Why and How to erase Mac drive?

When you delete a file, it gets transferred to trash and after deleting from trash, files get removed from the file system. Now, OS can write new information in the same physical area because it is marked as free space, it is a general concept. But, what do you think- has files been deleted permanently?

Answer is – No. Actually you can recover data by using any data recovery tool until OS doesn't overwrite data in drive. That is why, we should erase data permanently from Mac drive so that, one could not access data by unauthorized means. In this modern era, people and technology are very fast, your data can be used for illegal work. 

How to wipe data securely?

Disk Utility is an inbuilt Mac application, which helps Mac users to erase data permanently. Open Disk Utility from Application folder. Click the Erase tab and then click the Security Options button below, you’ll see four options—Don’t Erase Data, Zero Out Data, 7-Pass Erase, and 35-Pass Erase.

The Don’t Erase Data option—as its name implies—It doesn’t erase any data. Zero Out Data writes zeros over your drive one time however it does not meet government standards.

7-Pass Erase meets that US Department of Defence 5220-22 M standard, it writes over your data seven times. 35-Pass Erase option, which, as the name hints, writes junk over your drive 35 times. 7-pass option takes seven times longer to overwrite your data than does the Zero Out Data option. 

You can also erase data by using any third party tool. Stellar Mac wipe has the great ability to wipe Mac data beyond the recovery. You can wipe selected files, Internet activity, System traces, Instant Messaging, recent file histories, or your entire Mac hard drive. It includes Zeroes, DoD 5220.22-M, Pseudo Random, DoD 5200.28-STD, German Standard and Russian Standard.

This tool wipes free spaces, there are two option inside this tool – File wipe and Drive wipe. You can wipe either single hard drive or multiple drive. 

Conclusion- Wiping hard drive is an good idea to keep your data safe and secure. You can easily sell your hard drive after wiping.

Now Windows 8 supports Mountain Lion 10.8.3

OS X Mountain Lion(10.8) is the major release of OS X. It is the refined version of previous release, Lion. There are many new features added in this version like Gatekeeper, imessage, ichat, improved version of safari etc. however, Mountain Lion received some negative reviews also, due to bugs in added new apps. Then Apple has released 10.8.1 and 10.8.2 with modifications of apps. But, still Many Mac people are complaining that , windows 8 is not supported by Mac Mountain Lion. 

Windows 8 with Mountain Lion

Finally, Apple on Thursday released Mountain Lion 10.8.3 with dual boot camp so that people could work with Windows and Mac simultaneously. There are many new things has been added:-
1.3TB Mac hard drives are supported for Boot Camp, new versions of Safari etc. Some bugs like issues with printing contacts, problems with changing desktop picture, issues with Notes and its IMAP handling has been fixed.

The important thing is Windows lovers can easily work on windows apps with Mac OS. Working with new apps is a great fun but, do you think – it is possible to keep Mac speed in smooth order?Yes, it is possible, Mac users  should  know about optimizing process also so that they could avoid slow Mac. Over a period of time , performance of Mac decreases so you need to keep Stellar Drive ToolBox software. It is a complete pack of 12 utilities and great optimization tool. It can work with Mountain Lion nicely. 

Features of Stellar Drive ToolBox:-  
1. It's latest version is Drive ToolBox 2.5
2. You can do defrag, partition, speed up, clone wipe , data encryption etc. activity with your Mac.
3. It's surface Scan Features can easily scan bad sectors of the Mac drive or volume
4. You can easily get smart status of your Mac drive.

If you keep this Optimize Mac OS X software with 13 utilities, you can have very efficient management of your Mac machine.

Source :- http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1640

Difference between Disk optimization and defragmentation

When you save a file, it is not necessary that complete file will be saved into contiguous memory location in hard disk. If there are not enough memory space available in hard drive then it (file) gets broken into multiple parts by OS, which are called fragments. These fragments get saved into noncontinuous memory location and the whole process is called fragmentation.

In this situation, it becomes tedious for OS to access each fragments of files quickly and processor needs to put extra efforts to pick up each part of fragmented data and execute it. A file may be broken into two fragments, or 20 fragments, or 200 fragments but overall conclusion is - it increases the seek time of processor and slow down your Mac.

