Dan Shafer: OS X

Sun, 10 Nov 2002 17:24:52 GMT

OS X Mail: Getting Happier All the Time. I switched one of my main email accounts over to the Mail app in OS X about a week ago now. I'm pretty happy with the result. I had heard the app was sluggish. It's clearly a bit slower than Eudora, but the time I "lose" waiting for mail to process is more than made up for by the time I'm saving not having to deal with spam. The spam filter in this program is really quite awesome. I am at a point after just a week -- and having just added a second main email account a couple of days ago -- where I see one or two spams a day. Contrast that with a couple dozen prior to the switch. Very cool. This morning, Mail did something else cool for me. My primary SMTP server was down or unreachable for some reason. I tried to send an email. After trying for a bit, I got a dialog that said, "That mail server isn't responding. Want to try one of your others?" It gave me a choice of using my .mac SMTP server. I said, "sure." Mail zipped right out. Cool. Eudora doesn't have that feature.

Fri, 08 Nov 2002 01:40:36 GMT

So is OS X Slow for You? Slashdot has a piece on the flurries of complaints about OS X slowness that crop up from time to time. My experience is that this is almost exclusively app-dependent, although some screen and system settings appear to be able to have inordinate impact on screen refresh which can make the system seem much slower than it actually is. What do you think?

Tue, 05 Nov 2002 00:29:58 GMT

Apple Gets High Support Marks from PC World Readers. PC World magazine reports that overall customer satisfaction with computers is not getting any better. But the best marks for support go to Apple. (Thanks to MacCentral for the pointer.)

Sun, 03 Nov 2002 20:41:36 GMT

OpenForBusiness Magazine Says You Can Get By With Linux Just Fine. I don't have recent experience with Linux as a desktop environment, but I have several friends who do. I've asked if I should consider moving to it. Their unanimous answer has been negative. Principally because I need features in my office-equivalent application (forced on me by a book publisher) that none of the Open Source products have. Namely, revision-tracking with comments and style sheet compatibility. Frankly, in all of my other Office-type needs, OpenOffice on Windows 2000 would do nicely (and presumably its Linux equivalent would do as well or better). But as far as I can tell, there is no good Office replacement on OS X yet. Which sort of agrees with this guy's point: I'd probably be better off with Linux than with OS X since neither meets that Office need. Hmmmmmmm "quote" The Point Not Taken: "No matter how often it has been said, it seems that many GNU/Linux and Macintosh users refuse to see the obvious. (Open For Business via MyAppleMenu)" Source: myapplemenu "unquote"

Thu, 31 Oct 2002 20:47:22 GMT

Don't get TOO excited "quote" Fortune : Jaguar 'most impressive new software' this year [MacCentral] "unquote" The reason Forbes thinks Jaguar is impressive is because it allows Macs to become equal citizens on largely Windows networks. So it's nice to have Forbes' endorsement, but it's clear they still bleed IBM blue and Microsoft puke...er, puce.

Fri, 25 Oct 2002 18:47:32 GMT

Does Jaguar Fix the Screen Saver Memory Eater?

I took screensavers out of play in OS X 10.1 when several message boards indicated that might be the source of the only crashes I was seeing. Now Ken Bereskin at least implies maybe it's OK to turn that beautiful feature back on. I'm going to give it a try.

The built-in screen saver in Jaguar (now called Screen Effects) includes a new default effect called Flurry. Flurry was one of the most popular screen saver downloads for 10.1 so we were thrilled to be able to include it and make it the default in 10.2.

[Ken Bereskin's Radio Weblog]

Wed, 23 Oct 2002 08:31:23 GMT

Gimme Back My Apple Decal!

I always liked Apple decals. I put them lots of strange places. This Wired News piece reminded me of those days. The last few Macs I bought didn't have decals in them, I don't think. Or maybe they did but they weren't very interesting.

