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There's an incredibly fast Sherlock replacement called Locator (freeware) which puts a GUI on the OS X locate database. Searches in Locator take all of a second or two. Plus no channels, no big GUI overhead, just hella fast searches. Plus if you use a program called Keyboard Maestro in it's free form you can reassign Command+F to point to Locator instead of Sherlock. Speed speed speed!

On a related subject, you can use the Mac OS X app Frotz to play all the old text-based interactive fiction games like Zork, HHGG -- basically the Infocom and Z-Code games.

A ha! The Moose is still alive. Great program. Reminds me of the wonderful early '90s. When Macs were expensive and Windows was complete crap, not barely passable crap.

Followed your sig's link, and wow. Nice streaming server. You should consider getting it listed at VersionTracker. I spent a good day looking for a decent mp3 streamer that would run on OSX. After giving up in frustration, I ran across your link, and was saved.

LAME compiles and runs just fine in OS X. Grab the latest version (3.91), then get this very nice iTunes script that makes ripping and encoding a CD using iTunes and LAME almost as seamless as using the default encoder.

There's finally and Ogg component for OS X QuickTime that seems to work pretty well for a beta. Another fruit of the BSD underpinnings, I believe. OS 9 version on the way. A second version of the QuickTime component apparently also exists, although I could not get the page to load.

Try WindowShade X

I would suggest Versiontracker over the site you recommended-- their database seems much more complete.

Page at versiontracker: here

Homepage with Download: here

if you go to Versiontracker you can see many pieces of software that has been ported. XEmacs 19.14 has been ported and you can get it here.

It looks like Adobe FrameMaker for the Mac OS?

I think you mean this:
Here.

It's the Roxio Toast Titanium beta/preview1 for OS X, with preview2 soon to be announced...

And it's BETA. It's not a complete 100% solution.

Sure, if you wanna pick nits, neither is OS X 10.0...

The point being you can't go to the store and pick up a CD burning solution for OS X yet.

Everything you'd really need to know you can find here. There is a surprisingly large number of apps out there for OS X. VersionTracker has a really large and up to date database of apps coming over to OS X.

Say hello to Ascii Mac.

Now try running quake with it...

As for changing file names of a big batch of files, A Better Finder Rename does this admirably. Not sure if it can also do batch changes of file type -- I'd have to check.

I love the fact that some of my JPGs open in PictureViewer, some of them open in GraphicConverter, and some of them open in AOL.

double-clicking opens in WinAMP, right-clicking and choosing "edit" opens in SoundForge.

That is indeed a nice feature. But it has nothing to do with the fact that the file type metadata is appended to the file name. Apple could choose to implement this type of functionality with file types/creator codes in their present location. (And I wish they would!)

file extensions... make the type of file crystal-clear

Umm, no. I use my Windows box more hours per day than my Mac, and I doubt I will ever memorize what all those three-letter extension signify. Sure, I know the common ones -- DOC, XLS, EXE -- but for 95% of them I have no idea.

In contrast, icons on the Mac are usually so artfully done there's no question what app a document belongs to. Even various flavors of documents for a particular app (for example, the distinctive QuickTime icons for Mov, JPG, MPEG, MP3, etc.). And yes, Apple has human interface guidelines which tell developers how to make application icons quite distinct from document icons. Those guidelines are quite effective.

As for changing file names of a big batch of files, A Better Finder Rename does this admirably. Not sure if it can also do batch changes of file type -- I'd have to check.

I love the fact that some of my JPGs open in PictureViewer, some of them open in GraphicConverter, and some of them open in AOL.

double-clicking opens in WinAMP, right-clicking and choosing "edit" opens in SoundForge.

That is indeed a nice feature. But it has nothing to do with the fact that the file type metadata is appended to the file name. Apple could choose to implement this type of functionality with file types/creator codes in their present location. (And I wish they would!)

file extensions... make the type of file crystal-clear

Umm, no. I use my Windows box more hours per day than my Mac, and I doubt I will ever memorize what all those three-letter extension signify. Sure, I know the common ones -- DOC, XLS, EXE -- but for 95% of them I have no idea.

In contrast, icons on the Mac are usually so artfully done there's no question what app a document belongs to. Even various flavors of documents for a particular app (for example, the distinctive QuickTime icons for Mov, JPG, MPEG, MP3, etc.). And yes, Apple has human interface guidelines which tell developers how to make application icons quite distinct from document icons. Those guidelines are quite effective.

