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No More Mac Tweaking?
netphilter writes "Apple is trying to "close the operating system to tweakers" according to this story on Wired. The addition of the BSD kernel and the command line left me thinking that they were trying to open the OS a bit more to tweakers, not close it. I'm not a Mac user, but I have been thinking about trying out OS X. However, if Apple is trying to CLOSE the OS (contrary to the impression that I had) then I'm not going to waste my time."
Jamie adds: life may be harder for them, I guess, but many developers are
still tweaking Mac OS X.
I closed my apartment to tweakers, and suddenly my stuff stopped disappearing!
who cares about apple. first i didn't get jaguar for free, then they took away my iTools. you know, i used to hate apple. I would never have got a mac. But, then they switched over to OS X, starting using some Unix in their software. but now, they're back to their old tricks. charging for a 0.1 update, taking away the email address i thought i'd be using for a long time. apple stock is falling rapidly, and i (once again) have ceased to care about the company. anyone agree? ps. someone send me a free jaguar update
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
With easy console access this should prove quite difficult for Apple to do. Older systems have been less tweakable than OSX. Hardware tweaks are very difficult though - no conventional changable BIOS. How are hardware upgrades done on Macs? Like Windows, though, I'm sure plugins and hacks will be made avalible. Microsoft offers TweakUI for all of it's OS's for free... I wonder if Apple would be better off doing something like that instead of leaving the niche for random programmers to fill with apps that do more than Apple would like to see.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
You've seen the commercials and all the marketing dollars they are putting into this campaign...
Apple wants people who are looking for a computer that just plain works. They are going after the "as long as it works I dont care about X, Y, or Z" crowd, which is (for the most part) completely opposite the Slashdot crowd.
As always, the real tweakers will find a way to do what they want with their computer. Its not a big deal...
Where is the DOJ and state attorney generals ? I expect a lawsuit to be filed immediately giving me the source to the MAC user interface so I can make adjustments to my hearts desire.
Oh wait, this is an anti-Mac article, not an anti-M$ article, guess my karma is headed down now
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
The article states that they are preventing customizations of the desktop/look and feel. You still have the command line and all the good stuff.
I think this is understandable. Apple just wants their interface to be the same across all OSX Desktops.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like Apple is trying to close access to UI tweaking, not the OS.
Like this is new. Jobs has always wanted to keep Apple to himself. These switcher commercials are hillarious. Well....to a degree. When you have a cop who acts like an idiot, it makes me fear for the people in his city.
Keeping a standard user interface makes it easier for people to move from computer to computer. There's nothing that irks me more than working on a different computer at the office, and some wiseacre has removed the menus from MSIE.
Besides, most Kaleidoscope interfaces were ugly as sin....
ScienceSeeker.org
Can somebody tell me the difference between Apple and Microsoft other than the fact that Apple has less market share? It will be even less and less if they keep pulling this kind of effing crap!!
Ok here's the deal: There are private APIs in OSX. They are undocumented and marked that way- these frameworks are in the private- frameworks folder.
Apple isn't deliberately breaking peoples products, it is changing internal APIs.
Many of these APIs start out internal and when they are ready for prime time, become public, supported, documented, standard APIs.
Until then, you use one and it doesn't work in the next rev, its your own damn fault.
And this is the right way for things to be- OS X is far more theme friendly than any other OS- hell the graphical eliments are all easily accessible pdf or tiff files and easy to replace. Want a different looking dock? Trivial. Want a different looking login window? no problem.
But the areas where things can cause instability in the OS should not be left wide open for people to change in an uncontrolled manner.
Quicktime has an API for skinning it. MAYBE Apple will release one for OS X, but if they are smart, they won't.
Standardized controls are what makes OS X much easier for newbies to use than other operating systems.
Let people change the look of their computer, but not the feel. That's the right strategy and the one apple seems to be following.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Wired has truely become a worthless source of factual information...
"For example, the API that allows for custom menus and icons on the right side of the top menu bar, next to the clock, prohibits all but Apple-approved menu items. "
Funny, I'm running Jaguar and have both LaunchBar and FuzzyClock running just fine in my menu bar...
I can't speak for all menu-apps but I don't think this article really speaks the truth.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
I have been using MacOSX for a while, since
swiching off of Linux/KDE as my desktop. I
still have Linux, solaris and BSD machines in
the closet as servers which work well through
XWindow on Aqua.
I'm a developer. There is no indication at all
that Apple is trying to "do" anything at all.
gcc is there, all the tools too, the base OS code
is OpenSource... I've not once been hindered by
anything being closed.
IMHO, this story is fear mongering.
The article talks about GUI mods, NOT OS and system tweaks.
And like the parent said, Kaleidescope interfaces were real crap anyway.
I wonder if this is in response to the recent tweaks to change the put back the Smiley Mac at boot?
echo $WINDOWMANAGER
gnome
export WINDOWMANAGER=kde
Don't you just love tweaking?
Does this mean that every user is stuck using the Aqua interface? I don't like it (I don't own a Mac, but I have to use them sometimes), and if Apple is going to dictate what a user's computer can look like, I'm never going to buy a Mac.
This has been a test. Had this been a real emergency, we would have fled in terror and you would not have been informed.
Nearly everybody must realize by now that such statements are usually a load of shit. Most of you will never buy a Mac, or switch to a Linux desktop, no matter what, because Windows is all you know, and all you care to know. You don't want to invest the added cost of a Mac (or the added effort of Linux) to discover if their virtues are worth it. You are lazy and groping for excuses.
Just fess up. You don't like Macs, you don't want a Mac, you will not buy a Mac. That's fine. Use whatever the fuck you want, just stop with the constant whining about features that you (or some underpaid web journalist) think are missing from the platform.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Can you say "double standard"? When Microsoft has undocumented, private, internal APIs, everyone cries "Foul!" and accuses them of hiding these APIs from developers. When they then change those internal APIs, everyone again cries "Foul!" and accuses them of breaking these internal APIs intentionally. But when Apple does this, it's okay? I guess I just don't get it.
This article has nothing to do with the BSD kernel or the command line.
Well, Macs do call themselves "addicts," so it's no surprise that amphetamines have become more popular...
Wait, that's tweeking, not tweaking. Nevermind.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I'm sorry, but this is rubbish. The skin resource file for OS X (even 10.2) is understood and people continute to "skin" 10.2 (Keildoscope author not with standing). The same 3rd GUI apps for OS 9 are available for for 10.2. I've talked to people who hide their dock and use OTHER apps with other functionality. So there is no Apple sanctioned "Appearance Manager" in 10.2. Frankly, I would say, Apple only grudging supported the Appearance Manager, after pulling their own skins from 8.x after the beta process.
The problem is that no developer has steped up to plate to make a good PreferencePane for Skining and Icon changing. There is a difference between saying it's not possible and noone has bother to make a good app to do it.
I would go with the latter.
Burn Hollywood Burn
It just works(tm)... ...unless you start letting people dork with it.
It's easy to customize the interface when the system provides a mechanism for patching any system call and offers no memory protection. You can hook yourself right into the UI code and do whatever you want. Of course Apple doesn't want to support this sort of thing anymore: it practically guarantees instability. INITs were always hard to do correctly, and I'm glad to see them go even if it does mean it's harder to customize the UI.
I don't blame Apple for messing with internal API calls. If I were in their shoes, I'd deliberately break anything that used undocumented calls in every release. This keeps hack developers on their toes, as they are forced to upgrade their OS and re-test their hacks for every release; there's no more of this "well, it worked back in 1987 on my Mac SE, so it should run fine on my G3 using OS 9.1" crap Mac users have been living with for so many years. It also preserves Apple's ability to change the OS implementation internally; if they leave undocumented APIs static for too long, developers will start to take them for granted and users will complain when Apple breaks them. Better to break them on purpose and prevent anyone from getting too comfortable.
-Mars
Someone will just tweak Mac OS to make it tweakable...
Or, for a more general solution, someone will patch Apple.
Thats a misleading article.
.. right?), you still have choice.
They don't want you messing around with the functionality of the widgets. You know what? I agree with them.
Esp. since you can run other window managers under Darwin (uh
And this article says nothing about them trying to prevent the kind of 'tweaking' most Wintel users use - namely, performance, setup, etc.
I don't have any problems with Apple trying to kill utilities that tweak the UI. There's still choice, and there wasn't in OS9.
As for Jobs saying, "Themes are dead", is he on crack? Or by dead, does he mean, "They're dead, because I killed them on this platform."?
"Old man yells at systemd"
You know, apple.slashdot.org should redesign the graphics on their site, just for spite. ;)
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
I am an ascii guy so I don't care mush about GUI:s but only when I need to surf the web or read email. Why can't Gnome or KDE be ported to Mac OS/X? I don't know much about it and have still Mac OS 9 on my iMac back there in the corner, so is it possible?
Damn these short titles!
"Amiga advocacy: The leper's bell of the modern idiot." -- streetlawyer
He's an idiot too, but he sure got that one right.
The truth shall make you free, motherfucker.
No thank you!
-Kevin
First, this is in reference to GUI tweaking, which I think is a fairly bad idea anyway. Many OS X apps have features based around the GUI, such as "dock-aware" applications and the likes, so if you go in and be a super-h4x0r to make your OS X box look like a Wind0z3 machine or something dumb like that, applications would probably get very, very pissed. OS X will always be tweakable as long as it has the BSD kernel. As this is the whole purpose of OS X, I don't see this fact changing any time soon.
-agent oranje.
Apple opens mouth, inserts shot foot.
From the article:
The old guard of Mac users aren't going to be happy. Neither are the switchers coming from the Unix world. Is anyone going to like this except Jobs?Also from the article:
It's the Apple way, all the way. They could have gotten lots of free eyecandy for their next version if they had let folks decorate it for them. This makes their stuff look just a little less attractive to me, at least. Oh, well, I probably couldn't have afforded one of those nice ibooks anyway.See what I've been reading.
Sure, technically you are correct. The UI is not the OS.
However, as the saying goes; "Perception is reality." The fact is that for most users and certainly for Apple's tageted users, the UI *IS* the OS. They have no concept of the distinction and their ignorance is furthered by articles like this in the media.
In fairness to these users, they are bombarded with mis-information for so long that the mis-information becomes reality.
I'll bet you call them "cable modems" or "xDSL modems", dispite the fact that they aren't modems at all. But they have been incorrectly categorized for so long that even the manufacturers now go with the flow and label their products as "modems".
Just last week I got a chance to play with a Mac running OS X 10.2. Over the past 10 years I have used several UNIX operating systems. Digital UNIX, IRIX, AIX, Linux, FreeBSD. Of these my favorite are FreeBSD & Linux, I use these two everyday. My short encounter with OS X was not a plesant one to me its just not UNIX. I know that it is based on BSD but to me I just don't belive that Apple will ever build an OS for geeks. They want to keep everything closed up just like they always have. Long live open source.
ONU
OS X's Not Unix!
Just one geeks opinion.
John Siracusa's Mac OS 10.2 review on Ars Technica also covered this. See API Wars
Looks like Apple are trying to stop the tweaks that make Mac OS X usabale. Which seems daft to me.
to whine about how many buttons the mouse has.
1) Aqua has proved to be a great marketing tool. As much as I hate to admit it it is good looking.
2) The APIs may be closed for a reason. They could quite easily change at any time due to extra features that apple themselves add. Imagine the outcry when Apple break a ton of third party apps because they fixed a bug in the menu system that involved changing the API.
>In Mac OS X, however, most of the APIs that affect the interface do not allow third parties to gain access to them. Independent software developers have figured out some of them and have created dozens of utilities for customizing the interface.
>But every time Apple updates the operating system, as it did recently with the Jaguar upgrade, the utilities are broken and developers have to upgrade their software.
To all the apple lovers, who does this sound like? Now would you rather waste your money on a Mac or pick up a cheap x86 box running Linux? If you still say Mac, then your problems lie deeper then I thought and you should seek help.
Both GNOME and KDE are already available on OSX via fink.
The more you tighten your grip, Jobs, the more operating systems will slip through your fingers.
I've used computers running MacOS from 6 through X. One thing that always made me cringe when I started up a pre-OS-X Mac was the sight of all those little extensions loading away, piling one on top of the other into a giant pyramid. Sometimes things worked okay, but often they didn't. The MacOS extensions were reminiscent of the old TSR programs under DOS -- when you had a bunch of them, things became flaky.
Given Apple's desire to have a more stable OS, not to mention their rigid UI approach, is it really that surprising that they don't want to go down the old Extensions road?
While I'm sympathetic to those who want to tweak OS X, my teeth are set on edge by the phrases chosen by those who are reverse-engineering the hidden APIs. "They're stifling innovation!" Translation: "They're not letting me do what I want to do!"
Were Apple breaking documented and open APIs, then you'd really have something to get up in arms about. As it is, if you're using undocumented APIs, expect them to change. You're going to be in the same land that all of us TSR writers of the 1980s were in: you'll have to modify your code each and every time a new OS version ships.
Or perhaps they will release their own UI tweaking utility like ResEdit, which pretty much enabled you to change the widgets and such but kept the "feel" the same.
He should stick to marketing, which he is very good at, and let the users decide what to do with their own computers.
The reason that the apple was such a huge success in the first place was because of openness. Woz made it a point that the apple manual include a schematic diagram of the early Apple II, because he knew it would encourage third party development.
Jobs also forgets he doesn't have the "mindshare" among commercial software developers and users, M$ does. This means that most commercial developers/software companies will put up with MS because they have too, because their clients for the most part use windows.
So all of this essentially means that he is pissing off the few(er) remaining MAC OS developers left, and not to troll (I have a MAC), and they are becoming rarer and rarer.
Apple has always tried to maintain control of the GUI; they publish the HI guidelines and provide standard controls to keep the UI uniform, standardized, and consistent across apps and machines. Of course they aren't happy about utilities that change this interface around. Remember, one of the biggest pieces of criticism leveled at Linux and one of the biggest reasons commercial development hasn't taken off is that the GUI is a moving target: There are too many different window managers, versions of window managers, and theme options to present a stable platform for interface design. Apple knows that have exactly ONE gui is a very good thing; look especially at the mention of tech support issues. You may not care about that but Apple's target audience does and therefore Apple has to.
And besides, we're making mountains out of molehills here. Apple gives you a built-in shell and a free IDE, and you bitch about not being able to put icons in the menu bar?
The only people worried about this are the ones that like skins on media players so you have no freaking clue where the minimize button is. They are also the ones that code web pages that change the color and style of your browser widgets for no apparent reason other that the fact that they can. They also bitch when companies like RedHat take the next step in unifying the desktop experience to help Linux move forward to greater acceptance.
A consistent UI is a good thing people.
Besides, why is everybody aping about how pretty Aqua is if all they want to do is change it and muck it up?
Apple has things called HUMAN INTERFACE GUIDELINES. They're the look and feel rules that have been implemented since the beginning of the Mac OS that allow a user to move from one machine to the next or one app to the next and not have a huge learning curve because the interface is different.