Tue, 22 Oct 2002 20:29:24 GMT

Latest Fixes from MS Make Word Usable on OS X

I've complained here vociferously about the way Jaguar broke Word. I blame Apple for this, by the way, even though my usual approach would be to bash MS (they're so much fun to bash, aren't they?). Well, MS has come up with an updater that seems to fix every single complaint I had about Word prior to this release and after my installation of Jaguar. Kudos to Microsoft for fixing their product with such alacrity. I'm happier with Jaguar now, too. Apple should doff its cap to the Redmondites.

Mon, 21 Oct 2002 20:51:40 GMT

Apple Holds the Upper Hand Vis a Vis Expo

"quote" Cooler heads prevail in Expo battle [MacCentral] "endquote" Let me say this clearly. Apple holds the upper hand here. I loved MacWorld Expo in Boston and hated it in NYC. I applaud IDG's decision to relocate the show to Boston. But if Apple says no, then the conference hosts had better re-think their position. A MacWorld Expo without Apple and Jobs would draw fewer people than the Montreal Expos playing the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Or the average home crowd at the Oakland Coliseum to watch the A's, whichever is smaller.

Sat, 19 Oct 2002 22:15:22 GMT

More Wrangling Over MacWorld Expo and Apple?

I commented a couple of days ago on the brouhaha between Apple Computer and the folks who run MacWorld Expo over the latter's decision to take the show out of NYC and back to Boston ("apple macworld"). Now it appears that the MacWorld folks are going to try to coerce Apple into supporting their conference. Sheesh. If this isn't a mutually beneficial arrangement that works to the ultimate value of Apple's customers, who gives a shit?

word jaguar fixes

Fri, 18 Oct 2002 01:38:49 GMT

Office:X Update Fixes Word Problems

Well, it looks like the new updater for Office:X that Microsoft released today fixes all of the bugs that have plagued me since I "upgraded" my machine to Jaguar and Word:X started behaving like crap. Fonts work right. Selection in multi-line-spaced copy works. Save and open don't crash. Printing works fine. I still have my objections to this product but at least now it seems for the moment to have stabilized and become usable once again.

Fri, 18 Oct 2002 01:33:57 GMT

Mozilla 1.2 Beta Improves

I just downloaded the Mozilla 1.2b release for my OS X box this afternoon and I've been running it for a bit now. It improves some stuff and adds a feature I had on my wish list. Type-ahead, which was sluggish at best and ugly at worst, works fine in this release. That's most encouraging. One of the things I love most about Mozilla is tabbed browsing: opening new pages in tabs in the same window rather than separate windows. This is brilliant! You can save these groups as single bookmarks. And now, in this release, you can make one of these groups your home page. So now all the sites I want to be sure to visit at least daily show up as soon as I open my browser. Hot!

apple macworld

Fri, 18 Oct 2002 00:45:20 GMT

Macworld move doesn't please Apple. "quote" Apple Pulls Out of Macworld. Macworld is returning to Boston, but Apple isn't. The giant technology show will return home, but Apple is staying away. By Leander Kahney. [Wired News] (comments) [Mac Net Journal] "endquote" I have sort of mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I have always found the MacWorld Expo folks to be a bit arrogant and high-handed, to say nothing of arbitrary. I know that someone else has taken over the show now. But the taste lingers. OTOH, for Apple to try to dictate how the conference company does business by withholding its support from the major conference that exists solely to promote its brand? That's just stupid. Short-sighted. Typical Apple strategy: ready, fire, aim.

OpenOffice Mac

Tue, 15 Oct 2002 19:01:55 GMT

OpenOffice Beta for Mac Ready Finally

I've been running OpenOffice on my Win2k box for some time. I've been waiting and waiting for the day when it was available for my Mac. Now it is. I'll be downloading and installing the beta today. I aim to be Microsoft-Free in 2003! "quote" Free OpenOffice for Mac users. The first beta of Sun Microsystem's open-source competitor to Microsoft Office that caters to Mac users is finally here. [CNET News.com] "endquote"

