I've talked about lots of basic applications you may need on a mac, and I would also talk about something else. For example, the old powerbook do not have double finger scroll feature, and iScroll2 is needed; fortunately they build in this feature for the intel notebooks.
If you would like to monitor your CPU/memory usage on the fly, try this free iStat Menus , or the dashboard widget iStat Pro freeware. Of cause, you can always return to the build in utility Activity Moniter .
If you gots lots of little things to cut/paste, for example, lots of images/equations when you making a slides (not from LaTeX, but KeyNote, PowerPoint etc), you should try iClip shareware, the premier Mac multiple clipboard and scrapbook. Or if you need draw a flow chat in your slides, check OmniGraffle shareware out. My only complain with it is too expensive.
If you are not quite oragnized, and have lots of random stuff (webpage, tracking numbers, friends' bussiness cards, etc), and you want to remember and find them when needed, don't miss the EverNote freeware. You may drag the files/pictures into the application, and sync them on the internet, and access them on any computer or even cellphones. Or if you want to get organized with your collection of CD, DVD, books, games etc with a fancy interface, Delicious Library shareware is the application you deserve. You may use the build in camara to scan the bar code to put your collection into the library, and create a website to share with your friends in one second. Once again, to organize your papers, use Papers shareware, and I've also used DEVOthink shareware for similar task before Papers came out.
There is also some other interesting apps, for example Pzizz shareware for generating calm music helping you take a nap or sleep, and I've used it in the days preparing for the defence. Aparantely, I don't need it these days :)
There is way too much applications to write, but I'll just stop here. Here is a short list of must have applications (all free except Papers, and I omit all build in apps):
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
My Mac Software List 6 - documents, pictures and videos
PDF is a system wide service on mac. The benefit of this is that you can print almost every file (image, webpage etc) into pdf files, just use "Command + P" select PDF -> save as PDF, done. To view PDF files, Adobe Reader freeware is definitely a good choice, but sometimes slow to open (at least on my ancient powerbook). Apple's build in Preview is pretty decent for PDF files. You can even click the small pages in the drawer, deleting it (holding Command + delete key), or drag the relavent pages to another pdf file! One downside of Preview is that it does not have full screen feature for PDF files. Also, please do not forget the Leopard system wide QuickLook service , press the space key and you get a preview of the pdf (similar for pictures, slides, movies...) file instantly! If you need to write on the pdf files, you might need to get the expensive Adobe Acrobat Professional commercial, or the cheaper application PDFpen shareware.
The build in Photo Booth is very fun to play with, and you may display those effects in iChat if have MobileMe account. I would also strongly recommend you organizing your photos with iPhoto free in iLife with every new mac. There is no Google Picasa application for mac (at least for now), but you can upload your photos to Picasa Web from iPhoto using Picasa Web Albums free. For (semi) professional photographers, do not miss Apple's Aperture or Adobe's Light Room. Both of them have very good press, but I haven't tried them.
Talking about pictures, you cannot miss the build in Image Capture for screen capture. Or even simpler, press "Command + Shift + 3 or 4" for full screen capture or drag capture (link for detailed tips). There is also a dashboard widget, Screenshot Plus freeware, if you hate to memorize the keyboard shortcuts.
If you want to draw some simple curves (like sine wave, ellipse) and do not want to open R or Matlab, try the hidden gem in OS X, Grapher build in. Check out its own examples, and this guide on macrumors. If you want a graphical editor, but cannot afford Adobe photoshop, consider the cheaper Pixelmator shareware, or just settle with Seashore freeware. I've also tried Lineform and Vector Designer, but I am not a heavy graphical developer, so I don't have much comments on those applications.
To read comic books (or lots of sequential pictures), try this light weight application, Xee freeware. To present your photos and movies with style, try award winning Photo Presenter shareware. If you are still not satisfied, and want to make something like Scotland did in the end of his thesis defense, try FotoMagico shareware. I cannot justify its high price, but it seems Scottland is quite happy with it.
You might remember using the linux tools for batch resizing/rotating pictures, you could use Resize! freeware on a mac, and I think it is easier than setting up the an Automator routine for these simple tasks. Unless you got extra bucks to spare, you won't need to use this fancy Resize Me shareware.
Needless to say, play your music in iTunes freeware. For Chinese songs, you may need to use ID3Mod2 shareware to correct the wrong text encoding. But even better, now you can just get nLyrics freeware to do the task, and even obtain lyrics when you play the song, for free (notice, the Tiger version is not up to date). To play .ogg files, I used to use Cog freeware, but it seems that Vorbis solution is more popular these days.
