Slashdot Mirror

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.

---
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

If Apple wants it fly they need to open the device to 3rd party apps, full stop. A small touch screen OSX machine that you can't add software to is so intellectually offensive that it hurts.

Agreed. If it was running some random embedded OS then I wouldn't mind so much, but it's exceptionally disappointing that there are so many existing Mac apps that could be available with a recompile (and probably minor UI tweaks for the smaller screen), except that Steve has forbade them. My collection of board games would work very well, and with Rendezvous support you could possibly play against random people on the subway. And no, playing Ataxx or Checkers is not going to take out Cingular's network.

According to Koingo Software's entry on the discussion at http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 26767&page=3 (direct link may or may not work), they actually had a home directory erased by the program. And the programmers response (next entry) is not really customer friendly. It seems clear that there has been versions of the program that really erase your home directory.

The developer says in an earlier thread at http://www.versiontracker.com/php/feedback/article .php?story=20050512102318700#comments that there was a bug in the path generation. He says it generates a path 'one level above what' is intended if the 'hard disk has numbers in its name'. May be a similar bug caused Kolingo's ~/ to be deleted instead of ~/Library/Application Support/display_eater/ though that is 3 levels higher (or may be Kolingo is just exaggerating as others suggest).

The summary is right. It indeed does wipe the whole home directory. http://www.versiontracker.com/php/feedback/article .php?story=20070204234239880

Now the page shows it rated at the lowest value possible in all categories, and the comments are full of "don't buy this software" as well. I also noticed that searching for "Display Eater" on the site no longer returns anything, which seems to indicate they removed it from the listing.

Talk about a moronic idea -- if piracy was already a problem, the result of this will be much greater than the problems piracy ever created. And ironically enough, this will make pirating the product a safer proposition. Do you want to use a legal version, which has this file deleting "feature" that might one day go wrong and nuke something? O do you get the pirated version with the file deleting code removed from it?

This is a more extreme version of what happens with other sorts of copy prevention. There are games out there that run faster and more stable with the CD check disabled.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 30149 Maybe that'll help solve your missile launcher dilemma. Unless you have the super new green one, which IIRC is the Rocket Launcher, which is this link for progress: http://dgwilson.wordpress.com/ Enjoy!

Is their any reason why Openstep packages can't be distributed by the package manager and extended to contain repository information so that if you get them elsewhere you can still update them, etc?

None whatsoever.

With Mac, I guess you'd have to hunt around google for that list, and then hunt around for the websites.

Nah. You'd just go to Version Tracker.

I use AppZapper. Cleans out everything that was related to the installed app.

That was not a virus - that was a trojan (pretty huge difference if you know what the differences are!) And read through the final analysis of the work the user actually had to do to contract it.

A Trojan is a type of virus. Security experts acknowledge this, dictionaries acknowledge this. Heck even anti-virus software classify Trojans as a 'Trojan virus'.

Which they fixed pretty quickly, as noted....

Ah, I apologize. For some reason I remember this particular event being months (I just double checked to make sure, and I'm in the wrong).

Also, we are talking about OS X viruses not "legacy" viruses that in practice no-one will be catching since almost no-one uses Classic anymore.

I saw one a year ago. =)

Which don't matter as much since they come turned off by default (and still didn't see any exploits for OS X in the wild)...

It isn't enabled on most Linux, BSD distributions by default either, but they still patch it faster. Machines have been exploited after the release of exploit information quickly. This is a very real risk, which is still unacceptable.

But anyone who wants to see ALL files in Finder is probably also going to be pretty familiar with the shell and not really mind editing XML files

To be honest, I hate editing XML files -- I would rather have this stuff in the GUI.

Frankly I have never enabled Finder in that manner as if I want to be messing with files Finder cannot see by default, I greatly prefer to be using Terminal anyway.

Yeah, plus theres that annoying fact that you see these hidden files on the desktop (don't get this on KDE). In the end I ended up using mc for most things.

What makes it an advanced OS is that you have a layer that is easily configurable by most users, and then a more advanced layer that is easily adjustable through a few means.

