The macosxhints Rating:

[0 to 10 lights; 10 = perfect!]

• Developer: Dicom / [Product Page]
  
• Price: $0 [donationware]

Cocktail is a useful little application that handles a bunch of routine tasks in one convenient location. It may not bring cool whiz-bang new features to the forefront, but it's got a nice GUI and integrates a number of routine tasks and tweaks into one convenient location.

You can use Cocktail to run the system maintenance scripts that are supposed to run daily, weekly and monthly; enable journaling; set the hard drive spindown time, remove DS_Store files from a volume or folder; delete locked files; remove or view system log files; create symbolic links via drag and drop; set the speed and duplex mode of your Ethernet card; request a new DHCP lease; remove various caches; force empty the trash; recreate the Mac OS 9 desktop alias; tweak the Finder to show invisibles, remove zoom rects, add double scroll arrows; tweak the Dock to add a shadow, use transparent icons for hidden apps, and position/pin the dock. There's also an "auto pilot" feature that can pre-bind files and repair permissions (along with some of the previously mentioned features).

As a I said, no amazing new features, but a nice collection of routine tasks and tweaks in one location. Yes, you could do all of this with other programs or via the GUI or Terminal, but Cocktail puts it all in one convenient location.

It's rated a "7" due to some apparent issues with non-English systems (can anyone confirm?), as well as its use of a non-standard admin password dialog box, which gives me just a bit of uncomfort when entering my admin password. There's also a bit of a delay at startup as Cocktail scans the disk and does a couple of other chores. Overall, though, it's hard to beat the combination of tasks, the nice GUI, and the donationware price.