IceClean Editor's Review

IceClean (formerly known as Polizei) is a maintenance application which features some extra functionality.

The interface of the program uses multiple buttons which provide you the functionality. These buttons are placed on the top of its window. The functionality is also provided by the menus, but this method is a little bit more unusable than the main window.

The 'Netinfo' button runs the 'netstat' console application and it displays the result within its window. This functionality is available by default in OS X, but IceClean provides an easier way.

'Trace' is another network tool which is also available in the shell under the name of 'traceroute'. The application doesn't provide you any output in the same way the console does. The application might look locked up for some time if the route to the host which you would like to trace is a long one and it comes with lots of hops. Using this feature requires some patience.

By clicking the 'Whois' button you have access to another command line interface program: 'whois'. IceClean also provides you a nicer way that the Terminal does.

While running any of these console applications, IceClean may be a little bit unresponsive. If this occurs, don't use the 'Force Quit' functionality unless it gets stuck or you really want to.

The 'Burn' button reveals the burn support which IceClean has. However, this support is limited to quick/full erase of a rewritable medium, or the writing of a 2GB RAM Disk.

The 'Hibernate' functionality reveals the hibernate support, also known as Safe Sleep, which is built in Mac OS X 10.4 since 10.4.3. The hardware must have support for ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) in order to be able to use this power state. If the feature is unsupported by your hardware, then the application disables Safe Sleep in order to avoid any kind of trouble. IceClean supports these power state modes: Sleep, which is the default sleep mode, Deep Hibernate, Deep Hibernate with Virtual Memory support, and the old Fast Sleep method. The hibernation support is decent, but to be honest I rather prefer LighMe instead.

The 'Shortcuts' menu provides you a list of 'Pure UNIX Power'. Basically these are bunch of UNIX scripts which can do various maintenance tasks. These are also provided by the application menus.

The 'Unix Pages' button also provides a nice frontend for a command line application. This runs the 'man' command which returns the manual of a certain UNIX application. IceClean has some sort of displaying error of the manuals, so it's recommended the usage of the Terminal till this will be fixed.

The last buttons from the top bar are 'Terminal' and 'Console' which open the OS X system utilities with the same name. The 'Terminal' button is welcomed as some of the UNIX features of IceCast malfunction or they have a slow feedback, so the Terminal is a better alternative.

Pluses: it is a complex utility with multiple and various features; it has a lot of UNIX maintenance scripts; it is pretty easy to use; it provides a frontend for certain command line applications.

Drawbacks / flaws: minor displaying issues; unresponsive interface in certain cases; the output from the command line UNIX applications is displayed after the command has finished the running.

In conclusion: this is one of those applications which remind me of Onyx because of the great maintenance support. To be honest, IceClean has one of the best maintenance modes, with lots of scripts which run in background, although some of the provided features must be used with a lot of care.

version reviewed: 2.5