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For windowshading, try WindowShadeX. I haven't used it myself, but it gets great reviews.

As far as being careful with software - it's not so bad :) Most apps are drag/drop install with a single file. The apps you really have to be cautious with are the ones that require your admin password to install or have an installer app that you must run.

With drag/drop install, to uninstall all you need do is delete the app, and the associated files (if any) that were created in ~/library/application support/appname and ~/library/preferences.

Of course, application stability is a whole 'nother discussion ;) In regards to Desktop Manager, I've had no problems with stability.

"Now, if you said you prefer virtual desktops, as is implemented in most Linux GUIs, then I would understand."

Desktop Manager Alt

Virtue Alt

Virtual Desktop Pro Alt

Virtual Desktop Alt (not the same product as above)

You Control: Desktops Alt

Virtual Screens Alt (not quite a VDM, but it works)

"Now, if you said you prefer virtual desktops, as is implemented in most Linux GUIs, then I would understand."

Desktop Manager Alt

Virtue Alt

Virtual Desktop Pro Alt

Virtual Desktop Alt (not the same product as above)

You Control: Desktops Alt

Virtual Screens Alt (not quite a VDM, but it works)

"Now, if you said you prefer virtual desktops, as is implemented in most Linux GUIs, then I would understand."

Desktop Manager Alt

Virtue Alt

Virtual Desktop Pro Alt

Virtual Desktop Alt (not the same product as above)

You Control: Desktops Alt

Virtual Screens Alt (not quite a VDM, but it works)

"Now, if you said you prefer virtual desktops, as is implemented in most Linux GUIs, then I would understand."

Desktop Manager Alt

Virtue Alt

Virtual Desktop Pro Alt

Virtual Desktop Alt (not the same product as above)

You Control: Desktops Alt

Virtual Screens Alt (not quite a VDM, but it works)

"Now, if you said you prefer virtual desktops, as is implemented in most Linux GUIs, then I would understand."

Desktop Manager Alt

Virtue Alt

Virtual Desktop Pro Alt

Virtual Desktop Alt (not the same product as above)

You Control: Desktops Alt

Virtual Screens Alt (not quite a VDM, but it works)

"Now, if you said you prefer virtual desktops, as is implemented in most Linux GUIs, then I would understand."

Desktop Manager Alt

Virtue Alt

Virtual Desktop Pro Alt

Virtual Desktop Alt (not the same product as above)

You Control: Desktops Alt

Virtual Screens Alt (not quite a VDM, but it works)

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 13112&mode=feedback&vid=All

http://www.macupdate.com/reviews.php?id=10758

enjoy !

You have obviously never used WMP on a Mac have you ? Respectfully you are missing the point.

And take these with you:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 13112&mode=feedback&vid=All

http://www.macupdate.com/reviews.php?id=10758

The standard way of finding MacOS software would have answered this question in a heartbeat: VersionTracker or MacUpdate, both of which list installers.

Or, you could just use HYMN (which, interestingly enough, is available on MacUpdate -- I'm surprised they haven't gotten a cease-and-desist yet).

Last I checked, Carracho was free. :P

(disclaimer : my software is actually legal, but thanks to the shit being VASTLY more expensive than, say, a cocaine or heroin habit, I'm several versions behind on very nearly everything.)

But we know the important question is really, will it run Emacs?
And fortunately, the answer is yes, yes, and yes.

But we know the important question is really, will it run Emacs?
And fortunately, the answer is yes, yes, and yes.

And for people who like holding on to their money, Onyx does everything Cocktail does and is free instead of $15.

Apparently he's not the first to do something like this with a Mac, as variety of software is designed to make it easy

One tip: put some sort of shroud around the glass and the camera to keep the background dark, making the text easier to read. The teleprompters I've seen all have this, and it also makes a nice matte box for the camera.

Or a an OSX feature, available quite easily to all trackpad users.

I used to have the same complaints about iTunes. Unfortunately, if you want to play AAC-encoded music, you're pretty much stuck. So I finally gave up trying to find an alternative and now just use software such as Synergy to give me system-wide hotkeys, a little transparent info window, and a bunch of other stuff like control buttons in the menubar. It's pretty nifty all by itself, but there's no shortage of cool little shareware and freeware apps to get more bang for your buck with iTunes. Just look around MacUpdate a bit, you'll find something you like.

The Mac platform has a pretty good shareware community that is helped by sites like MacUpdate and VersionTracker. The Mac, having a smaller percentage of the market, has the benefit (for shareware developers at least) of having more holes that shareware developers can fill. So if you have a great idea and can turn it into a great app, then you have a good chance of finding success in the Mac market. Watson, Konfabulator, and NetNewsWire are a few great shareware apps on the Mac. Unfortunately Apple might decide to fill the same holes that your app might fill as was the case with Watson and now Konfabulator.

