Bored?

by Anand Lal Shimpi on 3/1/2004 1:23 AM EST
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  • Cless - Monday, March 15, 2004 - link

    Regarding iCal and alarms, you don't have to have iCal open for alarms to go off. So if you have all your meetings and such set to have an alarm go off, that'll still happen even when iCal is closed. I know this because that's how it works on my Mac! iCal is 1.5.2 and OS is 10.3.3 (now, but was 10.3.2). I don't remember if it's a preference or what, but it works for me. Also, I love it.
  • Anonymous - Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - link

    I find iCal to be annoying. I love Mail but would like to see better address book and definelty iCal integration. I'll bet Apple is working on this though.
  • maxplanar - Thursday, March 4, 2004 - link

    iCal isn't perfect, but I am very happy with its ability to keep my PalmV, SonyEricsson T616 and various machines in sync.
    Using easyKal, a Konfabulator widget, makes it far more accessible - your daily calendar items show up on your desktop.

    Regarding syncing, I have been really impressed with the use of a .Mac account to massively enhance syncing power. Installed another machine? Got a new laptop? Reinstalled your OS? Working at a new location and computer? Need all your address book, calendars and bookmarks? iSync via .Mac account and you're in business in seconds. Really really excellent functionality. Combined with this you can also sync your entire .Mac account, so at any computer you can access your contacts and bookmarks via any browser, any PC, anywhere. For me, it's worth far more than the $100/year it costs.
  • hengx - Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - link

    With regards to Java, IDEA 4.0 on this powerbook is just incredible! You should try the trial at www.intellij.com
  • colomb - Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - link

    another vote for eclipse. amazing environment.
  • Anonymous - Tuesday, March 2, 2004 - link

    tenraek:
    > the words are not underlined.

    wrong, they are. just select "Check spelling as you type" in the spelling menu to enable that.
  • tenraek - Tuesday, March 2, 2004 - link

    As a "mac-head", I have really enjoyed reading your experiences.

    However, A quick look at iCal shows that your 'month-o-mac' is almost over, yet you' have just begun your journey. I'm curious to know if you might be willing to extend this section for a while more.

    You still have so much to learn, and as many of have said, reading this section has become part of our daily routine. It would suck to have it end so soon.

    Please let us know what you might do.


    Oh BTW, have you discovered the built in spell check feature? As someone who is a notorious for mispelling (especially when typing too fast), I often have a dozens of typos in my writings, however, OS X has the a built in spell check that works in ANY program (Not just word Processing). Although unlike in AppleWorks or Word, the words are not underlined. But if you suspect a word is mispelled ctrl-click on the word (or just right clikc if using a third party mouse) and a list of words you might have meant to use will appear at the top of the standard menu.

    Also: Speaking of 3rd party mice, are you using the Apple one click (ie 1 button) mouse? If so You should really dump it and go with a 3 button scroll. The Apple mouse is the only thing I do agree with people on, BUT I realize Apple still uses it, because it wants to make it simple for true 1st time computer users.
  • the best - Tuesday, March 2, 2004 - link

    You've yet to scratch the surface of the Mac folder system.

    Cmd-"arrows" does all kind of stuff. (up/down/left/right arrows).

    If you hold Option while clicking a file or app the parent window closes.

    Drag a file onto a folder a hold** over it, but don't drop it. The folder will pop open and will continue to pop open until you drop at which point all windows involved close (unless you're in column/list view and so you were only using one window anyway). ** Holding SpaceBar makes the folder open immidiately (there is a preference setting for the speed).

    :)
  • pm - Tuesday, March 2, 2004 - link

    You can ftp from the finder
    finder menu "go"
    "connect to server"
    type in server = ie "ftp://ftp.apple.com

    the server sould show up on the desktop as a volume.
    if this doesn't work go check your firewall settings and make sure you have allowed ftp.

    depending on the version there should be a default set of actions for PS named "commands" that you should find useful
  • Anonymous - Tuesday, March 2, 2004 - link

    "OS X sounds great--except for lack of game titles. What would I do when Half-Life 2 comes out?"

    being an 'adder' is better than being a 'switcher'. best of both worlds.

