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ManOpen

... Macolytes who have a use for the command-line can really use GeekTool to improve their quality of life. See this picture for an example of its GUI goodness.

Okay, okay, so it's sitting there just churning the CPU. But it looks cool enough to get me chicks, so I figured you guys could use it too.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

On second reading, it seems that you did install X11 on your OS X install. Blame not enough sleep keeping those Suicide Hotline Day operators busy last night.

The reason why you'd bother is to have the flexibility of having a consumer-level GUI and applications base *along* with all the X11 goodies.

There are multiple desktop utilities available for OS X. Here's one at Versiontracker Haven't used it, so YMMV.

I've used Xkeys to make hotkeys for AppleScripts. If you want to go whole hog for the function-key automation, there's QuickKeys. You can automate pretty much anything since QK can automate more of the GUI than AppleScript can, which is saying something.

Xkeys is freeware (Beer, no source as I recall), QuickKeys is commercial.

As for hiding the mouse pointer, I can't help ya there - I didn't see anything on Versiontracker, maybe try sourceforge.

Being able to edit the shortcuts for menu commands is a pretty nifty feature in its own right.

If you are looking for a replacement for the nonexistent official conduit for OS X check out MAL Conduit. It works great even with my old Palm IIIxe.

The best utility for Safari.. Content Filtering.

PithHelmet really is a necessary tool, for Anyone who wants to filter content, not just advertisements, but cookies, and everything.

Version Tracker comments reveal that it does work on 1.2, but not out of the box. Just change the MaxVersion in the pList.

Crimped from the comments there-

If you use PithHelmet and have updated to Safari 1.2 you'll notice it doesnt work. Here is the fix that should work until PH gets a proper update.
open /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/
Right click (control+click) PithHelmet.bundle and select "show package contents"
Open the info.plist file in either BBEdit or Property List Editor if you have the dev tools installed
Find where it says MaxSafariBundleVersion and change the value to 125
Save and restart safari. thats it, now it works.

If you need to install 0.7.2 fresh on a box with Safari 1.2 already on it, you'll need to do the following:

1. Download and open the PithHelmet folder
2. Navigate to the Packages subfolder
3. Right-click (ctrl-click yadda yadda) the PithHelmet.pkg file and select "Show Package Contents"
4. Navigate into the Contents/Resources subfolder
5. Open the file InstallationCheck in a text editor (I used TextEdit)
6. Chage the string 100 in the line:

exit((1 6) | (1 5) | 16) if ($1 != 100);

to 125 and save the file.
7. Install as usual by running the regular PithHelmet.mpkg package

This program will let you copy music back from the ipod to your computer, put the installer on to your ipod, now you can copy where you wish. This was with a quick search of the Window portion of Version Tracker. There was also apps to sync contacts in the generic search.

Apple made it only slightly difficult to pull music off of the ipod. There are many apps for OSX already to do this, heck, you can do it manually by doing a find in OSX with the "is invisible" flag set.

It is only a matter of time before there are more options for the Windows world

You don't have to wait for Apple, there's a packaged version, runs alongside 1.3. I tried it for a bit, but I didn't find any advantages over 1.3 for my purposes (mostly just PHP).

been there... done that... in 1994 :P

here is a more recent version of the concept from 2001 :) (not the books/movie!)

You could use Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection instead. I don't think that emulator on emulator is very fast.

A while ago in a far off land, I noticed in someone's sig in a forum a link to see his desktop. Seems he had a script to give a live shot of it every time someone hit his box. (He was running Apache on OS X)

I thought this was interesting, so I hit refresh every couple seconds. I noticed he was looking at porn, he had quite a bit. Also he was in an IRC chat at the same time. Some Mac Clan or something. Then I realized this would probably slow down his box considerably. So I kept refreshing. I hit refresh and see the goatse.cx warning page. He opens up TextEdit and types "Whoever the fuck is watching me you're lucky goatse.cx is down!"

... and there was much laughter.

RSS Readers for OS X

Why not MP3 Sushi Server? It is an Aqua frontend to GnuMP3D. Works great on my G5. Just set its source directory to your iTunes Music Folder.

Actually, Neo was in the Matrix all along.

But hacking code is only for adding/altering functionality. There is tons of this going on already by third-party developers in OS X. Go to VersionTracker and you will see what I mean. Just because you can't change the source code doesn't mean you can get done what you need to.

