Mac vs. PC – Part 3
February 27, 2004 12:00 am [No Comments]
I can’t sleep, so I’ll type!
OS X and it’s community do not have a standard install/uninstall system. Instead all applications come as bundles, and basically to install an application you just copy the one file to your Applications folder, or wherever you would like it.
This works fine.
What doesn’t work fine is when you install something that isn’t a bundle, such as a printer driver. That installs crap all over the hard drive that might later cause problems, doesn’t create a log and doesn’t offer a way to uninstall.
While I like the idea of being able to install something just by dragging it, Apple dropped the ball on this one. In Windows I would regularly go to the Add/Remove Programs control panel and clean house. Helps keep the hard drive clean, keep space free and keep the cruft out. Much harder to do in OS X.
Now for some more praises. OS X has a built in speech synthesis and recognition system that totally kicks ass. I noticed it last night while playing the Chess program that comes with it. An option was to use voice commands. I turned it on, said “Knight A3 to B4″ and the damn thing moved! No training, or nothing.
Did a little reading and it turns out this system is fully exposed in the Carbon, and to a lesser extent the Cocoa Frameworks and I can program to it! I wrote a little sample application that took voice commands in about 4 lines of code. Very impressive!
I finally dove in tonight and really started learning Cocoa and Objective C. Cocoa is well designed, but I wish they had used C++. Objective C breaks most of the rules of common syntax that I have been using for the last… like, 15 years and it’s a big adjustment. I’m getting there, but I’m definitly not fluent yet.
Mac vs. PC – Part 2
February 24, 2004 12:00 am [No Comments]
A short one tonight.
Over the last few days I’ve completely replaced my main PC, which is where I used to do all my web browsing, AIMing, IRCing, Mailing and so on with my Powerbook. Tonight I only switched back to my PC to play some Painkiller.
I am starting to feel like OSX is the BeOS I always wanted. I has a lot of BeOS’s good points and adds additional good points like being successful and supported by a good size company. I don’t think Apple has embraced their developers as well as Be did, but they are pretty close and a hell of a lot better than Microsoft. XCode is a pretty good IDE, and it’s free.
That’s all for now. Consider me even more “switched”.
More Power!
February 24, 2004 12:00 am [No Comments]
For some reason I thought that my new Powerbook had 512MB of RAM. I thought wrong. I eventually took the blinders off and noticed it has 256. I wouldn’t try to run any modern OS with 256MB so I ran right down to Microcenter and picked up another 512MB. Big difference! Switching applications is much snappier now, as I would have expected.
Now, if anyone knows how to capture and possibly filter every keystroke from Cocoa I’d appreicate if you would tell me 
I want to write a CueCat driver.
Too Fast
February 24, 2004 12:00 am [No Comments]
I got up at 8:00am, shaved my head around 8:15am and now it’s 11:00am. I can already feel the stubble growing back. That’s crazy!
Powerbook With KVM
February 22, 2004 12:00 am [No Comments]
One other thing. The Powerbook only has USB ports for external keyboard/mouse input. If you are a big geek like me you have several monitors, a few keyboards and a KVM on your desktop. The KVM is of course PS/2 based, because until now you have used only PCs. Well! Microcenter, and many other retailers I am sure, will sell you a PS/2 keyboard + mouse to USB adapter for $15. Mine is made by QVS and it works perfectly.