    "If you can't seem to keep iCal running then you must be logging out or restarting for some reason. Try putting it in your login items Prefs panel so it autolaunches."

    yeah, i am logging out or shuting down. i want it set up so that if i have a reminder set up, the computer will start up on its own if it needs too. that shouldnt be hard seeing as the computer can already turn itself on and off (i think its under system prefs -> energy saver settings -> startup/shutdown schedule). it should 'just work'
  • Anonymous - Tuesday, March 2, 2004 - link

    If you can't seem to keep iCal running then you must be logging out or restarting for some reason. Try putting it in your login items Prefs panel so it autolaunches.
  • clara - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    I didn't know if you knew (I did a cursory look through the blogs), but you can drag any file or folder into a Terminal window and it will put in the pathname. It used to be a little broken in previous versions by not adding a space (so if you dragged one item, then dragged another item, the pathnames would be connected) but it has since been fixed.

    This is Incredibly useful for ftp or scp in the command-line.
  • fandom - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    Just wanted to give a bit of heads-up. Acrobat Reader has a side panel too. On the left hand side of the screen is a panel you can drag open and closed that has tabs in it. Click the "Pages" tab and you essentially get the same thing you get with Preview.

    As far as I know Preview doesn't have any features Acrobat doesn't have, though it is a bit faster.
  • Anonymous - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    As far as I know there is no default keyboard shortcut for the Zoom. I set it to Apple Shift Z that works quite nicely. Avoid the option key if you want iTunes to zoom in the same way as it does now.
  • Gino - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    I just wanted to mention how much I've been enjoying the Mac test drive. I eagerly check your blog everyday for updates.

    I've been eyeing a G5 so its great to hear about your experiences.

    OS X sounds great--except for lack of game titles. What would I do when Half-Life 2 comes out?
  • mini man - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    I was lucky to find a green mini iPOD at CompUSA this weekend. Dude, it is so cool! The anodized finish in the colors is not done justice by the pics. Although the smaller capacity is not for everyone, the mini sure makes a fashion statement and is better for size when I work out.
  • OSX - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    The interesting thing about OSX is its roadmap vs. Longhorn.
    February 27 - On Thursday, Apple provided developers with a new pre-release seed of Mac OS X 10.3.3, sources said.

    Apple believes that by the time Longhorn comes out that with the huge upfront investment in OSX behing them, they will be able to crank out a number of continual improvements before Longhorn becomes a reality. As least that is what Steve Jobs states. I won't bet against him.
  • Jasenko - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    Keyboard shortcuts:
    Go to System Prefs -> Keyboard and Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts
    Click on + and little sheet will pop out
    Leave All Applications, type Zoom in Menu Title
    and choose your shortcut (I put Option-Command-= in mine)
    I think that you need to use both option and command if this is gonna work. When you are finished, restart your application, and if it has Zoom under Window (or any other) menu, it will work, if it doesn't it won't.
  • Mike Whooley - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    The best thing about iCal (for me) is the ease of sync'ing thanks to iSync.

    My Palm Tungsten, iPod and Nokia phone all carry my iCal alarms and reminders for the meetings I'd otherwise forget.. plus by syncing to .Mac I can fetch my schedule from any Mac.
  • Mike Whooley - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    Xcode -

    Once you've created a Java tool project, create a new target (Project menu -> New Target). You probably want a shell script target.

    Once the target appears in the project window, open the target, select "Shell Script Files" then Get Info. You should be able to enter a build script here. (I'm no script programmer, so I can't help you there..)
  • Anonymous - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    From the desktop command-up opens your home folder, which is the desktop's enclosing folder.
  • SmurfTower - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    Yes. Try it again but on the desktop this time. :)
  • Anonymous - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    > (if you use the up arrow it will open a new finder window).

    no. if you use the up arrow it will open the enclosing folder (in a new window, right, but that's not the point ;)
  • Anonymous - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    To open a folder on the desktop or anywhere else, just highlight the folder and hit command+down arrow (if you use the up arrow it will open a new finder window).
  • SmurfTower - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    Keyboard Shortcuts
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=754...
  • Anonymous - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    "One of the features I absolutely love is the constant parsing, tokenizing and linking of your source code. That is, you don't have to compile your project to find out your errors, the IDE works them out as you type"

    That sounds cool. but does it find the location of the errors more reliably than a normal compiler? also, how does it deal with code you haven't finished writing yet? does it identify a variable you're not finished typing as an undefined var?

