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The kind of Network Neutrality people do want - equal ability to access any location on the internet - we enjoy already

Tell that to the Madison River Communications customers who were blocked from using a competing VoIP service until the FCC stepped in. Or the Comcast customers who were blocked from using BitTorrent until the FCC stepped in. Or the Comcast customers whose service was throttled (i.e. less than equal access) when attempting to reach Netflix until Netflix caved and agreed to pay for a service that Comcast was already being compensated for (via subscription fees). Or even little developers like Panic Inc., who found themselves getting throttled by Comcast.

Ever since cable Internet was classified as an information service in the early 2000s, we've seen one bad actor after another cropping up (though Comcast is easily the worst) and it's been a constant battle to keep them in check. An FCC that regularly asserted and reasserted its authority to enforce neutrality—despite cable being classified as an information service—through both Bush's and Obama's administrations was our best line of defense. With Trump's FCC openly abdicating its authority and most US addresses lacking access to more than one cable/fiber broadband service, we have neither regulations nor market forces protecting us.

all you can do is fuck it up if you mess with it.

You seem to be under the incorrect assumption that the status quo is to NOT have neutrality. You couldn't be more wrong.

When dial-up was the king of the hill, we had neutrality because the Internet ran over POTS, all of which was classified as a telecommunications service thanks in large part to the AT&T breakup. When cable was classified as an information service in the early 2000s, the FCC issued statements making it clear that they intended to continue enforcing neutrality, despite the change in classification. When the enforceability of those documents was challenged in the late 2000s, the FCC rewrote them as rules so that they'd be enforceable. When those rules were challenged as being beyond the FCC's authority, the FCC reclassified cable as a telecommunications service, as per their authority. Again and again, net neutrality has been fought for and preserved for the last several decades, and the FCC has continued to do its best to enforce neutrality against bad actors who would try to abuse their special position between consumers and the outside world.

The FCC's 2017 decision to throw out all of their prior work isn't a restoration to how things were: it's a final step in a long war the cable industry has been waging to end the status quo we've enjoyed up to this point.

OK, let's see:

http://komodoide.com/komodo-ed...
https://www.sublimetext.com/
https://code.visualstudio.com/
https://atom.io/
https://panic.com/coda/ (nice example of low-contrast website as well)
https://www.jetbrains.com/webs...

That was pretty fucking easy.

If you want more examples then just type something like "best text editor" into google images and weep at the acres of grey-on-grey images that appear.

Here, let me do it for you seeing as how you're a bit out of the loop: https://encrypted.google.com/s...

I liked it when it was Sound Jam!
http://www.macworld.com/articl...
https://www.panic.com/extras/a...

Paid good money for that software, a month before Apple took it, called it iTunes and released it for free.

Correct. And that leads to there being no live editing, which leads to sync conflicts.

Well, did I not also say this?

Even tracking cursor positions is simple, though; you just use a different mechanism for it, either a direct connection between users, or a connection to a central location, where the information is exchanged in real time. It's active state data, not persistent, so there's no need to store it.

And, from there, it's trivial to also pass other events, such as key presses and editor commands, in the same stream. Check out SubEthaEdit, which Panic used as a jumping-off point for Coda. If you think anything you're blathering on about is new and hasn't been solved for decades, your lack of domain knowledge is leading you to redo work that's already been done hundreds of times over.

Furthermore, the real-time collaborative aspect of iCloud is something new that's being introduced in Yosemite. It is still, and always has been, a file storage and retrieval service. Now, it's a file storage and retrieval service that also provides a real-time communication channel, but that's also nothing new. The only reason you think it's new is because it has the word "cloud" attached to it; it's been done since the 70's, though.

Actually it wasn't designed to do that, it was designed to be a charger + serial data connection, exactly like microUSB. Someone else on here helpfully linked to this article which I found interesting. (apologies to whoever originally linked it, the article stuck in my mind, not the poster). If you read the article it tears down a lightning to HDMI video adapter, and notes that it has an ARM processor in it, something that would be unneeded if the cable itself was capable of spitting out straight HDMI video.