There isn't really a 'more advanced' layer, many things I've found on OS X, particularly todo with the GUI is very unconfigurable unless you start making horrible 'hacks' like ShadowRemover. At least with Windows I could customize the GUI more, even though some of the things had to be done via the registry (ie: .net styles for drop down menus in 'classic theme' on XP).

The situation is still better than what Windows offered, where you had to basically write TweakUI to get at some settings that could not simply be activated in a text file

Actually.. Tweak UI is really just a program that does a few registry switches.

at least OS X comes with means to modify every setting in the system, even if some are not behind GUI's.

I have been spending hours on end trying to disable effects, shadows and all sorts of non-sense in OS X (it slows down VNC related things). I still haven't figured out how to disable all of them. Nor can I find documentation on some of the things I want to disable.

However, that sort of non-sense is why I am using a Linux distribution as my 'main' desktop (I still use many OSes).

Not really, there is a lot more template material online on how to do so, and a number of Windows viruses in the past have been simple variants of existing worms and viruses.

True. There is even generators (I forgot about this until now) for creating things like botnet worm viruses (which don't work on up-to date versions of windows). Most viruses we see on Windows however, aren't the "generated" ones. The popular modified variations we have seen of certain worms weren't created by people with lack of understanding either (judging by the modifications done).

But yes, I would have to agree that in some instances, creating a virus on Windows can be easier for now.

B

Though not free nor included with any OS, VersionTracker Pro is a pretty effective way to keep your applications always up to date, if that's your concern.

There's an application called Terminal... I know it sounds unhealthy to use but it is really useful... it lets you do things like this:

Ozark:~ jamesbb$ ps -aux
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TT STAT STARTED TIME COMMAND
jamesbb 3450 0.7 -0.9 369664 19516 ?? R 7:32AM 0:00.75 /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacO S/Terminal -psn_0_44171265

(shortened to get past junk limit on /.)

Which pretty much tells an experienced user what is going on behind the scenes.

There is a website http://developer.apple.com/ which lets you search on specific information about what programs are doing what on your system at any given time... and how to interoperate with them in useful ways... such as writing shell scripts, automator scripts, etc.

Another great tool from the Terminal is this

Ozark:~ jamesbb$ man perl

PERL(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERL(1)

NAME
              perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language

SYNOPSIS

              If you're new to Perl, you should start with perlintro, which is a gen-
              eral intro for beginners and provides some background to help you navi-
              gate the rest of Perl's extensive documentation.

              For ease of access, the Perl manual has been split up into several sec-
              tions.

(shortened to get past junk limit on /.)

Which gives you access to manual pages for various binary applications that are on your system

You can find most of these 'hidden' binaries here:

Ozark:~ jamesbb$ ls -la /usr/bin/
total 253440
-r-xr-xr-x 15 root wheel 147 Jan 13 2006 alias
(shortened to get past junk limit on /.)

which AFAIK is the exact same place you'd find them in Linux

Additionally you can use alias to create shortcuts to your favorite CLI apps

grep, find and slocate are also good tools for finding things on your system that you think should be there but you're not sure where they are ;-p

If you don't want to use your experience using CLI then go to this website: http://www.versiontracker.com/ and type in your favorite CLI app name and you're 90% likely to find a free GUI tool for accessing it (people have been writing and releasing them free for many years now)

This post should get you started on the track to appreciating the UNIXness of your OS X machine....

VersionTracker.com also has it for download on their mirrors.

If you like the Mozilla rendering engine, get Camino. It is built using OS X Frameworks/Technologies and engine is Gecko.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 14326

The Firefox issue raises because of the OS it runs on is much more advanced than Windows or Linux, when a program doesn't use the OS services, it "feels" sluggish. Same thing happens to Opera for example.

You might be interested in iPartition. It's not free, but it's more flexible than /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility. There are others, but this is the only one that quickly comes to mind. Don't bother asking Powerquest/Symantic to make a Mac version of Partiton Magic, ports of existing Windows utilities generally suck on other platforms.
http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iPartition.php

As for other Mac Applications, there are several websites you can check out for various Mac apps. I have never found a shortage of Mac (or Linux) applications, once I avoided the pitfall of finding a "port" or "perfect replacement" for my favorite Windows applications. Things are a little different in the Mac and Linux world, so you might need to find similar, but significantly different applications to meet your needs.