I assume you know this already, but in case you don't there is tons of software out there that adds at least some elements of PDA functionality to the iPod. Check out this list

What is most interesting about this is how many programs actually call home about various things. There was a bit of a scandal as a few programs were rewriting the Little Snitch rules, allowing net access without the user knowing. It reportedly has new features to prevent this. I hope Microsoft adds that in as well otherwise trojan horses or the like may just "disable" this feature so you don't know what they are doing.

Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.

I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.

Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.

There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.

Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.

Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 13 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)

Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.

Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.

I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.

Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.

There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.

Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.

Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 13 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)

Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.

Mac

Windows

I couldn't find anything for linux but im sure they are out there..

It's called WeatherPop. It's on VersionTracker.

Yes, i have this problem. It's not the battery update that caused it, but 10.3.2. The complaints for the 12" 867 powerbook's heat were so widespread that apple lowered the temperature at which the fans activate. you can fix this, if you like, by downloading Silent Night at version tracker. I personally don't mind, since my powerbook's never hot anymore and the battery doesn't seem to be affected by it much either (which to me is more important than noise).

First, how much catching up Mac OS X still has to do in some respects to Linux.

Agreed. But sometimes it's about knowing where to look--naturally, the favorite haunts of the Mac community aren't well known outside of the community itself. Versiontracker is the sourceforge of the Mac community--but much of it is indeed shareware, not freeware. Mac OS X Hints serves up nice digestible bits of HOWTO for us; especially appreciated is when a Unix LongBeard chimes in with his experience.

For example, one article in the German magazine "MacWelt" talks about defragmenting the harddisk (!) with Panther.

I don't know what they were talking about specifically, but defragging isn't necessary under Panther--apps self-optimize at launch ("Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering"?). More from Apple on the topic of defragging in 10.2-.3. I don't know how that compares to Linux.

multiple desktops

It would be nice to see good multiple desktop support in OS X; the community feeling is that Apple doesn't implement it out of fear of confusing the grannies. However, Versiontracker lists a number of Virtual Desktop managers; folks like CodeTek's (if you're paying) and I've used DesktopManager and liked it (for free). Not quite as robust as the options under Linux, but closer.

As for your other points: yeah, lots of shareware and not freeware. That's changing, some, as more and more Linux folks try OS X and re-implement what they liked in Linux on OS X; there's a fair few free projects for OS X (Fink is a good example). And yeah, the One Apple Way: that's rather the point. Jobs, right or wrong, thinks that the ability to chose breeds confusion in the consumer and is more difficult to support; look up the history of theming in OS 9 if you're interested. I don't know if I agree, personally--I think The One Way has it's points, but I think that alienated developers and tinkerers in the process, and I don't know which is better on balance.

Finally, But when you get past the cool design and ignore the far, far superior multimedia tools, Tux can hold its beak high and proud. Apple is going to have to peddle really hard if they want to continue to want money for their OS: Apple doesn't, really, want to charge for the OS. They want to sell hardware, and the OS is a loss leader for that. How many stand-alone boxes of the OS do you think that they sell? Here's a clue: besides a EULA, each install has no DRM, not a serial number, nothing. They ask you to please not install a single copy on more than one machine, but take no action to prevent it. And don't forget about the Open Source Darwin; this gives smarter minds than mine the opportunity to bring what they love about Linux to OS X.

First, how much catching up Mac OS X still has to do in some respects to Linux.

Agreed. But sometimes it's about knowing where to look--naturally, the favorite haunts of the Mac community aren't well known outside of the community itself. Versiontracker is the sourceforge of the Mac community--but much of it is indeed shareware, not freeware. Mac OS X Hints serves up nice digestible bits of HOWTO for us; especially appreciated is when a Unix LongBeard chimes in with his experience.

For example, one article in the German magazine "MacWelt" talks about defragmenting the harddisk (!) with Panther.

I don't know what they were talking about specifically, but defragging isn't necessary under Panther--apps self-optimize at launch ("Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering"?). More from Apple on the topic of defragging in 10.2-.3. I don't know how that compares to Linux.

multiple desktops

It would be nice to see good multiple desktop support in OS X; the community feeling is that Apple doesn't implement it out of fear of confusing the grannies. However, Versiontracker lists a number of Virtual Desktop managers; folks like CodeTek's (if you're paying) and I've used DesktopManager and liked it (for free). Not quite as robust as the options under Linux, but closer.

As for your other points: yeah, lots of shareware and not freeware. That's changing, some, as more and more Linux folks try OS X and re-implement what they liked in Linux on OS X; there's a fair few free projects for OS X (Fink is a good example). And yeah, the One Apple Way: that's rather the point. Jobs, right or wrong, thinks that the ability to chose breeds confusion in the consumer and is more difficult to support; look up the history of theming in OS 9 if you're interested. I don't know if I agree, personally--I think The One Way has it's points, but I think that alienated developers and tinkerers in the process, and I don't know which is better on balance.