TL;DR Lightning cables have that nifty 'can be plugged in either way' thing going for them, and are arguably more durable than microUSB, but at the end of the day they're two specs, and two connectors doing exactly the same thing, if you want to snag a video feed from either of them, you need to have a 'dongle' that can capture and process the data pins on the connector into a proper video signal.

https://www.panic.com/blog/2013/03/the-lightning-digital-av-adapter-surprise/

That story has been debunked. It's only applicable for models with the older process and only when using display mirroring.

It is low-quality: on a Lightning device the video is put through lossy compression, streamed to the "adaptor", which is actually a small computer, and then output by that device as an HDMI signal. MHL and Slimport are just novel interfaces for an ordinary, lossless HDMI signal.

Apple have their reasons for this of course:

https://www.panic.com/blog/2013/03/the-lightning-digital-av-adapter-surprise/

See the anonymous insider comment

Actually the video is compressed with the device's airplay encoders but sent directly through the lightning serial interface, not streamed wirelessly or using AirPlay protocols. It's then decoded and upscaled by the SoC on the adapter.

It's still a hardware wired connection, but as the bus data transfer rate is too low for raw HDMI, the video passes as resolution limited, lossy h264.

Anyway the real issue here is no lossless nor 1080p video output is possible on those devices...

Yes, you can ssh without jailbreaking. And have been able to for a long time.

Here's a pretty one:
http://panic.com/prompt/

" Whether they like it or not, geeks have at least some influence in the purchase decisions of mundanes."
Once upon a time, maybe. But an iPad can do just about anything the 'mundanes' want to do, so why do they care about geek opinions any more?

I've noticed Firefox having more and more problems rendering sites that Safari and Chrome have no trouble with. Version 16 has been especially bad.

Take a look at Panic's Coda site in Firefox 16. Those headers should not look like that; see Safari for proper rendering. If you look at the css for those headers:
#pitch h3 {
        font-family: "Chrono Regular", sans-serif;
        font-size: 34px;
        color: #436fa2;
        text-align: center;
        background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(#2c5b92 50%, #0a3978 100%);
        background-image: linear-gradient(#2c5b92 50%, #0a3978 100%);
}

So Firefox is not respecting the linear gradient as a background image for text. Can someone clarify whether this is part of the spec?
That is obviously a more advanced example, but I'm seeing many sites with layouts that are broken (most often navbars) in Firefox 16.

Visual Studio is hardly the only development IDE on Windows. Yes, it is good, but you cannot really say that "free desktop software development dead in Windows 8" just because gasp, MS wants you to buy the new version. Hell, they even still offer Visual Studio 2010 for free! So if you are crying about this, what about coming up with those open source IDE's?? I understand that they have never matched Visual Studio, but seriously. I even buy good web development IDE's to my OS X, like Coda 2. Stop being a cheap-ass winer and pay for quality tools.

You're missing the point. It's not the IDE that's the problem, but the other things that are part of Visual Studio: the native C compiler, the native C++ compiler, and I guess stuff to access the Windows APIs. Perhaps the Windows ports of gcc (mingw or whatever they are called) could be better, but I suppose it's hard to build a free VS-compatible SDK.

You know what this story actually tells? That even FOSS users don't like their IDE's. They want to use Visual Studio from Microsoft because frankly, it is much better than the open source alternatives.

I can very well imagine that some of them suck worse than VS. Personally I prefer Emacs. I haven't seen anyone use an IDE more efficiently than what I can do with Emacs and the command-line.

Visual Studio 11 is an improvement in many ways over Visual Studio 2010. Its C++ compiler, for example, is a great deal more standards-compliant, especially with the new C++ 11 specification. It has powerful new optimization features, such as the ability to automatically use CPU features like SSE2 to accelerate mathematically intensive programs, and new language features to allow programs to be executed on the GPU. The new version of the C# language makes it easier to write programs that do their work on background threads and avoid making user interfaces unresponsive. The .NET Framework, updated to version 4.5, includes new capabilities for desktop applications, such as a ribbon control for Microsoft's WPF GUI framework.

