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Cleanup – Quick Start Guide

This Quick Start Guide is designed to help you to better understand Cleanup's special feature that allows you to get rid of leftovers and unneeded files. To learn more about all of Cleanup's functions, please see the user guide.

Overview
One of Cleanup's main functions is to help you analyze and safely clean your device from old leftovers, or as some would call it, junk.

Cleanup is using the term "items" to refer to Files and Preferences. What are these then?

Files
You are probably already familiar with the term Files, or you at least you should be since files hold all of information you work with on your device.
Each application you install (or installed, for that matter) to your device is composed out of files.
Even the application itself (the program you can launch and use via its icon) is a file.
In the Palm OS world (the operating system that takes charge of your handheld or Smartphone) these files are called "Databases" since they are built up out of records containing different information.
Let's say we are talking about a game: The game's level packs or music could be inside different files than the game itself. In case of an accounting program, each individual account can be a different file, etc'.

Preferences
An application saves little bits of information so that once you close it, it won't "forget" anything the next time you want to use it. Applications, in a sense, could use their own files to store this data, but the Palm OS has a special feature and place which allows applications to save and retrieve little bits of information fast. This special place is called Preferences Files.

• There are two files of this sort on a Palm OS based device: Saved Preferences and Unsaved Preferences.
  
  Cleanup pretty much ignores the fact that there are two different Preferences Files and lists all of the preferences together (besides distinguishing between 'saved' and 'unsaved' preferences using little icons: and ).

So, where's the problem?

Ok, this is how it works: When applications create new files and preferences on your device they have to "tag" them with a special value. This special value is known as the Creator ID. Each and every application on your device has to have a unique Creator ID. When the time comes and you want to delete, let's say, a game you broke all of your records, again and again; you are essentially telling the Palm OS: "please delete Boring_Game".

When the Palm OS receives the command that one of the installed applications is "going down", it knows which of all files and preferences on your device belong to that application by looking at the unique application Creator ID and comparing it to all other items on your device.
When it finds an item that is tagged with that unique Creator ID, it gets the "polite escort out".

Uninvited Guests

In every party there are always a few uninvited guests, but for some reason they are the ones who are the hardest to get rid of (not really, but it's a good assumption for the sake of this tutorial).
In the Palm OS world these "guests" are called: unassociated items.
These items are saved to your device with a Creator ID that does not match any application on your device.
When you delete application X that created item Y, and X's Creator ID is different than Y's Creator IDs; the Palm OS will ignore Y keeping it on your device. This frequent "phenomena" happens from all sorts of reasons. This is not the time nor the place to go into details, let's just say that it happens, and quite a bit more than it should. click here for more.

Cleanup will help you get rid of these uninvited guests and will make some more room for...well, for more uninvited guests. But, the next time these uninvited guests appear, Uninstall Manager will make sure to "tag" them when they go through the door and kick 'em out when they are just about ready to leave.

So how do you actually work with Cleanup in order to locate and get rid of orphans?

Under both of Cleanup's tabs (or "views"), Files and Prefs. (short for Preferences), there are top level items called "Unassociated [...]". Under the Files tab you can see "Unassociated RAM files" and "Unassociated card databases". Under the Prefs tab there is only one item, "Unassociated Preferences". When selecting one of these top level options, Cleanup will list items that do not share a Creator ID with one of the installed applications.

Unassociated items, or "uninvited guests" are divided into two different groups:

1. Orphans: Items saved by long-forgotten Trialware software you once tried and decided to delete.
2. Items that are needed on your device that simply do not have an associated application. These items are not truly "uninvited guests", but more of part of the security force to keep the other guests from "tearing the place down".

As you might expect, you want to get rid of the orphans, but leave the other ones in place.

Figure 1 : Unassociated RAM files list
* The explanation here will focus on files, but it is exactly the same when it comes down to preferences.

So how do I know if a certain file belongs to the security forces (needed) or is an uninvited guest (unneeded)? Cleanup has a few tricks up its sleeve that help you determine which is which.

First things first, the "Color Coding"

As you can see, the selected item is preceded by a blue bullet, (and another icon, , which means it doesn't have an associated application).

This means is that this item was not monitored by Uninstall Manager when created or listed in the Signature File.

Items monitored by Uninstall Manager (Green bullet ).