Similarly, you will get used to QuickTime freeware for your video files. There is not much reason to upgrade it to the Pro version, except the easy making movie files with many sequential pictures, which I liked a lot. No more Windows Media Player on mac, but you can play .wma files through QuickTime with free plugin Flip4Mac WMV . There is also non-free version of the plugin, which offer features like convert .wma files to .mov files without the ugly watermark. For stream files (.rm files), you should definitely use RealPlayer , again go with the free version, the little blue button on the top. I hate the company, which always tries to sale you the commertial version, and hide the free version download button at a place you'll never notice. In addition, if you do found certain .rm files cannot be played, try downgrading the current version 11 to Realplayer 10 freeware. It seems they are bad at backward compatibility. For other codec, you might want to install the system preference plugin Perian freeware for iTunes, or try VLC player freeware. Mplayer freeware is also recommended when you need to view external captions for the movie files, or sometimes, you got to try DivX Player freeware (not the Pro version). To much for you? Yes! So here goes my summary: install Flip4Mac and Perian, and forget about them; then open all you video files with Quicktime and Realplayer; if you fail, try VLC; fail again? Go to your windows box, and remind the good old days you can have just one media player solve all the problem. Hopefully, you won't miss your windows computers 99% of the time.
For watching TV or on-line streamed videos, there is no Windows ppLive conterpart on mac, but there is the Joost freeware with limited programs. However, there is no problem about watching Olympics on NBC website, or YouTube, with SilverLight, or Flash plugin. So life is bearable.
To make a screencast, (notice those vocabulary: podcast, screencast...) you can try iShowU shareware or SnapzProX shareware. Both of them are not free, but if you really need them, the price is not that steep. However, if you just want to teach your grandma setting up the mac in another city, why not just use sceen share and configure the machine remotely.
The build in Photo Booth is very fun to play with, and you may display those effects in iChat if have MobileMe account. I would also strongly recommend you organizing your photos with iPhoto free in iLife with every new mac. There is no Google Picasa application for mac (at least for now), but you can upload your photos to Picasa Web from iPhoto using Picasa Web Albums free. For (semi) professional photographers, do not miss Apple's Aperture or Adobe's Light Room. Both of them have very good press, but I haven't tried them.
Talking about pictures, you cannot miss the build in Image Capture for screen capture. Or even simpler, press "Command + Shift + 3 or 4" for full screen capture or drag capture (link for detailed tips). There is also a dashboard widget, Screenshot Plus freeware, if you hate to memorize the keyboard shortcuts.
If you want to draw some simple curves (like sine wave, ellipse) and do not want to open R or Matlab, try the hidden gem in OS X, Grapher build in. Check out its own examples, and this guide on macrumors. If you want a graphical editor, but cannot afford Adobe photoshop, consider the cheaper Pixelmator shareware, or just settle with Seashore freeware. I've also tried Lineform and Vector Designer, but I am not a heavy graphical developer, so I don't have much comments on those applications.
To read comic books (or lots of sequential pictures), try this light weight application, Xee freeware. To present your photos and movies with style, try award winning Photo Presenter shareware. If you are still not satisfied, and want to make something like Scotland did in the end of his thesis defense, try FotoMagico shareware. I cannot justify its high price, but it seems Scottland is quite happy with it.
You might remember using the linux tools for batch resizing/rotating pictures, you could use Resize! freeware on a mac, and I think it is easier than setting up the an Automator routine for these simple tasks. Unless you got extra bucks to spare, you won't need to use this fancy Resize Me shareware.
Needless to say, play your music in iTunes freeware. For Chinese songs, you may need to use ID3Mod2 shareware to correct the wrong text encoding. But even better, now you can just get nLyrics freeware to do the task, and even obtain lyrics when you play the song, for free (notice, the Tiger version is not up to date). To play .ogg files, I used to use Cog freeware, but it seems that Vorbis solution is more popular these days.
Similarly, you will get used to QuickTime freeware for your video files. There is not much reason to upgrade it to the Pro version, except the easy making movie files with many sequential pictures, which I liked a lot. No more Windows Media Player on mac, but you can play .wma files through QuickTime with free plugin Flip4Mac WMV . There is also non-free version of the plugin, which offer features like convert .wma files to .mov files without the ugly watermark. For stream files (.rm files), you should definitely use RealPlayer , again go with the free version, the little blue button on the top. I hate the company, which always tries to sale you the commertial version, and hide the free version download button at a place you'll never notice. In addition, if you do found certain .rm files cannot be played, try downgrading the current version 11 to Realplayer 10 freeware. It seems they are bad at backward compatibility. For other codec, you might want to install the system preference plugin Perian freeware for iTunes, or try VLC player freeware. Mplayer freeware is also recommended when you need to view external captions for the movie files, or sometimes, you got to try DivX Player freeware (not the Pro version). To much for you? Yes! So here goes my summary: install Flip4Mac and Perian, and forget about them; then open all you video files with Quicktime and Realplayer; if you fail, try VLC; fail again? Go to your windows box, and remind the good old days you can have just one media player solve all the problem. Hopefully, you won't miss your windows computers 99% of the time.
For watching TV or on-line streamed videos, there is no Windows ppLive conterpart on mac, but there is the Joost freeware with limited programs. However, there is no problem about watching Olympics on NBC website, or YouTube, with SilverLight, or Flash plugin. So life is bearable.