Check out:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/
http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/
http://www.macorchard.com/
http://www.macupdate.com/
And if you want games:
http://aspyr.com/product/product_listing
http://www.destineerstudios.com/macsoftgames/mac_l isting.html
http://www.feral.co.uk/
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/all.html
http://www.pangeasoft.net/index2.html
http://www.freeverse.com/
http://www.apple.com/games/
http://www.macgamefiles.com/

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 24092

Another Mail add-on would be to integrate PGP/GPG in a seamless, easy to use manner so that everyone and their grandma could use it, perhaps by default.

Check out GPGMail. It works seamlessly and really quite well - we use this at the office all the time.

Now a real killer app would be something to make the PGP infrastructure key management, authentication and authorization as easy as it is with X.509 (GPG Keychain Access is a start, but not a solution). Then people could use it by default, and we could start marking all non-signed (and some signed) mail automatically as spam.

They don't even need Windows AV, ClamAV which is free/donationware would catch that virus.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 24449

With a userbase marking your post troll, they don't feel the "urge" to QC. See, I post with "karma bonus" only to Apple stories as a Quad G5 Mac owner for same reasons...

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

What's changed is access to the tools to start experimenting with coding. When you sat down at a command-line terminal like on a C64, you often had to learn a few commands in BASIC just to load a game or see your files. And if you used a Commodore 64 in a computer lab, it usually wasn't long before some kid would show off by printing repeating rainbows on the screen or something, subjecting the entire class to the power of a couple of lines of code with a loop. Now, there is no equivalent. Kids are not simply subjected to some programming in the course of using computers that might tweak their interest, they would have to decide they were interested on their own (or with pushing from someone else,) and then it's not obvious how or where to get started. On a Commodore 64, when you turn it on it starts up in a BASIC development environment, and the computer's manual came with a programming guide for the language. That's a little different in ease of getting into programming than a new Mac or Windows computer.

On the other hand, spending three years trying to get BASIC to run on either a Mac or a PC sounds bizarre. For one, why's it have to be BASIC? If I had a kid I wanted to teach programming on a Mac, I'd use Applescript, which comes with it, and will allow him to easily do some cool things interfacing with other programs and the operating system, as well as giving him an easy path out of a sandbox and into real development via Applescript Studio. Or run Hypercard under Classic, which in my opinion is still the best introduction to programming ever, because you can make things that are highly functional really fast, yet Hyperscript is a full-featured programming language you can really sink your teeth into if you want to get more advanced. If you're dead set on an archaic linearly interpreted language, LOGO's even easier to learn than BASIC.

And if you're set on BASIC, how on earth is it taking you three years and you're not finding it? Here's the results of my 10 seconds of searching for Mac:
Chimunk BASIC
METAL
CocoaBasic
Omikron BASIC
FutureBASIC
TWM (a GUI Builder for Future Basic)
bOSL

Or just emulate whatever BASIC environment you thought was good for learning:
Power64
Frodo
Power20
Sweet16

For LOGO:
XLogo
jLogo
ACSLogo
StarLogo

For Applescript, open Script Editor, which should already be on your Mac.

Hypercard isn't officially available, so horque a warez copy (come on, it's abandonware, how bad are you gonna feel?), or use a competitor:
Supercard
HyperNext Studio

It's the same as Terminal... except slow as can be. I don't know if I just type faster than most people do, but iTerm cannot keep up with my typing. It feels like I'm typing over a slow console connection. Googling for the answer as to why just reveals that iTerm is slow, and that's how it is. Look at the comments here, for instance.

Care to educate a noob on OS X and linux apps?

There is an app, that enables you to set the volume of the Startup sound. It's called Psst! http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 25458

Mac users don't think you are safe because you aren't running windows. It's amazing the number of Apps that "phone home". A great tool for Mac OS X egress filtering is Little Snitch. It's cheap and easy to use.

A search at versiontracker.com for virtual desktops revealed Desktop Manager, You Control Desktops, and virtue desktops

- and finally the chance to use remote desktop without paying $300 for the program.