Finally, But when you get past the cool design and ignore the far, far superior multimedia tools, Tux can hold its beak high and proud. Apple is going to have to peddle really hard if they want to continue to want money for their OS: Apple doesn't, really, want to charge for the OS. They want to sell hardware, and the OS is a loss leader for that. How many stand-alone boxes of the OS do you think that they sell? Here's a clue: besides a EULA, each install has no DRM, not a serial number, nothing. They ask you to please not install a single copy on more than one machine, but take no action to prevent it. And don't forget about the Open Source Darwin; this gives smarter minds than mine the opportunity to bring what they love about Linux to OS X.

And for the command-line wary, you can use an application like TinkerTool (available from finer download site such as MacUpdate or VersionTracker) to show invisible files in the Finder, or if you don't want to muck around with that:

In the Finder, select "Go To Folder..." from the "Go" menu (or hit cmd-shift-G on the keyboard, type in '/Volumes/NAMEOFYOURIPOD/iPod_Control/Music/F$$' where NAMEOFYOURIPOD is, you guessed it, the name of your iPod and $$ is a number starting at 00 and counting up (01, 02, 03...mine goes up to 19, I don't know if it's a fixed number so your's may be more or less). You'll find your files place seemingly randomly with slightly mangled filenames in those directories. Unfortunately, you can't just go to the Music directory and pick one because they're all hidden folders as well.

While it's totally safe to copy the files out of there, as another poster stated you wouldn't want to just drop a file in one of them as your iPod won't recognize and play it.

I also said that Macs were "relatively problem free." I doubt you ever have to deal with malfunctioning HPs, Toshibas, IBMs, Dells (like my mother in-law's laptop which has been sent back to Dell twice with jacked motherboards). ;-)

No need to VNC - Poisoned is an OS X frontend to giFT, which can connect to the Kazaa FastTrak network.

Not your fault, but the releases you link to are for the OS X versions of the software. The Mac OS 9 version has pretty much stagnated and the latest official release is indeed 1.2.1. There are a lot of people out there that still use OS 9, and I am sure that a (significant)bounty could be collected to get the latest Mozilla, Firebird, and Thunderbird for the "unwashed" who are still loving them some OS 9.

For those of you looking for a slightly updated version of Mozilla for OS 9, check out the WAMCOM port, which is based on 1.3.1

I didn't get it either. Has it been withdrawn?

Yes. The only thread I could quickly find about it is on version tracker.

well, there's always VersionTracker

Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.

I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.

Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.

There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.

Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.

Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 13 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)

Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.

... can be found at Versiontracker. Almost all positive.

JP

Every time this issues comes up, I keep thinking of Apple's canned GeoPort thing. While not a modem per say, this signal processing external device was used to emulate a voice-fax-modem. With proper software, it was used to automatically take calls and manage incoming and outgoing faxes. It also served as a 14k modem. It worked beautifully. In one demonstration Apple had made on stage in a mid 1990s World Wide Developer Conference, some guy (using a cell phone) called in a number that was monitored by a computer on stage, with the help of a GeoPort. The computer picked up the line and said "Yes?" using speech synthesis (same as we have today), and started listening using it's speech recognition technologies (same we still have today). The calling guy said "Ask [name] if he can join me for lunch today".

The computer replied "ok. I'll call you back", hung up, dialed [name] and repeated the message, to wich the computer was replied "yes" and phoned back the original caller to give [name]'s answer. (I don't remember the name of the other person, but that's beside the point.)

I find it hard to believe that after nearly 10 years, we still can't do that again (hey Steve! What's up with the digital hub??).

Anyhow. for regular voice and fax duties, I have found CoMa X from a small german shop. it supports a number of modems, but it's unclear if it can handle your internal modem.

As a reference, the blue And White PowerMac G3 tower has a Rockwell compatible modem, so this one should work with CoMa X, wich supports Rockwell as well as other chipsets. The manufacturer also mentions that some older PowerBooks use Rockwell chips, but makes no mention of other machines.

I have not been able to make it work with my Dual G5's internal modem, but I haven't tried that hard. Whenever I get more time, I'll give it another whirl.

For all it's worth, though, it might be worth it to buy another USB modem that falls in the list of supported modem. Sure would cost less than a multi-ring subscription.

