Remove every trace of a program by reinstalling it

Since almost every program installs files in many different places, it can be nearly impossible to completely remove an installed application. But with Leopard's new fsevents service, which tracks all write activity to the hard drive, a user can find out where all the miscellaneous files are, thus allowing them to be removed manually.

To do this, first install fseventer, run it, and turn it on (press the Play button). Then reinstall the program you wish to remove. You'll see the tree diagram in fseventer populated with every file that's been changed. Next, open the program you just installed (since many programs create their preference files upon first launch). Then stop (press the Pause button) fseventer. Now you can follow the paths to the files and delete each of them manually for a complete uninstall. If you need to get to files in folders which Finder hides, you can choose Go » Go to Folder in the Finder.

NOTE: Be smart about choosing which files to remove, because fseventer will record all file activity that occurs while it is recording. So if any other programs or services write to the disk during that time (which is likely), those files will also show up in the fseventer tree. You will only want to remove the files which make sense to be associated with the program you would like to uninstall.