• Loads of ported UNIX software thanks to the FreeBSD ports tree
• A free X server now with rootless support!
• Ass loads of Mac software on top of that

Basically, you can't get a cheaper laptop that will ship with a top notch UNIX system pre-installed. Sure you could get a PC laptop and dual boot windows and whatever, but why bother?

The iBook is very durable. I threw mine in a pillow case, then put that in my backpack so I could skateboard to school every day and it has withstood all the abuse I have given it.

It's great on the network. If the built in modem, 10/100 ethernet isn't good enough for you, you can have wireless for another 100 bucks. It's industry standard, too so you can fit in just fine on a PC network (did I mention that OS 10.1 will ship with SAMBA?) The networking code is all BSD goodness. It can't get any better than that.

Aqua is also the best GUI I have ever used. I grew up on windows, and used WindowMaker, blackbox, and enlightnement for X. Aqua blows them all away.

The only reason not to buy one is if you can't stand Apple computers or Steve Jobs for some reason. For me, I purchase computers based on technical merit, not based on petty biases, so the iBook was a great choice for me.

there's alots of solutions for syncing your newt, you're just not looking (or else you think they all died when the newton did).

here's a couple of links to get you going:

http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=101 95&db=mac

-- new software to sync your newton with MS Entourage (if you use something else, there's an option out there somewhere, i swear)

http://talk.smaller.com/forumdisplay.cgi?action=to pics&forum=Newton+General+Discussion&number=1

-- excellent discussion forum, always active

http://www.info-newt.com/faq/index.html

-- the most comprehensive listing of FAQs, software vendors, etc. plus links to lots more

http://www.newtontraveler.com/

-- my newton site :)

So far, MacOS X has not got a very good reception in this market at all.

Apple has consistently outsold their greatest expectations with both the early beta sales of OS X and their "version 1.0" release. They have interested countless people who were, until then, not even remotely interested in Apple. They have gotten a ton of great reviews. Developers are practically jumping for joy.

What do you mean "not got a very good reception"?

Not only does it mean a total rewrite of their products,

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here, but as a Mac developer, I can confidently (albeit gently) call bullshit on this. Obviously, you don't know anything about Carbon which requires a minimal alteration to classic Mac code to run in the OS X environment and gain all the benefits of OS X. A 10,000 line project of mine needed exactly 15 minor changes to make the leap from OS 9.x to OS X and half of those changes were simply deleting old "initialization" routines that were obsolete and automatically handled by OS X. Another quarter of those were renamed function calls that simply needed to be globally replaced. It required almost no work.

it also means they have to fight with a "real" OS, just like on NT.

As someone who works/fights with NT on a daily basis, I can can only laugh at this.

I would imagine that MacOS 9 will stay supported for a number of years because of this and other vertical market issues.

Nope. I don't expect you to look at this or this but maybe you will. Look around there and keep an eye on these sites daily if you really want to know the truth. Developers are stampeeding to OS X as evidenced by the ongoing, growing list of new OS X products coming out every day. OS 9 will be history soon.

--Rick

these are for 9, not OS X, anyways, here

-Henry

1 -- No DVD support

2 -- Odd OEM *nix quirks

--No password for root"

Root is disabled by default as uneccissary for home use. The password is the same as the password for the first admin created when you first install. You can turn it on in Netinfo, if you so choose.

" --weird Bash shell quirks"

You mean the fact it doesn't ship with BASH at all? Or the fact that csh is the default shell? Maybe you meant to say, "I didn't know it wasn't using BASH shell and it confused me"

3 -- Software? Who needs software?

You should check out Version tracker

You should check you iDisk too, it has some stuff that is not on versiontracker.

You should also look for MacWorld annoucements early next month for the shipping of Adobe, Macromedia, Corel, and MANY other very popular 3rd parties. Not to mention the fact that many games for OS 9 are currently being ported or are ported to OS X (check out what the OmniGroup is doing, they port your games for free in a small amount of time). This is not even to mention that ALL of my OS 9 Apps run fine.

4 -- "Classic Mode" == "So slow you want to die mode"

I think you mis-spelled "I never used OS X in my life cause if I had, I would know that Classic runs at about 95% the speed it does by itself, while running inside of OS X" or maybe you meant to say "Classic really runs perfectly fine. In fact "The Sims" plays perfectly (which btw is a good trick) while running in classic on a 266 iMac"

Of course Mac OS X kicks Win2k's butt. With a fat core of pure UNIX (ask the Open Group)at its base, GNU/Mac OS X (as RMS would call it) has rock solid stability, great multitasking and all the GNU goodies Linux users have grown to love. On top of that is an interface that is so sexy members of the Mormon Faith have to get a waiver to use.