Taken together, there are many new features in Visual Studio 11 that are relevant, interesting, and useful for desktop developers. Indeed, things like the new WPF capabilities are only useful for desktop developers.

If Microsoft is so bad then why the hell there isn't better open source versions of these things??

apple's "security through scarcity" is starting to fade away as they gain marketshare. any popular OS will get viruses, malware, trojans, etc.

will mac os get a stonger walled garden as a result? i hope not as i was about to buy my first mac.

The next release of OS X (Mountain Lion) will warn people when trying to run unsigned apps. Apps sold through the Mac App Store will be signed and devs will be able to get their app signed by Apple for free without having to distribute through the App Store. Unsigned apps will also still run if you tell the system to do so. The fact that Apple are doing things shows they will not go full-on walled garden like with iOS but are still trying to get some of its advantages to their users by choosing this middle path.

SoundJam MP.

SoundJam MP was, perhaps, the first genuinely useful MP3 application for the Macintosh. One could easily rip CDs to MP3, mix songs as one wished in playlists, and then burn them to CD.

Rip. Mix. Burn. Where have we heard that before?

It even had support built in for the few MP3 players of the time.

Review of an early incarnation of SoundJam.

Review of the final revision.

And, the ObWiki entry .

MacLife history of iTunes .

Without SoundJam MP. there would likely have been no iTunes, as Apple bought SoundJam MP, filed off the serial numbers, slapped a coat of paint on it and called it iTunes V1.0.

Well, yeah, there still would have been AN iTunes. Apple would have just bought Audion .

So, while the iPod was indeed a seachange for the portable music player (cassette/CD/digital) of the era, without the software to support it as easily and as elegantly as SoundJam, er, "iTunes", it was the software that made the iPod the success it was and remains to this day.

For the Mac I'd say use Coda:
http://www.panic.com/coda/

I would definitely second that. A simple and straightforward marriage of a good text editor, a decent preview, and Transmit, Panic's FTP/SFTP/WebDAV client. Well worth it if you don't need a design development mode.

On the Mac, CS doesn't stand for "Creative Suite", it stands for "Complete Shit". I like Dreamweaver on Windows (though I liked it better before Adobe fucked it up) and bought it on the Mac but threw it out in favor of Coda. (Another possibility in MacLand is Espresso, too.).

If I was a rubytard, I would probably recommend nanoc or jekyll.

For the Mac I'd say use Coda: http://www.panic.com/coda/

This isn't the first time Apple's apparently screwed over developers.

Panic made a better music player:
http://panic.com/audion/
http://panic.com/extras/audionstory/

Widgets didn't originate with Apple (at least according to Arlo Rose):
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=77382
http://www.konfabulator.com/cartoon/partOne.html
Alternative view here - http://www.randommaccess.com/articles/1088610260.shtml

Watson was slain:
http://www.karelia.com/watson/

iPodRip bullied into submission:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/jobs-may-make-mat-lose-his-job-20091125-jq6t.html

My only observation? Over time, anything that dilutes or threatens the iTunes/App Store/iDevice ecosystem is met with increasingly over-the-top responses.

Maybe that's how you get ahead in business, but it sucks nonetheless.

This isn't the first time Apple's apparently screwed over developers.

Panic made a better music player:
http://panic.com/audion/
http://panic.com/extras/audionstory/

Widgets didn't originate with Apple (at least according to Arlo Rose):
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=77382
http://www.konfabulator.com/cartoon/partOne.html
Alternative view here - http://www.randommaccess.com/articles/1088610260.shtml

Watson was slain:
http://www.karelia.com/watson/

iPodRip bullied into submission:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/jobs-may-make-mat-lose-his-job-20091125-jq6t.html

My only observation? Over time, anything that dilutes or threatens the iTunes/App Store/iDevice ecosystem is met with increasingly over-the-top responses.