eudora

Mon, 14 Oct 2002 18:59:39 GMT

I Love Eudora and I Don't Hate the UI the Way Most People Do

I found these comments intriguing. I use Eudora for my email on my main machine (G4 w/OSX) and find the ads not only unobtrusive but -- gasp! -- occasionally even interesting enough to get me to click on them. Unlike this guy and most others I've read (including my son-in-law, Jeff Soule, whose views on such things I generally value), I don't find the Eudora UI so bad. Maybe famililarity breads contentment. "quote" Why pay for Eudora?. I am enjoying my return to using Eudora under Jaguar, but I am wondering something. The advertising supported free version of Eudora is so unobtrusive that I wonder if the folks who created the program are shooting themselves in the foot by moving to this method to support its full-featured email application? I know I will never click on an ad in Eudora...

If I keep using Eudora I will pay though. We as Mac users more than the users of any other platform need to be sure we pay for shareware. All small software developers deserve our support, but on the Mac this is an even greater need since we all love having high-quality choices for all of our applications rather than buying the straight Microsoft party line like many of our Windows-using friends... [Mac Net Journal] "endquote"

linux switchers

Mon, 14 Oct 2002 18:56:15 GMT

From 'Crapintosh' to 'Omigosh': OS X Moves Even Some Enemies to Adoption

Tim O'Reilly is quoted at the beginning of this encouraing piece. "quote" Paul Andrews on the Mac-Linux connection. Seattle Times columnist Paul Andrews writes about the large numbers of Unix and Linux users who are switching to OS X in Apple-Linux merger powers 'Mac' switch. [Mac Net Journal] "endquote" My son-in-law, Jeff Soule, who's a real Linux-head, is also quite enamored of OS X.

Mon, 14 Oct 2002 18:47:50 GMT

Yippee! Pure Python Cocoa Apps Now Possible

This is great news for those like me who worship at the altar of simplification. The (simple to use) Macintosh and the (simple to program) Python can now marry one another in the presence of the flavorful (but not always so simple) world of Cocoa! I'm going to start learning this stuff right now. I've become a Python addict and although I'm more enamored of working in "PythonCard" than in pure Python, this development promises the potential to do some interesting GUI stuff while waiting for the wxPython Macintosh port to become finally usable. Fun, fun, fun! "quote" Some Cocoa-Python Love [MacSlash: A daily dose of Macintosh News and Discussion] "endquote"

Mon, 14 Oct 2002 18:41:52 GMT

iMac is PC Mag's Editors' Choice!

I try to comment on the news items I post. This one seems not to require any observation other than...of course! "quote" Tremor in the Force: iMac is PC Mag's Editors' Choice [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] "endquote"

Fri, 11 Oct 2002 23:47:38 GMT

Now THIS Sounds Way Cool

"quote" Brainstorm together on your Macs using iStorm [MacCentral] "unquote"

apple analysts

Thu, 10 Oct 2002 22:09:36 GMT

Experts Don't Know Any More Than We Do

"quote" Experts offers differing opinions on Apple's future [MacCentral] "endquote" Read the comments from readers. They're more insightful than those of the so-called experts. Here's how analysts look at Apple in my experience. Analyst: "Apple Computer cannot continue to be a viable stand-alone business spending the high percentage of revenues it lavishes on R&D." Headline: Apple Reduces R&D Expenditures, Focuses on Near-Term Sales Analyst: "Without the ongoing R&D budget support that allows it to be leading-edge and different, Apple is a 'me-too' company. Given that it's outside the mainstream of Windows, it can't survive without spending much more on R&D." Substitute for R&D spending whatever your favorite Apple target is: pricing, manufacturing, industrial design, market choice.... It's always the same story. Analysts don't know squat. They're making SWAGs that aren't very S most of the time. (Scientific Wild Ass Guess). My advice? Ignore them, just as Apple has learned to do.