To make a screencast, (notice those vocabulary: podcast, screencast...) you can try iShowU shareware or SnapzProX shareware. Both of them are not free, but if you really need them, the price is not that steep. However, if you just want to teach your grandma setting up the mac in another city, why not just use sceen share and configure the machine remotely.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
My Mac Software List 5 - writing papers and programs
The build in TextEdit is particularly good, fast and powerful for simple tasks, and I am fond of using the plain text mode (Shift + Command + T) for fast access. However, we use LaTeX for scientific writing, aren't we? The LaTeX editor on mac is called TexShop freeware, but that is just the editor. You should also install TexLive system, for example MacTex freeware. The installation is staightforward, and if you need extra packages, use i-Installer freeware.
After installing the Tex system, if you just want to generate a quick snippet of a very short tex image, for example, equation/table for your presentation, you should use LaTeXiT freeware. Great things on a mac: drag and drop works almost everywhere! For orgnizing references, you can defintely use your favarite text editor to work with plain .bib file, or try BibDesk freeware for a graphical approach. I only give BibDesk 3 stars, not because it is bad, but you don't really need to use it - you have Papers shareware to organize your papers, and simply clicking all relavent papers, and exporting it to a .bib file save you a lot of time. I rarely give a non-free software 5 stars, but it is really worthy evey penny you spend, abeilt expensive (there is student discount, not faculty discount though). At least you should give it a try. Talking about the refernce tools, if you are still using "old style" microsoft word writing your paper (or communicate with your collaborators with word documents), you should try Bookends shareware, saving your time but not cheap neither. As a note, Papers can export files to many different reference styles, including EndNote XML, BibTeX library, PDF etc.
Microsoft Office Suite commercial is also available on mac. Word is comparable to Pages in Apple's iWork Suite commercial, and Pages is easier to use for creating fancy posters. Excel is way more powerful than Numbers in iWork, but Numbers is still an interesting approach. However, PowerPoint is way behind iWork's KeyNote in iWork. A very useful plugin for Keynote is LinkBack: you can use LaTeXiT to generate equations and drag it to your Keynote slides, and later click on the image link back to LaTeXiT to modify the equation. The open source couterparts OpenOffice Aqua freeware and NeoOffice have a long way to catch up (but usable), while Google Docs Suite freeware lacks features but easy for collaborating and sharing. One line summarize: considering both features and prices, iWork wins.
For programming or general purpose, both vi/vim and emacs have a lot of editors, but I don't have much experience with them. For example, you can try Aquamacs Emacs, or Carbon Emacs. There is also an instruction for setting up Emacs Speaks for Statistics (ESS) with Enhanced Carbon Emacs plugin. Notice that you need to install X11 for displaying R graphics if it is not alreay on your system, you can find it on the Leopard installation disk. Besides the standard R you can download from CRAN or the developer page, you can also try Java GUI for R (JGR) for interactive plots (very good for teaching EDA type course), which is deveoped by a group at AT&T. Matlab users also get mac support, but I never tried to run it on my ancient powerbook G4. In addition, the optional Xcode on Leopard should be great for software developers, or writing codes, but there is a bit of learning curve, and I still need time to explore this application.
On the otherside, Textmate shareware is great for programmers, very powerful once you know how to use it. Great editor software to own if you are going to use it a lot. If you want a free alternative, try TextWrangler freeware, and if you are happy with it, you might want to try its commertial version BBEdit shareare. Eclipse is free for Java developers, and here is the instruction to install Java and the IDE. Because I don't use Java much, so I won't comment on it right now.
For a simple HTML editor to write your website, try Taco HTML Edit freeware. And if you want an advanced Cascade Style Sheets (CSS) editor, there is the CSSEdit shareware. Or if you don't want to build your website from scratch, you should try iWeb free with every new mac. iWeb is beautiful and easy to use, but not so much customization, so I don't quite like it. Alternatively, RapidWeaver shareware as another template based web creation application is much more powerful, but not free. As a Googler, I had to advertise Google Sites freeware, but admit it feature lacking. I created my STA 103 course website using RapidWeaver and Google Docs. Recently, there is also lots of publication on Coda, but I have never used it.
Last not the least, if you like to write journals on a computer, try WriteRoom shareware. It reminds me the days I kept my life journals on a black screen BBS.
After installing the Tex system, if you just want to generate a quick snippet of a very short tex image, for example, equation/table for your presentation, you should use LaTeXiT freeware. Great things on a mac: drag and drop works almost everywhere! For orgnizing references, you can defintely use your favarite text editor to work with plain .bib file, or try BibDesk freeware for a graphical approach. I only give BibDesk 3 stars, not because it is bad, but you don't really need to use it - you have Papers shareware to organize your papers, and simply clicking all relavent papers, and exporting it to a .bib file save you a lot of time. I rarely give a non-free software 5 stars, but it is really worthy evey penny you spend, abeilt expensive (there is student discount, not faculty discount though). At least you should give it a try. Talking about the refernce tools, if you are still using "old style" microsoft word writing your paper (or communicate with your collaborators with word documents), you should try Bookends shareware, saving your time but not cheap neither. As a note, Papers can export files to many different reference styles, including EndNote XML, BibTeX library, PDF etc.
