The Mac is more self-maintaining than other business computers. A big reason for this is Apple’s user interface design. So much of what makes your Unix-based system hum along is gracefully hidden from you. Some call this Apple’s passion to control your experience. You can also consider it a blessed delivery from the constant scrubbing Windows seems to demand.

On the other hand, system maintenance is a means to get more out of the Mac investment. This week Koingo Software is offering MacPilot Lite as a free download to users who’ve purchased Koingo software in the past. The full version of MacPilot is also on sale in an Essentials Bundle (along with three other tools such as the nifty Alarm Clock Pro) — and it’s worth the space in your system administrator’s toolbox

Yes, you are the system administrator of your Mac. While your expertise is probably in creating a product, delivering a service or managing a business, a small office or single-proprietor business usually has someone to manage computers: You. So as a present to yourself for the coming business year, a tool like MacPilot or Onyx (a free tool) is a worthy investment.

Koingo sells MacPilot as competing product to the free Onyx, so MacPilot has got to work harder. Koingo explains that MacPilot can

Optimize your network for broadband connectivity, completely customize Apple File Sharing, perform essential maintenance without having to remember mind-boggling acronyms, and much more. However, those are just a few of the many reasons why MacPilot is your choice over Cocktail, TinkerTool and Onyx!

There’s a deep feature list for MacPilot along with a free 15-day trial of the full product. The longer you use a Mac for your business, the more you’re likely to appreciate the facets of file-sharing in your office network or getting the most out of your broadband connection. The Mac OS is deep and can be fine-tuned to return the best value for time spent at your keyboard and mouse. But Unix, the core of Mac OS, is arcane and byzantine. Something like one of these tools is like having the teacher’s version of the Unix textbook, with answers in the back, sitting on your work desk.Koingo lists all that its MacPilot can do right away, in its setup screen. While some of these are available on the Mac’s software, having them inside one toolbox makes it more like you will use these features.

Finder — Toggle Finder visual effects; Hide & disable Finder menu items; Enable the Cut Finder menuitem; Change the Finder Label Line Count; Add a Quit menu item to the Finder; Disable Desktop Icons; Show invisible files; Enable slow-motion visual effect mode

Dock — Toggle the Dock Shadow; Toggle feature to turn icons for hidden applications transparent; Lock the size, position, orientation, contents, magnification, and effect of the dock; Show invisible files in Dock menus; Add a Quit menu item to the Finder; Change the orientation, pinning, and effect

Safari — Forget that Netscape, Mozilla or IE bookmarks were imported; Show the Safari build number in the window title; Enable tool-tip mouse overs for links; Change logging options; Show the Debug menu; Disable PDF support; Change cache & history limits and options

Mail — Use Plain Text message content by default instead of HTML; Show invisible control characters in message source; Change bundle compatibility version; Enable numerous logging options; Enable or disable bundles

Disks — Automatically mount disks without user login; View detailed disk information such as partition type, free space, boot flags, and more.; Verify disk permissions; Repair disk permissions; Change UPS and Battery disk spindown time; Enable or disable journaling

Login Window —Disable console access; Hide admin, network, and/or local users; Kiosk mode; Disable the restart, shutdown, or sleep buttons; Use text fields instead of user icons; Show input panel; Show “Other” users button; Change the background picture; Modify the welcome text and size; Adjust the startup delay after login; Show admin host information such as host name, system verison, IP address, etc.; Increase/decrease the count of retries given on a password until the hint is shown

System — Change the startup mode to Normal, Verbose, Safe or Single; Specify custom boot arguements; Change the default umask for file permissions; Disable the secondary processor (if applicable); Show kernel panics on screen; Disable the startup chime; Limit RAM available to the system; Turn power button into Programmer’s Button

Network — Disable .DS_Store file creation across networks; View detailed network statistics and setting information for each device; Change over 10 advanced network settings such as buffer size, RFC compliance, and NewReno.; Optimize connection for Broadband

Sharing — Advertise Apple Personal File Sharing on AppleTalk & Bonjour; Allow SSH tunneling; Grant admin users root access; Automatically create home directories for file sharing users; Enforce quotas on home folders; Use home directories; Limit Mac OS X admins to only seeing share points; Limit Mac OS 9 users to only seeing share points; Allow root login; Allow clients to sleep; Allow admins to masquerade as other users; Auto restart server after crash; Notify client if the server is full; Send login greeting only once to users; Enable Logging; Disconnect idle users; Change the login message; Change the warning message when disconnected for being idle; Modify the maximum allowed sleep and idle time; Adjust log retention based on size and/or age; Set a maximum connections limit; Limit number of concurrent threads; Limit number of allowed guests; Change the AFS port

Tools — Update locate database; Verify preferences integrity; Update/Rebuild prebinding; Erase Spotlight index; Erase unused preferences; Erase .DS_Store files; Repair classic permissions; Erase icon cache; Update whatis database; Rebuild Launch Services database; Lock & Unlock files & folders; Force empty trash(es); Create Symbolic Links; Force delete files and folders; Erase recently used file records; Recreate Mac OS 9 desktop link; Clear user cache; Run all, daily, weekly, or monthly cron jobs.

Other — Change the default fonts used within the system and application windows for monospaced fonts, messages, labels, title bars, tool tips, and more; View, empty & delete logs; Show the Debug menu in Address Book, Sherlock and Apple Remote Desktop 3; Allow the mouse to auto-active terminal windows; Disable disk image checksum verification; Show advanced disk conversion settings in Disk Utility; Enable Expose picture in picture mode; Force iPhoto to ask for a launch after a hot plug; Enable Dashboard developer mode, or disable Dashboard altogether; Show active screen corner markers; Display the Expose blob; Disable the scrollbar in the Terminal; Place an Eject Disk icon in the menu bar; Change the screenshot format, name and destination; Change window resize speed, font smoothing, and scroll arrow positioning; Set the Crash Reporter mode to short or full, or disable it all together; View detailed system statistics; View, copy & print a Character Map for the given font; Access a huge list of Macintosh hidden key combinations; Complete port list; Error Code list with definitions for Mac OS 6 through Mac OS X.

That’s a list long enough to make most users’ eyes glaze over, but it’s clear that Koingo is selling this toolbox of utility on its comprehensive feature set. Just a couple of items in the Other category become useful. If you’ve got a Dashboard widget you love to leave onscreen, like a calendar, then the Dashboard Developer Mode makes that possible. If you take screenshots for illustrating articles or operations manuals (I do this a lot), you can specify that those screen shots come in as JPEG or GIF files, instead of the Mac’s PNG default format. (It matters if you’re posting to Web sites or blogs.)

MacPilot is on sale along with three other Koingo tools (for that superior alarm clock, reclaiming disk space, and making an ultra-secure spot for sensitive information like passwords and customer lists) at $49, about 35 percent off list price.