Hands-On Review--MUMenu X 1.0

In order to assist the Mac community, Macs Only! is an "early adopter" of software, software updates and hardware. That's right, we are guinea pigs and proud of it, i.e. is until we hit a real bad one that does significant damage. Fortunately, that happenstance is rare and getting more rare with Mac OS X.

To be a relevent "guinea pig" we need to keep up with software updates. We get a lot of direct mail from developers and some of it we post, particularly if we actually use the software. But, of course, this isn't enough so we keep our eye on web sites that specialize in posting Mac software updates. One of the top such web sites is MacUpdate.Com established and run by Joel Mueller.

Recently, Joel posted a free menu extra application, MUMenu X 1.0, that greatly assists in keeping software up-to-date on the ragged edge. MUMenu X installs a floppy diskette (remember those?) icon on Mac OS X's menu bar. Mouse click on it and a popdown menu extends which provides the latest 25 software updates included on MacUpdate plus it notes the last time when the MUMenu X list was updated and provides an update-on-click link and a MacUpdate.com link. Here is a full screen shot.

Each update on the list has a submenu that provides a short description, the author, a "More Info" link and a direct download link. Click the latter and the download starts immediately. There's no need to go to a web site and click through one or more pages.

When new updates are added to MacUpdate.com, the floppy diskette icon turns a bright green. So, you have to be comfortable with MUMenu X automatically checking MacUpdate.com over the internet for you. For us, this is a great feature because we do not have to cold hit web pages in search of potential updates.

MUMenu X 1.0 is a free menu extra application that may be downloaded from MacUpdate.com. We have used it since it came out 10 days ago and have had absolutely no problems of any kind. It's a winner as is Joel's still totally free MacUpdate.com.