Microsoft Office Suite commercial is also available on mac. Word is comparable to Pages in Apple's iWork Suite commercial, and Pages is easier to use for creating fancy posters. Excel is way more powerful than Numbers in iWork, but Numbers is still an interesting approach. However, PowerPoint is way behind iWork's KeyNote in iWork. A very useful plugin for Keynote is LinkBack: you can use LaTeXiT to generate equations and drag it to your Keynote slides, and later click on the image link back to LaTeXiT to modify the equation. The open source couterparts OpenOffice Aqua freeware and NeoOffice have a long way to catch up (but usable), while Google Docs Suite freeware lacks features but easy for collaborating and sharing. One line summarize: considering both features and prices, iWork wins.
For programming or general purpose, both vi/vim and emacs have a lot of editors, but I don't have much experience with them. For example, you can try Aquamacs Emacs, or Carbon Emacs. There is also an instruction for setting up Emacs Speaks for Statistics (ESS) with Enhanced Carbon Emacs plugin. Notice that you need to install X11 for displaying R graphics if it is not alreay on your system, you can find it on the Leopard installation disk. Besides the standard R you can download from CRAN or the developer page, you can also try Java GUI for R (JGR) for interactive plots (very good for teaching EDA type course), which is deveoped by a group at AT&T. Matlab users also get mac support, but I never tried to run it on my ancient powerbook G4. In addition, the optional Xcode on Leopard should be great for software developers, or writing codes, but there is a bit of learning curve, and I still need time to explore this application.
On the otherside, Textmate shareware is great for programmers, very powerful once you know how to use it. Great editor software to own if you are going to use it a lot. If you want a free alternative, try TextWrangler freeware, and if you are happy with it, you might want to try its commertial version BBEdit shareare. Eclipse is free for Java developers, and here is the instruction to install Java and the IDE. Because I don't use Java much, so I won't comment on it right now.
For a simple HTML editor to write your website, try Taco HTML Edit freeware. And if you want an advanced Cascade Style Sheets (CSS) editor, there is the CSSEdit shareware. Or if you don't want to build your website from scratch, you should try iWeb free with every new mac. iWeb is beautiful and easy to use, but not so much customization, so I don't quite like it. Alternatively, RapidWeaver shareware as another template based web creation application is much more powerful, but not free. As a Googler, I had to advertise Google Sites freeware, but admit it feature lacking. I created my STA 103 course website using RapidWeaver and Google Docs. Recently, there is also lots of publication on Coda, but I have never used it.
Last not the least, if you like to write journals on a computer, try WriteRoom shareware. It reminds me the days I kept my life journals on a black screen BBS.
My Mac Software List 4 - internet connection
Besides the web browser, there are many other important ways to connect with the internet. First of all is instant messenger (IM):
Adium, freeware
The best IM on mac: integrates all your IM clients (MSN, QQ, icq, gtalk, ichat, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL etc); lots of customization (skin, icon, message/panel display), and FREE. The only downside is no voice/video chat yet.
Skype, freeware
Good reception for voice/video chat, and call to phone numbers too.
iChat, build in iLife, but need MobileMe for advanced features
Very nice video chat interface, including presentation style (showing you slides along with your video chat), but need MobileMe subscription (not quite worth the money in my opinion).
MSN Messenger for mac, freeware
Workable, but lack lots of features compared with windows version. Suggst use Adium to replace it.
There is also the Yahoo! Messenger for Mac (freeware), but I never used it, no comments.
There is no standalone Google Talk application, you can either use firefox to chat, or use adium to for the features. Also, if you use Internet Relay Chat (IRC), don't miss Colloquy freeware, or Linkinus shareware.
For FTP connection, I strongly recommend Cyberduck freeware. It is so great that I don't even need to compare with other similar applications. Of cause, you can also use the Terminal build in for sftp connection with usual linux/unix commands. For bit-torrent downloads, try Transmission freeware, good enough for casual use.
For Virtual Network Computing (VNC), Chicken of the VNC freeware used to be great, but it seems to have a little bug on intel macs (under fullscreen mode), and lacks support/update for over two years. There seems no perfect solution, but Jollys Fast VNC freeware is worth trying.
For Virtual Private Network (VPN), for exmaple, download papers from Duke subscription using netID, you can use Cisco VPNClient commercial, or download it from Duke OIT website.
To access windows machines remotely, you can configure Remote Desk for windows XP professional, or Vista Primum, and access it uisng Remote Desk Connection Client for mac freeware. See my other post for details, you might also need to configure your firewall property.
For old fashioned people still use old terminal style Bulletin Board System (BBS), the best application on mac is iTerm shareware. It is actually a full featured terminal, which can run usual shell commands, but also can display BBS nicely.
Adium, freeware
The best IM on mac: integrates all your IM clients (MSN, QQ, icq, gtalk, ichat, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL etc); lots of customization (skin, icon, message/panel display), and FREE. The only downside is no voice/video chat yet.
