My Mac
There's
a lot that I like about my Mac. It "just works", it stays
up, it sleeps and wakes up when I tell it to do so. It does
not crash, and it has no worms. :) All in all, it's what
every computer should be in the first place.
Having said that, there's also a lot that could be better.
I still have some shortcomings to my daily computing
experience, albeit the list is growing shorter each year...
This list covers both third-party applications as well as
Mac OS X internal utilities.
All Time Best OS X Apps
Let's start with that what is Good in OS X:
OS X / Mail
I was sceptical at first; how could a built-in mail client be better than something like Eudora I had used in the Win32 world (who remembers Eudora any more?).. Well, it is.
Seems that Apple doesn't waste time doing semi-made products, as others often do. They either do it the Right Way, or simply don't do at all. Mail is superb for personal email handling; I also use it for my professional mail. It beats me why people would need anything else.
While some UI and feature additions have been causing controversy, I still quite like Mail 2 and it's "collapsing message threads" implementation (really gives You the control of what you're receiving). Also, the garbage collecting :) is probably one of the best there is. I couldn't live without it.
OS X / Safari
Same applies for the KHTML-based browser: it really has been a way-paver in its simplicity, tabbed browsing and It Just Works attitude. Also speed is phenomenal - well done!
And it's getting better, not slower, each release. Like only Apple does it.
OS X / Preview
Someone put it this way: "it (Preview) almost makes one like the PDF format" ;) Well, it does. Preview opens files N times faster than Adobe Reader, and searches them even faster.. Shame on you, Adobe, where have you been wasting all those cpu cycles!!
Some two years after Preview got the PDF ability, it's still way faster than Abobe's is. Hey, Windows guys, you'll need Preview for Windows! :P
Add-ons / ImageWell 2
Wow... tiny, great! pure silver.
I took the above icons with ImageWell, and use it daily to send clips of this and that around. It's just there, and it works.
Note: Also OS X has a built-in, Grab application. It's good at some things (s.a. timed snapshots) but for the most, it's usability is clumsier and toolset poorer than that of ImageWell's.
Add-ons / SubEthaEdit
It used to have a shorter name (H***a) but no-one's allowed to utter it any more due to some legalistic reasons.. So they -I think- made a joke of it, and took a name no-one would complain about. There is also a longer story.
The product itself, a co-operative text editor is ground breaking, but I use it only as a normal text and programmer's editor. It's great even for that!
N.B. Of course, also this text was typed in SEE.
Add-ons / RapidWeaver (added 29-Dec-05)
It was a long time coming, but it's finally there. An application that makes Website building a non-technical issue, and almost fun!
If this tool had been there, Lumikki perhaps hadn't been formed. Then again, they're quite different ways to solve the same issues; I'm still developing the former, but this site definately is done with RapidWeaver! The visual touch it has, and the overall sense of control is just ... more effective. No worries, kind-of software.
N.B. On Windows side, there's CityDesk, which I'd tested earlier. It's very related, although... well, the metaphore's are the same. They rejected making an OS X version of it, once I suggested that.
OS X Tips & Tricks
Charmap on OS X
There is a Unicode charmap you can enable via System Preferences / International / Input / Character palette and that does the work that charmap.exe did on Win32. Sort of behind the corner, but..Apple: I'd recommend you make this one a standalone app, in the Applications/Utilities folder. That's where people would first look for such, me thinks. Also, then I wouldn't need to have that fancy Finnish flag icon on the toolbar (I don't use several input layouts, so it's there simply for getting into the Character Palette).
Then again, there's also Fontbook but it doesn't let you copy/paste individual characters (why not?).
29-Dec-05: okay, it does. Look under "Editing/ Special characters.." menu, it opens the same Character palette as the flag icon does. That was.. well hidden. :!
OS X shortcomings
Now my personal 'list of annoyances' on OS X (based on Panther 10.3.5, revised at Tiger 10.4.3):- Open in.. If the file type is unknown, OS X asks which program to use for it. Here, really, there should be a quickie for TextEdit, the plain text reader (and possibly Preview as well, once we're at it). Or, Finder context menu could have 'Open as plain text'. (remains in Tiger)
- Finder shortcuts pane does not provide 'change label' for coloring those items. Since they're just directory aliases, it should.. (just as normal Finder panes do) and the coloring should probably be in sync with the folder items the shortcuts represent. (small inconsistency, remains in Tiger)
- Not sure if this is a 'shortcoming' but.. There's a neat "public drop box" feature in OS X for 'sending' files to other users on the same computer (or the network). However, if the user's home directory is crypted this does not seem to work. (not retested, most likely remains?)
- The solution.. Make a directory under "Users/Shared" with the crypted user as the owner, others with write-only privileges. This actually makes the folder look like a dropbox, too. :) Nice, Apple. Then make a link (alias) to this folder from the crypted user's desktop (or where-ever). Note, however, that the contents of the dropbox are not in the crypted area. (hmm.. I think there were still gotchas with this?)
- Finder as a (w)hole. Way behind anything else the OS offers (and me, yes, still using it...) Give me two-pane view for a starters (ala DOS-time Norton Utilities). They say "use Spotlight, forger the directories". Well, let the next generation do that; I use Spotlight when I've lost something. Using directories makes me lose stuff less often. :)
- ...
OS X apps that I miss..
Last but not least, I still haven't found a decent tool for the following stuff:- Scriptable editor (Win32: UltraEdit 32) SubEthaEdit rocks, but it does not have the "learn macro" feature that UltraEdit has.
- Simple drawing program (Win32: PaintShop Pro) GraphicConverter won't count, since it's not as intuitive as PSP, imho. SeaShore might make it, but not a feature match to PSP, for a long time.
- Virtual CD-ROM (game-proof, Win32: Paragon)
- I'm ending up playing my CD-ROMs on emulated Windows, _even_ when they have OS X support claimed (often, that support is rather buggy!) There is a Windows utility to create .ISO out of a CD-ROM, these can remain on the Mac host, and be inserted to VirtualPC at will. Clumsy, but... works. :! Aug 16th 2006
- Visual file comparer (good, Win32: BeyondCompare 2.x) Apple FileMerge won't do - it's usability sucks! :)
- Performance tool (Win32: PassMark Performance Test)
- World clock, graphical (Win32: Fulvio Castelli's WorldClock) Somebody must be making a Widget out of this, I just haven't found that yet..
- Visual disk space viewer (Win32: David Taylor's ShowMan) Jeff suggested http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/index.html which is a Java app. Apart from taking 60 mins to scan my hard disk (40GB) it looks allright.
- Good print previewer (Win32: FinePrint) OS X built-in Preview shows PDF onscreen, but does not allow interactive selection of pages, changing 1/2/4 pages per sheet etc. values dynamically. FinePrint does, Apple put your copycat department on it! :D
Linux-on-Mac (virtual PowerPC, coming soon from MOL project) It never came.. some other projects on this hunt are QEmu, and PearPC.- Open Office for Mac (native Aqua) - They're making it, but due out Q1/2006..!?! Gosh, Q1/2006 is right around the corner. I wonder if they're actually getting some out?
- While waiting for the 'real thing', have a look at NeoOffice. It's made in Java, but once it just launches (1.2 alpha is waaay faster, btw).. :) it's pretty usable. Ability to write the new OO 2.0 formats is its biggest shortcoming at the moment.
- This is done now, NeoOffice 2.0 is currently at beta, and worth taking! Works seamlessly on both PowerPC and Intel. Aug 16th 2006 "Starting on 29 August 2006, you will be able to download NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua Beta 2 for free."