Answers on the back of a £20 note, addressed to.. oh hell, just post a reply.
Answers on the back of a £20 note, addressed to.. oh hell, just post a reply.
So what's this then?
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/So what's this then?Answers on the back of a £20 note, addressed to.. oh hell, just post a reply.
Its a screen grab of your Comps desktop
Pretty powerful computer there, and nice graphics card!
Nope, it's not mine.
Mac OS running on a PC?
As far as i know a Quadro 5500 does not exist for the Mac so i would say it's a PC running Leopard.
It's been possibe to tun OSX on a generic PC for quite a while, providing you have certain hardware.
I'd heard that Leopard had been hacked to run on PC.
Is that what you're referring to?
Is that what you're referring to?
Mac's are PC's anyway people!
And the winner is Yeshu777!
You mean like George Bush?
I don't understand why Apple don't sell MacOS for any PC, including AMD.
I've emailed them in the past and told them that I won't be buying a Mac but would like to use MacOS on my PC instead of Vista. I know Macs are basically PC's now but they still restrict the OS to Machines only they build. They're also more expensive than just buying a non Mac PC.
I've emailed them in the past and told them that I won't be buying a Mac but would like to use MacOS on my PC instead of Vista. I know Macs are basically PC's now but they still restrict the OS to Machines only they build. They're also more expensive than just buying a non Mac PC.
George Bush?
Because they're making money with their hardware and they would have insane driver work to do first.
It's still a shame. Mac OS is a lovely looking OS and, personally, I'm a sucker for eye candy.
If you like eye candy then buy their hardware as it's eye candy too. You just shouldn't look inside at the gfx card for instance as you will see the lungs of a smoker.
what pees me off is that Macs don't have a right mouse button, you have to hold down a key and click, doh! Oh and when you right click a file there is no RENAME option on the menu, you have to click and fiddle in the name somehow that I STILL haven't figured out the correct method! grr.
Why don't you use a logitech mouse like most of the mac users do? And beside of that all new Macs have a right mouse button capable mouse - the mighty one.
what pees me off is that Macs don't have a right mouse button, you have to hold down a key and click
Wrong! Unless your thinking about (possibly) the laptops.
what pees me off is that Macs don't have a right mouse button
Wow. Do you carry a grudge around for a long time or what? Apple switched to using USB exclusively for keyboards and mice in 1999. And beside of that all new Macs have a right mouse button capable mouse - the mighty one.
I don't think switching from a 1 button mouse to a no button mouse is going to get him less confused. Wrong! Unless your thinking about (possibly) the laptops.
Or still living in the last millennium. On the laptops you can hold two fingers on the trackpad and press the button for a right-click. It doesn't take too long to get used to.
Scrolling a window is also done by moving two fingers over the pad instead of just one.
The two finger trick only works on the Intel Macs though.
Renaimg a file is done the same way as in Windows. Click on the file, wait a second, and then click on the file again. Might only work by clicking on the filename itself, as I've not tried to do it by clicking on the icon itself.
Scrolling a window is also done by moving two fingers over the pad instead of just one.
The two finger trick only works on the Intel Macs though.
Renaimg a file is done the same way as in Windows. Click on the file, wait a second, and then click on the file again. Might only work by clicking on the filename itself, as I've not tried to do it by clicking on the icon itself.
taumel, Apple would _NOT_ have to do insane driver work first. Microsoft is also not writing all the drivers for Windows, this is the job of the hardware vendors.
The simple answer really is that Apple is a hardware company and that is where they make their money.
Grey Alien, desktop Macs are sold with the Mighty Mouse these days - go to System Preferences/Keyboard & Mouse and configure the behavior for the right mouse button. When you're on a MacBook/PowerBook, you're out of luck and have to buy an external mouse if you want to use more than one button.
Here's a question from me: Is anybody else experiencing this strange Leopard behaviour that when your system was idle for a couple of hours, the kittycat is having 'hiccups'? My Mac was turned on over night to complete its very first Time Machine backup, and now there are delays, little breaks, before it reacts to my keyboard typing. Opening System Preferences and loading a module takes ages. A process named pmtool and another one named kernel_task are eating up a lot of CPU resources. Whatever they heck they are good for. Another candidate is TWAIN_bridge. Geez, my scanner is only connected but hasn't been used in days.