How about OSXvnc and Chicken of the VNC?

A search at versiontracker.com for virtual desktops revealed Desktop Manager, You Control Desktops, and virtue desktops

- and finally the chance to use remote desktop without paying $300 for the program.

How about OSXvnc and Chicken of the VNC?

A search at versiontracker.com for virtual desktops revealed Desktop Manager, You Control Desktops, and virtue desktops

- and finally the chance to use remote desktop without paying $300 for the program.

How about OSXvnc and Chicken of the VNC?

A search at versiontracker.com for virtual desktops revealed Desktop Manager, You Control Desktops, and virtue desktops

- and finally the chance to use remote desktop without paying $300 for the program.

How about OSXvnc and Chicken of the VNC?

A search at versiontracker.com for virtual desktops revealed Desktop Manager, You Control Desktops, and virtue desktops

- and finally the chance to use remote desktop without paying $300 for the program.

How about OSXvnc and Chicken of the VNC?

Single window switching found here:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 25871

Any 2 button mouse will work fine as well.

for most of the geeks :-) Before being bashed by FOSS gurus, let me show my example.

I'm a Java and Ruby (on rails) programmer. I've dropped windows about 2 years ago, and used various flavors of linux in this meantime (debian, ubuntu, gentoo and ubuntu again). Less than one year ago I bought my first mac (mac mini).

Java development in Windows is "standard", in linux is good and in Mac it is great. You have the same tools as Windows or Linux and, since java is "portable", all other tools (frameworks) works fine. The difference between Windows and Linux/Mac is that Windows restricts you *a lot*. Ex.: I put all my libs in just one place, and make sym links to them in the projects I need. In Windows, its not possible (afaik) (yes, a simple example, but try to keep the libs updated on a windows box...) . And the difference between Linux and Mac is performance. *Usually*, a Java application runs faster on Mac than on Linux, because the Java VM in Mac is done by Apple, meaning that its built by the ones who knows the OS. In Linux, as you certainly know, is a certain pain to install Java (you need to follow one or another howto to get things working), and the performance is *usually* worse than in a Mac, because the VM is done by Sun, which is concerned mainly in getting things working. Yes, they care about performance, but not that much :-) (just remember that IBM and BEA's VM's performs better than Sun's)

When programming with Ruby, Mac is really awesome. Again, Windows looses here. In Windows, you have a set of tools (editors/IDE's) that also exists in other platforms, but its performance is poor (afaik). Also, some Ruby libs requires some sort of compilation (mysql, rmagick, ...), and it can become a pain to get things working. On Linux, things are far better than Windows. You have almost the same tools, but its far easier to get things working: just apt-get / emerge / whatever and you are ready to go. In a Mac, just "port install" what you need, just like linux. The difference between Mac and Linux is in the tools. The same ones + a fantastic editor (and cheap for some, expensive for others). Ok, its not that smart to left an inexpensive OS to go to an "expensive" one just because of an editor. But trust me, it worth.

Besides these work-related details, you also get an OS that just works, with enough applications to do what you usually do on a PC, a good terminal (I definitely cannot use the "cmd" anymore), a more than nice UI and so on... And for people who asks me "why use a mac", I just ask the same: "why use a Windows". There is no reason to use Windows. I can't find something that Windows does better than Mac (ok, I left an space here for some +5 Funny comments).

But yes, there *are* reasons to use Linux instead of Mac. Specially if you want "all the freedom you can get", if you don't want to spend a penny in software or simply don't care about the UI.

Of course, I talked about just the OS itself. The hardware *is* more expensive, specially here in Brazil (macs comes from US, which means they are taxed in *only* 100%). But if you think a bit better, it probably worth. In my case, I spend more than 10 hours/day looking at a computer, so, it certainly worth for me :-)

And I'm sorry, this would be a single-line comment, but it simply grows :-(

(found a bug in Slashdot code, will report it, apologies re-posting original comment)

They need to change the font caching architecture seriously. I got iDefrag, a advanced disk defrag here (video guy here,I deal with huge files) with online defrag capabilities and it can show which file has fragments while disk online (in use)

Annex.aux right now have 10 fragments (3.52 mb file) Of course it is a cache and bound to be fragmented but if I see only horrible fragmentation exist on that file only, I suspect something is done wrong by OS X. I think file is also so highly active that core system can't even try to hot defrag it.

