

So $ 24.95 is not cheap, not at all. The reason why we still highly recommend it here is because it is unrivaled out there. There simply is no alternative. So meanwhile ObjectiveDevelopment got itself a gold mine here and we don’t even want to speculate how many copies were sold until today.

Of course that’s just business, but a $ 10 single license would just seem more appropriate here. Not because it’s not worth it, it just look & feels too simple to dish out § 24.99.

Some sources tell us this app is also famous for other (darker) reasons. Those users who use pirated software on a regular basis may use this app to avoid accidental security updates which override their existing cracked files. One might even suggest this app could be the one and only software the underground scene is actually willing to pay money for. Well, we did, even though our motives were more noble of course.

Besides that little snitch is a “must have” item and a high achiever in our mac tools top list, ranking currently No.1 under system tools. It could have earned a 5 bag rating (functionality wise it does) if only it’s price would drop by at least 50%. 

Pro:

• 100% control over your outgoing traffic
• works absolute flawless & reliable
• highly customizable