I'd rather have this than no guidelines and the fricking mess that is the Linux desktop. (KDE, GNOME, Enlightenment, AfterStep, geez who knows what you're sitting down to!)
I have 10.2 on my iBook, and I am able to tweak many, many functions to my heart's content. The first thing I did was get rid of that stupid "favorites" heart in the top of the finder window. Removing that button (and adding other finder tools to the top bar) was as simple as drag and drop. Resizing or relocating the dock, and changing its behavior is also simplicity itself. Don't like the funky way Macs have the scroll arrows grouped at the bottom-right corner? You can set it to the traditional layout with a few quick mouse-clicks.
What is really going on in this article is the owner of the company that makes Kaleidoscope (a third-party UI tweaking program for older flavors of Mac OS) has been rendered obsolete, not by Mac breaking Kali's tools with updates... which often happened with versions 7-9 of MacOS, but because OS X is already tweakable enough withough their app.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I have lots of suggestions-- but the one thing I can use is a way to make the dock "double-clickable" -- I don't know how many times I've launched a document and/or application accidentally while reaching for the scroll bar next to or above the dock (depending on placement).
It's just too touchy. A double-click rather than click will solve this.
Anyone know of a 3rd party tweak to fix this? Some how I'm guessing it's hard to do because it deals with the dock's basic functionality.
(Oh and native windowshade would be nice. In the meanwhile, there's this "haxie".)
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
"Before 10.2, the API had been reverse engineered and was being widely used by shareware developers. WeatherPop, for example, used it to show the current weather, while Homeland Alert shows the U.S. government's level of terrorist alert. These utilities were broken by the Jaguar update. Unsanity recently released a utility, Menu Extra Enabler, to restore them. "
Not true.
I've got both WeatherPop and Homeland Alert running on 10.2 and 10.2.1 without Menu Extra Enabler.
You could sell your Mac on eBay, too. That would eliminate the problem of being unable to "customize" it.
A Mac without Mac OS (9, X, whichever) isn't a Mac. It's a PC with a Motorola CPU and a really nice case.
I have GNU/Linux installed on my Powerbook, and G4 at home and they both work better than Mac OS X!
Yeah, I'm sure Linux is great for running applications like MS Office, Toast, Photoshop, and VirtualPC.
Your lies make baby Jesus cry.
Apple's core audience consists of teachers, artists, and other people who want a simple system that gets the job done and does it well -- not hardcore geeks or especially wintendo nerds who want maximum frame rates and custom everything.
For the same reason that large computer companies close off their BIOSes, Apple does not want people messing their systems up by testing the OS's boundaries, and having to call their tech support lines or even send their computer back, therefore costing Apple millions. They want to keep everything standard, simple, and robust, just like their single button mice.
It's not an ideological decision of closing everything off, it's purely a financial decision.
If Apple was selling a skinning program that allowed users to change their desktop appearance, and there were skinning apps in direct competition with Apple's apps, then yes, this would be a similar situation, especially if Apple's skinner continued to work, and the third party apps didn't.
However, Apple isn't in competition with the 3rd party developers - it's just not supporting them, either. It's a choice that I personally think will end up shooting Apple in the foot - but in no way is it the same as the "hidden API" stuff that was going on at Microsoft
InThane
To start another company and then sell that company back to Apple and use all those good ideas 5 years too late?
Deja Vu?
This happened in the transition to System 6, and again with MultiFinder, and yet again when System 7 came along. It was stable for so long because Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9 did so very little to the UI other than making it 3D and adding control-clicking. The UI was mature and the updates were bug fixes and feature adds on the back end (HFS+, More PPC Native code, USB, FireWire). Mac OS X is still evolving,, it's more like System 5/6 than the feature complete (UI-wise) System 7.
And Apple has always been anal retentive about the UI, this is nothing new. Expect this to settle out when the UI is feature-complete, then UI tweaking won't break between major version updates (10.2 should really be 10.5 by Apple's old naming convention).
Oh and the obligatory 'This Ain't News' comment. Users have been bitching about this since the Public Beta, 10.0 broke Public beta utils, 10.1 broke 10.0 utils, of course 10.2 was going to break 10.1 utils, this was a frikkin' given, with the changes to Aqua and Quartz in 10.2.
The Crazy Finn
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
Yeah and then you can boot OS X 10.2 in a window under Mac-on-linux.
So Taco, I guess my question is: Are you still going to buy one?
To be quite honest, I'm rather clueless as to what the point of this article is. There's still themes (maybe we can't do all the amazing whiz-bang things that Kaleidoscope was capable of, but they'll make it over eventually), there's still hacks to add more features to the UI, there's still great utilities and such. Apple's policy under OS X is the same that it always has been, which is to keep their mouth shut about deep-down OS areas. OK, so stuff breaks when going from 10.1 to Jaguar - stuff also breaks when going from 2.2 to 2.4 of the Linux kernel, or when going from Windows 2000 to XP. It even happened when going from Mac OS 8.6 to Mac OS 9. Just because Mac OS X is a radically different OS doesn't mean that you can't hack it. It's just new, the hackers will take a while to get into the real guts of the OS, and Apple will take a while to implement features that may make things easier or harder for customizers.
Yes, I know the article states most of this, but I just don't see the point in writing it. They could've just stated "It's the same as in OS 9" and been done with it.
Lastly, does anyone else find those featured themes to be rather unsightly? Come on, if you're going to showcase what Kaleidoscope was capable of, show off something a bit more visual then that.
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
Kind of a lot of whining about the poor poor Apple development community and not a lot of substance. Plus, it just focuses on the GUI API's - labeling it "closing the OS" is a bit of a stretch.
--
First, for those who bothered to read the full article, it specifically talks about the GUI, not the underlying system (so Snitch et al. aren't affected).
Looks like Apple's doing it in the name of consistency again. While this is a valid argument (look at the Aqua "Switch" document to see how religiously they take it) I'm still pissed for two reasons:
1. They're being hypocritical. The i-Apps (iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, etc.) use "brushed metal" neo-Aqua themes which really have no place among the rest of the OS.
2. Most of the type of people who will be tweaking their systems are hardcore enough to understand what they're doing. Hell, if I were Apple, I'd take those Dock-modification programs as a bigger offense (and Apple has incorporated quite a few of these Dock mods into the Dock since OS X 10.0). Remember MultiFinder? Or WindowShade?
This article, I think, is maybe trying to incite the X-Windows community towards violence with a "Look, Apple's trying to break X-Windows compatibility with OS X!" statement. I think it'll be perceived by too many as this when in fact it only goes after skin programs.
Finally, Apple shouldn't shoot itself in the foot like this... perceived as being unfriendly to any developer is sometimes perceived as being unfriendly to all developers.
Wrists killing you? Not in 2 weeks. Learn Dvorak.
You can either have an encompassing user interface in which all applications gain power by synergy by making sure things are predictable across the board, consistent and recognizable. A system with a specific entrenched look and feel, which helps develop important things like muscle memory, immediate visual clues, and helps eradicate ambiguity.
You can also have a system in which every aspect can be modified to any users' whim of the moment. You cannot have both.
In conclusion, the Mac OS will never be ported to x86.
I believe it already is ported, it was written with cross-platform in mind. Whether they release it or not is another matter.
arent all the free tweaks going to be made to break and then going to be rolledup into the next OS update ... and then charged to you at a fee? sounds like a terrible plan / practice for apple to embark on.
however, if apple wants to make changes to the os (such as supporting its video hardware subsystems better and not using so much software to do so) it might be a stability boost to try and discourage rampant hacks to the system.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
This article is all fluff. You've got the one guy who wrote kaleidoscope complaining that the UI now has closed API's. In fact, if a user wanted to change their interface, the pxm resources can be easily edited with resources available.
Not only this, there are several themes available.
The complaint here is that although Darwin is open source, (with most of the core components of the OS), the window server is not. Being a UNIX system, however, you can make a new one if you cared to. Simply running strings from the command line can pull most API functions out of a binary, so emulating them would be a tast, but not an impossible one.
From the beginning, Apple has discouraged used from using elements in the Aqua theme file (extras.rsrc) which are copyrighted by them. However, a full replacement of that resource file that contains no Apple IP can't be pulled by Apple.
Please don't listen to this argument that the OS is closed to tweakers. It's different now to tweak things, but you certainly can.
See? A Titanium theme, a Rhodium theme, a Gunther theme, a Totally Aqua theme.
Hey, even a tool to make them.
Quit complaining.
Are they trying to close it to tweakers or is that just a bi-product of the new OS?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Some slap-happy journalist at Wired interviews a few folks and makes a broad statement about Apple being anti-tweaking. Talking about APIs not being open - hell, many of the OS 9 APIs weren't open, people just had ResEdit to tweak the hell outta things - big difference!
Aww, c'mon. Let's not rehash this. What the hell is an "Apple approved" menu item?!? Its not like a developer has to get an "Official Apple Menu Item" seal for his app or anything - just that previously there were multiple APIs for placing something in the menubar, now there is one definitive API. Big deal!
Apple isn't losing any users, at least not ones that will spend $$ (after all, Apple's a business - they care about the Mac culture, yes, but they care more about the $$). Professionals that use Macs want stability. So many of the hacks for OS 9 would demote the stability of the OS to the ranks of Win9x or worse. Combining hacks would be even worse. Heck, even legit plugins for things like Photoshop could wreck your system. Apple knows this, so they're trying real hard to develop a system that provides what will hopefully become 'legendary' stability.
Keep in mind, also, that Apple may be keeping its private-APIs private, not only to prevent instability from encroaching on the system, but also to prevent competitors (read: Microsoft) from easily stealing enhancements made to OS X. Obviously Microsoft can also steal an idea and reimplement it, but Apple doesn't have to make that easy on them. I understand that having the API isn't equivalent to having the source, but defining an API isn't exactly a piece-of-cake, either. It takes a lot of careful thought and a tremendous amount of time to develop a stable API and corresponding documentation.
Musta been a slow news day at Wired.
yes; you can install X Windows on OS X, and put whatever WM you like on it instead of the delicious huggable Aqua.
Crystal addicts everywhere will be furious!
Shouldn't you be Using Linux anyway? The majority of people who use macs don't want to tweak, they want hardware that looks good to impress their yuppie friends and software that is eye catching and easy to use.
There's an irony in the Wired article praising the alterable nature of old System 7; one of the reasons why using System 7 was such a pleasure was that nearly all of the applications looked much the same and used the same interface elements. The readily available tools for constructing interfaces, notably ResEdit, tended to enforce uniformity as well. Yet appearance and behavior _were_ alterable, although it wasn't easy. I wasted a few months playing with custom WDEFs and CDEFs myself--with effort and trickery, you could do almost anything, but it was a great way to crash the system too.
The main thing about System 7, though, was that it didn't really _need_ much modification. Oh, there were some useful little add-ons--toolbars like the Control Strip which floated above all other windows, menubar additions, Apple Menu tweaks. But mostly, the system was just fine the way it was, until Apple started fucking with it--the introduction of the "Platinum" (or Copland, or "Aaron", or whatever) look is when Apple jumped the shark, in my opinion. I played with Kaleidoscope for a bit, but I never used it for more than a few days, partly because it rendered the behavior of the system somewhat unpredictable (you never knew when some application's interface might not look really strange with Kaleidoscope enabled), partly because making the system look _pretty_, as in "ain't this a wonderful screenshot?" pretty, also makes it more difficult to use.
But for whatever reason, many people think that the ability to set your system font to 48-point Wingdings and your window frame colors to be yellow and purple is the ultimate freedom. Hence the Enlightenment window manager, for example. Lots of fun to play with, great for amassing an album of pictures of people's desktops, but good and useful? Not really.
Having a locked-down interface isn't necessarily bad. The BeOS interface (remember BeOS?) was even more closed than Apple's (either System 7 or MacOS X), but since it was spare, functional, and worked reasonably well, most BeOS users, including myself, didn't really mind.
The trouble with Steve Jobs's obsession with preserving the Aqua look is that the Aqua look stinks. Not as badly as it used to, but the Dock is still an abomination, everything still takes up too much room, and if you're running a system at all limited in capacity (a 2nd-generation iBook in my case), the GUI's performance is irksome and slow. The beauty of System 7 was that it looked good whether you ran it on a Mac Classic or a PowerMac 8500. But Jobs's attitude seems to be, "Well, you should just buy a faster computer if it's slow, and a bigger monitor if it takes up too much room. Get with the program." (Ironic, considering that Apple is notorious for providing packaged systems with not enough built-in memory and small monitors.)
hyacinthus.
how the hell else am i supposed to stay up writing all this Darwin code without a dime of crystal?
oh
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
The only thing I cry about is how stupid I was for buying something that some undereducated corner cutting developers product.
The only thing I yell at the developers of a platform about are depricated fucntions, and even then not loudly. I get so mad when a function I start to rely on gets depricated. Then, as soon as I find out it was depricated, I have to do the math, do I go replace it now, costing my clients money up front, or do I wait until the depreciated function is actually removed, and then charge on the backend. Justify it now, or have a crunch situation that I can obviously blame on someone else later.
But I have never heard anyone complain about MS undocumented API's that I gave credence to. It definitly isn't a mainstream complaint. And if anyone (MS propoent or opponent) complains about an undocumented API changing, they deserve a swift kick in the pants, and whatever else they get.
I guess Apple won't be calling me to be a poster boy for how great the iBook keyboard is anytime soon.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
...now Steve, just point that gun down a little farther...there ya go!
BANG
Seriously though, why are so many companies failing to realize that any perceived benefit short-term that they gain by closing their products is ultimately offset by the goodwill they lose among the enthusiasts circle--the community that will do more for their advertising than even the best "1984" commercial. It's called "word of mouth" - you'd think these people would have heard about it in marketing school...
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
I don't blame them, I used to replace the 'error' icons and such with one-finger wave icons, "fuck you" messages, etc. and I'd leave machines in the computer labs running after I'd retrieved my startup disk with all the hacks on it. Of course the sounds for inserting/ejecting a disk would all be Ozzy Osbourne clips, vomiting, money shots, etc. (this was in junior high school)
For some reason I don't see this as being a bad idea. Mac OS X is a lovely OS and works great. Why not have it be a little more resistant to defacing than good ol' System?
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
Whoops. Why did you post again?
Wow, removing that stupid favorites heart and changing scroll arrows is really some serious tweaking.
Zexplain zis drag and drop you zpeak of...
While they may have some what of a point on the stability issue, I think the other "reasons" given are fairly lame. For instance, if a person is at the point where they are using custom tweaks to the GUI, they usually are advanced enough to know how to "open a window". And since when did the "brand" become more important than the desires of the end user?
Forget the whales - save the babies.
There are at least 3 different programs to change themes; Duality4, MetamorphX, Chameleon.
There already is a program to change system icons, Candy Bar.
