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:

• 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)

I think Firefox is better than Safari for now, but I will definitely give Safari 4 (promising much faster speed on javascript) a try when it comes out later this year/or next year. If you use Firefox instead, please check my experience with Firefox 3.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
   
4. 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.
5. 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.

Having said that, I do want to mention a shareware for un-installing the programs/plugins:
 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:

• iusethis：http://osx.iusethis.com/
• apple：http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/
• versiontrack：http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/
• macupdate：http://macupdate.com/

I'll use a five star system to rate them, and give a link to the developer's website, along some short comments. All shareware/commercial software's rating have be subtracted 1 star (apple) because they are not free. To begin with, a little gem on mac: to generate a text apple icon like this , use Shift+Option+K on any text field.

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.

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。

　　第1步：运行注册表编辑器，

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。

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……

debugging R

These two functions could be used in debugging the code. Avoid using browser in a big loop, see help file for more detailed information.

if(v0<=0) browser()
debug(func)