*sigh*
I was playing with Ubuntu and Yellow Dog Linux on my PowerBook G4 yesterday. Looked promising. Even the 3D desktop worked and there's even a JDK 6 from IBM for PowerPC machines. Showstoppers were WLAN and DVD playback, though - and those I use A LOT on my PowerBook, so it was a no go to keep Linux on it. Unless somebody here can enlighten me? :-)))
The simple answer really is that Apple is a hardware company and that is where they make their money.
Grey Alien, desktop Macs are sold with the Mighty Mouse these days - go to System Preferences/Keyboard & Mouse and configure the behavior for the right mouse button. When you're on a MacBook/PowerBook, you're out of luck and have to buy an external mouse if you want to use more than one button.
Here's a question from me: Is anybody else experiencing this strange Leopard behaviour that when your system was idle for a couple of hours, the kittycat is having 'hiccups'? My Mac was turned on over night to complete its very first Time Machine backup, and now there are delays, little breaks, before it reacts to my keyboard typing. Opening System Preferences and loading a module takes ages. A process named pmtool and another one named kernel_task are eating up a lot of CPU resources. Whatever they heck they are good for. Another candidate is TWAIN_bridge. Geez, my scanner is only connected but hasn't been used in days.
*sigh*
I was playing with Ubuntu and Yellow Dog Linux on my PowerBook G4 yesterday. Looked promising. Even the 3D desktop worked and there's even a JDK 6 from IBM for PowerPC machines. Showstoppers were WLAN and DVD playback, though - and those I use A LOT on my PowerBook, so it was a no go to keep Linux on it. Unless somebody here can enlighten me? :-)))
Wrong! Unless your thinking about (possibly) the laptops.
Macbook Pro - I rest my case.JazzieB: Yep I know those shortcuts. I love the scrollng window one it's BRILLIANT I keep trying (and failing) to do it on my Vista laptop. That renaming file thing is just screwed (all this "aiting" stuff), why can't I just double click the name? Anyway it should be on the pop up menu as rename!
Yes, it is indeed Leopard running on a PC. Yes, it was always possible to run OSX on a PC, but Leopard does not do so out of the box, but apparently it's not all that difficult to do, although you do need a bit of luck, which I guess is to be expected anyway.
@Winni
Nope, it depends on what kind of hardware you're talking about. For some parts the vendor of the OS is responsible and for others are the third party hardware vendors. But as you have to provide a working OS it's always also work on Apple's side. Just remember the issues NeXT awas facing too. Microsoft also has to test, verify and integrate drivers from the vendors.
And as for the mouse, no one i know works in a meaningful way with a laptop for a longer period without connecting a external mouse to it. It's way easier and faster this way.
But beside of this i'm not so fond of Leopard so far as it's too early from the revision to jump on and whilst it has some nice features i don't need most of the new stuff, so that it comes down to that i'll get it when i buy a new Mac and not before. I still feel pretty fine with Tiger these days and i also dislike the new interface design.
Nope, it depends on what kind of hardware you're talking about. For some parts the vendor of the OS is responsible and for others are the third party hardware vendors. But as you have to provide a working OS it's always also work on Apple's side. Just remember the issues NeXT awas facing too. Microsoft also has to test, verify and integrate drivers from the vendors.
And as for the mouse, no one i know works in a meaningful way with a laptop for a longer period without connecting a external mouse to it. It's way easier and faster this way.
But beside of this i'm not so fond of Leopard so far as it's too early from the revision to jump on and whilst it has some nice features i don't need most of the new stuff, so that it comes down to that i'll get it when i buy a new Mac and not before. I still feel pretty fine with Tiger these days and i also dislike the new interface design.
Microsoft is also not writing all the drivers for Windows, this is the job of the hardware vendors.