    "it maintains the symbol tree so when you ask for all the uses of a method or variable, it finds only those uses"

    xCode also maintains a symbol index (if you want it) and has fast searching to display query matches.
  • Bill Brown - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    May I recommend jEdit (http://www.jedit.org/) for your development needs. It has the best code editor I've ever seen. I don't do Java development, but it looks like it's got everything a Java developer would need. The best part is that I can copy my preferences on my OS X box over to my Windows box and the two environments will look and function *exactly* the same.
  • Jose Reyes - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    Java:

    I wouldn't mess around with any other tools for developing Java other than:

    1. Eclipse (www.eclipse.org)
    - Free Java IDE with built in CVS and JUnit management
    - 2.1 is stable

    2. IntelliJ (www.intellij.com)
    - Very nice Java IDE with an amazing GUI
    - 4.0 just released

    Both of these IDEs are phenomenal development tools. IntelliJ in particular has the most intuitive UI of ANY IDE I've ever used. One of the features I absolutely love is the constant parsing, tokenizing and linking of your source code. That is, you don't have to compile your project to find out your errors, the IDE works them out as you type (sortof like Microsoft Word with its little red squiggles). Additionally, it maintains the symbol tree so when you ask for all the uses of a method or variable, it finds only those uses (even though the method may be shared).

    A related feature are the refactoring tools (ala Martin Fowler) that allow you to rename, extract methods, change method signatures, etc... automagically.

    These IDEs are true productivity environments.
  • Anonymous - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    Oh and the Adium prefs are in ~/Library/Application Support/Adium 2
  • Anonymous - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    February 9th build of Adium: http://adium.sourceforge.net/downloads/Adium_02-09...

    I would first, however, recommend trashing all of your preferences to see if that fixes things. Due to the constant changes in the alpha, the prefs tend to get consistently trashed. You can't blame the coders for not handling this, as it would take them forever.
  • Anonymous - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    xCode:

    "XCode -> File -> New Project -> Java Tool"

    yeah, that sets up a basic java project. as with all projects, when xcode runs the exe it opens a console that will act as the stdin/stdout if the program uses those. but because i never bothered to learn how to really control gcc from xcode if im working on something that needs special gcc flags then i just use xcode for the 'code sense' (code completion, symbol indexing etc) and run gcc from the command line (usually with a makefile)

    Zoom:

    i set it to control command z. but most of the stuff i work with doesn't really have a set size so the 'fit to content' often wouldn't make the content the size i want. so i dont use it that often.

    Aside: i have pretty much everything i use regularly set up to obey the way ive divided up my (one, sigh...) screen. main application like web browsers, xcode, mail, ical etc take up the left ~2/3 while background windows (itunes, ichat, downloads etc) take up the rest. ive even set my desktop to 16x16 icons with text on the right, so they take up the right 1/3 (two columns of files max). BTW, how do you deal with the menu bar being only on the main screen? oh, thats right. keyboard short cuts :) - does anyone know of a way to get the menues to appear on both screens?

    ical:

    i only use it for the public calendars that ive subscribed to. i tried using it for reminders of important stuff, but i find that its unreliable (in that i might forget that i need ical open and shut down the computer) but the fact that it can be used to do stuff like text message a cell phone or IM me or pretty much do anything osascripting can do sounds neat. GUI cron!

    bored:

    have you tried ichat? if not then a good use of it (since you dont use AIM) could be to hang out in some chat room (tho chat rooms dont support many nice things about ichat) and then people can pop in a talk about these blogs (we wont expect you to actively participate 24/7:) that'd be great.

    sometime in the future (when the powerbook is at dual 2GHz:) you should try to get a powerbook for testing so you can check out OS X's mobile features.
  • Felix_the_Mac - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link


    Re starting applications.
    As you say you cant start an application by pressing enter. I remeber reading once that this was because renaming was considered to be less distructive that running and the OS developers wanted to make the more destructive operation harder.
    Or something :-).

    However, in additon to Apple+O which is pretty horrible you can use apple+ Down.

    This is much nicer when you are using the arrow keys to walk through the multi column view.

    Thanks for doing this whole Mac experiment.
    (I guess we wouldnt be so pleased if you panned it!)
  • Diggory Laycock - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    You can execute shell commands from within XCode (if it's inherited the feature from ProjectBuilder) - see here:

    http://cocoadev.com/index.pl?ProjectBuilderShell

    Also You could use AppleScript to compile/execute the code - see my SubEthaEdit JavaC applescript: http://monkeyfood.com/software/subethaeditjavacomp...
  • egarc - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    Anand. During this Mac experiment, do you feel more secure online since you don't have to worry about spyware, adware, viruses, worms or whatever else the hackers come up with? Will you comment on your feelings regarding security on the Mac as compared to XP? Please comment on the Software Update application as compared to browser based updates with XP.