Want to talk about serving? Sure you do! Check out the $999 Server version of Mac OS X. Unlike Windows 2000, for $999 you get the whole shooting match -- no need for the those pesky client licenses that Microsoft lawyers love to sue over.

Worried that Mac OS X has no software available? Don't let your heart be troubled. Like X Windows with Enlightenment and Gnome? Mac OS X has got that. Need a good web server? How about Apache and Zeus. Want a browser that doesn't suck? We got those in spades, IE 5.1.1 (well it does suck a little), OmniWeb, Fizilla, iCab and Lynx. Need a word processor? We have Nisus Writer, BBEdit, Microsoft Office and every Macintosh users favorite, Appleworks. Need a rapid application development platform? Got those two, the free Project Builder from Apple and RealBasic. Need graphic apps? How about GIMP and Photoshop. I could go on and on, but I use Macs to make a livin' and not wastin' time on Slashdot.

Sure Mac OS X 1.0 is not the perfect OS. It has some bugs and some features are a little slow. But it is an amazing first step in the journey of putting UNIX on the consumer desktop. Linux developers can learn about an consumer OS by taking a long gander at this amazing first shot.

Mac-based graphic designers who have only had access to Photoshop for years

Well, actually, there are a couple more. Grant you, PhotoShop is by far the best, but in the more Gimp-like arena, we've had GraphicConverter for years.

Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.

Actually, virtual desktops are available under OS X with the Space application.

There are several development environments for the Mac... either free, or low-cost:

• MPW (Macintosh Programmer's Workshop) has been available from Apple for years, and is a (free for the download) full and complete C and C++ development environment.
• RealBasic is fairly cheap ($149 for standard edition, without Windows support), and is pretty well regarded, especially for hobbyist developers.
• CodeWarrior is very well regarded, supports cross-platform development (i.e., compile Windows programs from the Macintosh IDE)... it's a little more expensive ($300-$400), but I think many of the shareware developers find that the productivity increase (not only from from the IDE, but also from Metrowerk's Application framework, PowerPlant) is worth it.
• And, last but not least, every retail copy of Mac OS X comes with ProjectBuilder, the Mac OS X version of the very well regarded Next development tools. Including make, ar, gcc, and all of those command line tools Unix developers love.

In fact, I think the inclusion of ProjectBuilder with Mac OS X has enabled a lot of hobbyist/shareware developers (not to mention Next oldtimers) to get a head start at developing software for the OS. Just look at VersionTracker's Mac OS X pages for evidence.

Oh, you mean like this?

The vanishing RAM thing isn't a huge conspiracy. Read all about it here. Most RAM vendors are apparently replacing "missing" RAM with parts that have proper Mac specs.

Also, someone has written a utility to test and repair DIMMs.

Simple things like popup folders...are now gone

Although this thread is nearly dead, I have to point out that Versiontracker has come through again.

Simple things like popup folders...are now gone

Although this thread is nearly dead, I have to point out that Versiontracker has come through again.

Although, has anyone been able to replace the default shell with bash?

Stepwise has a utility that does this. Stepwise is also a good source of other X Client and Server stuff; they're old NeXT Step folks that have kept the flame alive (and seen their page hits jump hundred fold in the last week, no doubt.)

There's plenty of other places that I've seen bash; don't forget to check Versiontracker for other Mac OS X goodies, a long standby of Mac users.

...I don't know if they've backported Carbon to OS 8.x, but I'd expect them to.

CarbonLib is supported for MacOS 8.1 and higher. You can get it from VersionTracker.

Either way, Apple has a much better history of supporting old machines.

I don't know if I necessarily buy that. You can compile and run Linux on some REALLY OLD hardware, and ls and vi run like a champ. :-) But your point is well taken. For example, while I was at VersionTracker, I just happened to notice that one of my favorite Mac shareware games from days of yore has been updated for OS X! Yes, Klondike lives! You download one game,and it runs on essentially every Macintosh model made in the last 15 years; every MacOS made in the last 12 years; and it still looks and plays great! How many 17-year-old PC games have aged that gracefully?