Maybe that's how you get ahead in business, but it sucks nonetheless.

The phone never had a problem keeping time. The bugs were in the calendar / alarm apps which didn't come to terms with the fact that time may change slightly, and not with the underlying timekeeping code.

Well, the proper way to handle this is to use NSDate and NSCalendar along with the Event Kit Framework. If you use these classes then they should handle all of the time changes for you, rolling your own code to do this is definitely not a good idea because there are so many issues with time changes and calendar idiosyncrasies.

Basically it comes down to either the apps in question are doing the calculations on their own and there are errors in those calculations or the frameworks themselves have these bugs. I think it's likely that the bugs are in the frameworks because Apple is usually pretty good about using the proper frameworks rather than taking shortcuts.

By the way, here's an excellent write-up of some of the issues as well as examples of how to do these calculations in an iOS app.

In a pinch I've had to exchange files between a vintage 1979 Apple II+ and my MacBook Pro. I found I could span thirty years of desktop evolution by using the Apple's old cassette port and my laptop's copy of QuickTime! Why did I need this? I was working on this very low-fi music video here: http://stewd.io/w/jed I released my Applesoft BASIC source code (which you can download here: http://stewd.io/jed) and this eventually lead to Panic Software using iTunes on an iPad to load the code onto their old Apple //e which they documented here: http://www.panic.com/blog/2010/05/an-apple-e-an-ipad-and-jed/. Thank you audio ports!! It's really made me think about how I archive my files and what my contingencies might be for opening them in another 30 years if need be. Scares me a bit.

Panic, maker of (excellent) Mac software has some Atari 2600 boxes for their current lineup of products.

Pretty cool if you ask me.

My best ideas are to pair them with some old LCD screens and do something like this: http://www.panic.com/blog/2010/03/the-panic-status-board/

Well plugins like ClickToFlash still work.

Extension details can be seen here:
http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/documentation/Tools/Conceptual/SafariExtensionGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html

An awesome demonstration of what they're capable of:
http://www.panic.com/blog/2010/06/coda-notes-previe/

There is, but you can't take it with you on the go.

If Ubuntu were a $0 way of running windows applications it would take over the world.

Ubuntu shouldn't be *just* windows, it should be windows and more.

Isn't this really the question at hand? *Should* Ubuntu be Windows and more? Or should it stand more on it's own, wooing developers by it's own appeal? Sure, OSX has Parallels, VMWare, etc, but almost all the Mac users get by without running Windows applications (obviously there are some exceptions, but they're rare among those I know). Either there's an OSX version of the software, a better or adequate alternative, or it's not needed.

I have a Macbook for my laptop, and when I'm using my desktop, I've found the only applications that I want to be able to use under Linux and can't are actually OSX exclusive ones. Mac's following over the years has resulted in some really polished and useful programs.

Why isn't that the case with Linux? User share is an obvious thing to blame, but I don't think it should stop there. I think there's also the question of what the user base is willing to pay for, i.e. cost / benefit of developing an application. There's a market among OSX users for buying more polished programs. Transmit does quite well, even though there are zero-cost alternatives that do everything the user actually needs.

I've run into a lot of these examples over the past few years I've been exposed to the world of Apple. Aside from Codeweaver products, I don't know if I've ever come across non-free, non-specialised applications developed for Linux that compete against zero-cost programs. Where are the paid apps such as TextMate, Pathfinder, Xslimmer, and Things to name a few.

A downside to having such a wide ranging selection of good free software is that it does decrease the appeal of developing programs for Linux that I might find frivolous, but perhaps the new wave of Ubuntu / Netbook readers might not. There is definitely a group of users out there who don't mind spending $10 or more on a polished replacement of something that would give them the same basic functionality for free.

