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System Maintenance

What is brew and why you need is on your macOS device

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Brew is a package manager for macOS. It simplifies the installation and updating of macOS applications.

Brew allows you to install your favourite apps with a few clicks. In addition, Brew makes it easy to manage your app dependencies. Brew automatically resolves and installs any dependencies that an application may have when it is installed.

It is thus easy to keep your applications up-to-date and to ensure that you have all necessary dependencies installed. Brew is also an excellent means of discovering new macOS applications. Browse through a list of popular apps and install them with just a few clicks using Brew. This makes it easy to discover new applications that you might not have known about otherwise.

How to install & use the Brew package manager

A website called brew.sh hosts the brew package manager. You can install brew by running the following commands in your terminal:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

2) Once brew has been installed, you can use it to install your preferred macOS applications. To install an app with brew, simply type:

brew install

3) Brew will automatically resolve and install any dependencies the application may have. Therefore, it is easier to keep your applications up to date and ensure that all of the necessary dependencies are installed.

4) You can also update your macOS applications using brew. To update an application, type:

brew upgrade

Quickly uninstall apps from windows, even the sneaky ones

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

When you first started using your computer, it was silky smooth and fast. Now it is a sluggish mess.
Especially now that many of you are stuck at home, you may be trying new apps that turn out to be a disappointment.

  • How do you make sure you remove all the files when you uninstall that application?

  • Why doesn't the app you just installed have an uninstall option in add/remove applications?

The free app I am going to talk about will help with all of the above and more. It is called BCUninstaller.

What is BCUninstaller?

BCUninstaller stands for Bulk Crap Uninstaller and is a well designed tool to help remove any application, leftover files and more simply and quickly.

Many apps don’t have easy to find uninstaller options in the Windows Add/Remove Application applet but most leave behind a ton of garbage files. BCUninstaller uses its own appliction detection engine and has options to clean up “leftoer files”.

Here is a great video that shows how it works

Installing BCUninstaller is as simple as downloading the installer (from here) and then following the standard installation options.

Once the application installs, it will scan your computer and find all the installed applications. If you want to uninstall something, search for it using the search feature and then click on the uninstall button at the top.

It can detect these types of applications:

  • Normal registered applications (same as Programs and Features and many other uninstallers)

  • Hidden/protected registered applications

  • Applications with damaged or missing uninstallers

  • Portable applications (looks in common locations and on portable drives, configurable)

  • Chocolatey packages

  • Oculus games/apps

  • Steam games/apps

  • Windows Features

  • Windows Store apps (Universal Windows Platform apps)

  • Windows Updates Applications from all of these sources are treated the same - you can filter, export and automatically uninstall them in the same way.

To clean leftover files, click the Tools tab, then choose Clean up Program file folder and choose which discovered files you want to delete.

Download Glary Utilities Pro for Free (worth $40)

technologyEdward Kiledjian

 

I love good system maintenance utilities but I like free and free system utilities even better. Now you can download Glarry Utilities Pro for free. It will clean, repair and maitain your system. It offers to securely delete files and folders and much much more.
Normally this software costs a cool $US40 but they currently have a promo bringing the cost to $28. but wait there is more... Get it now for free using the below promo.

  • Go to this link
  • Download the version entitled Slim Build
  • Install the app 
  • Start the app
  • Go to the Status tab
  • Click on the register button 
  • Enter these credentials:
Registration Name: EaseUS Users
Registration Code: 3788-61679-58234-2362
This seems to be a special promo by EaseUs and was discovered through Slickdeals.
I haven't found an expiry date so download this as soon as you can and register.