I think Apple's existing implementation of Expose is quite powerful. Not everyone realizes that drag-and-drop works with it, and more unfortunately Apple does not default to using a "screen corner" to activate Expose (yet this, too, is possible).
I have it set up so that I can literally "yank" the mouse in the general direction of the lower-right corner to show all windows, perhaps after picking up a file with the mouse. This then allows me to drag the file to any window. Further, I can use spacebar (like in spring-loaded folders in the Finder) to immediately choose a window instead of pausing for a second to have it selected automatically.
This action is so natural and powerful, I use it all the time. And though I use Linux at work and it is fantastic in many ways, I sorely miss features like Expose in Mac OS X.
I agree completely with this. Apple needs to wake up and polish more than its icons and demos to get this OS back to its prime.
I think Tiger makes one aspect of inconsistency even worse, in the sense that they've resorted to "grafting" now. At least before, if you had a metal app, you had a metal APP: the whole app was at least consistent in itself. But now, Spotlight gets shoved into a Finder window like those widgets came from a completely different universe than the rest of the Finder. Same with the RSS part of Safari, the icons in Mail, the list goes on. It's like an application team says "okay, our app is golden, ship it" and then a team of worms comes in at the last second and grafts ugly interface elements wherever they will fit.
The MOST used AppleWorks component for me was its bitmap graphics editor. Thank goodness it still works on Mac OS X (minus a few bizarre bugs with drag-and-drop and stuff). But if Steve is going to call the new apps successors to AppleWorks, Apple had better cover image editing, too. That means at least "Pixels", but maybe "Vectors" for drawing.
There are many ways to do graphics right, as Apple knows well. I'm amazed at what developer tools like Quartz Composer can do (tucked away in/Developer/Applications/Graphics Tools where no one finds them). With technology like this, Apple could slap together a modern graphics editor easily, and certainly make the $49 from me for the effort. (Ahem, instead they seem to want to charge $30 for QuickTime Pro?) Why should I put up with Adobe's lack of humane interface and price gouging, or the (unfortunately) awkward GIMP? Please Apple, ask an intern to do this in a weekend with Core Image, and you'll have instantly created another source of revenue - not to mention demonstrate that it matters to you how people actually use the apps you are "deprecating".
This just in! Open-source community plans low-cost version of Lin...ah, nevermind.
This just in! Microsoft plans working version of Windows. Er, nope, wait, that one was April Fool's.
Microsoft plans a lot of things. Will they deliver on this one, or are they really just waiting to see if Brazil even cares? If Brazil's government doesn't sign up for a million licenses, wanna bet that Microsoft will conveniently forget its "plans"?
Mac OS X will never be in as bad a position for malware as, say, Windows, because it is inherently harder to install unintended files on a system where multi-user is done right (as it is in Mac OS X). Not only does administrative privilege protect many things, but various network ports are closed by default, etc.
However, the Installer paradigm is still present on Mac OS X, for some software. Users should seriously question software that requires an installer with administrative privilege, as this is exactly the time a questionable file can be added to your system (and for that matter, gives software a free ticket to do certain other things).
I've sent a suggestion to Apple asking that it be more transparent what installers actually change in the system. I hope they take this seriously.
So only now there is this worry that SCO is sinking? The act of a small company suing over Linux should long have sent the signal that SCO is having troubles. The suit seemed desperate (and still does), a way to get press and cash while sending markets into a spin. The fact that they have not produced evidence shows that SCO was not only betting the farm on FUD, but really is Such Crummy Opposition: to IBM, and to Linux.
A "prototype detection tool", useful for detecting prototypes.
The tool immediately concluded that Windows itself is a prototype, and asked the user to discard the prototype in favor of something production-quality. Unable to find anything meeting that description from Microsoft, the user explored other freedoms.
Let's not call this "security software", Microsoft; remember, software should simply be secure. If you have to add a qualifier like this, guess what: you're saying most of your software has nothing to do with security, and this special extra software, for extra charge, provides the security "feature".
These terminology differences really point to a philosophical difference at Microsoft, which is the root of all their problems. They really don't understand. Why should we think they ever will, at any price?