Is Linux (or specifically Ubuntu), not-suited for that? Is that something we even want, with free(beer) being so closely tied to open source? I don't think it necessarily plays a big role in the grand scheme of Ubuntu, but I do think that small software companies that make quality products could speed up Ubuntu's progress by filling in areas where the free solution is immature or missing, a scenario dependent on whether they can make money.

For FTP/SFTP there's Cyberduck for free, but I paid for Transmit. I was a WS-FTP user for years and love the 2-pane view.

And as you said, TextWrangler for text editing.

They were the original guys who brought themeing to Macintosh music players. The player had the chance to become the base of iTunes, but fate is such a fickle thing. http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/

As a web developer, Mac hardware gives me the ability to test code in pretty much any environment I wish. Any web developer that's worth their salt has to, at a minimum, test his or her work in Firefox (Gecko), Safari (Khtml), IE 6, IE 7 and soon IE 8. If they're good developers they would test in Opera and screen readers as well.

I cannot test on the OS X side of things on a Lenovo but I can test the OS X/Windows/Linux side of things on a MacBook.

Are there major redeeming qualities of OS X? For me, yes. One of the main reasons I like OS X is (and it's rarely listed as a Mac virtue) 3rd party software is, in my opinion, superior to 3rd party software for Windows or Linux. Mac developers apply the same polish and attention to detail that Apple does.

I tried web development an a SuSe box and I found that while yes, I could do it the software was missing the polish of software I was used to on the Mac. Take Transmit, an FTP program. FTP? What the heck is so much better about FTP on the Mac? Until you work on a system that doesn't support it, you don't know how nice it is to be able to click on a remote document have it automatically open it up in TextMate and upload it to the server whenever I save the document within TextMate. And it's not hardwired to work that way with TextMate, it does that for whatever text editor I wish to use. Programs like Things for GTD/task lists or Yojimbo for storing random but useful clutter in a single location are unique in functionality, simplicity and quality to OS X. 1Password to manage all my hundreds of passwords and only require me to remember one. Most of these apps have an iPhone equivalent so if I ever get an iPhone, my desktop software will sync seamlessly with my phone. I have yet to find a text editor as powerful yet simple to learn as TextMate. On top of that, I have native access to the lion's share of open source/Linux/Unix software. I don't expect you to accept my argument until you actually experience this "higher" level of software quality. You only notice it when it's missing. Ask anyone that's used Quicksilver. Mac software has Linux and Windows equivalents but not equals.

Would I multi-boot? No. Virtualization is just fine for my line of work and much more convenient. But virtualization for the article submitter may not be viable. My point is, my needs/preferences are different from your needs/preferences which may different from the submitters needs/preferences.

Also, for the Mac users - Unison is pretty sweet. (Also a PAN user, BTW, and even a credited bug finder...) I also subscribe to their Access Usenet service, which works a treat.

Also, for the Mac users - Unison is pretty sweet. (Also a PAN user, BTW, and even a credited bug finder...) I also subscribe to their Access Usenet service, which works a treat.

I think TextMate and Coda are doing OK. But they're well designed and fairly innovative.

Yes, it's just a plist file, but I don't think editing it is any easier than running the command. The command just writes the setting to that file and restarts the dock. If you don't know enough to run the command, there are a couple different apps that can do it for you.

IMHO, it's better than how this sort of thing works in Windows. In Windows, it's usually in the registry, which is a big ugly file that's dangerous to screw around in. OSX has individual files for each program, and if you mess something up, you can usually just delete the file and it will write a new one next time you run the app.

If only what is now Panic had taken the Apple shilling, rather than Cassady & Greene - I often think an Audion-based iTunes would be much lovelier. Still, I wouldn't be using Coda or Transmit now if they had done, so good luck to 'em.