Items marked with the green color were monitored by Uninstall Manager. This means that these items will be removed from your device when you uninstall (using Uninstall Manager) the application that created them. In most cases, you can ignore green colored items or add them to the Ignore List since Uninstall Manager is responsible to delete them when the time comes.

Items listed in the Signature File (Orange bullet ).

Items marked with the orange color are items listed in the Signature File. When you select one of these items and then select the Details button, you will see information concerning the item from the Signature File. Sometimes, it will show that item belongs to the operating system itself (will be marked "Palm OS", or "Sony", etc), other times you will see the item belongs to a game you no longer have. Based on the information found in the Signature File you can decide whether to delete or keep a certain item.

So, the first thing you should do in order to find out more about suspicious items is to download and install the latest Signature File.

• The Signature File is a growing collection of known "hidden" Creator IDs that certain applications use to save their data and of other system components that are not associated with a single application (for example, the Graffiti Library which is needed by all applications).

For the time being, let's say you haven't installed the Signature File as of yet.

For this example, we have selected a file called: "Bad File" (very suspicious name, indeed) and to find out more, we selected the Details button:

Figure 2 : Details Dialog

The Details dialog displays all the information it can find concerning the selected item: Its Creator ID (the Creator ID that Cleanup couldn't find any application that shares the same one), the Type (this is the Palm OS database type attribute which can be ignored if it doesn't mean a lot to you), the Signature field which currently shows "Please install the latest Signature File" (tap this field using your stylus to see the entire text), the Monitored field that tells you that Uninstall Manager is not installed and the Associated filed that says "No associated application" (if it had one, it would have been listed here).

So what can you tell me about this "Bad File" file then?

I can tell you that "Bad File" was saved under the Creator ID: bAdF and has the Type ID of: data.
Well, that's not very helpful now, is it? No, it is definitely does not help us determine if "Bad File" (despite its very obvious name in this example) is needed (a system file) or not (a piece of an old game you no longer have).

After installing the Signature File, selecting "Bad File" and Details again, you might see:

Figure 3 : Details dialog with the Signature File installed and "Bad File" recognized.

After installing the Signature File it's pretty reasonable to think that the file is not needed and can be safely deleted (and that's the most obvious the Signature File is ever going to be!).

Sometimes you will see in this field something similar to: "Crazy Rocket-Fire-Backgammon" which you might remember installing and getting rid of after 3 minutes of intensive gaming. In this case you will also want to delete it since it is not needed on your device anymore (its parent application, the Crazy Rocket game, has been deleted but for one reason or another, some of its files were left behind).

What if "Bad File" is not listed in the Signature File and all I see is "No Record Found" on the Signature field?

• Note: You should occasionally check to see if the Signature File has been updated and it might recognize "Bad File".
  You can also sign up for receiving update notifications to your email.
• Alternately, you can select the Update button from the Signature File dialog to check for newer versions of the Signature File directly from your phone.

For these kind of events, Cleanup's answer is the Search function:

Cleanup's Search process will go over each and every application on your device: The main memory, the expansion card and the internal drive (when available). Cleanup will try to see if the item you're looking at belongs to one of them or not.

The Search process is by no means foolproof, but it can help you be more or less certain if the item you're examining is needed or not.

When you select the Search button, the following dialog will be displayed:

Figure 4 : Search dialog

Select the Search... button from the Search dialog to start the process.

Once the process is complete, you will be taken to the Results page (with different items listed):

Figure 5 : Results page

To sum up the Results page without drowning in technical details, it would be suffice to say that the greater the number is, the greater the likelihood that the application that is listed on the same line as the number, is the one responsible for creating the item you searched for (which means that the item is still needed since its parent application is still installed).

By using the information from the Results page, you can reach a conclusion regarding that item (see the user manual for more); whether to keep or to delete it.

Ok, I got pretty much confused from all the colors and functions...when it comes down to getting the job done, what can I safely delete?

Everything. That’s right. Everything as long as you use the Backup option.

If one of your application loses its settings, your game loses the high score table (god forbid!) or anything just doesn't work in the same way it used to; you can always revert back by opening the Backups dialog to view and restore backed-up items to the main memory.

Figure 5 : Selecting the Backup checkbox when deleting items

When should I delete the Backed-up items?

After you worked with your device for a while (can vary in time...) and checked that everything works as good as it should.

More

For more information as well as technical details please see the user manual and FAQ.