Skype, freeware
Good reception for voice/video chat, and call to phone numbers too.
iChat, build in iLife, but need MobileMe for advanced features
Very nice video chat interface, including presentation style (showing you slides along with your video chat), but need MobileMe subscription (not quite worth the money in my opinion).
MSN Messenger for mac, freeware
Workable, but lack lots of features compared with windows version. Suggst use Adium to replace it.
There is also the Yahoo! Messenger for Mac (freeware), but I never used it, no comments.
There is no standalone Google Talk application, you can either use firefox to chat, or use adium to for the features. Also, if you use Internet Relay Chat (IRC), don't miss Colloquy freeware, or Linkinus shareware.
For FTP connection, I strongly recommend Cyberduck freeware. It is so great that I don't even need to compare with other similar applications. Of cause, you can also use the Terminal build in for sftp connection with usual linux/unix commands. For bit-torrent downloads, try Transmission freeware, good enough for casual use.
For Virtual Network Computing (VNC), Chicken of the VNC freeware used to be great, but it seems to have a little bug on intel macs (under fullscreen mode), and lacks support/update for over two years. There seems no perfect solution, but Jollys Fast VNC freeware is worth trying.
For Virtual Private Network (VPN), for exmaple, download papers from Duke subscription using netID, you can use Cisco VPNClient commercial, or download it from Duke OIT website.
To access windows machines remotely, you can configure Remote Desk for windows XP professional, or Vista Primum, and access it uisng Remote Desk Connection Client for mac freeware. See my other post for details, you might also need to configure your firewall property.
For old fashioned people still use old terminal style Bulletin Board System (BBS), the best application on mac is iTerm shareware. It is actually a full featured terminal, which can run usual shell commands, but also can display BBS nicely.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
My Mac Software List 3 - web browser
Now talk about the internet related applications. First of all, the most important application is the internet web browser. The build in Safari is pretty decent, until Firefox 3 came out. There are also a bunch of other web browsers, freeware and shareware, such as Camino, Opera, Omniweb, but I would like to say, it's more like a matter of taste, and they are almost on the same level. You will fall in love with anyone of them if you use it for more than two weeks. Summarize as follows:
If you do use Safari, check out the plugin Inquisitor freeware, which makes your search bar more powerful, and you can configure it through Safari preference panel (command + , ). There was a bit of scadal about the developer earlier this year, but David acknowledged this problem in time. I think Inquisitor joining Yahoo! is a great move, and I'm happy to see the developers getting revenu without cutting user experience.
The password manager in Firefox seems to be decent, but I am already a 1password shareware user. For my two years' experience with Agile, I feel quite happy with them, and now I've owned two licences. But I haven't quite compared it with the firefox manager, maybe that's also good enough. The only downside again is the steep price, but I got both licence from bundle sales, so I'm happy with it.
Another related software is Speed Download shareware, a download manager for web browsers. Again, good to have if cheap, and I probably won't purchase it at full reatail price. And Yazsoft is quite mean at the beginning of its bundle sale.
- Die hard mac fan stick with Safari 3 build in in leopard
- Die hard mozilla fan stick with Firefox 3 freeware
- Lovers of both mac and mozilla use Camino freeware
- Cool people use Opera freeware on their computers/cellphones/wiis
- "Rich" people use Omniweb shareware (used to be much superior than others, but now Firefox etc caught up)
If you do use Safari, check out the plugin Inquisitor freeware, which makes your search bar more powerful, and you can configure it through Safari preference panel (command + , ). There was a bit of scadal about the developer earlier this year, but David acknowledged this problem in time. I think Inquisitor joining Yahoo! is a great move, and I'm happy to see the developers getting revenu without cutting user experience.
The password manager in Firefox seems to be decent, but I am already a 1password shareware user. For my two years' experience with Agile, I feel quite happy with them, and now I've owned two licences. But I haven't quite compared it with the firefox manager, maybe that's also good enough. The only downside again is the steep price, but I got both licence from bundle sales, so I'm happy with it.
Another related software is Speed Download shareware, a download manager for web browsers. Again, good to have if cheap, and I probably won't purchase it at full reatail price. And Yazsoft is quite mean at the beginning of its bundle sale.
My Mac Software List 2 - software installation, system
Continue with my software list. Many mac newbees want to ask: how do I install/un-install a program? Where is the install/uninstall window in mac? The simple solution: drag your application to your Application folder when install it, and move it to the Trash when uninstall it. This solve 95% of the problem. Hard to believe? Yes! That is how most applications work on a mac, which is also called "green installation" on a windows PC. There are few exceptions:
AppZapper, shareware
Only downside is the price, but still resonable. However, you don't have to own it unless you are a control freak like me. As I said, I would like to tune every aspect of my computer, so I also own following sharewear. I got them from bundle sales, and they are pretty good (except for the price), and I would probablity not purchase them separately at full retail price.
MacPilot, shareware
System tuning/optimizing program. Don't think you need it with a new mac.
Xslimmer, shareware
Slim you universal binary program to ppc/intel only, and trim extra language packs. I need it because the hard drive on my old powerbook is so small... but not recommended for new macs, you have a big hard drive!