It is one of font caches. This is a very "stock" system and never used in DTP. I can't imagine DTP people's font caches right now.

I don't like the idea of clearing caches weekly etc while having licensed utilities here which are capable of doing it. I notice on www sites and usenet that people suggest cleaning their caches to eachother having problems. While I am about to hit "reply" and explain why clearing cache wouldn't mean anything, I notice the OP posts reply saying "it fixed my problem, thanks"

If you think about half of the market of OS X consists of DTP professionals it is almost tragi-comic that OS X having problem with Font Caches which can even crash entire system.

The professional font company Linotype has coded some iTMS like font utility (freeware), one of the main options of program is to clear font caches. http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 27903

You can imagine the reports they get from their customers if they added such option.

I fired Shapeshifter (theme util) http://www.unsanity.com/ , got more than perfect windows XP theme by Max Rudenberg http://www.maxthemes.com/themes/?theme=Mac%20OS%20 XP (free) and fake leopard about box http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 30318 (free)

That was a perfect plan including opening a archive.org page with Apple advertising G4 as some supercomputer. (They now say Mactel is 4x faster)

Here is the result which I am not very proud of:
http://img231.imageshack.us/my.php?image=faketestt t0.png

I am not a graphics artist of course and my toolset is limited. That is not an excuse. You know why I gave up and didn't work on menu extras and add the trollish (4x faster) to about box? I could NOT STAND TO XP! Yes, I was surprised that as a guy who used PC until 2003, I get psychologically effected by a theme!

If Apple has more consumers like me, they can switch to anything, any CPU and still win. Note I am one of rare people out there which never had virus infection,worm infection, spyware infection in my life.

If you're developing for the Mac, or simply developing on the Mac, you'll eventually want to use some sort of source control. CVS comes on the machine by default, and you can get MacCVS, but lately I've been using Subversion and find it to be a great program, even if the gui tools are a little raw.

My favorite right now on the Mac is svnX: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 24158 There are others, but they all have their various quirks that have kept me coming back to svnX.

If anyone knows of a better Subversion tool on the Mac (on Windows I use TortoiseSVN and it's great) I'd love to know what it is.

"The Mac platform in general has very little activity on the 'free software' side"?

Here's a list just of free Mac apps on my system, not including the ones that came with it:

Camino.app,
Firefox.app,
Opera.app,
Shiira.app,
Mini vMac.app,
Nestopia.app,
SNES9x.app,
Freecell.app,
Jin.app,
n_v14.app,
Neave Space Invaders.app,
Quinn.app,
Celestia.app,
Google Earth.app,
Aurora.app,
beaTunes.app,
CocoaJT.app,
Google Video Player.app,
MacMP3Gain.app,
MPlayer OSX.app,
NicePlayer.app,
Ollie's iPod Extractor.app,
PandoraMan.app,
RealPlayer.app,
Remote Remote.app,
VLC.app,
Adium.app,
Azureus.app,
Compress.app,
EasyDMG.app,
StuffIt Expander.app,
Untar.app,
Eavesdrop.app,
FrostWire.app,
JBidWatcher.app,
QuickTerm.app,
Remove Duplicates.app,
Skype.app,
XNap 3.0-pre1.app,
Adobe Reader 7.0.8.app,
Formulate.app,
LiquidCD.app,
PDFLab.app,
TextWrangler.app,
Applejack DesInstaller3.app,
FinkCommander.app,
iLikeYouMore.app,
MassReplaceIt.app,
Preferential Treatment.app,
Temperature Monitor.app
one that works with DVDs, another one that works with DVD drives, and one that sounds like something you might buy when you were hungry for corn flakes

That's not to mention the numerous command-line and x-window programs which are free to download, all of the programs which have been ported to run on Fink, and hundreds or thousands of free programs you can find from sites like macupdate.com and versiontracker.com.