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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.

You can, with a mac even.

Sony Ericsson Clicker has support for making it do things when you walk in and out of range. Don't know if the encryption thing is built in, but it surely can be done with a simple AppleScript.

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.

Although I do agree with you that it sucks that it trashed your music directory.

Prefrences
Advanced
Keep iTunes Music folder organized (remove check mark)

Would have saved you from this issue... You did go through the prefs before you cut it loose on your music, right?

Also a quick and dirty perl script will be able to go through the structure that iTunes created and put them back the way you want them. Or you could try something like this, which I haven't used so please don't be pissed at me if it makes a bigger mess out of your library.

My only real complaint about iTunes is that its random play isn't very random. I prefer the way winamp does this by randomizing the list and then playing it top to bottom, you are guaranteed not to hear the same song twice that way.

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.

You can always assign the trackpad itself to be the second button. Just tap it. See this: Sidetrack

By giving them the option of 'not taking that chance,' as you say, you rob yourself of liberty.

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.

Brickhouse is a great tool you can use for free (or pay $25 in honorware fee), and offers a nice GUI for setting up the routers and firewalls built into OS X. It hasn't been updated in years, but really doesn't need it. I'm sure there are others as well, give VersionTracker a search . . .

I don't know if anyone will read this, it's a bit late. But the Linksys upgrade hosed my network, and I had to downgrade to get connectivity back. And not just OSX boxes, Linux and Windows as well.

More comments are on VersionTracker Older BEFSR41 drivers can be found here

Why is this even on the front page? Why not try Google, Freshmeat, Tucows or Versiontracker?

You also might look at Workspaces, which is the nicest virtual desktop system I've used on any Unix.

Someone has released a utility to fix the problem until Apple releases the fixed update. The comments on it all seem to say it works well and takes care of things.

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.

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.

It's perhaps bad because it's a single point of failure, but all of my passwords are, one way or another, stored using the Mac Keychain. Safari stores its passwords in there, as do some other browsers. I use PasswordWallet (for Mac and Palm) to store passwords (and more) in an encrypted file, which is accessed via a passphrase stored in the Keychain. Even my SSH passphrases are stored in there (accessed via SSHPassKey).

Anyway, what prompted this was Schneier saying, "Don't let Web browsers store passwords for you." Sometimes, the browser is as secure as anything else on your computer, as in the case with Safari + Keychain.

Why does drdink not reply to this? Did he not find these links useful? I've been using themes on my Mac since 10.1 for a number of different reasons with great success.

This sounds like what he is looking for, but even though he posted another response five minutes before glowurm's comment, he didn't seem to catch this one.. odd.

Hopefully the links will help direct him to where he can find some help.

If you do catch this, drdink, the app that has worked for me with all the themes i can throw at it is called ThemeChanger. Find it here.

What about my freedom to write my own applications without requiring Apple to approve it?

Perhaps you've never heard of VersionTracker.

What about my freedom to use my own hardware, instead of being forcing to use Apple's mouse,

What, you mean like the Microsoft IntelliMouse that Apple sold me at the time of purchase?

Apple's memory,

Nobody buys Apple's memory. You go to Crucial.com and buy what you need.

Apple's monitor (with boat anchor attachment on the top),

Apple hasn't sold CRTs in over a year. Their LCDs are the best in the industry. If you disagree, you have the freedom to buy your system with no monitor and purchase one of your choice.

Apple's video card, etc.?

Apple doesn't make video cards. They certainly didn't make the NVidia card that shipped inside my computer.

It looks like the file /System/Library/Colors/System.clr/System.clr contains an archived Dictionary of (NS)Colors. It contains the color values for UI items like controlColor, scrollBarColor, textBackgroundColor, etc.

I am sure there must be some utilities out there to load/change/store the colors contained in this file. If not, a slashdoter who is up to speed on Cocoa should be able to whip something together pretty quickly. Until then, the best place to search for handy utilities of this sort is http://www.versiontracker.com/. Good luck.

Well while true to do "real" 16:9 editing you would at least need Final Cut Express. But you would also need a true 16:9 camera. The Sony widescreen (16:9 format) is doing nothing more than limiting the video written to tape and actually you have much LESS video (lines of resolution) You are just cropping off the top and bottom. I have a "true" 16:9 camera (Sony VX-2000) BUT to actually get it to use the whole tape (true widescreen) is like a $700 upgrade to the lens.

You can get around your issue in iMovie by using a 16:9 effect for your transitions, titles, and effects. Available from both GeeThree or Stupendous software, as iMovie will not alter the original DV you pulled off tape.

MPEG is a touchy subject for Apple and I am sure it has to do something with the licensing. You will get one of the best MPEG encoder is you buy either Final Cut Pro or DVD Studio Pro. It is called Compressor. Quicktime will crop your video anyway you want just not output to MPEG-2 without the MPEG-2 codec.

I think once you start figuring your Mac out you will be much happier and if you actually pay for professional results you will get them. If you are tenacious enough the are PLENTY of free MPEG encoder available on VersionTracker. Here are the instructions.

--
Daniel C. Slagle
Keeper of the "Unofficial" iMovie FAQ
Tell Apple how you feel about iMovie

And just to piss everyone off I'll even throw Apple under the bus and point out that the "New and Improved" finder under 10.3 really looks like crap.

Did I mention the redraws are slow? Quartz Extreme must be amazing if that's tolerable with it enabled. My system is PCI-based, not AGP.