- Some application does involve a installer, like the .exe file you need to click on a windows machine. For example, our favorite statistics software, R. Just follow the instructions, select a Volumn (meaning, partition, most of the time, just your current hard drive) to install, and a stand alone application will appear in your application folder. Un-install just trash the file in Application folder.
- Some plugin needs you to execute. For example, adobe flash web brower plugin when you run for the first time. Just click it, and do not worry where it goes. Un-install gets trickier, but most of the time, you do not need to uninstall.
- Dashboard widgets. Install, click it, and choose keep it in the dashboard. Un-install, click the plus icon on the bottom left of your dashboard, and choose the widgets widget to un-install. You cannot un-install the build in widgets this way, and there are other ways to do it.
- System preference plugin, for example, the famous Growl notification. Click install most of the time, and it will appear in the bottem line of your system preference panel. Right click (option click or two fingure tap click) the icon on the sysstem preference panel to un-install.
- Other plugins. Typically, you need to manually move it to a specific folder. Un-install means trash it from that specific folder. This is every un-intuitive. Fortunately, you may not even encouter this problem if you are not an advanced user.
AppZapper, shareware
Only downside is the price, but still resonable. However, you don't have to own it unless you are a control freak like me. As I said, I would like to tune every aspect of my computer, so I also own following sharewear. I got them from bundle sales, and they are pretty good (except for the price), and I would probablity not purchase them separately at full retail price.
MacPilot, shareware
System tuning/optimizing program. Don't think you need it with a new mac.
Xslimmer, shareware
Slim you universal binary program to ppc/intel only, and trim extra language packs. I need it because the hard drive on my old powerbook is so small... but not recommended for new macs, you have a big hard drive!
My Mac Software List 1 - general, windows compatibility and chinese input
As I am getting more friends using mac, I would like to take a little time to organize my favorite programs and share them with you. Most of the software are free, but there are still a bunch of very good shareware (meaning, free trial but need to pay afterwards). If you want to discover more software, please visit:
If you want me to give you just ONE application I cannot live without, that is
QuickSilver, freeware
A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data. In other words, you can use the keyboard only to do anything (open application, open a particular folder etc) in very few key strokes. In my opinion, it should be build in the OS! It is so cool that I recommend every one use it (except for grannies that prefer moving the mouse clicking everywhere). Also, the developer is a Googler!
If you are transiting from a windows platform, and still miss some of your favorite windows programs, you can install them on the intel-based macs in four ways: (of cause, you need a separate windows installation disk and license)
Boot camp, build in in leopard
You get a full featured windows machine (play 3D games etc), and the only downside is that you have to reboot the machine, and there is almost no interaction with your mac system.
Parallels Desktop, shareware
The good thing is that you can run windows within your mac OS X, and runing windows programs as if they are mac programs. It is also not very stable at the beginning (when I tried), but should be OK now, and I guess it is the most used solution. The downside is that it is not free, but I still give thumbs up for the developers, and purchased a copy.
VMware Fusion, shareware
The biggest competitor for Paralles Desktop, and big company does greate virtualiztion stuff. I never tried, but it should be as good as Paralles Desktop. My naive suggestion is to check which ever is cheaper (both are quite expensive in my views).
CrossOver, shareware
If you do not want to give out your money to Microsoft for a windows license, but still want to run some of your windows applications, check crossover's software list. This might be the cheapest solution considering the rediculous price of Windows XP/Vista, but it only support a few windows software, and CrossOver is not free :(
Chinese Input, check chinese mac website at Yale. How I wish Google Pinyin release a mac version (only windows version for now)!
Pinyin, build in in leopard
Decent, but slow to type (bad dictionary). Only exciting feature is that you can split the words like: "yiwei" and press enter get: 袆 instead of flip a long list under "yi".
QIM, shareware
The best input method for now. Good dictionary (collaboration with sougou), and only downside is too expensive. If you have a Chinese credit/debit card, you may save a few bucks from the Chinese version of the payment website. I did purchase a copy of QIM, but still think it is over-priced.
FIT
Fun Input Toy, based on fcitx. Best part is that it has 五笔 and it is free! Bad part is that QIM has a better pinyin dictionary.
- iusethis：http://osx.iusethis.
com / - versiontrack：http://www.
versiontracker.com/macosx/ - macupdate：http://macupdate.com
/
If you want me to give you just ONE application I cannot live without, that is
QuickSilver, freeware
A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data. In other words, you can use the keyboard only to do anything (open application, open a particular folder etc) in very few key strokes. In my opinion, it should be build in the OS! It is so cool that I recommend every one use it (except for grannies that prefer moving the mouse clicking everywhere). Also, the developer is a Googler!
If you are transiting from a windows platform, and still miss some of your favorite windows programs, you can install them on the intel-based macs in four ways: (of cause, you need a separate windows installation disk and license)
Boot camp, build in in leopard
You get a full featured windows machine (play 3D games etc), and the only downside is that you have to reboot the machine, and there is almost no interaction with your mac system.