Well you're half right. While actually writing the drivers is the business of the vendors, certifying that they work is Microsofts, or rather Windows Hardware Quality Labs' job (which they do quite poorly, I might add). Yes, it was always possible to run OSX on a PC, but Leopard does not do so out of the box, but apparently it's not all that difficult to do, although you do need a bit of luck, which I guess is to be expected anyway.
Oh but it gets better. Soon you'll be able to legally run the server version of Mac OS X Leopard on VMWare et. al. And as for the mouse, no one i know works in a meaningful way with a laptop for a longer period without connecting a external mouse to it. It's way easier and faster this way.
Yeah I have a PC for main development work, the laptop is for on trains or sitting on the sofa or in bed so basically a mouse is not practical. Part of the selling point for Apple is that it "just works". That's partially due to design, but largely due to the fact that they have to work wich a *much* more limited collection of hardware than Microsoft does.
the vast majority of Windows instability issues is caused by flakey hardware drivers. Of course, it's bad design that a bad driver can take down the whole OS, but still: windows too can be rock-solid if you use well-supported hardware with good drivers. If Apple were to release OS-X to the masses on home-grown PC's, they too would have the hassle, stability issues, and user resentment.
It appears that while Apple has chosen to go for a smaller slice of the pie, they also work hard to make it good enough for people to want to come back. (and go out of their way to buy Apple's flavor rather than the competition's)
the vast majority of Windows instability issues is caused by flakey hardware drivers. Of course, it's bad design that a bad driver can take down the whole OS, but still: windows too can be rock-solid if you use well-supported hardware with good drivers. If Apple were to release OS-X to the masses on home-grown PC's, they too would have the hassle, stability issues, and user resentment.
It appears that while Apple has chosen to go for a smaller slice of the pie, they also work hard to make it good enough for people to want to come back. (and go out of their way to buy Apple's flavor rather than the competition's)
Another thing stopping OSX coming to a PC is the lack of EFI machines.
OSX 10.5 is great though - very nice.
OSX 10.5 is great though - very nice.
I have four Macs in my houshold and been using Macs and OS X Tiger as my main working horses for the last two+ years.
There was a period of time when even I full-heartedly believed in the "it just works" myth and accordingly "have been spreading the word".
However, the truth is that after two years and now two major OS X releases, I have to admit that Macs in real life are not more reliable than a properly configured XP machine, and Macs crash about as often as Vista boxes (and by now we all know that Vista is much less reliable than XP SP2).
Yes, a Mac -is- more user friendly than a Windows machine. Yes, a Mac is more fun to use than a Windows machine. And, yes, Microsoft seriously lacks taste and they really don't know the first thing about making something look beautiful.
But since the release of 2000 and XP, Microsoft's platforms work at least as good as Apple's OS X platform or even GNU/Linux. So much for the "it just works" advertisement.
And as a platform for software developers, I really, honestly HATE to admit that Apple's non-communication policy alone is reason enough to run away from that platform. Without signing an NDA --AND-- attending the WWDC, you won't even get to know -if- there ever will be a JDK 6 for OS X or not. And because they don't publish roadmaps, you just cannot plan with Apple. The Apple world is all about hoping an believing -- that's a bit too much like a religion for my taste, and I am getting increasingly fed up with it. And I don't like Objective-C either. Where are my other --really supported-- language options? The grass is always greener on the other side, and I cannot tell you how beautiful .NET looks when you are in Apple-land.
The real problem (for me), however, is that I jumped ship from Microsoft to Apple for very similar reasons. I probably was to dumb to learn one of history's first lessons: Every revolution only changes the name of the tyrant.
I still do not see a working business case for GNU/Linux in my book. Does anybody hear know of a Shareware product for GNU/Linux that has sold any licenses?
Hardware-support is another issue. After 15 years of development, GNU/Linux now also is a legacy system, and still there is not a single distribution available that fully supports any of my machines out of the box. I gave Ubuntu 7.10 a shot on my PowerBook G4 last night, and even though the 3D desktop worked (which --really-- surprised me), WLAN wouldn't go.
