上周三四跑了一趟Yosemite算算这个居然是我自己开车去的第一个国家公园，居然在北卡呆了四年都没有去过Smoking Mountain，惭愧啊惭愧，以后再补吧。
由于是刚到加州第二天就出门旅行，身体还是有些吃不消，好些计划种比较难的trail就skip掉了。估计是时差问题，先是起了个大早，却赶了个晚集，匆匆在7-11吃了个泡面当早餐，开了4个小时才到公园。山路有些弯，一直开的很慢，攒了很多开山路的经验值：其中有几个mile的120还是很恐怖的，一边是山，一边是悬崖，很刺激。年票跟人所以就买了40的年票，现在的任务是一年之内要再来一次。
进门的时候发了个Yosemite的报纸，有个大地图和Village的地图，但是没有trail的地图。直接上120走那个冬天会关掉的路，经过了个看石头和远观Half Dome的景点，以及T字打头的一个大湖，相当的漂亮。不过都大中午的，肚子饿得赶紧跑到Visitor Center不远处的Grill上吃了个汉堡和薯片，味道还相当的不错，消费指数$。可惜草原都是黄黄的，不好看也没有动物，所以就决定去爬Cathedral Lake。事实证明，Yosemite所有rate中等难度的trail对于我们来说就是相当的艰难，一个来回7 mile的路走得最后都没有气了。刚开始坡挺大的，后来遇见一对老美，他们说一路上好几次都决定往回走了，还好后面坡没有那么陡才坚持下来，我们才确定不只是我们自己身体弱了。路上远处有个山，山最顶上的石头在某个角度看超级像城堡，很有意思。我们只有体力去了Lower Cathedral Lake，据说比upper要风景好，不过比之前的T湖小了不少，但背景都是光秃秃的大石头山，还是很酷的。花了三个半小时回到车上已经有点累趴下了，接着又开了四五十分钟到Tunnel View看日落。看见很多人在那里观景，也不乏有扛着长镜头的摄影爱好者，不过这个季节水是干的，只有一条黑黑的水痕的瀑布在我看来是大煞风景。然后在天黑的过程中赶上了Glacier Point的路，本以为会很难开，其实这段比之前120的弯弯路还好开很多。最糗的是虽然计划了晚上上山顶看星星，却忘记带手电筒，黑嘛嘛地摸了一段伸手不见五指地小路还是走上了观景台，并且在天没有完全黑下的时候瞟到了几个山峰，不知道是不是传说中的Half Dome。恰逢一个老师带着一群小学生认星星，在搞清楚坐标下，我们也认出了大小熊，天鹰天琴，以及射手天蝎和巨蟹座；当然还有久违了的银河和我们认为是的牛郎织女座。山顶看星星，让我想起了小时候夏天躺在家院子里看星星的情形，时间过得真快，不知道这个年头回家还有星星看么？
住在Curry Village交通还算方便，除了价钱有点贵，房子有点臭之外一切都好。早餐相当丰盛，更赞的是在Village里看见了长角的鹿以及浣熊。松鼠更是随处可见，不过它们不像北卡或是密歇根的松鼠，脖子上又一撮白毛，而且尾巴相当地长，瘦瘦的。在爬Vernel Fall的时候有只可爱的松鼠在路边不停的叫（我开始还以为是鸟叫），每叫一次还要摇一下尾巴，很可爱。虽然是没水的季节，Vernel Fall还是流下了帘状的水幕，而且一条路上给了N个角度观看，毕竟这经典的trail风景还是比孤单没太多人走的Cathedral Lake好看。由于太累，没能网上接着爬Nevada Fall，还是等下次直接走7 mile trail时候再看了。中饭是在著名的H酒店搞定的，汤不错，沙拉也不错，可惜乌冬面pasta给莫名其妙的酱料糟蹋了，口味来说可以打个3/5，消费指数$$$。
然后早早地就往回走了，路上经过果园区的时候买到了超级好吃的西红柿，桃子和李子以及超级甜的葡萄（不知道是不是沙漠气候的原因）。最后，强烈b4要prepay的油站，害我浪费了7刀……相片改天补上。
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Gradient highlights for Stacks (zz tuaw)
If you use Stacks like we do, then you probably love any additional hacks you can do to them. While this Terminal Tip provides no really useful features, it does provide you with some awesome eye candy for your Stacks. This hack gives you a mouse-over gradient (seen above on Terminal) in your Stacks; just open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities) and type in the following command:
After you type in the command, type "killall Dock" to restart the Dock. You will then see the gradient in your Stacks. To get rid of the gradient, just replace "YES" with "NO" in the command above.
defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean YESAfter you type in the command, type "killall Dock" to restart the Dock. You will then see the gradient in your Stacks. To get rid of the gradient, just replace "YES" with "NO" in the command above.
Friday, August 29, 2008
My Mac Software List 7 - other fun stuff
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):
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):
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.
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