IT organizations tend to mistakenly shoot for "standardization". This should *not* be the goal, because it is a fact that every job has a platform on which it is done best. Unfortunately, because IT departments want to pick one, they "standardize on Windows" because of the hype, the apparent low cost and its proliferation throughout the computing world.
I would recommend a mixture: buy Macs, buy Linux, buy Solaris and, indeed, buy Windows: *for the people whose jobs demand each type of machine*. Any IT organization that wants to standardize on a single platform, even one as versatile as the Mac, is guaranteeing that they will hinder someone's ability to get work done.
Examples: Mac for local networks and graphics artists, Linux for corporate mail and web and global server structure, Solaris/SPARC for Java developers and CAD, Windows for office types and...gamers? You get the idea.
It could be that cost is the wrong focus. Advertising the lack of benefits might deter spammers. By now most people have a knee-jerk reaction to delete the stuff before ever seeing what's in it; therefore, it stands to reason that the cost of paying someone to send ads anonymously may now outweigh the payback. Posting some hard stats on that might get organizations to send less spam, or pay spammers less money, or fire some spammers - all of which could result in less spam.
Frankly, if Mac OS X has the foundation and the Windows compatibility, why is it not filling in these gaps? Apple may finally have a strong reason to invest in x86, since people are obviously content with keeping their hardware. I wonder, where is Windows networking built in: to Darwin, or the proprietary part of OS X? Darwin/Linux anyone?
Look in Preferences, General, Options for the checkbox to initially hide toolbars. This will be improved in the future.
The rebuild is done each time in case you have new scripts installed. One day I will improve that to cache the modification date or something so that it will not even display the progress bar.
MacTelnet, despite its name, can run local Unix apps on Mac OS X. It shares much of the same base code as old favorites like MacSSH, so it still has VT100, VT220 and TEK. However it also supports VT52 mode, double-sized text and most XTerm sequences, and has VT220-specific features like floating keypad windows.
I should know, because I am writing its (open-source) code!:)
MacTelnet, despite its name, can run local Unix apps on Mac OS X. It shares much of the same base code as MacSSH so it still has VT100, VT220 and TEK. However it also supports VT52 mode, double-sized text and most XTerm sequences, and has VT220-specific features like floating keypad windows.
I should know, because I am writing its (open-source) code!:)
As reported at http://www.appleinsider.com/, Apple is working on an incredible update to AppleWorks, called AppleWorks 6.0. This will be where my money goes - I don't need StarOffice (for all the reasons cited before and more, but my personal hates are its huge memory footprint and stupid desktop environment). There is a tremendous amount of power in AppleWorks, and it is IMHO the only suite you need for the Mac. To hell with Microsoft, to hell with Sun.
I am very disappointed with what has come out of the Mozilla project, as no doubt many people are. I've download milestone 7 for the Mac, and frankly I don't know what the h*ll they're doing over there at Mozilla.org. The revamped interface is *again* stupid, but I guess they have to keep up with the strange tradition of completely changing the way Netscape's browser looks at every major release.
Netscape, with intelligence, could have released version 4.9, addressing long-standing and requested issues such as the ability to resume downloads and improved stability, and *then* screwed everything up. It is always possible to continue work on a major revamp while continuing to spruce up the older major release with minor updates. This keeps customers "into" Netscape. Instead, we've had absolute nothing come out of Netscape in eons, and that means the only way to get a decent browser is to use IE. Add to this the fact that, oddly enough, IE is probably one of the nicest apps ever built by Microsoft - uncharacteristically intelligent, simple, fast and full-featured without too much bulk (and then there's the price). Netscape might have had a chance had IE turned out to be a piece of garbage like Windows itself, or MS Office. Instead, Netscape's browser is the one that's overly-complex, and rapidly falling behind.
Being glad for more UNIX "support" is good, but not really a concern. After all, the next major release of the Mac OS will essentially be a UNIX, complete with the command line, unofficial (but virtually 100%) POSIX compliance, and pretty good Mac OS backwards compatibility. Or didn't you know?