Still, I somehow liked what I saw, and I feel tempted to dig deeper into it. Not having an almighty Bill or Steve telling me what the world has to be like is just too attractive.
There was a period of time when even I full-heartedly believed in the "it just works" myth and accordingly "have been spreading the word".
However, the truth is that after two years and now two major OS X releases, I have to admit that Macs in real life are not more reliable than a properly configured XP machine, and Macs crash about as often as Vista boxes (and by now we all know that Vista is much less reliable than XP SP2).
Yes, a Mac -is- more user friendly than a Windows machine. Yes, a Mac is more fun to use than a Windows machine. And, yes, Microsoft seriously lacks taste and they really don't know the first thing about making something look beautiful.
But since the release of 2000 and XP, Microsoft's platforms work at least as good as Apple's OS X platform or even GNU/Linux. So much for the "it just works" advertisement.
And as a platform for software developers, I really, honestly HATE to admit that Apple's non-communication policy alone is reason enough to run away from that platform. Without signing an NDA --AND-- attending the WWDC, you won't even get to know -if- there ever will be a JDK 6 for OS X or not. And because they don't publish roadmaps, you just cannot plan with Apple. The Apple world is all about hoping an believing -- that's a bit too much like a religion for my taste, and I am getting increasingly fed up with it. And I don't like Objective-C either. Where are my other --really supported-- language options? The grass is always greener on the other side, and I cannot tell you how beautiful .NET looks when you are in Apple-land.
The real problem (for me), however, is that I jumped ship from Microsoft to Apple for very similar reasons. I probably was to dumb to learn one of history's first lessons: Every revolution only changes the name of the tyrant.
I still do not see a working business case for GNU/Linux in my book. Does anybody hear know of a Shareware product for GNU/Linux that has sold any licenses?
Hardware-support is another issue. After 15 years of development, GNU/Linux now also is a legacy system, and still there is not a single distribution available that fully supports any of my machines out of the box. I gave Ubuntu 7.10 a shot on my PowerBook G4 last night, and even though the 3D desktop worked (which --really-- surprised me), WLAN wouldn't go.
Still, I somehow liked what I saw, and I feel tempted to dig deeper into it. Not having an almighty Bill or Steve telling me what the world has to be like is just too attractive.
Yeah my Macbook has crashed a few times. But it makes sense to have a more limited hardware pool so that the OS is more stable, like an AMIGA of course ;-)
In all fairness, the lack of a single emperor of Linux (Linus has little impact on the desktop end of things) has its own problems, too. Standards take a long time to come in...
Granted, when they happen, they are good, but waiting for them and watching the bruises where they should be is not pretty. One place that should be standardizing soon is desktop search, and that will be very cool. May be aligned properly to beat Windows and MacOS to the punch! (Although MacOS does have an integrated, common desktop search via Spotlight, I find that there isn't enough imagination being put in to make it truly useful. It generally just appears in the file open dialog, and not very often elsewhere).
By the way, Ubuntu now writes to NTFS, and I realized that it's been able to do XFS (which Mac users had been quite excited about at one point) for quite a while.
Leopard is pretty cool, and definitely a good step with Time Machine, networking, and those new .Mac features.
I think Apple is putting way too much marketing focus on aesthetics and things that really don't matter, though, and they are promoting a lot of file manager use, which is something Apple has seemed to otherwise avoid...
First off, the coverflow view mode. It's a fricking flip-book style viewer with big preview icons. Please stop talking about coverflow like it's Jesus's successor! Cool effect, sure, but it isn't solving all the world's problems. Actually, it's causing one: View modes like coverflow should not stay on for all folders until toggled off. It is very annoying to have everything be appearing in that mode after turning on coverflow for a specific folder (such as Pictures). It's the sort of view mode that isn't going to be useful in the majority of situations, but can occasionally be really cool.