There is another coming, Xpression.
There are a myriad of menu items, dock enhancements, window enhancers, custom menu builders, and just great all around utilites that enhance and extend the OS.
The thing to remember, and what everyone forgets, it that Classic Mac OS was a mature OS that people had years to hack and discover. OS X is new enough that Apple is still changing APIs.
Mac OS X is a very customizable OS and Wired is showing very little research and fact checking in thier article.
Step 1: Open window (not Windows)
....
:)
Step 2: Drop Mac. The Mac will accelerate at 32ft/sec
Step 4: Profit?
I dont hate Macs. I've used them for years, but for different thing than I use PC for. I use a Mac for reliability, and sometimes for graphics work, and I use a PC when I want to fiddle with things.
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
Most Kaleidoscope interfaces were ugly as sin...
but they weren't all. I remember some, you-could-almost-say-beautiful, kaleidoscope themes. When I lived in Japan there were clubs where people would design clever and attractive ones. Floral patterns, space patterns, favourite cartoon characters, whatever...
It's hard thing to explain to someone whose idea of 'themes' comes from the microsoft default 'options', but the immediate and powerful impression you got when you saw a mac really decked-out with customizations like kaleidoscope was real. It was one of those things non-geeks could do that bullt a relationship with their machine. Sure, it sounds corny and belonging to the 'get-a-life' category, but it was one of those things that made people love their macs the way windows users rarely did.
Furthermore, they (kaleidoscope ultra-themes) were the one feature of the Mac I have never seen even remotely equalled outside the mac world. (I don't discount that it may have been done in the multi-window-manager world of the unices, but i've personally never seen the equivalents, and as far as windows? forget about it.)
Being able to customize their their interfaces, right down to the shapes and design of the scroll bars, the location of the close/windowshade buttons, the title bars... it let you feel your mac was truly yours. (And the smilely mac face gave a bit of personality, too.)
I think apple's new policy sucks. IMHO.
my little iMac is tweaked like crazy. ok, yes, i miss the appearance manager, but it's still a putty like system.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
Apple is the only company that makes Apple computers and Apple software. Ford is the only company that makes Ford automobiles and parts.
Ford Motor Co. doesn't sue anybody for copying the car's user interface.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Well, it was easier to manipulate the OS 9 simply because the whole OS architecture was pretty old.
Today, with protected memory, preemptive-multitasking, etc. patching the OS is not that easy. You cannot just access a global static address in the system to patch a toolbox function... and this is a good thing. Most of the time, these patches was just putting shit all around the standard OS traps.
Also the article does not mention the fact that most of these utilities was completely broken after each OS major update (7->8->9)... Nothing different with OS X... just more stability today.
Yves.
Slow down, Michael; let's not get everyone in an uproar here. It's just a Wired article... this is the same Wired that files all of their Apple-related items in a section called "Cult of the Mac."
/. poll...
Wired writes about the Macintosh as an entertaining subculture and soap-opera. Analyzing the direction of Mac OS development based on a Wired article is a bit like, well, attempting to do something important with the results of a
I'd be happy if there was a control panel with a set of HSV sliders so I could change the Aqua-blue into the color of my choice. Sort of like what iChat lets you do for the talk bubbles, but more flexible. This, of course, leads to more features; a seperate color setting for widgets, the highlighted menu item, a different color setting for each app...
Which is probably why Apple wants to avoid the whole issue. 98% of the skins I've seen for window managers or things like winamp are awful. Murky, and unintuitive. Somebody spent a lot of time to make a skin they think is bitchen but I'm rarely impressed. I think this shows that effective GUI design is difficult and might best be left to experts. Besides, don't we have better things to do? Then again, if you want to paint your computer, or desktop, or house, or car, or fingernails a different color each week, knock yourself out.
who the hell cares. I am typing this on a mac with os9.2.1 currently - I don't have ANY themes at all and I don't care. Does it really matter what my popup menus look like - NO as long as they still work it's great.
Ave Molech Setting
Repeat after me:
Apple is a Monopoly. It is a very closed system of both hardware and software despite the "Come in We're Open" sign on the Darwin page.
Apple will do anything to protect that monopoly. Even convince their entire user base that they are somehow rebels, artists, free thinkers etc.
Apple does all of this through a *very* expensive marketing campaign that basically equates the the truth with a roll of toilet paper.
Apple is over priced, arrogant, and completely full of shit: READ: "Oh well, another day, another revolution" (ad copy when announcing some new 500mhz 'super computer')
Folks: 1.2mhz != 2.8ghz *EVER*
It doesnt "Just Work". I use a G4 at my job and I could list a thing as long as the first page of slashdot that don't work.
This all said. OS X is pretty cool. Its nice to have a Unix based system that does all the cool stuff OS X does. And! It runs photoshop!!
Apple hardware is very slick looking.
And every person who "switches" is one less person using the WinTel system of government survaliance. That is, if those same switchers stop using all the Microsoft crap that runs on the OS.
It always kills me how many people who use Apple cos they hate MS, then turn around and browse using IE for the Mac, as if somehow, someway because it is running on the Machine that the Dalai Lama appeared in an ad for, makes it OK and not satans very browser.
If you read the article, the lost "tweaking" which Apple is alledged to be "closing" from third-party apps really goes no deeper than that. Minor UI tweaks was all Kaliedescope was ever really capable of.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Discussions of interface issues often make for hot news items and even hotter discussion, but are they really relevant?
I appreciate the even-handed approach of your article, balancing the frustration of tweakers with the reality of developing a stable, attractive, and easy-to-use operating system. But, as a student looking towards Human Computer Interaction as a specialization and immersed in the literature of the field, it's safe to say that no interface will please 100% of the audience. Those out to tweak endlessly fall into a minority that no interface designer can possibly account for without going insane, just as a scientist can't possibly account for all the potential variables and random factors in an experiment.
In the artificial, "closed system" of interface design, the people with the free time and inclination to endlessly modify are always going to be unsatisfied. Is this newsworthy? A number of application developers have put out tools that enhance and work with OS X to rave reviews. There are a number of successful interface tweaks out there (my iBook has a fully transparent dock, for example). And, as someone who used to theme and skin, figuring out how to modify a closed program is part of the fun.
I won't stick by Apple 100% on all of their decisions like some Mac users (after all, I've spent the last 6 years in Linux/*nix). But I will say that if you're going to do an article that more than suggests to Apple what to do and where to go, there are far more pressing issues than letting skinning nuts with too much free time make Aqua look like rusted clockwork, or whathaveyou.
Just my $.02.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
George Bernard Shaw
I know a lot of artists; I sort of move in a circle of friends who are all artists of one kind or another. Know how many of them like tweaking their Macs? None.
I too know a lot of artists, and am related to several. My experience does not mirror yours at all. My cousin tweaks the hell out of her Apple (she even installed Red Hat GNU/Linux on it at one time, even though her computer savviness, such as it is, comes strictly from using it as a tool for doing her graphic design work, creating websites, etc.). Come to think of it, so does my other cousin (who is not an artist, but rather a medical doctor), as do several other artists I know. In fact, I can't think of one artist I know who hasn't tweaked the hell out of how their computer, be it an Apple or a Wintel PC, looks.
I should point out (and anyone reading my posting history here and elsewhere will confirm) that I am quite often very critical of Apple, their approach, their marketing, and their often "shoot myself in the foot and ask questions later" attitude, be it closing the source to parts of their derivative FreeBSDesque operating system, or deliberately making the hardware they are trying to sell as incompatible with PCs as possible (23" LCD monitor anyone? Thanks to Apple's idiocy I ended up buying a Samsung 24" instead. That's about $4,000 that would have gone to Apple, were it not for their inability to resist making everything they can proprietary, non-standard, and incompatible, but I digress), thereby losing a potential market orders of magnitude larger than the one they are trying to target. I make no apology, nor bones about criticizing the hell out of Apple for such stupidity when I see it, so I think it is clear I am not an Apple apologist by any measure.
All that having been said, Apple is not trying to close off the operating system, they are trying to prevent application developers and third parties from modifying how their core API and widgets work, in order to insure their "consistent" interface remains consistent. Unlike many here I find nothing of value in a consistent interface vs. a collection of choices, but neither do I find anything wrong with Apple persuing such a policy, so long as they do not extend it beyond their core GUI objects and leave the remainder of the operating system and its libraries open to those who wish to tweak.
Which is exactly what it appears they are doing, misleading WiReD articles notwithstanding.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I've got Windows, Linux and a Mac machine in the house. They all know their roles, and they do them reasonably well. I wouldn't trade any of them for any of them, if that makes sense to you. Cats meow and dogs bark. SFW. Point is, I care about getting the job done, not the tool I use to do it. Computers are just machines, not religions worthy of jihad.
The means is irrelevant to the ends. Do you edit a digital picture to make it more aesthetic, or to make it look like a MAc edited it? Do you type a letter into Word to show off your word processor or to convey your thoughts to the recipient? Do you serve web docs to the world to demonstrate Apache or to share your idiotic blogs to all who care to waste time reading it? You get the point.
Maybe I am old now, and remember life before all three of the aforementioned OS's, but the fact is that each have their place and do certain things better than the other -- no matter what zealots, evangalists or underinformed Luddites would like you to believe.
I dont get it, are you loyal MAC users out there just going to accept this rubbish without one hell of a fight? This seems a bad decision by them, in fact it stinks of Microsoft's typical arrogrance, i'm surprised Apple have done this.
I want my OS to boot to a command line
Disclaimer: I haven't used a Macintosh computer since Mac OS 8. Then, I could make an "alias" (i.e. what is called a "shortcut" on Windows) to an application and toss it in the Startup Items folder in the System Folder, and the app would start whenever I start the computer. Does an alias to the Terminal app work on Mac OS X?
Or you could install bare-bones Darwin without the Mac OS X desktop environment, and it'll almost feel like FreeBSD.
Will I retire or break 10K?
"All these features are yours
except Aqua."
"Make no attempt at tweaking there.
"Use it together with XDarwin,"
"Use it in peace."
Hugs and kisses,
Apple
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
uhh, resexcellence has quite a fine repository for hacks/tweaks for osx. most everything in there is in either tiff or pdf, so it's actually easier to edit most everything if you ask me. custom boot screens, boot panels, login panels, volume interfaces. easy. they are talking out their feces layden buttmouths.
-Dick Nhatz
"Apple is trying to "close the operating system to tweakers"
If I were in charge I wouldn't let them damn, dirty meth-heads use my OS either!
By Mr. Cringley, which I thought was quite funny. Steve Jobs sees the personal computer as his tool for changing the world. I know that sounds a lot like Bill Gates, but it's really very different. Gates sees the personal computer as a tool for transferring every stray dollar, deutsche mark, and kopek in the world into his pocket. Gates doesn't give a damn how people interact with their computers as long as they pay up. Jobs gives a damn. He wants to tell the world how to compute, to set the style of computing. Bill Gates has no style; Steve Jobs has nothing but style. A friend once suggested that Gates switch to Armani suits from his regular plaid shirt and Levis Dockers look. "I can't do that," Bill replied. "Steve Jobs wears Armani suits." Think of Bill Gates as the emir of Kuwait and Steve Jobs as Saddam Hussein. Like the emir, Gates wants to run his particular subculture with an iron hand, dispensing flawed justice as he sees fit and generally keeping the bucks flowing in, not out. Jobs wants to control the world. He doesn't care about mantaining a strategic advantage; he wants to attack, to bring death to the infidels. We're talking rivers of blood here. We're talking martyrs. Jobs doesn't care if there are a dozen companies or a hundred companies opposing him. He doesn't care what the odds are against success. Like Saddam, he doesn't even care how much his losses are. Nor does he even have to win, if, by losing the mother of all battles he can maintain his peculiar form of conviction, still stand before an adoring crowd of nerds, symbolically firing his 9mm automatic into the air, telling the victors that they are still full of shit. You guessed it. By the usual standards of Silicon Valley CEOs, where job satisfaction is measured in dollars, and an opulent retirement by age 40 is the goal, Steve Jobs is crazy.
About the first point, linux has more interface problems than just those involving window managers. I don't think it could significantly improve its ui if there were fewer window managers.. I think a better strategy to improve linux ui would be to delete all shells in unix and start from there. Delete make, gcc and anything else that outputs or manipulates code while you're at it. A person is by definition not a "home user" or "common user" if they make use of a shell, much less some sort of development tool.
I've been using Macs and other systems for about 10 years now and object to Steve's/Apple's "we know what's best" ui attitude. The Mac has allowed interface tweaks almost since its inception and they have not confused new users or made anything more difficult or caused the sky to fall either. If anything, third party tweaks have vastly improved the MacOS GUI over the years. Almost every ui tweak after system 7 started off as a third party modification. Window shade, menu bar clock, hierarchical apple menu, half of everything in now utilities, speed copy etc... Third party add-ons integrated into the system are what made the pre 9 MacOS such an incredible experience. Apple has forgotten all this since the development team was taken over by the NeXT pod people. They don't have the foggiest idea what they are doing and they don't have the foggiest idea why the classic MacOS interface rocks. The very least they could do is admit their incompetence and allow third parties to fix their errors.
Oh yay, there's a free IDE with MacOS X. Hurray! Yippy!
Can you change the color and shape of the window border, move the various widgets that control them and make them look like something else, even changing their function?
Can you make my OS X look like Star Trek LCARS interface like I could with OS 9 and Kaleidoscope? (I said *could*, not *did*)
NO
You can't do any of that.
All you can do is go a little farther like changing icons and the color of the buttons to something other than Blue and Grey by using resource hacking utilities, but as the article brought out, many tools are broken with subsequent upgrades to the OS, so maybe those are junk now too.
"Anyhow, if the Slashdot crowd wants to get under the hood and tinker, they can run BSD with Darwin, and not run MacOS or Aqua. Apple never pretended that Aqua was going to be anything but a proprietary piece of software. "
You'd have a point if it was the "/." crowd that was complaining, but it's not.It's people who want to give their computers "personality". Everyone wants to do that. You move into a house, you change and add things to fit you. You move into a cubicle at work. You change things to fit you. Companies need to respect the human urge to make things their own. Apple can have their defaults, but leave us our changes. As far as the "support" issue. Make it EASY to change from defaults to customizations, and back. Mac OS X doesn't have "across the board" rollback (and forward) capability.
The macOSX gui isn't X11 compliant. The very first thing I tried to do was remotely display an app.
You can load up X11 for MacosX, but you can't
remotely display those cool looking OS/X apps.
So, what do I do, I get ideas to make our Linux
Apps cooler. Apple take NOTE: I'm not using your
schemes, or whatever. I'm just getting ideas on
how to make my apps look cooler. So OS/X didn't last on the G3, Linux is going back online as soon as I get the latest release from Yellow Dog.
Apple has a publically stated policy of not making internal APIs public (i.e., not providing documentation or support) because the internal APIs are UNDER DEVELOPMENT.
