Reader John has a hard disk gone bad and needs to recover some files off it before he moves on to a newer, more reliable disk. With that, though, he's having trouble deciding which data recovery software to use, in part because there are no good reviews of any options out there.

Ever have your Mac tell you that your startup disk is so full that you can't run any more applications or really do anything? That happened to Sarah, and we help guide her through diagnosing and solving this problem... and we might even learn some troubleshooting tricks along the way!

Evomail, an iPad-only email client that aims to truly "re-invent email," was released today. I've been testing the release candidate they submitted to Apple, and from what I've seen it's a respectable first volley of a product whose path will be, in the words of its founders, "a marathon and not a sprint." Part of the reinvention is UI-related, and part is functionality, specifically allowing full-time push notifications from a 3rd party client. This reinvention, however, comes at a cost: you need to provide Evomail access to your email account so their servers can log in to check for mail and deliver these push notifications.

Once again I'd like to thank Smile for sponsoring us here at TMO, and this week I get to tell you about PDFPenPro 6. You've likely previously read my stuff about PDFPen, and PDFPenPro builds on that with a few key features, including document permission settings and a new automatic form field creation tool.

Ever have a bunch of files you want to rename? Maybe you received a group of documents from your Windows-using friend that have some wonky text in them, or maybe you want to serialize and date some pictures? Automator, built right into your Mac, makes this so easy you'll scratch your head twice; once for not having done this with Automator in the past, and a second time if you've never used Automator before because you'll see how easy and powerful it is.

It is with great pleasure that I announce this week's returning sponsor, Crashplan. We all know we're supposed to back up, and we even have some easy ways to do that locally now thanks to Apple building Time Machine into the OS. And that's good, but what happens if your Time Machine disk gets corrupted or, worse, what happens if it's stolen or damaged at the same time as your main Mac? CrashPlan can help.

For years the best option for Mac-using TiVo owners to get content off of our TiVos and to our iDevices was iTiVo. But iTiVo, built largely in AppleScript Studio, has always had a buggy user interface, and with Mountain Lion it originally required some Terminal fu to get it to work at all. Building on the work done for iTiVo (and even reading your preferences from iTiVo), cTiVo picks up and takes the whole project into Objective C, making it a faster, cleaner app than its predecessor. And as with iTiVo, cTiVo is 100% freely available and open source.

In addition to 3rd party app data, iCloud also stores data for a few Apple apps and services, and if this data gets corrupted you can wind up with a very unstable iPhone (or iPod or iPad). Unfortunately Apple doesn't provide a way to let you tell iCloud to reset this data. Short of permanently disabling "Documents & Data" syncing with iCloud, the only way to fix this is to delete the offending data from the iCloud (Mobile Documents) folder on your Mac and reboot your iOS device.

We've mentioned this a few times recently in conjunction with Google shutting down their Reader service, but for those of you who weren't aware, Google offers a service called Google Takeout which allows you to download all your data from every Google service you're using. It's super-easy to use and gives you your data in industry-standard formats, making it easy to view and edit your data almost anywhere.

I'm happy to welcome MacPaw to TMO as our sponsor this week. MacPaw are the makers of many great Mac utilities, including CleanMyMac 2, our focus for this week's sponsorship. CleanMyMac 2 is a suite of Mac cleanup tools, some of which have analogs elsewhere, but many of which are only available here or have features that are otherwise unavailable without lots of time and Terminal knowledge.

This week I have the pleasure of not only welcoming Smile back as our sponsor here at TMO, but also talking about a new version of their fantastic product, PDFpen. For those of you who don't know, PDFpen allows you to edit and modify your PDFs in many different ways. Need to add a signature to a PDF you've been sent? PDFpen can do it. Need to edit the text in an existing PDF? Yep, PDFpen can do that, too. There's more, plus all the new features in PDFpen 6. Click the link and read on.

I am happy to welcome back online backup service CrashPlan as this week's sponsor here at TMO. CrashPlan is something I have personally used for years, and I always happily recommended on our Mac Geek Gab podcast, too.

Here I am at SXSW, and it's now fully transitioned from the tech geeks (and marketing flacks) attending the Interactive festival to the music geeks attending live music showcases at night and catching a few panels during the day.

In response to the recent details of the movie studios and ISPs "Six Strikes" deal, Dave Hamilton posits that this isn't the right solution, saying, "It's not my job as the consumer to support the studios' business model, it's their job to change their business model to serve me." He says more than this, too, and you can read it all right here. 

This week I'm happy to welcome Smile back as our sponsor here at TMO. Smile makes a several fantastic software packages for us Mac users, and this week our focus is on one of my personal favorites, TextExpander. For those of you who don't know, TextExpander lets you take chunks of text that you might wind up typing over and over again and assign each of those to a small snippet of just a few characters.

This week's sponsor here at TMO is CrashPlan, a company I'm thrilled to write about because I use them and love their service (and yes, I pay for it!). In a nutshell, CrashPlan is an online backup service for your Mac (and other machines). You run a client application on your Mac, set it up with your account, and then it packs up your data, encrypts it, and securely ships a copy off to CrashPlan's servers over the Internet for … that day when you need it.

Dave Hamilton has long been a fan of Sonos and, let's face it, music in general. His discussions about Sonos on the Mac Geek Gab podcast have led several folks to ask him exactly what his Sonos setup looks like these days. Dave, as always, is here to answer!

Dave Hamilton's been a long-time fan and user of Sonos's wireless hi-fi systems. And while he's explained what they are a few times in the Mac Geek Gab podcast, today marks the first time he does so for you in print. If you've ever wondered what Sonos is, wonder no more!

Mac Geek Gab listener Seth sent us 3 quick tips this week and as soon as I read them I knew we had to share them with you. The tips include making your print and save dialogs default to be in the expanded view PLUS one to default to not save iWork documents to iCloud. Terminal commands after the jump.