I agree 100%--if you want it to be really good, hire someone. HOWEVER--it IS entirely possible to learn the basics of good design and use them. There is plenty of good-looking stuff you can do which, while it won't win awards, it will be more appealing that totally-unformatted HTML. Go to a bookstore and browse through their design section and find some basic books on design. There are lots and they're easy to find, like The Non-Designer's Design Book by Robin Williams. (Not the comedian.) You can do plenty of nice work by learning a few basic rules and staying conservative. And copy, copy, copy! Find a color scheme you like, find a layout you like that works with your content, and go with it. If the organization has colors, start with that. (Just hope they picked well in the first place.) Just don't go too far with your copying. :-)

The problem with the shelf Dock is that the Dock has always been mostly transparent. Now it's anything but - it's got that S curve, and it reflects windows from just above it. The icons also get extra shadows applied to them for no reason whatsover - if you look at the Transmit icon, it looks like it's doing a pirouette on the wheel at the bottom. The shelf Dock would be great if it just shucked these elements and easily allowed non-stack folders (perhaps dragging in an alias to a folder will do that, I haven't tried) because I like the basic look - it's the unnecessary effects that make it look like they may just as well have glued on spray-painted macaroni.

The menu bar isn't a big worry. The transparency at the cost of legibility is far down since earlier, and if you want it white you can just draw a white 22 pixel line on the top of your wallpaper.

Would you mind actually sharing that base layout, in some form or another?

It's a heavily modified form of this layout.

Follow up question is how do you code your frontend side...

Pretty low-tech really--

Tools:

• Textmate
• Transmit
• Firefox
• Web developer toolbar

As for the process, I write the markup, then write the CSS with frequent tests in a compliant browser (I use Firefox, but Opera or Safari would work equally well--even IE7 is not too bad for this--along with occasional adjustments to the html and a few trips to the validator just to catch any typos. The last step is browser testing, but this is usually just a matter of fixing one or two IE float/haslayout bugs and fixing the box model problems in IE 5.x Win.

The key as I see it to successful HTML/CSS development in applications is to develop the markup and CSS as much as possible separately from the logic, and to always use the simplest possible markup with meaningful classes and ids but with absolutely no presentational attributes in the HTML for application output. I've spent more hours trying to fix scripts and code that thought it'd be a great idea to hardcode shit like "<td background="#ffcc00">Foo</td>" than it ever took me to learn to use CSS in the first place.

A modular approach works well; you can design the 'page' markup and CSS as one item, and then design each of the different sorts of output as individual components, copy them into the page to make sure you haven't borked your layout accidentally, then build the logic that outputs the HTML you designed (or pass the code off to whoever's going to be doing that job).

I suggest designing the HTML separately as a means of helping to bugfix the back end stuff--if the HTML on its own was ok, any later problems must be in the application logic.

I'm a Mac user and a fan of FOSS. I like OS X because it's easy to use but also because I can set up a MAMP server and have a fully functional portable development environment. I use NeoOffice, Gimpshop, Scribus and Inkscape because the price is right for what I use them for. I also use Transmit, Unison and TextMate because I haven't found FOSS software that's anywhere as good. I've also paid money for Rogue Amoeba's stuff because there's nothing in the FOSS world that touches it, and very little in the expensive world for that matter. How much are these apps? Transmit is $29.95 and Unison is $24.95, TextMate is EU39, AudioHijack, which is an amazing piece of software if you do stuff with audio, costs all of $32.
There is an undeniable overhead in developing for the Mac because you have to use dedicated hardware, but it's not that much, and the quality of the software is very high, so I think it's worth my throwing my pocket change at them. That Coda sure looks purty too...

I'm a Mac user and a fan of FOSS. I like OS X because it's easy to use but also because I can set up a MAMP server and have a fully functional portable development environment. I use NeoOffice, Gimpshop, Scribus and Inkscape because the price is right for what I use them for. I also use Transmit, Unison and TextMate because I haven't found FOSS software that's anywhere as good. I've also paid money for Rogue Amoeba's stuff because there's nothing in the FOSS world that touches it, and very little in the expensive world for that matter. How much are these apps? Transmit is $29.95 and Unison is $24.95, TextMate is EU39, AudioHijack, which is an amazing piece of software if you do stuff with audio, costs all of $32.
There is an undeniable overhead in developing for the Mac because you have to use dedicated hardware, but it's not that much, and the quality of the software is very high, so I think it's worth my throwing my pocket change at them. That Coda sure looks purty too...