It actually seems to work quite well. unfortunatly no one seems to be aware of it and playing it on the net.. unfortunatly the download link seems to be down right now.. versiontracker listing

There is a program called Little Snitch if you are using Mac OS X which is a fantastic anti-spyware tool, alerting you to all outgoing connections before they occur. You can create complex rulesets to determine what to allow or block, on-the-fly.

Here is a link to pci XTREME (which enables quartz xtreme on "incompatible" video cards including PCIs and 2x AGP's).

This thing works with radeons and really makes OS X usable.. but there's word that it might max out PCIs when running too many graphic intensive things at once.. it's too bad a 266 couldn't run anything like that anyway :)

Without quartz xtreme, you almost can't use the file manager.. so of course there's a 3rd party solution: Path Finder. Formally named "SNAX", this extremely fast and effective.. I hate the new name though.

Check out uControl for a virtual scroll with the touchpad (as well as other tweaks.) Great, free app.

1. Buy a Mac. Get HTML editing software of your choice.
2. Format your HTML as beautifully as possible.
3. Print it to PDF. Optimize PDF as desired.
4. Post HTML and PDF to website.

Four steps, one of them expensive, two of them you'd do anyway. One of them supports shareware.

I suggest you go to VersionTracker and search "CAD."like so.

You may want to see if these fit the bill for you.
CADintosh X 4.4 - 2D CAD - 2.6M - Shareware
CADtools 2.1.4 - CAD plugin for Adobe Illustrator

There's a good open-source program called Audacity that I've been using. It's OSX native, does multitrack recording, and is very simple and straightforward. It might be too simplistic if you're looking for pro-level software, but if you're someone like me who's just messing around with making music on your Mac, it's great.

PocketMac is, apparently, simultaneously expensive and worthless.

MissingSync appears to be better received.

PocketMac is, apparently, simultaneously expensive and worthless.

MissingSync appears to be better received.

Which fonts aren't available? There are several tools for cross-platform conversion. For Truetype, use TTconverter. But I'd be amazed if they weren't already in Mac format.

As well, according to some people on VersionTracker, this Office update doesn't truly support Exchange:

"like IMAP, SMTP, WebDAV and LDAP - so no real Exchange support! I think it clearly shows how they think about their own standards! And if our Exchange Server 5.5 would [have] them all enabled, then I wouldn't really need Entourage at all!"

For OS X users I've used KisMAC to find wireless networks with a lot of success. It even has a built in decryption utility, how inconspicuious!

There's also iStumbler and MacStumbler, which I haven't used. And ALL of these have yet to hit v1.0 btw.

For OS X users I've used KisMAC to find wireless networks with a lot of success. It even has a built in decryption utility, how inconspicuious!

There's also iStumbler and MacStumbler, which I haven't used. And ALL of these have yet to hit v1.0 btw.

For OS X users I've used KisMAC to find wireless networks with a lot of success. It even has a built in decryption utility, how inconspicuious!

There's also iStumbler and MacStumbler, which I haven't used. And ALL of these have yet to hit v1.0 btw.

Come on, whatever you can think of RealBasic and all that kind of fast developpement tools, this guy is right when is says it is usually for beginners and that it frequently gives us awfull program!
I have seen too much programs for Mac that could have be done in 50 lines of C with an executable of just a few Kb, and instead are at least 1Mb (minimum size for RealBasic program, as far I have seen).

Look at this example: FreeSpaceFile X
That's 1.2 Mb for something that could have been done in one line of shell!!!!!!!!! nahhh...

(Though i am sure it certainly has a lot of good way to be used, the fact it is used by beginners to start programming is a really really awfull and not wanted, at least by me :p).

If candy rots the teeth, BASIC rots the brain. And R---B---c has BASIC as its roots...

Pacifist

Actually, that's exactly what it does (learn to walk). It's called Brevewalker, and it's available here.

This article immediately made me think of BreveWalker, which is a similar "learns to walk" concept using a 4-legged block creature. It's a MacOS X-only screen saver module, and it's a lot of fun to play with. Been around for quite a while, too.

Then there is MacGamefiles if you only want games.

There is Versiontracker, which is very popular in the Macintosh community.

I'm not sure if it's free to list there, but with the amount of low-quality software on there I can image it is.

Oh, and there's Freshmeat too.

A few that some newbies may not have thought about:

FreshMeat, which will do a lot for your Linux software needs.

SourceForge for GPL software hosting (CVS and bug tracking, even)

For a more general software needs, VersionTracker, which started with Mac software, now lists Mac, OS X, Windows, and Palm software. For anything other than Macintosh listings, though, it tends to be somewhat limited.

Tocows also lists a lot of software. I have not looked through their Linux listings, but the Mac listings are pretty decent.

You're probably referring to mlmac, which is a GUI wrapper around mlnet (formerly mldonkey). Between this, the BitTorrent client, Limewire and the Mac Direct Connect client, Mac users are well served on almost all of the major networks.

Too late.

mlMac

Neo

However KaZaa has really gone down hill, mainly because of studio action. Most songs I try and download are "tweaked" with yelling in the middle or beeping or are of the wrong sound. It really isn't a good place to find music.

I personally use Direct Connect. You can find a hub with the style of music you like and are more likely to find obscure music. (i.e. blues, jazz, etc.) Further it has a much better selection of TV shows if you are trying to find a show you missed that week. The Mac client is still so-so, but they fixed the memory leaks of the version from the fall.