Dave and John were out in San Francisco last week and recorded a Mac Geek Gab live from the Macworld/iWorld show floor. They took questions from listeners in a "Stump The Geek" style, and also shared some of the Cool Stuff Found at the Expo. There was unfortunately something wrong with the audio setup on the show floor resulting in over-driven audio as Dave explains in the show's intro, but we leave this out here for you just so you can choose whether or not you want to listen! Either way, your two favorite geeks will be back in action with MGG 436 on Sunday, the 10th!

Technology willing, the article following this link should have a live window into the Macworld All-Star Band Performance at tonight's Cirque du Mac X. Note that the article may be live a little while before the stream starts up, but the band is planning to hit the stage some time around 9:15pm PST.

Tonight marks the 10th incarnation of our annual Cirque du Mac party at Macworld/iWorld Expo in San Francisco, and for the first time this year (technology willing!) we'll have a stream of the Macworld All-Star Band's performance for those of you that can't be in San Francisco with us tonight!

I am very happy to welcome Smile as this week's sponsor here at TMO. Smile this week will celebrate their 10th year in business, and that is something for which all of us Mac and iOS users can be thankful. Our focus this week is on PDFPen for the iPhone, winner of a recent Macworld App Gem award. This is the mobile version of the software that we all know and love (and use!) on the Mac.

This week John asks, "Dave — Which microphone should I use for podcasting?" I get this question so often that I figured it was time to publish some general (and some specific) advice based on what I've learned doing our Mac Geek Gab podcast for the past 8 years (plus what I've learned using microphones, in general, for 30 years). Short answer: You want a mic that you can get really close to when you're talking, and dyanmic is better than condenser, but read on and I'll explain why.

Mac Geek Gab listener Philip sent in this great tip about a shortcut he accidentally found to get to the Drafts list on your iPhone or iPad. Just hold Compose and voilà!

I'd like to thank Newer Technology (and, of course, their parent company, Other World Computing) for sponsoring TMO here this week. The focus this week is on their Power2U replacement wall outlet. The Power2U has two AC outlets just like you're used to, and then also has two USB ports that are capable of 2A (10W) of charging power, enough to properly and quickly charge your iPad, iPhone, or other USB-based device. Just plug in your USB cables and go.

Yes, folks, while CES happens this week we're also deep into planning for everything we'll be doing at Macworld/iWorld 2013, and that includes … Cirque du Mac X (that's the 10th incarnation of Cirque du Mac and we're happily using the roman numeral to illustrate that… we trust you understand why!).

I'm happy to welcome Other World Computing back as this week's sponsor for us here at TMO. This week we're focusing on OWC's memory upgrades, and I couldn't be happier about this. If my history of the company is correct, I believe RAM was one of OWC's very first product lines, and Larry and the team over there really learned to obsess over getting the technical details right — a trait that has stuck with the company all the way through today.

I'd like to thank BitSuites for sponsoring TMO this week. BitSuites is an iOS app development team that takes a different approach, and one that works. Indeed, we've worked with BitSuites — they wrote our Mac Geek Gab iOS app for us — and it was a hugely positive experience.

Our thanks go to Other World Computing for sponsoring TMO this week and helping us kick off this new program here. Our focus this week is on OWC's Data Doubler, their kit that allows you to add a second drive to your iMac, MacBook Pro or Mac Mini, and get up to 2.5TB of internal storage. With kits starting at just $49.99, you can replace the optical drive in your MacBook Pro with another SSD or a larger mechanical drive.

Today we're announcing something new here on TMO: week-long site Sponsorships. These will be exclusive placements each week and are geared towards those companies and developers who desire a closer integration with the site while still maintaining clear distinction as a sponsor. 

A long history exists in the computing world of hiding "easter eggs," cool little tidbits that are there more for the programmer's indulgence than the actual user, and OS X (indeed, most software Apple has ever produced) has its share of them. Today we find one that traces back to OS X's Unix roots (specificall FreeBSD), and is quite important... if you're a chosen hobbit.

TMO is the place where you can find hotel deals for Macworld / iWorld Expo. And just as you requested, we’ve got the same great hotel deal for you that we've had for the last two years: Book through our special link (and email us your confirmation number) and you'll get a guaranteed upgraded room (larger and with a view) at the InterContinental San Francisco.

Dave Hamilton had the chance to go in-depth with Apple on Fusion Drive and came up with some interesting information and conclusions. He likes it, and you can read here to find out why.

Dave Hamilton takes a moment and works through the Apple vs. Google maps iOS 6 developments, offering some perspective on where we've come from with it and where we're going. As with iOS 5 and earlier, iOS 6 still requires users to have one built-in and one third-party maps app. But will that change in the future? Dave offers his thoughts.

Apple's online store sold out of 9/21 pre-orders within about an hour this morning, but AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint were all still showing 9/21 delivery availability on their websites. Hurry, though. You know it won't last.

TMO's Dave Hamilton had the opportunity yesterday to touch, feel, and play with Apple's three new iOS devices, the iPhone 5, the 5th generation iPod touch, and the 7th generation iPod nano. He found that bigger IS better, but we'll let him explain exactly what he means. That — and pics — after the jump.

After leaving Apple's iPhone 5 event yesterday, TMO's Dave Hamilton got a pair of the new EarPods to check out. He expected to hate them, and did at first, but then came to find their sound works well for many environments.

If you're seeing this, you're quite aware that we've launched a new design today here at TMO. It's far more than just a new design, though. We've got all the details -- and some instructions for you -- after the link. If you want just one thing to look for, though, check out the "What Are You Looking For?" bar at the top right of this window. That should get you started. Enjoy!