This isn't really a revolution for file management, and neither are Stacks. (Nothing against Stacks, though; it's a great idea! Really cleans up the desktop, which MacOS needed, the interface flows smoothly and it looks good. In the context of saving the universe, though, stacks aren't there yet). People still tend to hate the process of managing files and prefer when applications just figure it all out, themselves, really easily. This is because, particularly in the case of a photo management tool, a program has gone and arranged files in its own quirky way, probably placed them somewhere that the user shouldn't have to think about. Then, when he has to restore a backup of his photo library, he must figure out the program's abysmal file structure and restore manually via the file manager. One thing MacOS does really well is avoiding that in most cases, but many of these new features (tied directly to Finder) are returning us to that situation. Standards (like Drag&Drop) are good because they let programs handle file management without users having to figure them out as well. Drag & drop abstracts it such that any "thing" can be dragged between programs, and thus file manager usage is avoided, instead permitting a more pointed abstraction of the files to handle the matter of finding stuff. Granted, iLife isn't a part of the OS, so maybe they have added a backup button to everything. We'll have to wait and see...
Integrated (and I mean very integrated) desktop search, and programs that aren't afraid to use it, is the right direction to abstract file management. File management with a file manager like Finder, Explorer, Konqueror, Nautilus or even Dolphin is daunting because every file, whether it is likely to mean something to the user or not, is given the same weight. I will be pleased when a file manager determines the importance of files and folders in certain scenarios, giving particular routes more weight. This would feel like a more pleasant interface as we see in precision-tuned software, generated on the fly to represent (of course) files!
For example, lots of big photos in one place, the rest is databases and ini files. The user probably cares about the photos, and a technical user looking for the technical files will know where to look for them. Apply emblems to the folders to represent what they have, give extra weight to the folders with the user's photos (larger size, placed at top of list -- magazine-style layout). Folders each have information displayed on the side saying what kind of information they have, maybe quick previews of contents to make it more tactile. Differing ammounts of information displayed based on weight (where only a really prominent one would get the previews, for example). Context-sensitive helper text, such as "import the contents to iPhoto," acting as a quick route to the "open with" menu, though easy to find like a web page.
When that happens, I will permit Apple to chant as if they have invented a new universe.
Secondly, Spaces. I was really hoping for something fresh, but what it gives is really a bit weak compared to what I have even in GNOME or KDE. First off, there are no extra options for window management. I cannot set a window to be visible on all spaces, which could have been done quite intuitively with MacOS's proper division of windows and processes. There goes the only offering in virtual desktops that visibly gives an edge over just hiding and showing windows. Secondly, that big Spaces icon in the dock does not give a live preview, and is not interactive. Kind of a shame -- although they definitely did something nice with the full view...
"OOoooh, bigger drop shadows!"
If they can market something trivial like that as one of 300 new features, then a download I've just completed and dropped onto my desktop is the equivalent of three brand new "features" on my computer, invented by me, and I haven't even extracted the thing yet! Not only is there now a beautiful, glossy Archive icon on my desktop, but I can also drag it wherever I want and even roll the mouse over it to have it glow. My very own, customizable, desktop decoration. Wow, pretty.
The new background removal thing in iChat / Photo Booth is quite a joke in many setups. The problem, from what I have gathered, is to do with lighting and how the camera adjusts for it. If someone is wearing white, and the background is dark (even if that background does not move), it will be completely messed up. When the picture of the background is taken, the camera gets it nice and light. Then, when that big, bright person fills the frame, it gets confused and the whole effect breaks away because the camera starts adjusting its exposure (thus a changing background). Beyond me how they can't control this in software. I rarely see the thing working well (though it has done so in scenes where the camera does less adjusting, and I agree it's amusing). As a fun little gimick, I guess it is fine, but it doesn't work most of the time, giving a pretty bad impression. Overlays controlled by hot points in the captured image would have been an equally impressive, though much less likely to screw up, addition. (And potentially useful, too, unlike most of the other additions there).
From what I understand, iChat's desktop sharing only has a single mouse pointer? I haven't had the chance to try it myself, so please correct if wrong. Nothing horribly wrong with that, but may I remind of a few months ago when Mr. Jobs made the claim that the iPhone was running OSX, and that the OS had multitouch capabilities? If that is the case, then multiple mouse pointers should be possible, and indeed compatible with legacy apps, unless they have done something quite strange, or had an entirely different library handle all of the multitouch stuff (which would be silly for an operating system).