I'm a Mac user and a fan of FOSS. I like OS X because it's easy to use but also because I can set up a MAMP server and have a fully functional portable development environment. I use NeoOffice, Gimpshop, Scribus and Inkscape because the price is right for what I use them for. I also use Transmit, Unison and TextMate because I haven't found FOSS software that's anywhere as good. I've also paid money for Rogue Amoeba's stuff because there's nothing in the FOSS world that touches it, and very little in the expensive world for that matter. How much are these apps? Transmit is $29.95 and Unison is $24.95, TextMate is EU39, AudioHijack, which is an amazing piece of software if you do stuff with audio, costs all of $32.
There is an undeniable overhead in developing for the Mac because you have to use dedicated hardware, but it's not that much, and the quality of the software is very high, so I think it's worth my throwing my pocket change at them. That Coda sure looks purty too...

At least for mac users, there are quite a few very well designed and maintained products that are shareware and rival Adobe's offerings in both features and pizazz.

RapidWeaver is an industrial-strength alternative to Dreamweaver which includes an SDK, full drag-n-drop designing interface, coding panel, Flash integration, and site maintenance. Currently it's $49.

Coda is the newcomer on the block, built by one of the best Mac shareware coding companies. As with the others, it allows for drag-n-drop designing and fully supports XHTML. Panic Software's tagline "shockingly good Mac software" is evident here cause they integrate the features of Transmit (their excellent FTP utility) including site/filepath synchronization, drag-n-drop uploading from the Dock... Coda also includes a console that's integrated into the app window that allows for split terminal shells for SSH and other functions. Coda includes a GUI CSS editor and comprehensive HTML programmer's guide in the application itself. $79.

TextMate is the Mac's premiere enterprise-level, yet shareware price text editor that does... pretty much anything. It can handle just about as many language bundles as jEdit but is purely Mac. It integrates well with Transmit, the shell, Subversion, and has a fully customizable code snippet library for full programmer control. I can't even begin to summarize all the features that sets this editor apart from the others, but it easily shames Dreamweaver's code window. Just watch the screencasts on the website. It costs 39.

CSSEdit by MacRabbit is a GUI-powered CSS editor which has a snooping mode called X-Ray that can analyze a website's design similar to Firefox's 3rd party Web Developer addon, except with style, polish, and features that you've come to expect from Mac applications. It includes a CSS "builder" workflow that allows you to use some natural language and object-oriented programming (in the most basic sense) to build CSS effects. $29.95

There are many others including Apple's own iWeb (which is included with every new Macintosh, is VERY easy to use, and puts out bloated-yet XHTML compliant code) and BBEdit by Bare Bones Software which is very comparable to TextMate in many ways.

Because of this:

and would much rather not break their creative flow by searching Web sites for the needed information,

I don't get that assertion at all. I keep a PostgreSQL, PHP and ADOdb tab open for my various projects. Looking through those manuals is a lot more helpful and a lot easier than a cheat-sheet. When I'm looking up something, it's because it's non-trivial, and I'll need context and examples. Or I want to do something odd, and I'm wondering if there's already a handy function or query that does what I need (SELECT FOR UPDATE to lock a row, as a simple example) so I don't have to programmatically reinvent the wheel. I guess if you need to recall the order of an UPDATE clause this might be helpful, but otherwise, no.

Besides, there's barely enough room on my desk for the laptop and a martini. I'd have to hold the cheat-sheet in my mouth.

(On a side note, I've been using Panic's Coda since they released 1.0. It's pretty swell. Their "Books" feature, though, is significantly less useful than the Web manuals. The PHP manual is particularly unhelpful compared to the Web version.)

Linked version with condensed summary. I wanted to find out more about some of them. Others may benefit too.