They KNOW that the API can change without notice, and if they have to freeze the API so it doesn't break third party tools, that will basically tie their hands in developing the OS.
By keeping unfinised APIs internal, the only apps that need to be updated are the APPLE-provided apps, which they can update all they want.
Once the API is mature enough, and stable, etc... they document it support it. Until then, it's "Use at your own risk" and rightfully so.
I am completely sure that Apple will release an API for modifying the UI. When? Don't know. This year? Next year? Who really cares? It will be there when it's done and ready.
It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Exactly. OS X is still very much under construction - many regard 10.2 as the first version that is truly ready for primetime. I think the code behind the interface may actually be in a stronger state of flux than the rest of the system - consider the changes necessary to get to an incredible interface enhancement like Quartz Extreme from the intolerably slow one in 10.0! Nor is Apple's tweaking likely to stop here. I've heard at least one rumor that they are working on another iDevice (not a pda, but not a computer apparently) capable of running cocoa apps with only a simple recompile. Such a device would certainly involve substantially altered interface code, which could use standard or stripped down .nib files.
Obviously I can't verify the veracity of the rumor, but I can make these observations: 1) By keeping those APIs private, Apple is quietly trying to keep people from messing with what they consider low-level code that they probably have plans for, and 2) based on that assumption Apple is probably not concerned about themers like Kaliedescope, but major commercial programs messing with that code within an application a) thus shooting themselves in the foot with major revisions to/new versions of those APIs and potentially abandoning the platform b) lazily foisting distinctly counter-intuitive non-apple interfaces designed for another platform, or c) interfering with the proper functioning of other programs.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
As a former techsupp rep, I remember getting calls all the time that went:
Customer: My Mac is crashing!
Me: Try disabling Kaleidascope.
Customer: Oh! It works now!
Me: Thank you and have a nice day.
Maybe Apple is trying to put techsupp reps out of work:>
Where's (Score: -1, Flaming Fucking Faggot) when you need it?
This has got to be the most ignorant one yet. Really, do you think that the "tweakability" of the interface is what draws us zealots to the Macintosh? Not even close. So, get over yourself here. This has got to be the silliest argument yet.
Does this not remind anyone of when Microshaft came up with the new terms of licensing Windows for OEM installation that prohibited OEMs from offering their own alternative desktop interfaces such as "Packard Bell Navigator"? I used to see compuers with that interface for sale all the time, but not any more. Does Packard Bell een exists these days?
Some of us just want to turn our damn computer on and have it OBEY . I don't want to spend half my computing experience editing files slightly to get things to line up.
Apple vehemently defends its intellectual property rights regarding the Aqua interface. I remember downloading and installing an Aqua theme for LinuxPPC 2000 when it was on my Blue & White PowerMac G3. Apple quickly put an end to the "Aqua" schemes, themes, and skins for all non Mac OS X GUI's. Though I don't like my reduced freedom of choice regarding the Mac OS X Aqua GUI, if this action makes my system more stable, I thinks it's a move in the right direction. For the truest of nerds, geeks, and rocket-heads, they can always download and install Gnome, GTK, and whatever themes or skins they want and theme to their heart's content. IIRC, you can boot Mac OS X into the console and start XWindows from there. There you go, you have the truely customized GUI you've always longed for, it just can't be or use Aqua.
It's only a matter of time before someone makes a downloadable installer that will install XWindows, GTK, Gnome, KDE, or whatever window mangager the user preferes, with a simple double click on an icon, type in the administrator password, click a few check boxes, and install the software. I know that Fink (http://fink.sourceforge.net/) will install this software, but it requires a lot from the user. It isn't a simple click and install which is what the Mac community is accustomed to doing.
For you sir would get all of them.
Slashdot has a topic for Apple Utilities too..but not for Python..
I compare this to Word vs laTex. Word allows you change the funky fonts, laTex does not. Result laTex produces professional quality documents that have been researched to death and documented to be supior to their word counterparts.
Aqua is awesome, everybody drools over it. I would'nt want to change that!, its as simple as that. Its a standard. Why would you want to change it? make it like win16 or win32 appearance hell no!
The article that is refered to in this story also is biased toward the program klaideoscope (spelling!). Only a nut-cracker would want to change the themes and such.
There is an entire world of hardware hacking out there made possible by the open architecture of the PC. Go down to your local electronics jobber ( or Radio Shack if that's all your town has) and you will find everything you need to make your own interface cards from scratch.
Of course this takes a bit more skill and training than writing a "Hello World" program in VB or cutting a hole in the side of your case, but nonetheless, true hardware hacking is alive and well, even if not high profile in these days when widgets that feign transparency are mistaken for technology.
KFG
The article complained that Apple had changed the API's involved in developing custom menus. Well, in that specific case, Apple created and publicly documented an API, for use by third-party developers (In Jaguar, look up the NSStatusItem class to see how to see the documentation).
I've been considering the purchase of an iBook for the sole purpose of tweaking. I'd bet that many "converts" have bought Macs with OS X for the same reason. Now I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm reminded of the "hood welded shut" paradigm, and am surprised that Apple would do this after they've received so much good press due the the usability of a tweakable system. Guess I'm by a regular notebook instead...
Well, any desire to get a Mac has just been squelched. Dang, if I want to paint something I bought green or add handles to it, I really should be able to. It's mine, not yours. I bought it, I didn't rent it!
So I will continue to be a x86 Linux user/bigot!
-- Many men would appreciate a woman's mind more if they could fondle it
Wired has really friggin sold out. What shoddy journalism -- where is Apple's feedback to this bland hubris. "Wahh wahh friggin Kaleidescope doesn't work with OS X wahhh I can't just click click click wahh!"
Geez! Apple developers have to be laughing (or crying) at that one. I can't believe author Leander Kahney wanted this article published.
hmmm, my case is in no way translucent... it's white.
... about what developers wanted/needed access to in new versions of the operating system (yes, I know that this article is really about UI tweaks, but figured I'd offer a perspective on what the topic of the post implied). I attended one of the Apple WWDCs (World Wide Developers' Conference) when I worked for the now defunct (well, "assimilated into the NAI universe") Dr. Solomon's Software on Virex, an anti-virus application for the Mac. When OS X was announced, we were decidedly worried about how we were going to get access to the file system areas that we needed to hook in to to intercept file opens and closes, along with other similar things. During a particular mixer, where Apple engineers and architects were around to sip beer and eat free food, we talked to the main architect and engineers of the file system team and had a great dialogue about what we needed and how best we could get it. They were interested to hear how we had worked around so many disgusting parts of the OS 7, 8 and 9 systems, and were honestly quite horrified to hear what was required in certain circumstances :). But, customers want to be protected from viruses in every possible way they can access files, so we had to do it.
Traditionally this is a pretty tough thing to do, even in the best of times. Under OS 8 and 9, we had a hell of a time keeping the on-access scanning parts working with each new release of the OS... they would change behavior in AppleTalk functionality, asynchronous hooks, or whatever and POOF!, what used to work just fine now times out on accesses to remote volumes.
The Apple guys were very open to trying to give us more reliable, sanctioned access to the file system hooks that we needed to have. Unfortunately, Dr. Solly's was soon thereafter assimilated by NAI and I was not able to work on the product anymore, so I don't know what they eventually did with the OS X product.
-"I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle." - Arthur Dent
The addition of the BSD kernel
Sorry, but it uses a MACH kernel.
"I was writing paper on the pc... and it was like bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep! And then ... like half of my paper was gone... and I was like... eh?"
;)
If Ellen Feiss can get her own commercial I think they'll overlook a little typo.
Behold The Second Power Of The Slashdot Effect.
Wired can take the heat, but the sites linked to by the Wired article are (indrectly) Slashdotted. Can we one day push it to three?
-Three Toe
-(Two Lost In Struggle With Calamari)
I also use all three OS's, and don't really consider myself zealot of any of them, although I find my iBook to be downright spiffy.
Also, as for calling me a Luddite... I don't think it means what you think it means.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
If anyone out there has a good explanation as to why a themable interface is more powerfull or easy to use than a consistent, static interface, I would love to read it.
Personally, I think themed interfaces are the worst idea since... well I can't think of anything that comes close. For an interface to be usefull, and trusted by it's audience, it has to be predictable.
Why does my music player look completely different than my web browser or my word processor? I guess it kinda looks cool in a screenshot by itself. But I embrace computers in my life to get stuff done, rather than to post slick screen shots. Exploring and customising a new computer or software package can be fun, but for most people it's not the end goal of having a computer.
I can see how some OSX users on older hardware would like to be able to turn off text smoothing and gain a little speed. UI options for hardware compatibility or for people with low vision are fine, but "themes" as we think of them today have to go.
Themes basically exist for two reasons (warning: opinions)
In other words, UI designers lack leadership, and users crave consistency.
A few years ago, it was practically impossible to sit down at a friends X11 workstation and know what any of the keymappings were or how the menus worked, or even start a program. It's gotten much better now with most people using either KDE or Gnome, but massive improvements are needed before free software will be as easy to pick up and use as OSX and Windows are.
RH's choise to theme KDE and Gnome similarly was inspired, as are Steve Jobs' comments on themes. Thanks guys, keep it up!
I hope to someday get a new mac, but if Apple keeps preventing people from even changing the colors of the interface, I may just have to stick with my favorite free OS, that I can tweak so it doesn't hurt my eyes so much.
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Wired: "[T]he API that allows for custom menus and icons on the right side of the top menu bar, next to the clock, prohibits all but Apple-approved menu items."
The article is incorrect. You can still create menu items in Jaguar using the approved API object, NSStatusItem. The private Apple object, NSMenuExtra, has certain functions (you can rearrange MenuExtras and start or stop them by dragging them on or off the toolbar) not available to StatusItems, and, unlike StatusItems, don't require applications to remain active to keep them alive.
However, this means that MenuExtras are privileged: they run as part of the SystemUIServer, and thus a memory leak in an ME is a memory leak within the GUI, and an ME that crashes takes down the entire environment, killing all open apps and knocking you back to the login. For consistency and reliability purposes, I don't see any way Apple could let random developer run riot inside the SUISvr; it would take us right back to the Bad Old Days of MacOS hacks.
As of Jag, the OS keeps a hardcoded list of "official" MenuExtras that are permitted to run, to prevent users from starting arbitrary MEs. However, users can still create and use StatusItems to their hearts' content -- pace the article, that part of screen real estate is still userland.
Of course, this *is* Wired we're talking about; did we expect anything better?
- The Watchful Babbler
He had his mac tweaked out, and tried constantly to change something about its configuration, that he never got his 'art' done.. his 'art' consisted at throwing filter after filter in photoshop onto a photo (usually something along the porn lines) at low res until it 'became' art or something. I called it crap. You can tweak all you want, but you are missing the point of 'just works'
Lowmag.net
This is true....I was also researching an Apple computer for my college career and was close to picking one as my final choice, but in light of this and other factors I have decided to go w/ a PC running windows and linux or perhaps freebsd. This way I get the best of both worlds.
SIGFAULT
I think Apple's position has everything to do with preventing someone from reverse engineering Aqua/Quartz for the X86 rather than trying to stifle innovation. Imagine if the KDE or Gnome guys got a hold of of the complete Aqua / Quartz API spec... do you think they could create an X86 version ??? This would kill Apple.
And, by the way, if you want to avoid the GUI altogether, you can login as ">console" (instead of your usual user name) and you will be presented with a text login prompt in a full-screen console.
The thing is that Apple has done something remarkable here. They have put Unix on the desktop of ordinary users. The flexibility and extensibility of this OS is beyond belief. They haven't dumbed down Unix, they have transformed it. My kids can set up an Apache server in about five minutes. They can't do that with any other OS.
I use Windows, Linux and Mac every day, and like them all. But objectively, OSX is light years ahead of anything else. IMHO, that is. It will take another year or two before this becomes clearly apparent.
Then the solution is to require an admin password to make those changes, not to make them impossible. This solution wasn't possible before OS X in Macs, but it should be now.
a long long time ago, i can still remember how that apple ][ used to make me smile
i knew that if i had the chance, i'd sit and hack without my pants
and maybe i'd be happy for awhile
then out came 10 and i was happy then
bad news on the doorstep, i couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if i cried when i read 'bout that API
but something touched me deep inside, the day, the OS died
bye bye open API
put my linux over minix
and then linux was mine
them windows boys was drinking coffee and sprite
singing this'll be the day that i die.
this'll be the day that i die.
this'll be the day that i die.
did you write the system of love, do you have faith in Jobs above
if the missing manual tells you so
do you beleive in GPL, can linux save your hard drives soul?
is windows making your drive go slow?
Well I know that you're in love with it, don't want to use that peice of shit
You removed all your disks, beos i sure will miss
i was a lonely teenage hackin buck, with neon case and an os that sucked
but i knew i was out of luck the day the OS died
i started singing bye bye open API
put my linux over minix
and then linux was mine
them windows boys was drinking coffee and sprite
singing this'll be the day that i die.
this'll be the day that i die.
this'll be the day that i die.
for 20 years we've waited for 10 we thought we'd be happy then
cuz this was how an os should be
when bill gates sold that aweful trash with code he borrowed from the macintosh
and a voice came from you and me
while steve jobs was looking down, bill gates stole his thorny crown
te courtroom was adjourned, no verdict was returned
while i read a book on PERL, while listening to the duke of earl
we programmed in the dark, the day the os died
we started singing bye bye open API
put my linux over minix
and then linux was mine
them windows boys was drinking coffee and sprite
singing this'll be the day that i die.
this'll be the day that i die.
this'll be the day that i die.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
It's been said already before, but I'll chime in and say it again:
Apple is very, very protective (and rightfully so) of their GUI. Hell, they do the bulk of the high-level human interface research for the industry. They need to be.
Apple, as of MacOS 10.2, "broke" the way that some applications/hacks got their hooks into the interface, particuarly the menu bar. And they changed the human interface guidelines to match.
Guess what? Those applications (including the absolutely indispensable ASM) were again functioning a week or two later.
I agree with Apple's rationale. Hacks ~= an unstable system, and clutter via icons on the menu bar == bad.
I also know that here, in the real world, dammit, I want my application menu back. And ASM gives that to me.
Do you guys REALLY think that Apple is going to build a *nix/BSD based OS and then lock users out of the *nix layer? How clueless is that? They're working with Linux/BSD developers to bring MORE unix software our way, cleaner.
As far as customization, you want themes for OS X 10.2? Old-school windowshading? A more useful Apple Menu? Low-level control of CoreGraphics and Interface Plists? Interface sounds?
What was the issue again?
If you're still not happy install whatever window manager you prefer. It'll work under X11. Although at that point, why are you using a Mac in the first place?
FINKCommander
XDarwin
c'mon now, people. you're not even trying.