Slashdot Mirror
I think Apple's existing implementation of Expose is quite powerful. Not everyone realizes that drag-and-drop works with it, and more unfortunately Apple does not default to using a "screen corner" to activate Expose (yet this, too, is possible).
I have it set up so that I can literally "yank" the mouse in the general direction of the lower-right corner to show all windows, perhaps after picking up a file with the mouse. This then allows me to drag the file to any window. Further, I can use spacebar (like in spring-loaded folders in the Finder) to immediately choose a window instead of pausing for a second to have it selected automatically.
This action is so natural and powerful, I use it all the time. And though I use Linux at work and it is fantastic in many ways, I sorely miss features like Expose in Mac OS X.
I agree completely with this. Apple needs to wake up and polish more than its icons and demos to get this OS back to its prime.
I think Tiger makes one aspect of inconsistency even worse, in the sense that they've resorted to "grafting" now. At least before, if you had a metal app, you had a metal APP: the whole app was at least consistent in itself. But now, Spotlight gets shoved into a Finder window like those widgets came from a completely different universe than the rest of the Finder. Same with the RSS part of Safari, the icons in Mail, the list goes on. It's like an application team says "okay, our app is golden, ship it" and then a team of worms comes in at the last second and grafts ugly interface elements wherever they will fit.
The MOST used AppleWorks component for me was its bitmap graphics editor. Thank goodness it still works on Mac OS X (minus a few bizarre bugs with drag-and-drop and stuff). But if Steve is going to call the new apps successors to AppleWorks, Apple had better cover image editing, too. That means at least "Pixels", but maybe "Vectors" for drawing.
/Developer/Applications/Graphics Tools where no one finds them). With technology like this, Apple could slap together a modern graphics editor easily, and certainly make the $49 from me for the effort. (Ahem, instead they seem to want to charge $30 for QuickTime Pro?) Why should I put up with Adobe's lack of humane interface and price gouging, or the (unfortunately) awkward GIMP? Please Apple, ask an intern to do this in a weekend with Core Image, and you'll have instantly created another source of revenue - not to mention demonstrate that it matters to you how people actually use the apps you are "deprecating".
There are many ways to do graphics right, as Apple knows well. I'm amazed at what developer tools like Quartz Composer can do (tucked away in
MS Plans Low-Cost Windows for Brazil
This just in! Open-source community plans low-cost version
of Lin...ah, nevermind.
This just in! Microsoft plans working version of
Windows. Er, nope, wait, that one was April Fool's.
Microsoft plans a lot of things. Will they deliver on this one, or
are they really just waiting to see if Brazil even cares? If Brazil's
government doesn't sign up for a million licenses, wanna bet
that Microsoft will conveniently forget its "plans"?
Mac OS X will never be in as bad a position for malware as, say, Windows, because it is inherently harder to install unintended files on a system where multi-user is done right (as it is in Mac OS X). Not only does administrative privilege protect many things, but various network ports are closed by default, etc.
However, the Installer paradigm is still present on Mac OS X, for some software. Users should seriously question software that requires an installer with administrative privilege, as this is exactly the time a questionable file can be added to your system (and for that matter, gives software a free ticket to do certain other things).
I've sent a suggestion to Apple asking that it be more transparent what installers actually change in the system. I hope they take this seriously.
So only now there is this worry that SCO is sinking? The act of a small company suing over Linux should long have sent the signal that SCO is having troubles. The suit seemed desperate (and still does), a way to get press and cash while sending markets into a spin. The fact that they have not produced evidence shows that SCO was not only betting the farm on FUD, but really is Such Crummy Opposition: to IBM, and to Linux.
A "prototype detection tool", useful for detecting prototypes.
The tool immediately concluded that Windows itself is a
prototype, and asked the user to discard the prototype in favor
of something production-quality. Unable to find anything
meeting that description from Microsoft, the user explored other
freedoms.
Let's not call this "security software", Microsoft; remember, software should simply be secure. If you have to add a qualifier like this, guess what: you're saying most of your software has nothing to do with security, and this special extra software, for extra charge, provides the security "feature".
These terminology differences really point to a philosophical difference at Microsoft, which is the root of all their problems. They really don't understand. Why should we think they ever will, at any price?