Parallels Desktop, shareware
The good thing is that you can run windows within your mac OS X, and runing windows programs as if they are mac programs. It is also not very stable at the beginning (when I tried), but should be OK now, and I guess it is the most used solution. The downside is that it is not free, but I still give thumbs up for the developers, and purchased a copy.
VMware Fusion, shareware
The biggest competitor for Paralles Desktop, and big company does greate virtualiztion stuff. I never tried, but it should be as good as Paralles Desktop. My naive suggestion is to check which ever is cheaper (both are quite expensive in my views).
CrossOver, shareware
If you do not want to give out your money to Microsoft for a windows license, but still want to run some of your windows applications, check crossover's software list. This might be the cheapest solution considering the rediculous price of Windows XP/Vista, but it only support a few windows software, and CrossOver is not free :(
Chinese Input, check chinese mac website at Yale. How I wish Google Pinyin release a mac version (only windows version for now)!
Pinyin, build in in leopard
Decent, but slow to type (bad dictionary). Only exciting feature is that you can split the words like: "yiwei" and press enter get: 袆 instead of flip a long list under "yi".
QIM, shareware
The best input method for now. Good dictionary (collaboration with sougou), and only downside is too expensive. If you have a Chinese credit/debit card, you may save a few bucks from the Chinese version of the payment website. I did purchase a copy of QIM, but still think it is over-priced.
FIT
Fun Input Toy, based on fcitx. Best part is that it has 五笔 and it is free! Bad part is that QIM has a better pinyin dictionary.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
windows xp自动登录
在进入Windows XP桌面之前，每次都会出现一个用脑登录界面，要求我们输入用户名与密码，可以加大了系统的安全性，也为多人共用一台电脑提供了方便，但如果是家用电脑， 只有你一个人使用，这样每次密码，的确不有点不大方便。我们可以通过修改注册表来实现XP的自动登录。
依 次展开[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon ]分支，然后在右侧窗口双击“DefaultUserName”，接着输入你的登录用户名。如果没有预设的用户名称，可以在注册表编辑器的菜单栏点选“编 辑→新建→字符串值(s)→DefaultUserName”来添加这个项目，注意要区分大小写字母。
第1步：运行注册表编辑器，
第2步：同样在该分支下，在注册表编辑器的右侧窗口中双击“DefaultPassword”，然后在空白栏内输入你的密码。假如未发现“DefaultPassword”一项，可按上面的步骤来新建该字符串值。
第3步：接下来在右侧窗口中双击“AutoAdminLogon”，将数值设置为“1”。假如未发现“AutoAdminLogon”，可按上面的步骤来新建。
现在关闭注册表编辑器并重新启动电脑，以后你会发现那个令人讨厌的登录对话框不见了。
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
vista，我无语了
我大概算是那种有更新癖的人，不论是操作系统或是软件有了更新都要第一时间安装上去，不管这个更新是不是有bug。最近弄了一台新电脑折腾一个vista看看，之前都只有个macbook上分了一个区装的vista home但是很少去研究，想想这个东西出来也有阵子了，sp1都正式发布好几个月了，应该是没啥大问题了可以试试看。
安装的是从MS一个活动中免费拿到的vista business premium，暂且放下confusing的各个版本不谈，装了之后才发现这个版本比之前买的home premium大了不少，导致之前预算失误，弄了个22G的C盘明显不够用。注意，我已经删除了还原点和备份那些fancy功能，居然安装好各种更新之后还剩几百M，连SP1都装不上，什么东西这么大啊，sigh！企图删除语言来释放一点空间，点进去发现可以删掉之前装的唯一一个中文语言，号称可以释放1G空间，可惜删除重启之后居然剩余空间比之前还少了，简直是不可理解！之后又研究了半天看看可不可以从D盘释放一些空间加到C盘，N次尝试都以失败告终。我的所有文件和程序都没有装在C盘居然都不够，绝望中只能重装，就整一个分区算了。