...I don't know if they've backported Carbon to OS 8.x, but I'd expect them to.

CarbonLib is supported for MacOS 8.1 and higher. You can get it from VersionTracker.

Either way, Apple has a much better history of supporting old machines.

I don't know if I necessarily buy that. You can compile and run Linux on some REALLY OLD hardware, and ls and vi run like a champ. :-) But your point is well taken. For example, while I was at VersionTracker, I just happened to notice that one of my favorite Mac shareware games from days of yore has been updated for OS X! Yes, Klondike lives! You download one game,and it runs on essentially every Macintosh model made in the last 15 years; every MacOS made in the last 12 years; and it still looks and plays great! How many 17-year-old PC games have aged that gracefully?

...I don't know if they've backported Carbon to OS 8.x, but I'd expect them to.

CarbonLib is supported for MacOS 8.1 and higher. You can get it from VersionTracker.

Either way, Apple has a much better history of supporting old machines.

I don't know if I necessarily buy that. You can compile and run Linux on some REALLY OLD hardware, and ls and vi run like a champ. :-) But your point is well taken. For example, while I was at VersionTracker, I just happened to notice that one of my favorite Mac shareware games from days of yore has been updated for OS X! Yes, Klondike lives! You download one game,and it runs on essentially every Macintosh model made in the last 15 years; every MacOS made in the last 12 years; and it still looks and plays great! How many 17-year-old PC games have aged that gracefully?

Okey dokey. I put a preformatted floppy in my 1998 PowerBook, OS 8.6. Copied the file "three monkeys.jpeg". Took floppy to a Dell desktop, Win98. Long file name is just fine. Copied the file "parental-controls.gif". Took floppy back to the Mac. Both file names were retained just fine. (31 character maximum, of course, until March 24th.)

That said, there is one area that long names get screwed up -- ISO 9660 CDs. HFS, Joliet, and Rock Ridge all store their long file names differently. Very few CD burning packages are triple compatible, so anyone left out usually gets stuck with 8.3 names instead. There's a freeware fix for Mac though.

Here's some answers

1. Apple's own MacOS X material
2. Apple's own Darwin material
3. A MacOS X developer site
4. An over-view of Mac-specific websites & their headlines
5. Current listings of MacOS X-specific applications

In addition, there is a new shareware app called "Space.app", which gives you 4 workspaces. Granted it's not built into the OS, it has a really groovy icon. And isn't that how everyone chooses what app to buy? Hmm? Look at the VersionTracker site for more info on Space.app.

Russell Ahrens

I agree, Mac OS does not come with the built-in utilities that it should.

But, there are plenty of freeware utilities, including telnet, ssh and ping utilities, available to download from the web.

Do a search on Version Tracker to find them .

----------------------------

Probably the best site for Mac tools/utlities is versiontracker.com. Try Nifty Telnet, I found this to be the "best" for the Mac. There's also a Nifty SSH client as well. If you want to do tracerouters, PINGs, etc... try What Router

iCab 2.1 (get it now at versiontracker.com!), a browser for the Mac OS, does exactly that.

If it turns out apps can be ported from OSX to *nix rather easily, then my bet is on M$ not writing any software for OSX.

I'm not worried about developers writing for *nix and not for OS X.

M$ already has IE 5 shipping with the latest developer preview of OS X, and they will release Office: from what I heard, they're not just porting it from the current MacOS port, they're redoing it in Cocoa, the NeXTStep based (and most kick-ass of all) OS X API.

Other popular software will also be available for OS X, as http://www.apple.com/macosx/apps.html shows. Adobe, Microsoft, ID, Quark and others are listed on that page. Because publishing too much OS X info, particularly screenshots, is not yet possible because of non-disclosure agreements, the software companies will wait until the release of the public beta of OS X in september before they start releasing their OS X based beta's. However, pages like Version Tracker (with a MacOS background) and Softrak (with a NeXT background) already list a fair amount of OS X software, ready to download.