I have found a small amount of success myself with my Shareware app, HyperSpell. But its nothing I could ever quit my day job over. Mainly its something to do in my spare time and it filled a hole that I wanted filled. The biggest problem most shareware developers face is just getting people to know that their app exists (marketing).

--
Not free as in effort, but I'm willing to try it.
Free Flat Screens | Free iPod Photo

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/7463

Open Pod is an applescript for iTunes that builds a playlist from the files on your iPod, which you can then copy to your music library. This thing saved me hours of re-ripping when I deleted all the music from my hard drive to save space, not knowing that I "couldn't" copy the music back from my iPod (I was an iPod newb when this happened). I don't know if this works in Windows. I would guess not...

dammit the URL got lost. Here it is again:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12800

Oh fucktard, just one search on Macupdate (or Versiontracker) would get you this:

The FREE trackpad driver Sidetrack http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12800
Then you can configure an extra mouse button for every corner of your trackpad and also use the edge of the trackpad as a scrollwheel.

CASE CLOSED.

As far as the scrollwheel goes, an indispensible piece of Mac software is SideTrack, which lets you use the sides of your trackpad as scroll areas, as well as assign keystrokes/multiple mouse buttons to the trackpad's corners. I have the top corners of my PB set for Exposé, the bottom-right for right-click and the bottom-left for third click (opens links in new tabs in safari, shows paths when clicking a document/finder window's title bar). And of course, scrolling along the right edge. It's a fabulous little utility. Combined with trackpad tap-drag-lock, I don't think I ever need to use the actual trackpad button--a zero-button mouse!

Personally, I use VNCThing. I found Chicken of the VNC, and it crapped out on me so many times that I got rid of it. Link to VNCThing

Indeed. At best this is a repackaging of PearPC, kind of like what the WinTel people did with Bochs.

I know this idea of RSS 2.0 feeds with enclosures is great and all for getting non-live data, but I've found timed recording of live radio MUCH more useful (with content I want to listen to.

On my Mac, I use RadioRecorder, a free app that lets you schedule when you want a particular feed (in one of several formats) to be recorded. So I record NPR's Morning Edition from 5 to 6:30 am, and then listen to it on my 6:45 - 7:30 bus ride (shitty radio reception on pocket radio).

I can listen to Car Talk from the weekend! I can listen to Talk of the Nation from yesterday! I can listen to the kick-ass Chicago class-rock station I like instead of crappy DC classic rock radio! It's all stuffed into iTunes automagically, no muss, no fuss. And best of all, good content.

I have a powerbook that uses the Plasma Tunnel Screensaver. It's an OpenGL tunnel...that never ends. It's swirls, changes color, moves this way and that...

Anyway, my fiancee at the time (now wife) brough her cat into the relationship before we got our second one, and her cat hates me. Well, one day I left my Powerbook on the floor and forgot about it. We left the house, came back to find the cat staring VERY intently at the laptop screen. Ducking, dodging, moving forward, moving backward...

She was trying to see where the tunnel went! Holy cow I about died. I've since set it up on my iMac as well. It's hilarious. One of these days she'll find out what's at the other end. ;)

There's a fix for the timeout problem out:

Safari No Timeout

I grabbed it about two weeks back and haven't had any issues, though I don't use Safari all that much.

p

MOD PARENT UP!

I don't know if Adam's Platform has been discussed on Slashdot before, but it was one of those classic "we can compress video 100x tighter than MPEG and decompress it realtime on a 286!" type claims. Good to see them getting spanked, as described in that report to the Australian Stock Exchange..

Juicy highlights:

• after uninstalling the APT codec and rebooting, the APT video files mysteriously still played!
• The team that evaluated the codec found that it had "what looked like the exact characteristics of VP3"
• Adam Clark claimed he wrote the codec using ResEdit! LOL!