Any reasonable, honest person would have to admit this is a limitation imposed by Apple upon its users. This limitation may not be important to many of their users, particularly within their target audience, but it is a limitation. Developers may find ways around this, but it is still a roadblock for them. There are Apple apologists and cheerleaders, just as there are such for Windows and other OS, who will say otherwise, but it does not change the fact that OS X is not as open or flexible as Linux.
Some people are perfectly satisfied with OS X, and I think that is great. Some people are even satisfied with Windows XP, and I wish them luck. People who really want to be able to tweak, extend, modify, and configure their systems without limitations have Linux. Freedom!
Good call. Although I suspect America would find me (a typical thirtysomething Perl hacker) to be far less cute and compelling than her.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I'm not sure about the article but I'm running the latest version of the OS and all the tweaks I've installed onto my machine(Weatherpop and CPU watch) are running fine.
Actually, Ford is a monopoly, or was. Notice that you cannot buy a canopy for you Ford from Ford? This is because they were injuncted from doing so.
It was an issue very much like browser integration: Ford decided to integrate a canopy with thier pick-ups, but that would make the aftermarked canopy business obsolete. They sued and won.
Evidently, the author, and I use the word loosely, never heard of the Apple Developer Connection! Apple is most cooperative, at least to me, and I'm just a nobody developer for Darwin......
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
For the moment, however, there are a few malcontents that had a lot invested in the old way of doing things (the Kaliedescope folks) and just want to raise a stink because their sacred cow has been gored. The fact that Wired is giving them an audience simply underscores their journalistic calibre.
Anyone who really wants to customize the appearance of their OS X windows and controls can still do so. In fact, it is far easier in OS X than it was in classic Mac OS: In OS X, many of the window and control theme elements are stored as simple PDFs or TIFFs, somewhere in the /System hierarchy. All it takes to modify the appearance of things is to replace those PDFs or TIFFs, and, possibly, edit a .plist or two. Compare this to classic, where you had to write a bunch of code to insert your custom PICTs, MDEFs, CDEFs, and WDEFs into the system at runtime, and it's hard to see what anyone is griping about.
Typical /. - no-one reads the frikkin' article or even checks to see if it's accurate . This is absolute bullpuckey! (Thanks Harry!)
/. community cluelessness? More, definately more...
The Wired article was there to yank the usual short-hairs out there, get a scream and do the usual Dvorak run-away (did you notice that in the article they actually pointed out that Apple is NOT discouraging development? They're not encouring it either, but they've NEVER really done that!
Kalidiscope, Gregs' (stuff), et al were pretty littly widgity holes in the memory map that caused your Mac to go bye-bye. People here bitch continuously about how pretty OS X is (and that's bad) and now they bitch that Apple doesn't actively support that. Duh - get some ritalin and choose a freakin' side already!
Look at the photos in the Wired article - the candy that they display is almost all available in OS X: Drag Thing (now with tabs - way cooler) Audion. The missing apple menus? ASM. The changable fonts? Candybar from Panic. Shit - I can even run Open GL screen savers on my DESKTOP.
And the Mac doesn't crash - it may run REALLY slowly with that open GL shit sucking cycles, but it keeps on running. And serving. And sharing. Chug chug chug...
Less customizable? More customizable.
This is the second time I've seen a misleading article title. It lead me to believe this was a discussion of Apple trying to close its BSD sources to the world.
Had this actually been the case I'd have actually been concerned, mind you - such an action taken after absorbing a large portion of FreeBSD's technology would have been a major act of bad faith on the part of Apple. Thank goodness this is something as trivial as interface mods!
// -- http://www.BRAD-X.com/ --
This sounds like making lemonade out of lemons. The Macintosh was "completely customizable" because it was a real-mode operating system. People could hack into its data structures from user programs whether Apple wanted them to or not. To bring at least some order to the madness, Apple added some APIs.
For Apple, opening up the APIs that "control the placement, function and look of windows and menus" was a necessity. It wasn't something they "pioneered" either: X11 had those APIs designed into it from the ground up. That's why, for better or for worse, you can use dozens of toolkits seamlessly on the same screen, pick your window manager and lots of accessories on X11 as you like.
For years, one of the big attractions of the Mac was the ability to customize the operating system. Users could completely overhaul the machine's interface, sometimes to the point where it was entirely idiosyncratic.
Mac evangelists can't have it both ways. Either they like end-user customization or they don't.
Out of the box, X11 desktops like Gnome, KDE, or Motif are as consistent as Macintosh, but X11 allows extensive end-user customization, it allows applications written with completely different toolkits to work together, and that's designed in, easy to use, and open.
But that's not Apple's philosophy: Apple wants to bring a standard, simple user experience to the Macintosh, and having people "tweak" the UI interferes with that. That's another possible point in the GUI design space, and there is nothing wrong with that philosophy.
But you can't have a GUI that offers both the possibility of, and support for, tweaking and simultaneously doesn't offer it. Apple has made the valid choice of trying to prohibit tweaking in OS X. That will appeal to many schools, universities, and IT managers. But it will also not appeal to many other users.
Ultimately, Mac zealots have to learn the painful lesson that engineering and design consists of tradeoffs: it's impossible for a single product to be the best at everything. A company can design products that are bad at everything, but here is no "best personal computer", "best user interface", or "best operating system".
ooops. can't read.
It warns potential Mac buyers of a serious problem with Macs. I like my iBook, but I definitely know things now about it, like the inability to change basic GUI properties like font or font size, that had I know probably would have moved me towards wintel instead. Telling potential buyers about this puts pressure on Apple to change it.
Look at our primary sources here:
"Apple is uptight about (changes to the interface)," said Brian Wilson, business manager at Unsanity, which has created a number of OS X interface utilities. "But at the same time they haven't given us any grief. We've had neither help nor hassle."
Sounds like a draconian regime of not caring much, doesn't it?
"It's the end of an era," said Greg Landweber, co-developer of Kaleidoscope, one of the most popular Mac customization tools ever created. "Under the old Mac system, doing these little interface tweaks was really easy. You could change almost anything. Now, you can't change the way they work, only their appearance."
Greg Landweber's take, then, is that you can change the appearance, you just can't move the functional elements to completely different locations. Did anyone really use the Kaleidoscope themes that had the window buttons on the side? Those are the ones that just hit the rocks.
I took delivery on my 17" iMac last Friday. Believe me, there's no shortage of tweaks to the UI. I'm running a handful now. If Apple's making noise just now, it's just to emphasize that tweakers are there only at Apple's discretion -- always the case, right?
Just another overstated conflict story where there really isn't much of a conflict, if you ask me.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Let's accept the premise that Applie is a monopoly for computing devices with PowerPC chips. Where do we go from there? Can you run without Aqua - I think so. Can you use other window managers, that's a definite yes. Does Apple bury its browser in the os so that it cannot be removed. No. Did Apple implement java in such a way that using native gui widgets broke its cross-platform capabilities. Nope. Maybe the Sherlock-Watson thing was bad behavior on Apple's part. Maybe the roping off of Aqua is also. But, the point you are really making is that Microsoft was mistreated by the courts. Fine. Make your arguments on the merits of judcial, anti-trust, economic, and philosophic theories. But only Microsoft has the reach and scope of actions to be compared to Microsoft. Apple isn't in that league.
ResExcellence has some skins for MacOS X, and plenty of other customisations too.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Actually, they're far simpler than that.
Step 1: Find out that there really are no upgrade parts available for your sorry little Mac. Bury your head in shame.
Step 2: There is no Step 2. Didn't you read Step 1?
Wired, I'm afraid, is looking for a conspiracy where none exist. The team at Kaleidoscope is working on an OS X version of their classic (and Classic) appearance app.
As a former Kaleidoscope user, I can tell you that it, and just about any other "tweak" or "hack" app broke after most any update (from the System 7 days right up to the latest Classic). This isn't anything new. Apple is constantly updating the interface (Jaguar has quite a few interface changes, behind the scenes).
No conspiracy, sorry!
jrbd
As usual, the uninformed have no idea what 'monopoly' means.
... So, I wouldn't have a monopoly, would I? Of course I would. Monopoly means a company has enough economic control over 1 small segment of the economy to artificially control prices. Lots of companies have monopolies, certainly including Apple.
Yes, Apple does have a monopoly. If I controlled every piece of computer hardware and software on the planet, well, you could always spend your money on televisions and books and movies and food and travel and
So who doesn't have a monopoly? Think of a local farmer with a roadside stand, selling tomatoes. Don't like his products? Go down the road to another stand, or to a market, and buy someone else's. This farmer had better set his tomato prices similar to the going rate, or no one will buy them. That is a lack of monopolistic control. ANY greater amount of seller control over pricing is monopolistic, and with Apple's long history of high prices, they most certainly qualify as having monopolistic control over their market.
Computer geeks need to take more economics classes in school.
The story on Wired reports that changing the appearance of the GUI has become more difficult with Mac OS X. Isn't it a little extreme to conclude that the whole OS can not be tweaked. If Aqua may not be reconfigured as easily as some wish it to be, Mac OS X is a UNIX operating system, that runs many open source programs, including XFree86, Gnome or KDE. And I have as much fun tweaking Mac OS X than I have tweaking Linux that run on the same iMac, even if I haven't changed the appearance of Aqua yet.
At the very end of the article it says:
"Oddly, Apple allows some parts of Mac OS X system to be themed. The look of the QuickTime Player, for example, can be altered, but only by media with a theme embedded in the QuickTime file. This allows corporations to create themes for the media player, but locks out the little guy."
Does this guy mean you have to pay a lot of money to Apple to be able to customize the quicktime interface for your stream? Or is he just talking out of his ass? I went to www.quicktime.com (granted, I didn't have a lot of time to spend searching...) but I didn't find any info on customizing the interface. It can't be that hard, can it?
Does anybody have more details on that?
Apple is trying to "close the operating system to tweakers" according to this story on Wired.
First off, this article is trolling for hits from angry Mac-users. Congrats for taking the bait. Second, the article's title is inaccurate, since the article is actually about how difficult it is to hack the GUI. So you did a bad job of summarizing.
Finally, it should be noted this is a WIRED News story (copyright Lycos) not a WIRED Magazine story (copyright Conde Nast). Yes, they cross-promote. Yes, they used to be owned by the same company. No, they don't have the same editorial standards.
And yeah, you can quote me on that.
Bowie J. Poag
I've wanted a Mac ever since OSX was released, and being somewhat of a geek, I like to tinker and customize things to my liking. I'm sorry to see Apple limiting my options in this, but I will probably still get a Mac someday as long as they don't close it up too much.
Apple isn't planning on restricting replacement fonts, forcing the Dock to stay on the bottom, or locking you into one (howerver high res) background image.
They are planning on making such necessary hacks as replacement Docks and Virtual Desktop plugins.
"Just Working" isn't enough for me. I want more. The beauty of OS X and XDarwin are the only things that keep me from always booting my laptop into Linux. Linux does more than "Just Work" and dos(windows) obviously falls short of it, even NT 5.01 (xp) has trouble.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Tell us what you mean "It's just not UNIX".
All of the utilites are there, in the places
I expect them. They work the way they do on
Linux. gcc is there for you to compile what
is not there.
What exactly are you talking about (I use it
every day...)
Look for a pin-out diagram on Apple's website. You'll find that ADC isn't a propriatary interface. It's an all-in-one cable. The dongle between card and monitor is a power brick. It probably does some signal refreshing too for the USB and DVI lines but I don't see why it would need to do anything else.
There's a slightly more technical writeup of the API dilemma in John Siracusa's Ars Technica review of Jaguar.
Here's the beginning of the article.
# Users are merely variables. I prefer to comment them out.
Not ironic, logical. Apple is a hardware company. Some of those new memory chips and monitors are going to come from the company store and not 3rd party suppliers.
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
Apple is making a poor argument according to this statement:
"In its defense, Apple has good reasons for preventing interface hacks. One of the major selling points of OS X is its stability, and changes to the underlying system undermine that. Previous versions of the Mac OS could be enormously flaky thanks to extensions that altered basic operating system behavior."
As a long time Mac user from the days of unprotected memory and crashes that brought down the entire system, it was quite annoying when a little crash f'd up the entire system. Stability improved as the development of the MacOS marched forward, but crashes before 10.x could still kill everything.
Enter MacOS X. It's damn stable. Aside from a kernel panic, crashing applications don't take everything with them. If anything, I'm more apt to mess around with my Mac now that I don't have to worry about it as much. So the SystemUIServer thread dies; big whoop, it spawns itself again. Still having a problem? Relaunch the Finder. But usually what'll happen is the tweak (like a menu item addition) itself will just die and leave everything else alone.
However, on the other side of the coin, I'd be a really annoyed Apple tech support guy if I had to answer calls from people installing tweaks that caused problems and didn't know what they were doing.
Again, however, the stability argument really loses its weight under MacOS X. Apple is just being a pain in the ass with this one because they don't like the idea of someone messing with their oh-so-pretty Aqua interface.
this is my sig
I did not know that. I just tried it and it's really cool. Don't know what to do with it but i like the fact that it's there
One of my friends was complaining to me about windows2k because he couldn't boot in DOS mode anymore. he was arguing "but if i break something, how do i go into dos to fix it?" no way jose...
Still i tried Alt+F7 to get back to nice gui mode and my screen stayed black...what's up with that?
My house mate bought one of those titanium macs. Its slow, its expensive, its not compatible, and all he does with it is reconfigure the "look and feel" of his desktop, or play with the usb "wheel knob" adjusting the volume of the mp3 player. Why bother? Why not just get windows. It works out of the box. It runs on _really fast_ hardware, and its cheap. And there is less messing around prior to getting work done. At any rate, as soon as Microsoft gets pissed off at Apple again . . . no more office => no more mac sales. Already the files produced by excel on the mac aren't quite compatible with excel 2000 on windows!
While I hardly believe that Apple would make such a bad business decision, this kind of news doesn't help up and coming programmers. I've been a Windows user for most of my life, but I was hoping to make the switch to Linux and/or Mac OS X, to be able to use a superior OS for MY needs (Windows is great for Joe Schmoe) and learn even more about program innards, by exploring the vast amounts of "tweaks" and customizations that can be performed to both operating systems. While, I'm sure it's still very possible in OS X, I hope that this trend doesn't continue, because it was one of the main reasons for me choosing to switch in the near future.
Quailty....Alot of PC vendors could stand a lesson in that....
Best example I'll use is this, I on average replace 3 powersupplies a month. I have yet to even hear about a mac with a powersupply going out let alone have to replace one (mac/pc ratio is 1/4).
Now does that mean PC's are crap...hell no...I just wish quality meant more in PC construction besides high-end servers.
Yes I am an anonymous LAZY Coward...but I'm honest about it
you missed two offers this month for a 733 for 999$ and a 866 for 1100$
Check about once a week...
I believe you can find a 866 for ~1200 without too much trouble...
Actually, you can. I've seen some projects that add windowshade capability to all windows system-wide by updating some of the frameworks. I imagine you could do a similar thing for just about any UI feature you would want to add.