It is nicely done, mind. Very cool.
Still no writing to NTFS, which is an unfortunate thing when we have Bootcamp here. Windows can't write to MacOS's stuff, either, so it would be good to have it working in one direction! ...And for Apple's anti-Windows thing, I'm sure they would appreciate the power to say "we can write to Windows, but Windows is too dumb to write to us!" as Linux users now enjoy on a daily basis.
If open source software can do it out of the box, then surely MacOS can.
Okay, there is my (unfortunately) unconstructive ramble for today. Fire away!
Meh, one other thing, this time constructive.
Winni, I have seen small developers (not necessarily shareware, or entirely Linux) making business with Linux sorts of solutions. For example, Iron Realms, who specialize in a lot of MUDs, have that free-to-play scheme with some interesting details for paying users. Their games are very often played via Linux clients. They seem to do quite well with it.
There is definitely a different pattern of thought with Linux software. People there will pay, or tolerate a lot of advertising, if they can see a valuable service being delivered to them consistently.
I can't quite put my finger on why I think it, but I also think that open source games are rather different beasts from open source tools. Getting a really good one (and not just a clone of a commercial game) off the ground would be rather tricky. Amazing if it happened, but I don't think it really has yet. Commericial games, with closed development (maybe open to artwork and level contributions, as any nice community-focused game could do), still has a lot of room even amongst the communist software geeks :P
A question: Have you played much with the web clips feature in Safari? It looks interesting, but I can't decide how it works. Is it doing it a good way, or a chunk of the rendered output taken from set coordinates that never change? (How much is that feature affected by arbitrary changes in page layout? Do you have to redo the clipping, or is it awesomely clever?)
Granted, when they happen, they are good, but waiting for them and watching the bruises where they should be is not pretty. One place that should be standardizing soon is desktop search, and that will be very cool. May be aligned properly to beat Windows and MacOS to the punch! (Although MacOS does have an integrated, common desktop search via Spotlight, I find that there isn't enough imagination being put in to make it truly useful. It generally just appears in the file open dialog, and not very often elsewhere).
By the way, Ubuntu now writes to NTFS, and I realized that it's been able to do XFS (which Mac users had been quite excited about at one point) for quite a while.
Leopard is pretty cool, and definitely a good step with Time Machine, networking, and those new .Mac features.
I think Apple is putting way too much marketing focus on aesthetics and things that really don't matter, though, and they are promoting a lot of file manager use, which is something Apple has seemed to otherwise avoid...
First off, the coverflow view mode. It's a fricking flip-book style viewer with big preview icons. Please stop talking about coverflow like it's Jesus's successor! Cool effect, sure, but it isn't solving all the world's problems. Actually, it's causing one: View modes like coverflow should not stay on for all folders until toggled off. It is very annoying to have everything be appearing in that mode after turning on coverflow for a specific folder (such as Pictures). It's the sort of view mode that isn't going to be useful in the majority of situations, but can occasionally be really cool.
This isn't really a revolution for file management, and neither are Stacks. (Nothing against Stacks, though; it's a great idea! Really cleans up the desktop, which MacOS needed, the interface flows smoothly and it looks good. In the context of saving the universe, though, stacks aren't there yet). People still tend to hate the process of managing files and prefer when applications just figure it all out, themselves, really easily. This is because, particularly in the case of a photo management tool, a program has gone and arranged files in its own quirky way, probably placed them somewhere that the user shouldn't have to think about. Then, when he has to restore a backup of his photo library, he must figure out the program's abysmal file structure and restore manually via the file manager. One thing MacOS does really well is avoiding that in most cases, but many of these new features (tied directly to Finder) are returning us to that situation. Standards (like Drag&Drop) are good because they let programs handle file management without users having to figure them out as well. Drag & drop abstracts it such that any "thing" can be dragged between programs, and thus file manager usage is avoided, instead permitting a more pointed abstraction of the files to handle the matter of finding stuff. Granted, iLife isn't a part of the OS, so maybe they have added a backup button to everything. We'll have to wait and see...