My bet is that there will be a large amount of software for OS X, and there are (at least) four reasons why:

• As noted in earlier, OS X will have a large userbase: eventually, practically all Mac owners will have a Mac that runs OS X. The Mac userbase is small compared to the windoze victims, but it's larger than the current *n[iu]x community. And it'll grow because people who want a reasonably priced unix-like system with a good GUI will get an OS X box.
• Apple has done a great job by implementing the Carbon API: the Carbon libraries contain almost all old Mac OS toolbox calls, so most current Mac OS applications will recompile under OS X without a great deal of trouble. And carbon apps will benefit from the new memory manager, scheduler, and user interface. See http://www.xappeal.org/carbon/index.shtml for a list of software that is or will be available in carbonized form.
• To ease migration to the new OS for old Mac users, Apple created a classic compatibility mode: basicly an application that emulates a Mac running OS 9. It runs all old and non-carbon applications, at roughly 80-90% of the speed it would have if run natively. These apps have the old OS's interface and will crash as often as they did on the old OS, but they won't take the rest of the system down with it.
• Apple is putting a lot of work in making OS X usable for non-techy consumers: the average granny should feel happy using an OS X Mac. Everything configurable will have to be configurable by GUI-tools, in fact, the Terminal application won't be installed by default. I doubt it's possible to install and configure a usable other *n[iu]x system without ever editing a config file directly. Developers of consumer products like word processors, mail applications, webbrowsers, audio- and video editing software will like the stability and consumer-orientedness of OS X.

For some excellent technical info on the upcoming OS X, take a look at the reviews Ars Technica did here.

gerti

I was away from my Mac earlier this week, so I didn't get to post in the previous discussion. Here's my $.02 :

1. My favorite NNTP client is a descendant of NewsWatcher, open source for Mac
2. My favorite Telnet client is a descendant of NSCA Telnet, open source for Mac
3. Want other examples? Try VersionTracker. And here's some more.
4. Want to write your own? Apple gives you the tools.

I was away from my Mac earlier this week, so I didn't get to post in the previous discussion. Here's my $.02 :

1. My favorite NNTP client is a descendant of NewsWatcher, open source for Mac
2. My favorite Telnet client is a descendant of NSCA Telnet, open source for Mac
3. Want other examples? Try VersionTracker. And here's some more.
4. Want to write your own? Apple gives you the tools.

yup, that's about right. Blake. It was mentioned in my post, but my writing was so dense and rambling that i don't think anyone noticed it :)
More people might have used blake, of course, if it hadn't been for the fact it was $30 shareware, and until you paid that $30 every single browser window blake created had a huge nagware panel saying to pay for Blake. This is really really wierd when you consider all Blake did was fuse two free pieces of software together.. and you were expected to pay $30 for it.

Cyberdog's web browser was always awful, but the mail and newsgroup parts were wonderful-- so good that i continued to use cyberdog as my mail/news reader for years.. unfortunately it had a couple small bugs that were serious problems to me, and since apple had locked down the code they would never get fixed. Had apple had one engineer spend about a day fixing problems in Cyberdog-- problems being things like it's lack of inherent Internet Config modularity support, which would have been rediculously easy to code in, or its inability to send non-GIF pasted images, or its totally inexplicable inability to send files without binhexing them first, or a way to translate opendoc images into normal JPEGs [since an "opendoc image" was just a wrapper around the original JPEG], or the tiny bit of work to make it compatible with the newer versions of the Macintosh Runtime for Java-- i might still be using it today. But apple refused to do even the tiniest bit of maintenence work on it, and so it's small but serious problems caused me to finally flee to Outlook Express 4.. *sob* oh god the memories

an interesting project would be reimplementing Mozilla as a cyberdog-style opendoc thing. [i'd suggest doing the same to Bettertelnet or Mactelnet as replacements for cyberdog's telnet part, now that they're opensourced, but i don't know how opendoc-compatible the GPL is..] Unfortunately i don't think opendoc still works in the mac os, and i don't think the windows port was ever finished. Pity.

I don't know how Apple managed to screw up something as simple as an auto software update, but they managed. VersionTracker has a link to a SMI of the update. So it is out. I notice no change, but it is out.

uh oh.. just read back over what i'd posted and noticed a horrendous typo. too late.

"patch all the quicktime traps".. that should have said "patch all the quickdraw traps".

This doesn't really matter or effect the meaning of the post in the end, but i'm pretty sure if anyone catches the error i'll get flamed like hell.

doesn't matter one way or the other, there's no way in hell i'd ever get around to writing anything that patched the quickdraw stuff anyway.. especially for the simple reason that there's no _use_ for an X client running off the mac os, since you can use VNC.. (which is something i probably should have mentioned in the original post, or at least stressed i wasn't serious..)

shoulda looked more carefully before i posted. i'm an idiot. please forgive me, i am tired..