One thing that isn't being noted here is that you can run X at the same time as Aqua. If you feel like tweeking do that. If Apple can't make good on a claim that OSX - Including Aqua - isn't secure and stable they've got nothing to compete with.
It is more stable and secure than Windows - with a better tought out UI.
It is more clean and consistant than Linux - with a better thought out UI
So it has the best of both without the worst of either.
It you allow people to muck arround with the guts of Aqua without a clue then you get the worst of both instead.
well, aside from the fact that a mac doesn't have anything as lame as a BIOS, rather it contains a pretty neat forth interpreter in ROM, known as OpenFirmware (very similar, however not as complete as OpenBoot on a Sun).
Here lives a real command line, with direct access to the hardware device tree etc...
Upgrading the firmware on a Mac is as easy as running Apple's FirmwareUpdate (double-click on the icon, no making DOS boot disks or any crap like that) and following the instructions which are:
Let the mac do it's shutdown
Hold down the Programmers interrupt button
Power on the mac till you hear a constant tone
Release the button
let it do it's thing (complete with a nice little progress bar at the bottom of the screen)
Could it be any easier?
-- k
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
directly from the article: "And because the APIs are closed, hackers have to go to great lengths to get their tweaks to work. Responding to the outcry over the removal of the Happy Mac icon from the Mac boot sequence, Fishback Research created a utility for putting it back in. But to do so, their programmers had to delve into Darwin, the open-source version of OS X, to figure out how to do it." So if it's closed, how were they able to "delve into Darwin"? This also proves that no matter how closed (or open) the system is, if there's a will, there's a way.
iChat for one, puts a menu next to the clock in the menu bar, which is one of the un-documented APIs that people are complaining about.
Go out and get sailing!
or do you jsut like spreading FUD? Apple has closed down the UI smewhat, but not the OS, if that discourages your from buying a mac and using os for all the features it does has, good luck to you.
i have othe rmore improtnat things to take into account in wht OS i spend my day in front of. this Wired story is moslty FUD. every menu app which i used in 10.1 i STILL use in 10.2. Sure apple could make it easier nad have better relations with its devlopers, but this new "policy" of apple, if you can call it that, doies not mean apple would change direction if there ws demand for it. and i dont see much demand or hear any one on any mac sites bothered before wired interview a 1 or 2 peeved developers
Media Skins
- Benad
sung to the tune of "american pie"
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
Press Contol+Option+Apple+8 to see it.
Apple has never supported changing basic interface elements. I've had many utilities that tweaked basic elements of Apple's OS6-9. Many of them broke with major operating system upgrades, because they used undocumented or unsupported hooks. It doesn't seem like much has changed.
While the article certainly put an interesting slant on the subject, I'm not convinced Apple is making it impossible to tweak OS X. It sounds like more "this doesn't work like OS 9" grumbling more than anything. OS X is still a new product with a changing code base. At the moment by the time a system API was docuemnted well enough for external (to the company) use it would be obsolete. 10.2 seems to be defining the way things will work "from now on" though, so maybe some documentation will start appearing.
Basically - this sounds like yet another Apple Conspiracry Rumor. Yes, Steve Jobs is overly concerned about preserving the "sanctity" of OS X's interface or some such nonsense. Not having a built-in Windowshade function is extremely annoying. On the other hand it's still a huge leap to say "Apple wants to make sure nobody can change the way the OS X interface looks!".
Is it just me, or is apple's on-screen font smoothing really terrible? On windows, only really small or really big fonts are smothed, so most 'regular sized' (8-12 point) take their bitmapped form. On macs, the characters just look blurry. It drives me nuts.
I'd have to see the modern implementation, but if you can't turn off font smoothing, I probably wouldn't get a mac. (not that I would anyway, but still)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Apple's ADC connector is based on a published standard for combining power DVI and other features. I think it was part of the complete DVI spec. Sony has had identical connectors based on the same standard available as well.
However, the PC market doesn't like change unless it consists of a 5% performance increase.
In a nutshell, this article is saying, "Waaa! It's hard to be a real programmer!!"
Who didn't already know that?
For an anecdotal refutation, there are more interface tweaks available than I have time to explore.
Specifically regarding themes/schemes/skins/etc: It's a little bit of a bummer that Apple has never sanctioned them, but I can say after twiddling with WinAmp over on the dark side, that most interface remakes are absolute crap anyway. It's a perfectly windows-like waste of time sorting through the thousands of available skins to find the one skin that's an actual improvement to the original.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
In case you thought it was a serious article, please peruse your friendly Mac OS file archives.
Here are some places to start:
MacUpdate
Apple
Mac OS X Apps
Stepwise
OSX Page
Versiontracker
I don't know how Wired considers themselves to be a valid news source any more, but themes on Mac OS X are most definitely not dead. In fact, they're on the way to more and better themes than previous Mac OS ever had:
Just doing a search for "theme" on VersionTracker's OS X site, you'll find dozens of good apps for applying, building, or tweaking themes on OS X.
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"Cogito Eggo Sum: I think, therefore, waffle."
INITs were evil because they involved patching traps and other funky stuff in order to add functionality. In other words, they had to go behind the OSs and other applications back and change things. That is why INITs pose so many problems.
This is specific to Classic MacOS' design or lack of same however; it does not mean that system extensions always must be so fragile and unreliable. It is in fact especially easy in an Object Oriented system such as Cacao, and this in fact the reason why OO was (for some time at least) the big rage in software engineering, and now somewhat of a standard fixture on many systems.
In other words, with MacOS X, there is little if any technical ground for Apple to disallow system tweaks. The bottom line is that Apple is the only company that can say "fuck you" to developers and get commended for it; the closest simile I can think of is the Communist Party.
Wired is running an article about Apple's recent actions to disallow OS tweaking. I'd like to congratulate Apple for taking a move to completely alienate a market they have worked for years to please.
To see why Apple's move is wrong, you have to do some thinking on your own. Why did Apple open source their system? They wanted code monkeys to "go ape" with the source, right? They must have wanted that, because their other markets (graphic designers and internet surfing grandmas) don't care.
Now ask yourself this. What do code monkeys want? They want things open. They want things they can change. Code monkeys are never happy with what's given to them. If they were, they wouldn't have bothered to learn a programming language, and they wouldn't spend hours upon hours looking through source code.
So why would you make a invitation gesture with one hand, and push people away with the other?
Apple claims to do it for our own good. They hold the opinion that they know what's best for interface related issues, and that code monkeys should only concern themselves with boring subjects such as how the OS handles virtual memory, how to patch security issues, and why audio sometimes skips on certain multiprocessor machines.
But for God's sake, even Apple can't follow their own guidelines. If you read them, you'll see things saying to only use the brushed steel interface for programs dealing directly with media or hardware. That makes sense. Apple uses it for iPhoto, QuickTime, and Final Cut Pro. They also use it for iChat. Does iChat have anything to do with media or hardware? Absolutely not.
Even a code monkey wouldn't make a stupid mistake like that.
So Apple. I'm begging you. Please don't shoot yourself in the foot like this. You spent so much time creating an open system, and wasting your time closing it again is absurd. Not only is it absurd, but it's driving away the very customers you worked incredibly hard to earn.
that's not an undocumented api. odds are good that you don't own a mac.
Yeah, themes. Love the fuck out of those. I also love the fact that I used to charge $125 everytime I had to "fix" someone's machine because they installed some stupid theme application like Kaleidafuck. Even with the introduction to Mac OS X, there were lame individuals who whined like little babies that they couldn't make thier Mac look like Windoze or some other aberation. You know what? I could give a shit if it were worth my time.
Yeah, I hacked around when OS X came out, changed my login window, blah, blah, blah. It was easy with a little mucking around and trial and error. It also taught me how to fix things if the OS started acting flaky (hooray for the ability to boot into single user mode, UNIX rawks!).
But come on people. The UI that Apple has created is that way for a reason. A common ground. A basic shell for all users, no matter how advanced or novice. Something that anyone could walk up to any Mac running OS X and know where the Applications Folder is located. They know where the System Preferences are.
And I would guess that by elimintaing or greatly reducing the ability of 3rd party hacks to futz with the UI and the system stability, the number or Bubba calls on the Phone Support lines was greatly reduced. I know how hard it is to talk to an "artist" or bozo Mac gimp who wants "free" support for thier Mac and you spend 2 hours on the phone with them trying to figure out what the fuck is the problem with thier machine and then after banging your head against the wall they mention they have some UI hack installed and wouldn't you know it, that's what's causing the whole problem to begin with.
Then there's the matter that Aqua is Apple's new trademark for OS X. They have to come to a consensus about any feature put into the UI and it has to be benficial to all aspects of the user experience. This is something Steve Jobs learned by watching Apple flounder during his years away and with his trials and errors at NeXT. I just watched some very old videos of Steve and his wonderous Reality Distortion Field that was in full effect even when he was at NeXT. And he's learned from many mistakes with the UI.
Another thing to realize is that Apple wants to try and teach you things about computers while you use them. I've heard about a million complaints from users new to OS X that don't understand why Apple won't let them move the System folder or change the hierarchy of the Applications Folder (you know, to "clean it up a little" or some shit). Apple is teaching us about shared computing. I think being able to walk up to a computer and know that any Application installed on the machine is located in one central place rather than nested 20 folders deep in some random folder called "Moo!". And to those lamers who whine about this, I have one thing to say. It's called "ALIASES" and you can put folders in your dock with "ALIASES" organized any way you wish.
Then there's the gimps who have to have thier favorite icon on all thier folders. Guess what. Remember how to change the icon in OS 9? It's exactly the same in 10.1 and up. Open the "Get Info" window, highlight the icon, select "Copy" (you're choice, use the edit menu or be all cool and shit and use the keyboard command), select the "Get Info" for the folder you want to change the icon for, and highlight the folder icon, then select "Paste". If you couldn't figure it out, I hope you feel like a complete jackass since you spent more time and energy complaining about this supposed "issue" rather than trying to figure it out for yourself. But I'm being way too mean to most Mac users. I'm showing great gobs of contempt for my fellow Apple users. But I am very busy wasting my time berating you for your own good, since you have so much time to spend kvetching about how Apple has mistreated you, the loyal followers of everything Apple. ARGH!
My brain is exploding with great piles of steaming loathing for the great empty pit that is the Mac Fanatic. Sorry, I love Apple. But it always makes me think of my favorite religious prayer. Lord Jesus, please save me from your followers.
Amen.
For those of you offended by this post, you have no understanding of the power of smeg.
He's so controlling and didactic, that he decides some is, and therefore it becomes true. It doesn't matter whether the idea is good or not so good, it becomes Apple Corporate Reality.
E.g., when the Blue & White G3 Macs came out, he declared -- "No one needs a floppy drive any more." So, it has no floppy. Nor has any Mac since (I believe) had an integrated floppy drive.
Granted, you can add a USB floppy drive, or communicate most info across the network, there are still times where the floppy drive fills a need.
Even basic things like . . . turning off on-screen font smoothing -- a resource hog on older machines -- can't be done.
Not so, this can be done to a great extent even by novices. Go to the General panel of Preferences. At the bottom panel, select the font smoothing style to suit, and turn off font-smoothing for fonts "smaller than" the size to suit your taste. Learning how requires no more technical gravitas than a visit to the help page and searching for "font smoothing." Much more granularity and control can be accomplished with just a little actual "tweaking."
But here's why we know this article is insane:
And because the APIs are closed, hackers have to go to great lengths to get their tweaks to work. . . . But to do so, their programmers had to delve into Darwin, the open-source version of OS X, to figure out how to do it.
This remark is insane, for reasons obvious to any meaningful programmer with a clue. According to the author, hackers have trouble tweaking MacOSX because of the need to use open source Unix code.
Yeah, right.
It is true that a new generation of "tweaker" is necessary for the next generation of Apple OS code. Those whose primary expertise lied with knowing deep undocumented subtleties of MacOS9 rather than general tech skills will find themselves disadvantaged. But the population of BSD hackers is far greater -- and the massively better documented open source code and free development software makes life looking forward far better, not worse, IMHO, for the next generation of OS tweakers.
Difference is, Apple isn't preventing people from doing this. Note one of the comments in the article was something to the effect of (and I'm paraphrasing here) "We've neither recieved greif nor help from Apple" Meaning, they aren't going to crush you, but they're not going to ensure that your app works next time arround.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The story is BS but not for the reasons you stated. It's BS because it isn't news to anyone, anywhere. With the possible exception of Linux in it's many flavors EVERYONE is trying to close the OS and EVERYONE will fail at it to one degree or another.
They close things off, someone figures out how to do it anyway, repeat these steps till the end of time.
There are simple enough replacements for Kaleidoscope out there for OSX already and if 10.2 breaks them then no big deal, they get fixed quickly enough.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Apple's credo, "The computer for the rest of them" rides on the very notion that you should not scare lusers by giving them the slightest hint on how the darn thing works.
So it's only normal that they close tight shut their machines, and this includes the OS.
You're right, that's a very good point. Apple is locking 3rd party developers out of that feature.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Rotten apples are the only news or slant Wired has.
Just is another good example. Darwin is as open as ever and OS X? It never was. The Apple OS is proprietary but its BSD heart, Darwin, has continued its aggressive open source posture to the benefit of both Apple and the open source community.
Go to apple.com and see all the new stuff that they've got put up now for Open Darwin. You'll have to go to the Darwin site to get all the info and the downloads, but this Wired story.....they need to change their name to Cracked.
The quote says this is impossible.
So much for reading Wired.
Or maybe 'exit'.
...smells like FUD....walks like FUD....must be FUD.
Apple is closing tweaking of the GUI, the shell that runs on top of the UNIX. The lower levels are still customisable and open to those who are knowledgable in UNIX.
-- "maybe happiness is a fragment of existence, but with better packaging"
Tevis, the troll is back again.
He knows nothing, and cant take people who point out that he knows nothing. So he got 2 of his friends with 5 moderator points to attack a "troll." See, this is how losers like Tevis operate. The censor unpopular people or lines of thinking in order to be right. The pussy fucking bitch can try, he and his fag friends, to suppress criticism, but he will fail. Tevis, you mother fucking Troll fascist jerk, please die. You suck. Also note Tevis knows nothing. Its rather easy to tell. He takes his myopic view of the universe and would actuate legislation based on this view. He is not learned [learn-ed, two syllables, Tevis the fag wouldn't know this word], and he is a fool. Death to you Tevis, a pox on Slashdot, death.
Hi, I'm a fag, and I'm Tevis Money. Nice to blow you. Oh, Simplex 2 Herpes?; I love the puss! YUM! Time for me to go down and get to work.
10,000,000 monkeys claim FOUL!
There's knowledgeable Apple techs available on the forums that are pretty good about answering 'problems' like 'is this supposed to be in format xyz as it is passed'.
And the things that broke were marked 'private' with notes indicating "This will change, soon!".
Things broke. Soon. Duh.