I check all these daily:

MacInTouch
MacNN
MacMinute
MacFixIt
Mac OS X Hints
MacSurfer

Great software update resources:

VersionTracker
MacUpdate
OS X freshmeat

Other great sites:

O'Reilly Mac DevCenter
O'Reilly Mac OS X Page
Apple Mac OS X downloads
Apple Third Party Products Guide

Developer sites:

Mac OS X Developer Home Page
Mac OS X Developer Documentation
Darwin
OpenDarwin
fink

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Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.

I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.

Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.

There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.

Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.

Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 13 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)

Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.

Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.

I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.

Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.

There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.

Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.

Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 13 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)

Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.

... these /. mac fags should go get their own site and leave real enthusiasts/nerds alone.

Okay. I'll bite. Dear Mister Troll sir...as to us having a site of our own...we do. In fact we have several from which to choose. And, pray tell, what in your tiny little troll-like mind leads you to believe that Mac users are all of a particular sexual orientation of any kind at all? Or that mac users don't qualify as nerds? And by some strange twisting path of logic that we don't in some way belong here?Newsfalsh! The mac now not only sports a command line environment, but you can set your environment to your shell of choice!

I know, I know, please don't feel the trolls. Move along. Move along...

Since you are apparently new to Macs, are you familiar with Versiontracker. Its a good place to find programs for the Mac, what the latest version is, and what other people think of them.

Huh. And here I thought having a cell phone that doubles as an iTunes remote was useful.

Chassis your Windows drive into a Mac and image/clone it via CarbonCopy Cloner, Retrospect, etc. 100% mirror, no problem.

Welcome to the club :)
I just recently bought a 12" PB and I'm loving it.

6) I have yet to figure out where the graphical FTP client is - so far I am largely just treating this like a Linux laptop and using a lot lof command line stuff.

Fetch is no longer included in the OS, and its not free. You can find freeware clients at Version Tracker. I've never found a need for a graphical client, since I use ftp so rarely.

Also check out Fugu. Its a graphical SFTP, SCP and SSH tunneling client. Its also under a BSD style license :)

8) The trackpad is not responsive - it is almost like accelaration is turned on, but I didn't see anything that would indicate that in any mouse menu.

This is less of a problem in Panther than it was in Jaguar, but the fastest speed is still too slow for some. There is a nice little freeware PrefPane wigit called MouseZoom that will let you increase the acceleration number above the max that the Keyboard & Mouse PrefPane will.

11) The spell checking thing doesn't let you bring up a quick selection of the word/words that it suggests - innstead you have to open the full spell window and then it wants to continue on - I miss the ability in Windows to right click and the first few words on that menu were the suggested words and you could just choose one and move on.

My advice: Invest in a Microsoft Bluetooth Mouse. Right clicking does bring up a list of suggested words (command-click has the same effect). The sweetest thing about the MS bluetooth mouse is that it has 5 buttons, so you can map Expose functions to the two thumb buttons. Having a scroll wheel is also something that I can't live without. Its also very nice to not have to plug in anything to use an external mouse.

Hope you find some of this useful.

Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.

I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.

Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.

There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.

Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.

Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 13 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)

Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.

I'll be waiting to see if they get bigger, as I have a screen with no dead/stuck pixels and I don't want to tempt fate and/or be without my powerbook for some unknown amount of time.

5) I'm not sure that my backlit keyboard works.

Have you tried it in a dark room? It refuses to light up if there is too much ambient lighting. A feature, I suppose.

6) I have yet to figure out where the graphical FTP client is

In the Finder, hit command-K and then type in ftp://server.name.com. In fact, this is how Safari handles ftp urls too. There are also plenty of third party tools - check out Version Tracker for all kinds of useful stuff. Personally, though, I prefer the command line ftp the best.

8) The trackpad is not responsive - it is almost like accelaration is turned on, but I didn't see anything that would indicate that in any mouse menu.

So I assume you've already played with the settings in the Keyboard & Mouse preferences? Other than that I'm not sure what to tell you. Works great on my 15" PB. I do agree about the button though - it's easy to accidentally "let go" while dragging something because you were clicking on the corner instead of the middle. My iBook is much better in that regard.

Other than that, have fun, and don't forget to install Fink!

As it happens, I've solved the problem of insufficient CPU usage by having the Life board rotate in 3d. If you run OS X, grab these screensavers, and then use this program to run LifeSaver as your desktop background. (Or as a transparent foreground if you're especially insane).

Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.

I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.

Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.

There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.

Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.

Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 13 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)

Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.

Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.

I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.

Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.

There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.

Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.

Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 13 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)

Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.