其实我觉得自己还算比较techy的，折腾这个vista都快要发疯了。首先是驱动没有，特别是网卡驱动，还得用另外一个电脑down下来装上，不然别的都免提了，幸亏google一下530的vista驱动还是比较好找。其次是vista update总是企图去自动给我装声卡和显卡的驱动，而装了之后又不work，弄得要强行终止，然后手动拿光盘驱动来安装。最可恶的是到了最后也没有把声卡弄出声音出来，就知道滋滋响，无奈之下只好卸了声卡用自带的集成声卡。原本以为是硬件冲突，事后装了xp之后work得好好的根本就是vista的问题。
折腾好驱动之后安装更新又是弄了n久，我就奇怪，vista fresh install只要20分钟甚至不到，update要弄好几个小时，重启n次（n>3），它就不会简单点弄个cumulate update给用户？customization也是问题，大概是因为我是新手，但是xp第一次学的时候也没有那么复杂啊。我不喜欢默认的那些文档音乐视频的文件夹地址，想redirect到另一个目录下，google了半天最后是一个个目录重新定位（一共8，9个目录！），记得xp下只要重新定位我的文档别的子目录都跟着好了，或许是我没有找到正确的方法吧，或许我应该用live search而不是google？
网络共享实在是复杂了，那个设置实在是不直观，莫非是因为vista所谓的安全性，不网络共享，或者弄得很麻烦就安全了？折腾一个晚上之后终于找到了地方，trick就是还得加上一个everyone的用户组给共享的文件，不然匿名没法access。其实我觉得在家局域网自己用最好什么设备全部可以匿名使用，安全放在入口，把router局域网的密码弄得复杂一点，非自己的机器没法登陆，一旦登陆上就可以很方便的使用就好，搞得里里外外N层关口实在是恶心。
这些东西都还可以忍，就像每次点个设置啥的一定要confirm一下，copy paste其慢无比，这些都只会弄得你不爽，但是“习惯习惯”就好了，而有的东西实在是搞不定：一代xbox的smb共享设置，在无尽的google文档里面搜寻，只看见大家说这个问题，没有实在的解决办法，共享的文档用mac的smb可以access，但是xbox就不行，总是要密码，要了还不work。其实我倒是发现google的一个特点，凡是在google第一页找不到答案的问题（当然可以尝试不同的query），基本上往后翻页也还是找不到答案。这个问题基本上只有两个解决办法：升级xbox到360，或者降级vista到xp。很显然，再次绝望之后，我选择了后者……
坏消息是微软在不遗余力的discontinue XP，然后不去解决vista的问题却企图用媒体搞个什么Mojave试验来愚弄大众，无语中……
安装的是从MS一个活动中免费拿到的vista business premium，暂且放下confusing的各个版本不谈，装了之后才发现这个版本比之前买的home premium大了不少，导致之前预算失误，弄了个22G的C盘明显不够用。注意，我已经删除了还原点和备份那些fancy功能，居然安装好各种更新之后还剩几百M，连SP1都装不上，什么东西这么大啊，sigh！企图删除语言来释放一点空间，点进去发现可以删掉之前装的唯一一个中文语言，号称可以释放1G空间，可惜删除重启之后居然剩余空间比之前还少了，简直是不可理解！之后又研究了半天看看可不可以从D盘释放一些空间加到C盘，N次尝试都以失败告终。我的所有文件和程序都没有装在C盘居然都不够，绝望中只能重装，就整一个分区算了。
其实我觉得自己还算比较techy的，折腾这个vista都快要发疯了。首先是驱动没有，特别是网卡驱动，还得用另外一个电脑down下来装上，不然别的都免提了，幸亏google一下530的vista驱动还是比较好找。其次是vista update总是企图去自动给我装声卡和显卡的驱动，而装了之后又不work，弄得要强行终止，然后手动拿光盘驱动来安装。最可恶的是到了最后也没有把声卡弄出声音出来，就知道滋滋响，无奈之下只好卸了声卡用自带的集成声卡。原本以为是硬件冲突，事后装了xp之后work得好好的根本就是vista的问题。
折腾好驱动之后安装更新又是弄了n久，我就奇怪，vista fresh install只要20分钟甚至不到，update要弄好几个小时，重启n次（n>3），它就不会简单点弄个cumulate update给用户？customization也是问题，大概是因为我是新手，但是xp第一次学的时候也没有那么复杂啊。我不喜欢默认的那些文档音乐视频的文件夹地址，想redirect到另一个目录下，google了半天最后是一个个目录重新定位（一共8，9个目录！），记得xp下只要重新定位我的文档别的子目录都跟着好了，或许是我没有找到正确的方法吧，或许我应该用live search而不是google？
网络共享实在是复杂了，那个设置实在是不直观，莫非是因为vista所谓的安全性，不网络共享，或者弄得很麻烦就安全了？折腾一个晚上之后终于找到了地方，trick就是还得加上一个everyone的用户组给共享的文件，不然匿名没法access。其实我觉得在家局域网自己用最好什么设备全部可以匿名使用，安全放在入口，把router局域网的密码弄得复杂一点，非自己的机器没法登陆，一旦登陆上就可以很方便的使用就好，搞得里里外外N层关口实在是恶心。
这些东西都还可以忍，就像每次点个设置啥的一定要confirm一下，copy paste其慢无比，这些都只会弄得你不爽，但是“习惯习惯”就好了，而有的东西实在是搞不定：一代xbox的smb共享设置，在无尽的google文档里面搜寻，只看见大家说这个问题，没有实在的解决办法，共享的文档用mac的smb可以access，但是xbox就不行，总是要密码，要了还不work。其实我倒是发现google的一个特点，凡是在google第一页找不到答案的问题（当然可以尝试不同的query），基本上往后翻页也还是找不到答案。这个问题基本上只有两个解决办法：升级xbox到360，或者降级vista到xp。很显然，再次绝望之后，我选择了后者……
坏消息是微软在不遗余力的discontinue XP，然后不去解决vista的问题却企图用媒体搞个什么Mojave试验来愚弄大众，无语中……
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