Apple is actually attracting mroe developers that had always given Apple up for flash-but-no fire. Science and Engineering is a serious niche ignited with the intro of OSX. Hardware is currently lacking, but there is a LOT of buzz in that community.
As far as pissing off the 'few Mac Developers' off... most of the ones that are/have been pissed off are the foot-draggers _anyway_. Hey Quark, you are about to be _lapped_. Lots of influx from the BSDs, Linux... Cocoa can slap a pretty interface on these things lickety-split. Been there, done that, worked great.
A private API changed enroute to a public one. Who the hell cares?
If they were trying, there wouldn't be 40 people providing the very hacks the article claims are undoable under 10.2 already.
here is the stupid bitch with his one liners. he uses google and quickly tried to be insightful but he is just a regurgitating fucking troll repeating half the shit said from an article wherever slashdot stole it from originally. jesus christ this tevis troll is so annoying.
who forced you to buy that brand of pacemaker in the first place? what kind or a remark is that? if you buy something, you damn right well should have some expectations of it. this is whats wrong with the computer industry, nothing is warranted, nothing is expressed or implied, and nobody is responsible for anything. i personally hold apple responsible for making a huge beefy os to push new hardware. makes sense. why use BeOS, apple thought one day. if BeOS was around, we wouldnt need new Macs and 1GB of ram. now i dont advocate getting BeOS and using it, but food for thought. just so you know tevis, a group of people have been watching you at this point as we are all very upset with your constant trolling here, your slimy comments slithering throughout OS X related threads. rather annoying.
HAIKUS ABOUT THE GOD OF CAMEL TOE.
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I dream of the hump-my labial oasis-A frontal mirage? . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
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With pursed bulging lips-the cotton envelope speaks-check is in the mail . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
The vertical smile-Behind painted on britches-Bicambrian grin . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Zip the fly tightly-Feel the crease define your lips-Denim tells no lies. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
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Her sweet cloven crack-drips her Saharan nectar-demanding my wood . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Separate, but equal.-Don't need no education.-Just a school girl toe!- Riding on the seam-Split between good and evil-I cannot choose sides. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
The lips are parted-by the bountiful panties-they ask for freedom . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
What's a camel toe?-A slice of pie on both sides.-Fabric in between. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Forked or divided,-Cloven snapper draws ogles.-Bifurcation blues. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Refrain from comment-Let her denim tell the tale-That words truly can*t . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
"T"ense, veiled crevice cries,-"O"ut, damn denim intruder,-"E"lsewhere, camels spit . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Mid East irony.-Women covered high and low.-Camels? Yes. Toe? No . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Splayed leather britches.-Smothered deer hoof sweats, itches.-Ahhhhhhh, talcom powder. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Burger in a wrap-Shape of split-top bun is seen-Warm meat hides within. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Old man's specs fog up.-'Cause, Pepperidge Fahm remembahs.-Steamy dinner rolls. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Twin islands rising-in a sliding Spandex sea.-Land ho, camel toe! . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Toothless, scheming mouth-chews the thong with moistened gums,-whispers things to come. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
From the Mountain top-Repel down your velvet walls-Valley of the Toe . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
There you will find me-down below the belt buckle-hunting moose knuckle . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
A tiny frontbutt-wedgy on a smaller scale-Hairy little ass . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Tight spandex hot pants-Form and function on display-Labial hammock . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Magnificent hoof-of sweet fleshy protrusion-hairy pink heaven . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Splendor wrought from pain-Post-pubescent camel toe-Gym class wedgie cruel . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Stop Me Not This Time-Fleshy Mound, Desert Flower-Oasis of Joy . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
A quick sideways glance-Twin split hills speak to my lance-Tight pants whisper "yes" . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Public pubis fun-Impudent yet modest toe-...lucky bike seat that. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Lavender Levi's-Purple mountain's majesty-Amber waves of toe. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Granny in spandex.-Distended pastrami flaps-Trigger gag reflex. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Andes Mountains far,-Distant cousin camel toe,-Wet, split llama lip. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
The vertical smile-Yawning, musty, drooling cave-Can't grow mushrooms here . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Stop Me Not This Time-Fleshy Mound, Desert Flower-Oasis of Joy. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Eve, the silly slut-Bit the fruit that led to clothes-Clothes begat the TOE . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
All-beef patties and-Inverted Golden Arches-Redneck McDonalds . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Fleshy meat curtains-Two performers on a stage-Exit left - and right . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Young bloomin' plumage.-Plump and full of panty pout.-Jordache jeans look out. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Lil' man in the boat-Swells from waves of denim cloth-I cannot eat him . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Divided angel,-Swim in fabric happiness,-Pouting lips rejoice. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Yawn marvelous toe,-Awaken from your slumber-Soothe us with your grin. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Distended mons shown-In a Bactrian monstrance.-No Secret, Vicky! . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Mudflaps, glist'ning pair-Confined by Levis gusset-On display for all. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Equal-sized in strength-Of the nomadic herdsman.-My toe licking thirst. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Forward slide in seat-Testicle permutation-Welcome to my world . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Vulva, not Volvo-Though both considered boxes-Vroom vroom goes my shroom- I kiss you deeply-Underneath your mistle-toe.-Now for the Yule Log . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Big-ass country girl.-Wide piss-flaps like garage doors.-Y'all come on in! . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Parting of the "C"-Without the need for Moses-Dive into the deep . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Creeping into love-the toe is best on young girls-when will I seek help? . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
What a lovely sight!-To vanish into ones self-testing the fabric . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Toe like a fast ball-Take me out to the ball game-Babe Ruth would homer . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
All my prayers answered-A shrine to the puffy pelt-Camel Toe dot Org . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
two supports jut forth-sheet of spandex hung between-the TOElden Gate Bridge . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Pubis maximus-I am riding the hair bus-Punch my ticket please . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Lunch meat silhouette.-Oh... cheesy tortellini.-Butterfly her shrimp. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Violent pink maelstrom-Down goes the good ship Spandex-Lost in Straits of Toe . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Search the desert sands-Lawrence of the Labia-Look, a toeasis . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Young teens, sunny beach-Camera focus, oh young toe-Oh shit, it's the cops . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Her toe door's ajar,-seeking my one-eyed Texan.-Hit fuzz and lost it. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Satin hugs the curves-like mist blankets the valley-hiding its treasure . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Slabs of balogna-its the soft brown hamster's cage-please pet the hot meat . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Wondrous Hatchet wound-Swaddled in soft cloth dressing-Please don't heal thyself . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Cycle brings toe flow.-Visiting friend can't plumb her.-Crease trap damned!!!*.Anal? . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Camel spits welcome.-Invitation accepted.-Members only, please. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Her jeans betray her-Tenth grade math, sixth period-My first toe spotting. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Yo-yo in your pants-Or just happy to see me?-Pick-up line needs work. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
She's inscrutable.-She shows her toe but stops there.-She's unscrewable. . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Furtive bactrian.-Where in doth the camel hide?-Do I spy a toe? . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Violent pink maelstrom -Down goes the good ship Spandex-Lost in Straits of Toe . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Motorbike dismount-Accordian-bunch of pants-Hog-driven Toe hurts . (tevis money fucks the anal camel toe of flagrant homos)
Piss.
No one appears to have noticed this, but this is all _really_old_news_. The screenshots in the article are all from OS 9. The fact that appearance-tweaking doesn't exist in X has been the case since the Public Beta of OS X was released a long bloody damn time ago. Gah! Why is this news now!?!? Damned Wired, making news where none exists.
I've seen recent FAQs on Apples site saying their goal is to have the BSD underpinnings swapable so that a given Aqua (that's their proprietary gui) version does not have a one-to-one relation to the release of a given BSD.
They have also done everything possible to make it easier for hackers to mess with the BSD underpinnings.
So what's the problem with preventing some one from skrewing up the interface? I know some people would LOVE to paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa, but those French are mean and won't let them!
Besides, you can always run XWindows on your mac an change its interface.
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Terrance Davis
Software Engineer
www.genedavis.com
Honestly, ask youself this: If they didn't want people to be able to tinker with the system, why did they open source half of it.
Oh, sh!t, better tell these guys to quit the business, their company does not exist, hell, these guys are toast as well.
As an ex-commercial photog working exclusively in digital, I can tell you not only is it possible, it's quite easy and inexpensive to have your monitor, *inkjet printer* (that's right, you heard me), and output (be it CMYK offset, WEB or photoprint) match each other.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Ironically for the company that once portrayed itself as the rebellious liberator in a 1984-ish PC world, the emerging new design philosophy is fantastically overbearing. Apple loves to play the meddlesome know-it-all. Not totalitarian, exactly, just super fussy -- the corporate equivalent of, say, Felix Unger. Let's call it Prig Brother.
Want an upgradeable system? In a world of fast-changing hardware, you just might. Sorry: the $2000 models on the "lower" end simply aren't. When I complained about bilking consumers for underpowered GeForce 4 MX video subsystems on a mailing list recently, an Apple proselytizer peeped, "What do you want? They're not upgradeable." And that sort of servile response is why they aren't.
Want to modify the UI? Hands off, please, it's perfect. As with the white keyboards whose preternatural cleanliness suggests nothing so much as neurotically wrapping furniture in plastic, Apple can't have you getting your UI dirty. By this time, the new Mac owner begins to understand why the "i" in iMac and iBook is in miniature; you're as nothing next to the Product or the Company.
Surely the "Switch" ads promised something else. Or did they? Look again. You are instructed to turn to a suite of applications that "just work," as if no other software anywhere else ever works. And probably, for the geniuses in the ads who can't turn on a PC without needing shock therapy, their PC software *didn't* just work. These are ads that posit computer users as helpless victims needing rescue. And as everyone remembers from swimming class, your friendly rescuer may just have to bop you over the head if you struggle. The subtext of the "Switch" campaign is in keeping with the anal approach to hardware and the GUI: you, the emancipated peon, are encouraged to weep your tears of gladness that Prig Brother will come to your rescue by reducing the number of buttons on your mouse and ensuring that your scroll bars are forever blue. Or gray. You have a choice!
OS X looked like a nice change of pace and allowed me to avoid giving any money to Microsoft. That's why I got an iBook. It's working just fine, thanks. Maybe it's asking too much if, since I've paid for it, Apple couldn't just mind it's own business?
yes, quite a few apps can do it
Can you make my OS X look like Star Trek LCARS interface like I could with OS 9 and Kaleidoscope?
maybe not LCARS yet but there are themes and they are getting better all the time. i use a BeOS theme on my OSX boxes. theming on X is not as extensive as kali could do to pre-X but its getting there. don't forget kali was developed and improved over a long time.
many tools are broken with subsequent upgrades to the OS
this has always happened, look at all the OS8 hacks that were broken by OS9. new versions of the apps will no doubt appear to work with the new OS version.
so basically i don't really see what all the moans are about.
Unfortunately, some of us skew the numbers.
I was born the year one of the Kennedys was shot and it wasn't Bobby...
BlackBolt
Really? Then what about ASM, which I cannot get by without ...?? BTW, yeah it works with Jag.
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
OS X skins are just that. Skins that change the look but not the function of OS X's widgets.
Both Kaleidoscope schemes and OS 9's Appearance themes, were much more robust than X Skins. Not only could widgets be skinned, but they could also be moved around and their function could be modified. OS X skins are pale imitations of their OS 9 counterparts. While the majority Kaleidoscope schemes were butt ugly, it only takes one good one to convince.
The more interesting question is whether such themes are even possible in OS X as Cocoa and Carbon use different methods to create windows. Carbon uses an updated version of OS 9 Appearance Manager themes to create the Aqua widgets (windows are handled separately). Carbon seems to use something called a LAYO (layout) resource to determine the placement of widgets. Cocoa apps do not use these resources and my guess is that Cocoa hardcodes the locations of widgets.
Decent apps for skinning and icon changing do exist in X, but these changes are cosmetic. Real support for allowing systemwide HI/UI behavior changes to Aqua is almost nonexistent. The few apps that have achieved systemwide mods (windowshade comes to mind) seem to many focus on the window manager which is handles window drawing and layering.
The truth is that for most people this is not a big deal. Most people simply accept the UI as being what it is. This said, I think that if people had the option to fiddle with the HI/UI they would (just look at the range of background choices people make).
What is more troubling for most is the lack of basic options. For example there is no known way to change the system font for menus/dialog boxes/window titles. There is no way to change the font style for icons on the desktop (the default bold white with a shadow rankles many). And Apple's anti-aliasing controls are primitive at best. Even if Apple does not supply a UI for making such changes (don't want to scare the newbies with too many options), the ability to change these things should be available via the terminal or by making a change in a plist. Apple has done this with the dock and should continue this trend systemwide.
As for the argument that support would be difficult if users have the ability to make dramatic HI/UI changes, I would suggest the solution is simple (a keyboard command to set everything back to default).
And for the argument that it is confusing if different users set up their machines using alternate schemes, I would argue that this is the point of having a multi-user system.
Use this to patch OS X apps (Carbon and Cocoa):
http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/ape/
Step 2: STOP BITCHING!!!!!
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
Tevis eulogizes his pedo boylust.
...a time for secrets, and sleep.
From winks to Kink Is my life's tale
Kink's the way where shrinks fail methinks
Pathetic fate No ejaculate or gall?
But wait - A date with Kink cures all
Blow up toys or little boys - Maybe submissive sheep
Whose bleeting noise and bestial joys - Help you get to sleep
You shouldn't balk at dirty talk - Or pulling out your dink
And obscene calls are better than no sex at all
It's Kink - Kiddieporn may raise a storm or stink
But why mourn a life forlorn - If it brings you to the brink - And though few may sink to something sillier - What's really wrong with copraphillia I ask? - And while the rasher flasher's task - Often brings a smile
There's no question of molestion - With the wily necrophile
Or the insistent masochist - Whose painful trial of whip and chain - Leaves him more than pink again - Enjoy your tryst with Kink
ADVICE - Advice for Tevis Money
If you're too old to be curious And too young to be wise - You might as well work and pay taxes And breed while you're at it - To maintain the supplies Of assholes like yourself
THE JOY OF PAIN TheRapy Song
The song in which pedo lust Tevis Money the Boy Rapist eulogizes rape.
Your screams make my day Fulfill my dreams
Or so it seems - What can I say?
Your pain is my gain Again and again and again
And for me it's just play And helps keep me sane.
Oh I love to see you suffer Ah the agony in your eyes
And when the pain is rougher And you begin to writhe
My pleasure's beyond measure I just have to raphsodize
Though your pleas are disconcerting
When I see how much you're hurting
Watching all your twitching - I'm inflamed
And realize for certain - That splatter doesn't matter as you're maimed
For sure torture's - A lot more fun than the Marquis claimed
PUREX
Tevis Money sings in a fag manner about making fingers and the anus friends.
