Comments on: Socks

By: F451

F451 — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:22:10 +0000

“With all that was going on in my adolescent life at that time I wasn’t exactly in a prime position to be running a software business!”

Fair enough, and everyone deserves at least a second chance. Thanks for your honesty. Zotted!

By: smallfool

smallfool — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:02:31 +0000

That’s great, and very fair. Thanks very much – and I’m in. Very best with your projects.

By: Morgan Davis

Morgan Davis — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:38:13 +0000

smallfool: technically the license is single user, but I don’t really mind if you share it so long as it’s within reason — ie. family, etc.

By: smallfool

smallfool — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:17:47 +0000

I don’t think anyone was suggesting “silly or redundant features”. But point taken: Socks is not intended to do anything the others don’t, just provide a neat way of doing them. Which it certainly does, so fair enough. And thanks to Morgan for taking part in the forum.

One other point: is the license single machine or single user? If it’s the latter, it would certainly be worth adding to the toolbox with the others. Sometimes one tool will work where others don’t.

By: Morgan Davis

Morgan Davis — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:43:27 +0000

Hello F451, this is Morgan from MKD Software. I admit that your concern is understandable and that I have heard similar sentiments in the past. While I might not be able to provide the exact reassurance that you’re looking for, the fact is that I was sixteen years old when I created System Optimizer X back in 2001. With all that was going on in my adolescent life at that time I wasn’t exactly in a prime position to be running a software business! I have since grown older and more mature, have taught myself Cocoa, written a few free programs for the Mac community, and started over on what was once the SOX project with Socks.

One thing I’d also like to point out is that Socks is not intended to be a replacement or even a direct competitor to some of the other popular utilities out there. I don’t want to include silly or redundant features in Socks just for the the sake of having another item on the feature list. Socks is intended to be a cohesive collection of useful tools, not a heap of random features. This is not to say that I’m not working on many new (and unique!) features for Socks 2.0 that I am very excited about!

By: Folsom49er

Folsom49er — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:18:06 +0000

To add to the other comments, it would be nice to have a tool that looks at your system and gives you more useful information about what is likely causing a problem before it applies a fix, possibly helping you find the program that is creating the issue in the first place.

By: smallfool

smallfool — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:42:06 +0000

Likewise. A quick look through the users’ guide doesn’t seem to reveal anything that isn’t covered in other apps in this very crowded field (I’m already running Macaroni for regular maintenance, and have MacPilot, Cocktail, Onyx, Disk Genius and Disk Warrior). I’m sure this is great if you don’t have the others, but it would be very helpful to know what, if anything, new it brings anything new to the table.

For example, the blurb above says it allow you to “troubleshoot odd behavior, crashes, and the “spinning beach ball.” What does this mean exactly? If it simply means you can run maintenance that should prevent or solve these problems, then it’s no different from the other apps. But if it provides some strategy for dealing with specific glitches – which is what this description describes, and what a user so often cries out for – that would be something else. But there’s no indication in the users’ manual that it does.

By: Ove

Ove — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:31:14 +0000

I already own Cocktail and Mac Pilot (both purchased here at MacZot!). Then there are some free options such as Onyx, Maintenance, et al.

What will Socks do that the first two cannot already do for my Macs?

By: Dink

Dink — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:27:51 +0000

I can’t start it on my Intel-Mac with 10.5.8 installed … strange.

By: F451

F451 — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 06:44:08 +0000

I was an ardent user of Socks when it was called SOX (System Optimizer X), but it fell off the face of the earth and my emails went unanswered. Now, that it has been resurrected I am more than leery of it incarnation. What does Socks now offer that its competition do not?