There are two scenarios under which you need to defrag your Mac:-

1. You have many large files in Mac
2. You have less disk space.

New Mac file system has some mechanism to handle fragmentation but, only up to 20 MB file size. For large files there are no option except defragmenting your Mac.

Disk optimization:- It is a different process from Mac defragmentation. Optimization means to keep all scattered free spaces together in hard disk. When Mac OS is first installed, it logically groups files close together on the disk to enhance performance. But, when a major system update gets done , files becomes scattered over hard disk and different portions of disk occupied by these files.

However, disk optimization includes many activities like setting disk permissions, cleaning Mac, disk status, defragmentation etc..

Tools for Mac Disk defragmentation:-

Since, Mac doesn’t have any inbuilt tool for defrag Mac so, you need any third party tool for this purpose.

1. Stellar Drive Defrag- It is one of the famous tools for Mac defrag. When you scan your disk by using this tool, it will keep together all fragments of related files that can theoretically result in increased performance. There are amazing functions inside this tool like full defrag, quick defrag, metadata defrag etc. You can see the temperature of disk while defragging. You can download this tool from here:- 

 

You can see the overview of fragmented data in graphical layout view with their exact location on mouse over. Tools for Mac optimization:- If you're going to optimize your disk, be sure to check the disk first with a program like Disk Utility and keep backup of your important data.

Stellar Drive ToolBox is a great optimizer for Mac. It is a complete pack of 12 utilities.

Conclusion:- You can do either optimization or defragmentation as per your need but, if you keep Stellar Drive ToolBox on your Mac it will do both the tasks for your Mac. It is a complete pack of various Mac optimization utilities like defragmentation, speed up, partition manager, wipe etc..

Encrypt and Protect your Private Files

If you have some confidential data in your Mac and you don't want to reveal it with anyone, what should you do?

It is often hard to guarantee that no one can access it. Leaving your Mac logged in the office or at home may allow other people to gain access to your important data. In these cases, users need to keep their data into encrypted form whether you are working on Mac , Windows or Linux. No one can read your encrypted data before decryption because encryption changes your data into unreadable form.

Keep your Mac data safe

You can create an encrypted disk image by inbuilt tool of Mac, go to Disk Utility (located in Applications/Utilities), click File menu and choose New, Blank Disk Image. Choose a name for your disk image and where you want to save it from the dialogue box. Now, when you click on Create button, you will be prompted to enter your password. You can choose password with the help of Password Assistant. This tool ( Password Assistant) will help you to choose a password that is both easy to remember and hard to crack. Press Ok and your data gets encrypted now.

Although, the best place to keep your data safe is Library folder, put your files in this folder. The main benefits of this , it isn't searched by Spotlight. Mac users can encrypt their data by Encryption tool of Stellar. It is very effective and it has many features. You can choose any file or folder from your Mac and encrypt them to an unreadable format by using this tool. 

Features of Mac Data Encryptor

• It encrypts files and your data with password.
• You can hide encrypted data.
• You can locate all hidden encrypted files in the system
• It has option to verify, whether the listed hidden files or folders really exist in the system or not.
• It encrypts your Mac data so that no decryption utility can decrypt it.
  

Stellar Mac Data Encryptor comes with Drive ToolBox tool which is a complete pack of 12 Mac maintenance utilities. For more details: - http://www.drivetoolbox.com/data-encryptor.php

Golden rule to prevent data loss in Mac

One of the biggest reasons of loss of is corruption of hard drive directory. There can be various reasons responsible for the corruption of hard drive directory and some of the common ones are power outage, improper system shut down, bad sectors on hard drive, virus infection, etc Mac people thinks that, they are working on the most advance OS of this world so, they don’t need to keep backup. But, it is not a good idea, every Mac users should keep backup of all their data to prevent any data loss situation.

Backup simply means, you are keeping at least one copy of the original data. If the data is important, store your backups at an off-site location. It helps to keep your backup safe from damage, in case of a fire or disaster. However, it is said by experts that precaution is better than cure, so if you take some precautions, then you can avoid such unexpected data losses to some extent.

These are some effective strategies to avoid data loss from Mac:-

1. Keep regular backup of your data- You should keep regular backup of your data. You can do it with Time Machine utilities. But, if you want to make bootable backup then you need to create clone of your Mac data. Stellar Drive Clone software is the best solution to create cloned backup.