Ecto a blogging client (but the site seems to be down: try this for more info). Shareware, $17.95.
Transmit an FTP client. Shareware, $17.95
Sync Services -- comes with 10.4
BBedit text/html editor. $125, but worth it.
Missing Synch for Windows Mobile - synchronize with PDA/smartphones. $49.95/$39.95
OmniGraffle - diagramming / flowchart program. $79.95 / $149.95
ConceptDraw - another diagramming / flowchart program. $299
IChat AV - built-in to 10.4
AppleScript, Scriptdebugger - also built-in. No link. I'm getting lazy.
Microsoft Entourage -- part of MS Office.
Sketchfigher 4000 Alpha -- a game from the great Ambrosia Software. $19.00
TypeIt4Me - keyboard macro expander. $27
NetworkLocation - automatically trigger configuration changes depending upon where you are on the network (e.g., at home, work, etc.). $15
Apple Remote Desktop 3 - control / configure Mac systems remotely. $499 / $299 (unlimited / 10 systems)
MacLinkPlus - file conversion software (e.g., from WordPerfect documents to/from Word, and many others). $79
Parallels Desktop for Mac - virtualization software (e.g., run Win XP simultaneously with OS X). $79.
Remote Desktop Connection - connect remotely to a Windows desktop. FREE
Snap X Pro - screen / movie capture. $29
Boot Camp - dual boot Windows. I'm lazy.
PDF - Portable Document Format from Adobe? What?
Lingon - tool for making launchd scripts for 10.4.
Workgroup Manager - manage local systems - part of 10.4 Server.

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Okay, a mildly interesting list. Here's a few more suggestions:

Cyberduck - FTP and SFTP client. Donationware.
VLC - cross-platform video viewer / transcoder.
Blender 3D - cross-platform 3D modelling / rendering.
Bookends - excellent bibliography software. $99
Celestia - cross-platform real-time 3D astronomy simulator.
Plot - a, uh, plotting / graphing program.
proFit - another plotting / graphing program, non-free. $95
WordService - adds a bunch of text reformatting tools to the Services menu, making them accessible in any program. The same page has a bunch of other useful and free services.

The original article lists PDF, but no tools. While its true OS X native support makes PDF pretty easy to use, there's still some tasks that are awkward and some useful tools out there to do t

No worthwhile RoR web apps? Check out BackPack, BaseCamp, or TaDa List. Finally, RoR can do anything that PHP can do from blog engines to a photo gallery to web stores. So to say that Ruby on Rails can't create any worthwhile websites shows a lack of knowledge of the abilities that Ruby on Rails has.

Good. Because we all know that it's not a big truck.

My FTP client disagrees: http://panic.com/transmit/

As Mac users know, The Big Truck file-sharing application has been around for years!

... and is pretty user unfriendly ...

Usenet is as user unfriendly as e-mail or http. You only need a nice client and it becomes really easy. I.e.: http://www.panic.com/unison/

Unison is what you want for software on a mac. I love it. I even paid for my copy ;) Way better than Thoth, which is what I used to use years ago. I'm not sure about websites that tell you what's online. What I have seen don't work very well.

iTunes was based on SoundJam, but is vastly different today. You can find a good explanation of the creation of iTunes through the eyes of a competitor to SoundJam here:
http://panic.com/extras/audionstory/

Designing a piece of art icon has some consequences. If you check Transmit icon there even if you don't use OS X, it will look familiar to you.

http://www.panic.com/transmit/

That thing is one of the most stolen icons of all time. They even put a page dedicated to "rip off"

http://www.panic.com/extras/ripoff/

Note many sites fixed their stolen icons after figuring it out. Yes, it is usually a burglar single webmaster to blame. I personally know one of them got fired who should knaw Panic Inc. and Transmit icon 6 months ago because of the site he "designs".

BTW if you don't use OS X, don't get tricked by how eye candy and easy looking those programs are. They are eye candy code wise too. It is not like "code must suck so they made it look beautiful". They are very advanced, elite coded modern applications which really fits good to year 2006 and the OS X they run on.