...Halo and UT2004 were starting to slow down on my 1200 CPU cluster!
IT organizations tend to mistakenly shoot for "standardization". This should *not* be the goal, because it is a fact that every job has a platform on which it is done best. Unfortunately, because IT departments want to pick one, they "standardize on Windows" because of the hype, the apparent low cost and its proliferation throughout the computing world.
I would recommend a mixture: buy Macs, buy Linux, buy Solaris and, indeed, buy Windows: *for the people whose jobs demand each type of machine*. Any IT organization that wants to standardize on a single platform, even one as versatile as the Mac, is guaranteeing that they will hinder someone's ability to get work done.
Examples: Mac for local networks and graphics artists, Linux for corporate mail and web and global server structure, Solaris/SPARC for Java developers and CAD, Windows for office types and...gamers? You get the idea.
It could be that cost is the wrong focus. Advertising the lack of benefits might deter spammers. By now most people have a knee-jerk reaction to delete the stuff before ever seeing what's in it; therefore, it stands to reason that the cost of paying someone to send ads anonymously may now outweigh the payback. Posting some hard stats on that might get organizations to send less spam, or pay spammers less money, or fire some spammers - all of which could result in less spam.
Frankly, if Mac OS X has the foundation and the Windows compatibility, why is it not filling in these gaps? Apple may finally have a strong reason to invest in x86, since people are obviously content with keeping their hardware. I wonder, where is Windows networking built in: to Darwin, or the proprietary part of OS X? Darwin/Linux anyone?
Look in Preferences, General, Options for the checkbox to initially hide toolbars. This will be improved in the future.
The rebuild is done each time in case you have new scripts installed. One day I will improve that to cache the modification date or something so that it will not even display the progress bar.
MacTelnet, despite its name, can run local Unix apps on Mac OS X. It shares much of the same base code as old favorites like MacSSH, so it still has VT100, VT220 and TEK. However it also supports VT52 mode, double-sized text and most XTerm sequences, and has VT220-specific features like floating keypad windows.
:)
I should know, because I am writing its (open-source) code!
MacTelnet, despite its name, can run local Unix apps on Mac OS X. It shares much of the same base code as MacSSH so it still has VT100, VT220 and TEK. However it also supports VT52 mode, double-sized text and most XTerm sequences, and has VT220-specific features like floating keypad windows. I should know, because I am writing its (open-source) code! :)
As reported at
http://www.appleinsider.com/, Apple is
working on an incredible update to
AppleWorks, called AppleWorks 6.0. This will
be where my money goes - I don't need StarOffice
(for all the reasons cited before and more, but
my personal hates are its huge memory footprint
and stupid desktop environment). There is a
tremendous amount of power in AppleWorks, and
it is IMHO the only suite you need for the Mac.
To hell with Microsoft, to hell with Sun.
I am very disappointed with what has come out of the Mozilla project, as no doubt many people are. I've download milestone 7 for the Mac, and frankly I don't know what the h*ll they're doing over there at Mozilla.org. The revamped interface is *again* stupid, but I guess they have to keep up with the strange tradition of completely changing the way Netscape's browser looks at every major release.
Netscape, with intelligence, could have released version 4.9, addressing long-standing and requested issues such as the ability to resume downloads and improved stability, and *then* screwed everything up. It is always possible to continue work on a major revamp while continuing to spruce up the older major release with minor updates. This keeps customers "into" Netscape. Instead, we've had absolute nothing come out of Netscape in eons, and that means the only way to get a decent browser is to use IE. Add to this the fact that, oddly enough, IE is probably one of the nicest apps ever built by Microsoft - uncharacteristically intelligent, simple, fast and full-featured without too much bulk (and then there's the price). Netscape might have had a chance had IE turned out to be a piece of garbage like Windows itself, or MS Office. Instead, Netscape's browser is the one that's overly-complex, and rapidly falling behind.
My 2 cents.
Being glad for more UNIX "support" is good, but not really a concern. After all, the next major release of the Mac OS will essentially be a UNIX, complete with the command line, unofficial (but virtually 100%) POSIX compliance, and pretty good Mac OS backwards compatibility. Or didn't you know?