Integrated (and I mean very integrated) desktop search, and programs that aren't afraid to use it, is the right direction to abstract file management. File management with a file manager like Finder, Explorer, Konqueror, Nautilus or even Dolphin is daunting because every file, whether it is likely to mean something to the user or not, is given the same weight. I will be pleased when a file manager determines the importance of files and folders in certain scenarios, giving particular routes more weight. This would feel like a more pleasant interface as we see in precision-tuned software, generated on the fly to represent (of course) files!
For example, lots of big photos in one place, the rest is databases and ini files. The user probably cares about the photos, and a technical user looking for the technical files will know where to look for them. Apply emblems to the folders to represent what they have, give extra weight to the folders with the user's photos (larger size, placed at top of list -- magazine-style layout). Folders each have information displayed on the side saying what kind of information they have, maybe quick previews of contents to make it more tactile. Differing ammounts of information displayed based on weight (where only a really prominent one would get the previews, for example). Context-sensitive helper text, such as "import the contents to iPhoto," acting as a quick route to the "open with" menu, though easy to find like a web page.
When that happens, I will permit Apple to chant as if they have invented a new universe.
Secondly, Spaces. I was really hoping for something fresh, but what it gives is really a bit weak compared to what I have even in GNOME or KDE. First off, there are no extra options for window management. I cannot set a window to be visible on all spaces, which could have been done quite intuitively with MacOS's proper division of windows and processes. There goes the only offering in virtual desktops that visibly gives an edge over just hiding and showing windows. Secondly, that big Spaces icon in the dock does not give a live preview, and is not interactive. Kind of a shame -- although they definitely did something nice with the full view...
"OOoooh, bigger drop shadows!"
If they can market something trivial like that as one of 300 new features, then a download I've just completed and dropped onto my desktop is the equivalent of three brand new "features" on my computer, invented by me, and I haven't even extracted the thing yet! Not only is there now a beautiful, glossy Archive icon on my desktop, but I can also drag it wherever I want and even roll the mouse over it to have it glow. My very own, customizable, desktop decoration. Wow, pretty.
The new background removal thing in iChat / Photo Booth is quite a joke in many setups. The problem, from what I have gathered, is to do with lighting and how the camera adjusts for it. If someone is wearing white, and the background is dark (even if that background does not move), it will be completely messed up. When the picture of the background is taken, the camera gets it nice and light. Then, when that big, bright person fills the frame, it gets confused and the whole effect breaks away because the camera starts adjusting its exposure (thus a changing background). Beyond me how they can't control this in software. I rarely see the thing working well (though it has done so in scenes where the camera does less adjusting, and I agree it's amusing). As a fun little gimick, I guess it is fine, but it doesn't work most of the time, giving a pretty bad impression. Overlays controlled by hot points in the captured image would have been an equally impressive, though much less likely to screw up, addition. (And potentially useful, too, unlike most of the other additions there).
From what I understand, iChat's desktop sharing only has a single mouse pointer? I haven't had the chance to try it myself, so please correct if wrong. Nothing horribly wrong with that, but may I remind of a few months ago when Mr. Jobs made the claim that the iPhone was running OSX, and that the OS had multitouch capabilities? If that is the case, then multiple mouse pointers should be possible, and indeed compatible with legacy apps, unless they have done something quite strange, or had an entirely different library handle all of the multitouch stuff (which would be silly for an operating system).
It is nicely done, mind. Very cool.
Still no writing to NTFS, which is an unfortunate thing when we have Bootcamp here. Windows can't write to MacOS's stuff, either, so it would be good to have it working in one direction! ...And for Apple's anti-Windows thing, I'm sure they would appreciate the power to say "we can write to Windows, but Windows is too dumb to write to us!" as Linux users now enjoy on a daily basis.
If open source software can do it out of the box, then surely MacOS can.
Okay, there is my (unfortunately) unconstructive ramble for today. Fire away!
Meh, one other thing, this time constructive.