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 05:32:53 GMT

The Problems With Word on OS X Are Worse Than I Imagined

Word has become, for me at least, almost unusable since my upgrade to Jaguar. Here's what Microsoft's MVP support team has to say on the subject: "quote" Unfortunately, Word is not going to work properly under Jaguar unless Microsoft releases a patch for Microsoft Office. The problems have now been analyzed, and the experts have found that Word v.X is not fully compatible with Jaguar, and there is nothing you can do to make it so. "endquote" What incredible garbage. Now what am I supposed to do? I have a publisher waiting for a book. They use Word. Their feedback to me is in Word comments, which are frigging broken in Word on Jaguar. Arrogance screws the little guy once again.

engst os x review

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 04:18:30 GMT

TidBITS rates OS X

Adam C. Engst rates OS X, reporting what he told the recent O'Reilly OS X conference. For the most part I agree with him. In fact, I was gratified to see a couple of my pet peeves -- which I was beginning to think I was the only guy on the planet who had noticed or at least who cared -- singled out by Mr. Engst as well. I love his observation about type-ahead:

Apple appears to be moving in the right direction, since Jaguar includes many fixes, such as type-to-select in the Finder (though Open and Save dialogs remain a festering boil of awkward and inconsistent interface).

He gives OS X a B- for its UI. I'd be less generous and give it a C. On programmability, he makes me smile broadly with this observation:

The two flies in the ointment are that Apple still thinks HyperCard smells funny, and the company seems to have developed an odd aversion for AppleScript, with AppleScript support in too few of Apple's own applications.

Amen! HyperCard remains one of the best thought-out development tools in the history of computing. I'm glad there's Runtime Revolution, which in many ways improves on HyperCard. Still, for Apple to treat its premier scripting environments so shabbily says something unpleasant, unsavory and unenlightened about the company's direction.

The zero-pound computer and Apple's .Mac Services

Tue, 08 Oct 2002 18:55:16 GMT

The Perils of .Mac

Keeping your stuff on the Internet is a long-held interest of mine. I have been writing and talking for years about what I call the "Zero-Pound Computer." I really yearn for the day when I can walk into any Internet cafe, Kinko's or well-equipped public library in the world, log on to a site and get my "stuff". Apple's .Mac is a step in that direction, but as I've written elsewhere, it's not as ready for prime time as I'd like to see it. Two recent multi-hour outages in two weeks have shaken what little confidence I had in storing meaningful information on the .Mac servers. What's a fella to do? Apple's .Mac service goes down again. As the company phases out its free iTools service and tries to bump customers to the new paid offering, .Mac is not cooperating. It's gone down twice now in as many weeks. [CNET News.com]

Register is "Spot On" in Assessment of OS X Browsing Experience

Tue, 08 Oct 2002 03:24:19 GMT

Register is "Spot On" in Assessment of OS X Browsing Experience

The IT Register of the UK reviewed Jaguar and gave it mixed ratings as I would. One comment I found was right on the money. It was the last paragraph in the story but for me easily the most telling:

The third, and I'd suggest biggest drawback of using a Macintosh right now - and this is worse, not better in Jagwyre - is that the web browsing experience is awful. The lovely OmniWeb browser is undergoing a major overhaul, Chimera is promising but immature, and while the Mac version of Internet Explorer is preferable in several ways to the Windows version, in its OS X incarnation it's a serious disaster. To sell Macintosh computers to that huge middle ground between novices and geeks, Apple needs to offer a great browser.

Register is "Spot On" in Assessment of OS X Browsing Experience

Mon, 07 Oct 2002 21:40:15 GMT

Register is "Spot On" in Assessment of OS X Browsing Experience

The IT Register of the UK reviewed Jaguar and gave it mixed ratings as I would. One comment I found was right on the money. It was the last paragraph in the story but for me easily the most telling:

The third, and I'd suggest biggest drawback of using a Macintosh right now - and this is worse, not better in Jagwyre - is that the web browsing experience is awful. The lovely OmniWeb browser is undergoing a major overhaul, Chimera is promising but immature, and while the Mac version of Internet Explorer is preferable in several ways to the Windows version, in its OS X incarnation it's a serious disaster. To sell Macintosh computers to that huge middle ground between novices and geeks, Apple needs to offer a great browser.