For those of you on OS X, there's a very nice client called NewsFire with a clever, clean, pretty interface. It's the first RSS viewer I've actually enjoyed using.

logorrhea

and Mac Update

• Mac Rumors - Good rumors website
• Mac Slash - Slashdot like mac news site
• Mac News Bytes - Good quick links to mac related articles
• Version Tracker - Software update website. Kind of like download.com for mac.
• Mac Update - Similar to versiontracker.com
• Mac OS X Hints - Good tips site for beginners and experienced people alike.
• Think Secret - Another good rumors site. Very accurate, most of the time.
• Emulation.net - Links to game emulation for mac

• Adium - Multi-protocol IM client
• Byte Controller - Good itunes hotkey/menu pager applet
• Camino - Nice mac based gecko browser.
• Colloquy - Webkit based IRC client. not too newbish.
• Cyberduck - SFTP/FTP client for os x
• Desktop Manager - Multi desktop app for os x
• Apple X11 Server - Apple's integrated X11 server. you'd want this for the next two items
• Fink - UNIX software for your mac
• Gimp.app - decent free photo editor
• Handbrake - DVD to mpeg4 ripper
• iTerm - Multi tabbed terminal
• Logorrhea - iChat log viewer/searcher/indexer
• Meteorologist - Weather applet for the menu bar
• Menu Meters - Menu applet for cpu usage, net usage, and more.
• Mplayer OS X - This app will play just about any media format in existance
• Poisoned - GiFT (Kazaa) and mldonkey based P2P mac client.
• Quicksilver - Very cool file/application/url/itunes/etc/etc/etc indexing program. It's like spotlight, only here TODAY and free!
• VLC - Another good video playing app. Nice to have a backup sometimes if mplayer doesn't play a file (which is very very rare).

The web is definitely your friend when it comes to switching. The parent links will help.

MacNN Forums
xlr8yourmac.com's forums
MacFixIt Forums
MacWorld Forums

That should be a good start. You'll find that the Mac community is more than willing to go out of its way to help you, especially if you're a new convert. Just tell people you've switched from Windows, you'll get all the help you'll ever need.

Apple have support forums too, they're worth a look, especially to track bugs - people normally go whinge over there.

Finally, as someone mentioned, VersionTracker and MacUpdate are the places to search for software. Even if you don't know the name of the software, type in what kind of thing you're looking for (eg MP3) and you're bound to find something of use.

Good luck, and most of all, have fun :)

-- james

Versiontracker is a horrible-looking pile. It is fairly popular, but I find that the majority of my downloads come from MacUpdate, which also has the virtue of being a lot easier to use and a lot nicer to look at. That said, both places are very important for Mac software.

Try PithHelmet for adblocking in Safari. It's free and really works!

the iTunes design is by no means entirely original. it contains elements that we all recognize from Real Jukebox, Musicmatch Jukebox, and Winamp 3... which predated iTunes.

iTunes was originally SoundJam, so although I couldn't find the original release date for SoundJam, the interface may have been developed for longer than you think

nobody asked, but that won't stop me from answering :)

For AIM: Adium
For a tweaked OS: Cocktail and TinkerTool
For a better OS: my collection of haxies for Unsanity's Application Enhancer (ClearDock, FruitMenu, Metallifizer, Mighty Mouse, ShapeShifter, SharedMenus, Silk, WindowShade X)
For privacy/security: NetBarrier, PeerVanguard (not because I trade P2P, but because I wear a tinfoil hat), Little Snitch
Helpful apps: Butler, QuickSilver, DragThing
For everything else: VLC, SBook5, Transmit, Path Finder, Apple Dev Tools

it's more than 10, but those are all put almost instantly on every fresh OS X install I touch.

With this.

...and with free apps like Butler and QuickSilver you can launch apps, websites, and files with just a few keystrokes -- without even touching the mouse once.

And let's not forget Desktop Manager, for those that moan about Macs not having virtual desktop environments.

...and with free apps like Butler and QuickSilver you can launch apps, websites, and files with just a few keystrokes -- without even touching the mouse once.

And let's not forget Desktop Manager, for those that moan about Macs not having virtual desktop environments.

...and with free apps like Butler and QuickSilver you can launch apps, websites, and files with just a few keystrokes -- without even touching the mouse once.

And let's not forget Desktop Manager, for those that moan about Macs not having virtual desktop environments.

I'd agree, if this weren't built using OS X Panther. This browser history map uses thumbnails (and if those thumbnails aren't resizable, they should be in the next version) and simple arrows,

From the few minutes I tested TrailBlazer with, it seems that they resize automatically when you visit more pages. There is also a "minimum" and "maximum" thumbnail size in preferences, but they don't go lower than 150. At the size I have it right now (about 10 pages), the display fits about 5x3 pages in a relatively small area. As long as the old History is also accessible, IMO this is ready to implement in a browser such as Safari.

I wonder if it would be as simple as copying some .nib files from TB into Safari? I know that iCAR adds a prefpane to iChat that adds functionality - maybe by copying some files from TrailBlazer into Safari's History window file we could already implement this? it's a long shot, but hey... I'll play with it and report back if it actually works.