2. Strong Power Backup Plan- If you are using Mac desktop, then having UPS is the best option so that, you could avoid improper machine shutdown.

3.Proper ejection of external data storage- It is always recommended to eject external drives properly from your Mac to avoid abrupt machine shut down.

4. Maintain your Mac on regular basis:- The maintenance activity includes regular backup, updating anti-virus software, checking and repairing Mac hard disk and disk permissions to keep Mac healthy.

If you follow above recommended steps then you must keep your Mac data safe. Stellar Drive Clone has many features, it can keep your data in the form of image or clone as per your need. You can check it on various review sites, where users has given good reviews for it.

Tips to defrag Mountain Lion

OS X Mountain Lion is the latest update of Apple OS and it is very popular among Mac users. Although Mountain Lion has more polished and several new features as compared to Lion but, if you want to keep your Mac in healthy state then you need to follow some maintenance work on regular basis. Many Mac people ask questions through different forums that they are facing slow Mac. There are many reasons of this problem:-

1. Lots of unnecessary system junks stored in your Mac, which consumes useful memory spaces.

2. Fragmented data in your Mac disk.

Mac cleaning is a significant task which should be performed to improve Mac efficiency by every Mac user to clean all unnecessary system junks from Mac. Now, come to the fragmentation point in Mac disk- If the files are stored in a contiguous way, your Mac will perform faster. But, over a period of time, large files are broken down into small data chunks, at the time of storage and gets stored in noncontinuous memory locations. It leads to slow data processing and low response time during your work.

Mountain Lion OS X

There are many problems which occur due to fragmentation. This includes severe system errors, application conflicts, program failures, etc. However, Mac OS X can prevent fragmentation of files up to 20 MB file size . But, you need to defrag your Mac to stop large files from being fragmented. You can defrag your Mac with Stellar Drive Defrag , it is recommended by experts. This can easily arrange all scattered fragments of data in a Mac volume in contiguous memory locations and optimize free space for the use of new data.

New features of Stellar Drive Defrag tool:-

1. You can see fragments of file in layout view with coloured block.

2. You can see the path of file by mouse over on memory blocks.

3. You can set automatic Email notification after the completion of defragmentation process.

4. It has temperature scale to show you temperature of your Mac hard drive during the defrag process.

5. You can set any tone to play and make you alert after the completion of defragmentation.

There are many features added by Stellar developers in this new version of Mac defragmentation tool to make it easy and understandable for people. By using this tool you can keep your Mac running as like as newly purchased state.

Alternative of Mackeeper to fix slow Mac performance

One of my friends was facing sluggish behaviour of Mac from last one month. We started search through internet “how to get rid of slow Mac” through many forums and we were suggested by some Mac users to clean system junks and unnecessary stuffs from Mac to gain more free spaces.

Some of them suggested a cleaning tool -Mackeeper , it's price was $99 . We downloaded and found that it is a complete pack of 16 utilities like Data control, cleaning tool, optimization, Security. Out of 16 utilities, we need only cleaning tool.

However, it cleaned all junk files on the hard drive in order to free up space. Smart Uninstaller removes widgets, applications, preference panes and plugins. It removed the preferences, web caches and log files. But, the problem is use of other utilities associated with Mackeeper pack, we don't need that. So, going through a complete pack, it is a good idea to purchase single cleanup tool.

After two-three days, I saw good reviews of Stellar speed up Mac at other forums and it's price was just $39. Therefore, came to an idea that it is better to go for just a single utility instead of complete pack of any software. Stellar speedup Mac is only $39 and it's features are very advance.

From my point of view Stellar speed up Mac is the best alternative Mac clean up tool and it can remove all unwanted data and applications from your Mac and make your Mac faster. The new version v2.5 of this tool has many more features.

Stellar Speed Up Mac

1. You can schedule cleaning task.

2. Easily clean up unwanted Applications, Widgets and Plug-ins in just few clicks.

3.You regain the space being consumed by useless files and applications.

4. This tool is very easy to use and user-friendly.

5. Mac users can clean either single volume or whole Mac.

The above mentioned facts can easily be verified with lots of positive reviews at verious Mac forums and users groups.