Winni, I have seen small developers (not necessarily shareware, or entirely Linux) making business with Linux sorts of solutions. For example, Iron Realms, who specialize in a lot of MUDs, have that free-to-play scheme with some interesting details for paying users. Their games are very often played via Linux clients. They seem to do quite well with it.
There is definitely a different pattern of thought with Linux software. People there will pay, or tolerate a lot of advertising, if they can see a valuable service being delivered to them consistently.
I can't quite put my finger on why I think it, but I also think that open source games are rather different beasts from open source tools. Getting a really good one (and not just a clone of a commercial game) off the ground would be rather tricky. Amazing if it happened, but I don't think it really has yet. Commericial games, with closed development (maybe open to artwork and level contributions, as any nice community-focused game could do), still has a lot of room even amongst the communist software geeks :P
A question: Have you played much with the web clips feature in Safari? It looks interesting, but I can't decide how it works. Is it doing it a good way, or a chunk of the rendered output taken from set coordinates that never change? (How much is that feature affected by arbitrary changes in page layout? Do you have to redo the clipping, or is it awesomely clever?)
Windows can't write to MacOS's stuff
A little PC app called MacDrive will solve that for you. Unfortunately you won't see the Mac partition of the main drive, but you can read and write and format all external mac disks. Very good if you're working in Bootcamp on a Mac.
Picklesworth: ENjoyed your review, thanks.
mrtricks, you -can- see the Mac partition of the main drive in MacDrive 7. On my machine, it just appears after all the other Mac drives.
Picklesworth, the problem with most working Linux business models is that they are usually service-based and that the software itself basically is a give-away. If writing code and -selling- your own software is what you want to do, you're going to have a serious problem in such an environment. Especially when games are not your focus.
As for the Safari clips feature: They demonstrated it with Dilbert, and that probably is the only place where it really works, probably because the Dilbert homepage is coded generically enough.
Web clips doesn't seem to work with Spiegel Online; it did not even show me the article that I selected. But it worked with John Blythe's Deepspace homepage and showed me the selected news items. I haven't played enough with it yet to say whether it will also update the contents automagically, what is what I would expect of it, because that's what the Apple folks made me believe in their presentation. I'll keep an eye on my Dilbert web clip now. By the way, on Tiger I used iComic from ruxp.net, and that no longer works on Leopard.
Picklesworth, the problem with most working Linux business models is that they are usually service-based and that the software itself basically is a give-away. If writing code and -selling- your own software is what you want to do, you're going to have a serious problem in such an environment. Especially when games are not your focus.
As for the Safari clips feature: They demonstrated it with Dilbert, and that probably is the only place where it really works, probably because the Dilbert homepage is coded generically enough.
Web clips doesn't seem to work with Spiegel Online; it did not even show me the article that I selected. But it worked with John Blythe's Deepspace homepage and showed me the selected news items. I haven't played enough with it yet to say whether it will also update the contents automagically, what is what I would expect of it, because that's what the Apple folks made me believe in their presentation. I'll keep an eye on my Dilbert web clip now. By the way, on Tiger I used iComic from ruxp.net, and that no longer works on Leopard.
Get Paragon Mount Everything if you need to access Mac/Linux partitions from your inferior OS.
Is there a way to simply cut and paste files between folders in OS X? In 10.3.9 I can only copy and paste, then I have to go back and delete the original file! Very tedious.
You dont need to use Objective-C - you can use standard C if you like. Or , if your a masochistic, Java and the ilk.
I very doubt Apple want to pay the amount of money needed to get hold of the complete NTFS spec, hence the reason its read-only. Besides, it also provides a safety net.
Are you thinking of Dashcode ? You need to know HTML, CSS and Java for that, apparently.
Windows doesn't many "it just works" - it usually requires the download of appropriate drivers.
I very doubt Apple want to pay the amount of money needed to get hold of the complete NTFS spec, hence the reason its read-only. Besides, it also provides a safety net.
A question: Have you played much with the web clips feature in Safari?
Are you thinking of Dashcode ? You need to know HTML, CSS and Java for that, apparently.
Windows doesn't many "it just works" - it usually requires the download of appropriate drivers.