I know the "Ask Slashdot" question was in regards to Windows, but since VersionTracker came up I thought it might be helpful for Mac users to remember MacUpdate as well. Its pretty similar to version tracker, but the site seems faster, less buggy, less spammy, and is altogether a bit more pleasant to use. When I've gone looking for Mac freeware and shareware it seems easier to find it on MacUpdate.

NOTE: I'm not affiliated with either site, although I am wearing a VersionTracker t-shirt.

I can drag and arrange the tabs however I want. Opera has an inline find in page facility, mouse gestures, and a handy feature for paging through galleries where the images follow a simple incremental progression or have a 'next' or similar recognizable link in the page.

Mouse gestures for all cocoa apps (including Safari) can be done for free with Cocoa Gestures. I love it. Arranging tabs, along with tons of other features, can be done with Safari Extender or Saft, $10 each (buy both of them and that's still half the price of Opera). Inline finding in a page... try Cmd-F.

As for paging through galleries, that does sound nice and I can't think of a Safari equivilant. However it also sounds like I wouldn't have a need to use it most of the time and forget to use it the rest of the time.

When I say that I don't want things to open in a new window in Opera, I mean it, and it works. I have that option checked in Safari, but it still opens new windows all the time.

I completely agree, I'm the same way. Saft (link above) has excellent window management prefs, including forcing all windows into tabs in one window, or getting rid of the menu bar and going full screen, etc etc.

Oh, and provided that Opera maintains its key configurability, it'll definitely have a leg up there on Safari. (My outlook on that is mostly due to me wanting Opera-like keybindings in Safari. When I type 'Cmd-N', I want a new TAB, not a new window.

You can bind keys using ReKey (donationware) or the Keyboard Shortcuts tab in System Preferences > Keyboard and Mouse. I actually have Cmd-N set to create new tab and Cmd-Shift-N for new window (which is normaly for new bookmark folder, so I bound that to Cmd-Ctrl-N because I never use the keyboard for making new bookmarks).

There are of course advantages to things being built into Opera rather than requiring 3rd party plugins like for Safari. They all fit in so well though that after I finish installing them (5 minutes of time lost... damn) they might as well be stock features. The plugin route is also cheaper than just buying Opera.

For me, the only only time I boot windows is in VirtPC to play poker. Otherwise, I don't even give it a thought

Here, now you don't even need to do that:

Mac poker games

And tell your wife that Minesweeper is available for the Mac too. Might give some of those virus-laden Windroids the kick in the pants that they need.

p

For me, the only only time I boot windows is in VirtPC to play poker. Otherwise, I don't even give it a thought

Here, now you don't even need to do that:

Mac poker games

And tell your wife that Minesweeper is available for the Mac too. Might give some of those virus-laden Windroids the kick in the pants that they need.

p

Actually, no. It's not. MacUpdate is far superior. Why?

• Versiontracker desktop program: $50. Macupdate: $30.
• Macupdate: 2 ads per page. Versus somewhere between 8 and 10 for Versiontracker's main page.
• The bloody links actually make sense. Ie, instead of Versiontracker's "developer info" taking you do the DOWNLOAD page(which then auto-downloads!), with Macupdate, you click on the author's name or "more info" which takes you to the software developer's site or the product-specific section of their site, respectively.
• Download doesn't force you to see another page full of ads to increase their hitcount. It just starts downloading.
• Page loads in about 1-2 seconds, not 10(mostly thanks to, say, only two advertisements per page).

Sorry, but versiontracker blows goats. Switch to MacUpdate, and don't look back- it's just so much friendlier to deal with.

As to Macintouch, it's turned from a useful news site with intelligently written, objective blurbs about new software releases and interesting news items, to Non Stop Press Releases And Whining Users Chock Full Of Ads. I go to MacFixit forums for whining users(or when I need to whine), and MacUpdate for software update news(well, actually- I don't. I use their "notify me of new updates" email service most of the time save when I'm curious as to what new programs are out there). Don't get me started about the incessant reminders of how we should buy everything from Amazon through his affiliate links, or the text ads at the bottom of the page designed to trick users into thinking they're MacinTouch content and not paid-for ads. Ric, old boy, you've gone from doing what you do best(Mac news analysis) to competing with people who are years ahead of you and selling out in the process.

If you want slightly more interesting daily mac news and only 1-2 ads, MacResource has usually played second fiddle to Macintouch, but I have always preferred it. Just seemed more...down to earth.

This is easy to fix. See this thread, specifically the comment by "thecloud", or, if you prefer a GUI, supposedly CertToolGUI is handy.

That sounds kinda cool, but a much better version of that type of game is Enigmo. It's not lasers, it's fluids, and it is done in 3d space.

Brilliant game, full stop.