Wiping your ass
Is wiping out our forests
And can you imagine How many trees it would take
To wipe the assholes of Asia? Nobody needs it
That nice soft paper Should be placed beside heroin
On the Narcotic Control Act list
Let your fingers do the wiping
Let them make friends with your anus
You don't need to entertain us
But it's a test And the rest of righting
Nature's wronging Restoring man's belonging
Will be blest
WILDERNESS CAMP
A barely setting sun rises, pink flecking little
waves that lap on birch-backed beach, whose coarse
pink grains pain pink greenhorns' feet.
Bleary-eyed leader blows reveille, tents grumble
but boys emerge and plunge their bedwarm bodies
in water cold as diamond's fire. Downy, goosepimpled limbs wait in line for porridge.
Boys made to march through swamps where leeches dwell.
Boys forced to ford boulder-bottomed streams,
numbed feet feeling for footholds
in the icy, pulling torrent. Boys ordered to climb rugged rockfaces,
loose stones for slips and slides that could break
bones, and to run with leg-stretching strides own the smoother slope the other side that takes them home.
Boys doing pushups, punishment not minded,
muscles straining 'neath sun-pinked skin
until they're paining and made to start again.
Sweaty boys, boots a-stinking, dirty boys, logs scratched and scabbing exhausted boys, resting sprawled, waiting for beans and bacon and orange-flavoured Tang.
Campfire circus, memory machine with bawdy songs and wieners.
Lights Out, whispers in the night
and I quote what I wrote and you replied to:
"(the new plugins require FCP 3 and FCP 3 requires OS X.1.1 on the OS X side)"
No problem...we crack heads need to stick together...
You try to get MkLinux running on a 5400/180, with a G3 upgrade card and installing it to an external SCSI removable drive. Factor in downloading it via a 33.6 modem through an AOL connection, installing it on unsupported hardware and not being able to get the CD ROM drive to mount and you will find that Linux is indeed more trouble than it was worth. On the other hand, OS 9 installed without a hitch. OS X will not run on the machine, nor do I have the patience to make it run on it. However, OS X does install flawlessly on my iBook and runs without any of the problems I experienced in getting MkLinux to run. And by the way, I did get Mk to run, however, once the GUI was loaded it became so unstable, that something as simple as changing settings could cause a kernel panic. To linux's credit however, it was the only OS (Mac OS 9, Windows 98 both tried) which would recognize and format the WesternDigital HD which was eventualy dropped into the 5400
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
i'd hardly call that competing though...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
does tevis mean flamebait in another language? fucking noob, worthless idiot. I hope you arent responsible for any of my money, or anyone else for that matter, what a scary though! You couldnt configure your ass to shit if you had to. Either that or the people that work in the realms of open source are so offended by people like you they include lines of code to prevent jems of software like linux from running on machines created by fags like you. :P nyah nyah! OR.. on the flipside, maybe your outdated 33.6 desktop toaster doesnt understand parity or error correction... a mac correct errors? hmmm..... food for thought. go try and put linux on a REAL compiter, even an outdated one, and I'm sure you will be pleased. that is if a simpleton such as yourself can understand how to install it. There's more than just sticking a disc in and the loader doing all the work for you.. oh but wait, I'm sorry, I almost forgot, you're a mac zealot, you're used to that.. oh shit.. did i say i'm sorry.. OOPS. I take it back. LEARNING is something that requires patience, thats why its a virtue. ass! Unfortunately most people are impatient, most people, is also what AVERAGE fits into. As in AVERAGE INTELLIGENCE, AVERAGE LOOKS.. In america that would be a semi-illeterate, mtv fed, cnn informed, overweight, lazy, self serving, selfish, fuck who lives in his own little bubble world, sits in his cubicle eating ho-ho's, taking credit for other peoples work, guzzling down barrels of caffiene laced sludged passed off as coffee in 6 oz styrofoam cups.
Whats the matter tevis? Did all the fancy words scare you off? no progress meter? no spinning hourglasses? no neo-nazi sheepfood? or is it just the pretty cases you're attracted to that keep you coming back for more? ITS A PROVEN FACT - FUCKING PROVEN (goto dictionary.com and look that word up in case its meaning is eluding you) that MACS SUCK ASS. Yeah they are the machine of choice used by some electronic musicians (plug in and go) and publishing people, okay you got that. LOOK at the USER BASE you maladroit! Women that graduated with marketing degrees and took classes in photoediting... HMMM.. the same people that drive neon green beetles.. Do you drive a beetle tevis? I bet you do.. I bet you shop out of victorias secret.. or maybe the womens section of wal mart. Last I checked... mac users dont get paid that well.. PADAWAN.. if I recall, padawan was the word they used in episode 1 to describe the young boy learning to become a jedi. Maybe you are a little boy trying to learn? Interesting that you describe yourself that way. theres alot to be said for someone who thinks before he speaks. You must like the attention, knowing that you piss people off, that people laugh at you, the attention that you get. you must have no life.. INSTEAD. I HAVE TO BE INTERRUPTED WHILE TRYING TO MAKE MUSIC ON MY PC BY A TROLL FRIEND OF MINE, TO GO READ ARTICLES ON THIS SHIT ASS SITE FROM IDIOTS LIKE YOU... Waste my time you fuck. THINK ABOUT IT.
FUCK
Because of course people are holding a gun to your head to force you to come here, take the time to look up my name, take the time to find my comments, and then take the time to reply. Yes, my self and my hoards of evil mind control spies are forcing you to do this.
And by your post, I can take it to mean that any distro of linux that doesn't require you to recompile the kernel at least 3 times before the GUI starts working is fo average lazy zealots that don't know anything? Tell that to the RedHat people. Tell that to the SuSE people. Tell that to the QNX people (not real Linux, but same idea). The goal of computers is to make our world easier. Part of that means that it should be easy to put something on the computer. Linux will not gain consumer market share untill it becomes easier to install and add programs. Tinkering is not something that should be required in a computer. It should be something you can do if you so choose, but it should not be required. You never even read my post, or you would have found that I did get it to run. But the GUI made it unstable. It's not my fault Linux couldn't handle the hardware.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Excuse me. I have been using *nix for years. Try installing SunOS 4. But instead of installing from a boot CD, install it buy running SunOS disklessly over NFS, then installing the OS from an NFS mount. Try that. Try installing. I can think of many things harder than making MKLinux boot. Also, have you ever considered the difficulty of using Linux 1.2/1.3 or a really old RedHat. The difficulty you claim to have had and that it was a crowing accomplishment to install an OS on a fairly common and supported piece of hardware is rather pathetic. Now, about recompiling the kernel. So what? It's a fairly routing thing to do. Why would recompiling the kernel be something you find difficult? I cant think of anything more routing on a non commercial operating system. You are not exonerated from being a "lazy zealot" simple because you recompile a kernel. Anyone can do it, there are step by step instructions. Your insistence that your ability to install MKLinux or recompile a kernel elevates you in some way, you are so far off base here. Then you cast all these accomplishments as a whimsical magical spell meant to enthrall the hordes of l-users which you claim not to be a part of. You are. QNX, btw, isn't even "fake" Linux. It's a Unix like real time OS. Like no memory protection and a real time scheduler. And what of the RedHat and SuSE people. The kernel comes fairly bloated, it is almost a requirement for any non idiot to recompile immediately after install to get things moving along at a reasonable speed. The goal of computing is to make tasks which take impossibly long periods of time for humans to do shorter. Computers are to make the impossible calculation possible. And it needs to do it with perfect precision without failing, ever. Or results could be flawed. Now, its clear you think that computers should facilitate you being a lazy idiot, that's your problem. You can use lazy idiot operating system like XP, which you talk about from time to time, and OS X. You will never write a program and you will never, ever be useful to anyone else, and probably not very useful to yourself. I have a feeling you will be living with mom and dad for quite some time. Now, about Linux handling the hardware, I have seen Linux run on PPC's since they came out. I am not a big proponent of Linux in general, much preferring Net and FreeBSD, I also have been found on Solaris, HPUX, and even an occasional AIX box, amongst others. But I have never run to an impossibility. Maybe if you weren't such a dumpster diving poor ass or if Apple made computers affordable and didn't do everything in its power to make hardware difficult to upgrade you wouldn't have this many problems, after all, you are stuffing a machine full of warranty voiding things and then crying about it. You are such a little kiddie. You have no idea what computing has done for us, and the excellence and engineering it took to create. To you its an appliance, to the real guys who work in the trenches, it's a tool, and since the earliest computers, to the PDPs, to the modern workstation, they have always catered to a group you wont ever belong to. And I'm not sorry about that. Now go strap on that consumer piece of shit and talk all the crap you want. There are those who get to ride on the Space Shuttle, or drive a Formula car, and then there are those, like yourself, who get to drive a beat up old Geo Storm and sit in the back of a plane watching out the window like a sheep relishing in the fact you got the ticket real cheap on priceline.com. I know its not possible to be the hero in all facets of life, but if you take yourself seriously as a technically inclined person in the field of computers, you are a farce and a joke, you are a passenger, a consumer, a user. You will never be a programmer, engineer or a technology officer. And I laugh at you. Why don you "think different," as you false idol Jobs proclaims, and unleash on the world something the world has never seen, or make something better? I thought so, silence, from the little kiddie consumer. Silence. Now go throw a tantrum. Mr. need a GUI. Most of the fundaments of the OS you covet was written before GUIs were even popular, some of it before they even existed. Just an FYI.
Eep. The l-user speaks. The consumer speaks. He knows how to complain, but never does anything to make the computing world a better place. There are those in life that invent, create and innovate. They make a living doing so. Then there are those who can not make a life of the formerly mentioned activities, so they attempt to teach others how to invent, create and innovate. Then there arte those who neither have the capacity to teach or perform invention, innovation and creation, and they sit around and complain. That would be you Tevis, that would be you.
Excuse me. I have been using *nix for years. Try installing SunOS 4. But instead of installing from a boot CD, install it buy running SunOS disklessly over NFS, then installing the OS from an NFS mount. Try that. Try installing. I can think of many things harder than making MKLinux boot. Also, have you ever considered the difficulty of using Linux 1.2/1.3 or a really old RedHat. The difficulty you claim to have had and that it was a crowing accomplishment to install an OS on a fairly common and supported piece of hardware is rather pathetic. Now, about recompiling the kernel. So what? It's a fairly routing thing to do. Why would recompiling the kernel be something you find difficult? I cant think of anything more routing on a non commercial operating system. You are not exonerated from being a "lazy zealot" simple because you recompile a kernel. Anyone can do it, there are step by step instructions. Your insistence that your ability to install MKLinux or recompile a kernel elevates you in some way, you are so far off base here. Then you cast all these accomplishments as a whimsical magical spell meant to enthrall the hordes of l-users which you claim not to be a part of. You are. QNX, btw, isn't even "fake" Linux. It's a Unix like real time OS. Like no memory protection and a real time scheduler. And what of the RedHat and SuSE people. The kernel comes fairly bloated, it is almost a requirement for any non idiot to recompile immediately after install to get things moving along at a reasonable speed. The goal of computing is to make tasks which take impossibly long periods of time for humans to do shorter. Computers are to make the impossible calculation possible. And it needs to do it with perfect precision without failing, ever. Or results could be flawed. Now, its clear you think that computers should facilitate you being a lazy idiot, that's your problem. You can use lazy idiot operating system like XP, which you talk about from time to time, and OS X. You will never write a program and you will never, ever be useful to anyone else, and probably not very useful to yourself. I have a feeling you will be living with mom and dad for quite some time. Now, about Linux handling the hardware, I have seen Linux run on PPC's since they came out. I am not a big proponent of Linux in general, much preferring Net and FreeBSD, I also have been found on Solaris, HPUX, and even an occasional AIX box, amongst others. But I have never run to an impossibility. Maybe if you weren't such a dumpster diving poor ass or if Apple made computers affordable and didn't do everything in its power to make hardware difficult to upgrade you wouldn't have this many problems, after all, you are stuffing a machine full of warranty voiding things and then crying about it. You are such a little kiddie. You have no idea what computing has done for us, and the excellence and engineering it took to create. To you its an appliance, to the real guys who work in the trenches, it's a tool, and since the earliest computers, to the PDPs, to the modern workstation, they have always catered to a group you wont ever belong to. And I'm not sorry about that. Now go strap on that consumer piece of shit and talk all the crap you want. There are those who get to ride on the Space Shuttle, or drive a Formula car, and then there are those, like yourself, who get to drive a beat up old Geo Storm and sit in the back of a plane watching out the window like a sheep relishing in the fact you got the ticket real cheap on priceline.com. I know its not possible to be the hero in all facets of life, but if you take yourself seriously as a technically inclined person in the field of computers, you are a farce and a joke, you are a passenger, a consumer, a user. You will never be a programmer, engineer or a technology officer. And I laugh at you. Why don you "think different," as you false idol Jobs proclaims, and unleash on the world something the world has never seen, or make something better? I thought so, silence, from the little kiddie consumer. Silence. Now go throw a tantrum. Mr. need a GUI. Most of the fundaments of the OS you covet was written before GUIs were even popular, some of it before they even existed. Just an FYI.
I used Linux for most of the period from 96 to now, though I haven't for a few months now. For my relatively mundane unix needs OS 10 may not be perfect, but it's good enough, and it's a lot handier than dual booting Linux/Windows. So anyway, I do know where you're coming from firsthand, but I've got to point something out. What you have on Linux is a lot of freedom. If you really must have a consistent system, you can do it with X - just pick one toolkit and make sure every app you run uses it. Of course, that narrows the applications you have to choose from quite a bit, but if that consistency was more important than the variety of applications then you would do it.
I managed to get a fairly consistent interface on Linux, far from perfect, but close enough it didn't drive me utterly crazy... it required in my case four custom themes, one for WindowMaker, one for GTK, one for Gnome, one for KDE... I could have made it more consistent by dropping apps, but that was the trade-off I made. Mozilla... well if you search a bit you can probably dig up some nasty flames I've posted on the subject... XUL is a wrongheaded monstrosity, I agree on all that. That said, I'm using Mozilla right now. Because I'd rather have it than IE, even though IE is native and it is not, for other reasons. I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't lose sight of the fact that, even though the interface crappiness is a bad thing, no one is forcing you to use these things, you've weighed the good and the bad points at least subconsciously and decided the good outweighs the bad... else you would not be using them, right?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
the wired story and this news posting are both poorly researched FUD. i have 4 things in my menu (weatherpop, iaddressx, yupi key and apple script launcher) which if i were to believe the the no nothing mac bigot dipshits posting in this thread written here, would be impossible to do.
There are several types of tweaking. There's functional tweaking and appearance tweaking. OS X has actually taken functional tweaking to a much higer level than before. I was new to UNIX only a few months ago and I'm already writing double-clickable perl and shell scripts to do all sorts of work for me.
On the appearance front, I'm having a blast hacking all my icons, the dock, my cursors and so on. Like somebody here mentioned, hackers will always find a way to tweak.