    Thanks.
  • egarc - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    I've been a diehard Mac user since 1986 and I don't like iCal for some reason. I prefer an application like Outlook for the simple reason that all your data is in the same place and you don't have to open and close so many windows to access it. I hope Apple gives us a real PIM.
  • julien - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    You really should try eclipse for java programming, even if you don't need any of its advanced features.
  • jeffosx - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    Anand, here is some shortcuts you may not have seen??

    http://www.uark.edu/compserv/softsys/macintosh/mac...

    As for preview I think its one of the best apps in OSX. I put it in the finder windows so I can drag files to it easily. If you drag a group of images onto it or select open with Preview. They are all put on their own page and what I found neat is that the pages are drag and drop aware so I can drag a crap image to the trash or to a doc. It also views .psd . You can print a file to pdf and then export it to an image format with options like target size etc. This is a real time saver for me.

    One thing I would like to know is how right click centric are you now? After learning the keyboard modifiers I find alot of the right click stuff much slower...
  • Dennis Travis - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    Anand, I also like you just went over to OSX. Your Blog is helping a lot with all your comments and the others here too. It's pretty easy for me as I know Mac basics from the older Mac OS's, but have learned so much just reading your blog!

    I find ICal to be quite nice so far. Never much cared for Outlook for some reason. Maybe that is why I like Ical so much.

    On the Chat client, I also like you, LOVE Trillian. Bought it a long time ago now. At the advice of users here in your Mac Blog I tried Proteus and love it so far. Seems to do all Trillian does and works great with all Chat servers like MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ ETC. Not a problem so far. I like it so much in fact I am thinking of paying for it. It to me is the perfect replacement under OSX for Trillian users. You might as others here have suggested try it! You might just like it!!

    If anyone figures out a Keyboard Shortcut for Zooming the open window please post it. The one that makes the text larger and smaller comes in very handy but the one Anand is looking for also would be nice! Anyone??
  • noliv - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    I have a little /!\ WARNING /!\, several friends have lost some files after switching to the Mac.

    If you replace a folder named "A" by another folder named "A". Your OS ask "Replace?", you click "Yes".... BUT, the Windows user expect the OS to mix the contents of the old folder "A" and the new folder "A". Mac OS will erase the old folder "A" and all its content, and you will only get your new folder "A"...

    Many people are losing files that way!

    BTW, I don't use iCal.
  • RadRafe - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    Actually, sheer4, Anand is asking for a shortcut for the Zoom widget, not the Universal Access zooming function.

    Granted, that zooming is really cool; I'm told Windows has nothing near as good. I use it all the time. It's great for when I'm farther from the screen. Anand, if you haven't already, try out the zoom options in Universal Access in System Preferences. You'll be impressed.
  • sheer4 - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    Anand. Zoom shortcuts are Apple+Alt + (in) and - (out).
  • pli - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    XCode -> File -> New Project -> Java Tool
  • Crim - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    I can't get use to the GUI of Outlook, I just wish that there was an iCal style App for XP. Other then that I like to use the little
    Calender app in Firefox for basic stuff.
  • Cliff - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    heh, thanks for the reading material...you're writing a compiler and i'm having to write programs in assembly, really makes me appreciate the compilers. Quite a hefty update too...no complaints at all, but i would have certainly settled for a one or two sentence expansion on the feb 24th 'wow' post (-: (not that i don't know what you're hinting at) Good luck with getting to may...it's my end of schoolage for a while too.
  • charlie - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    oh - i'm still waiting to read a report about ichat a/v and aim 5.5. i figure it might make new haven seen a little less far away (and give a/v another meaning).
  • charlie - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    i enjoyed it. i also haven't been using ical much. i think it's because i'm not using a handheld anymore.
  • Nick - Monday, March 1, 2004 - link

    Use iCal all the time, and never could get into using Outlook's calendar. iCal isn't perfect, but I'm hoping it will be someday... the main reason I use it at the moment is because with iSync and bluetooth (and my t68i) it is the perfect way to keep myself organized.

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