BILL CLINTON  Opera 10b1 has a lot going for it and it mostly looks like a native Mac app considering the fakery involved. (If Apple changes the widgets, Opera will look wrong.) However, the one big new feature, thumbnail tabs (a feature that OmniWeb has had for many years) is poorly implemented, putting the thumbnails at the top (or bottom) of the scrollable window space. This is a horrible design because it forces the user to see less content and to scroll more. Vertical screen space is more valuable than horizontal screen space because content is made to be scrolled vertically, for pretty much the same reason that newspapers are printed in columns--it makes text easier to read. Opera has an option to put the tabs on the left or right sides of the window but then only the text of the site name is displayed--_no_ thumbnails!

There are lots of other little things that pop up with Opera 10b1 as you use it. But for OS X users, there will be some just for us--no Keychain integration, jerky scrolling, no Control-Command-D functionality, no spell checking in some text boxes (and it uses its own spell checker for what is checked, ignoring all of your customized spellings), and lost formatting of copied text. (All of these complaints and more apply equally to Firefox, BTW.)

All in all, Opera 10 is typical of past Opera browsers and, sadly, typical of cross-platform software generally. Just not up to Mac snuff in polish, and not integrated with the rest of the system.  
(Version 10.0b1)

BILL CLINTON  TabletDriver crashed during installation. I don't know if I have crap now or what.  
(Version 5.1.1-1)

BILL CLINTON  Holy crap--this is way better than it needs to be.  
(Version 2.1)

BILL CLINTON  Version 5 of LaunchBar is very slow on "only" a 1.5 GHz Powerbook. It takes several seconds for the thing to slide out and several more to recognize typing and then respond.  
(Version 5.0rc1)

BILL CLINTON  Wow. This thing is an unbelievable turd. On the first launch, the wizard screen opens _behind_ a Finder window. After working my way through the wizard, the program hangs and I have to force quit it. On the second launch, I type a half dozen words then try to insert an equation and immediately the program crashes--completely disappears. I can hardly wait to see what the next five minutes brings.

I'm on a one-week old MacBook Pro, so it's hard to believe there's anything wrong with my system.

Just awful.  
(Version 3.0.1)

BILL CLINTON  Warning! Cross-platform. Java.  
(Version 3.4.1)

BILL CLINTON  This reviewer's comments about DEVONthink are mostly out of date as of version 2.0 of that family of products, currently in late beta, it appears.  
(Version 1.4.5)

BILL CLINTON  This is an amazing utility for connecting audio applications. I can't believe that it exists at all, let alone that it's free.  
(Version 0.81)

BILL CLINTON  This app looks like a perfect fit for the skills (and commitment) of people who are likely to use SandVox. Sure, you can edit the CSS yourself using a text editor, but that approach misses the point of this program, which is to allow the rest of us to get the job done and then get on with our lives.  
(Version 2.0.3)

BILL CLINTON  The Omni developers continue to add small touches to OmniWeb but they should be focusing on one and only one job: stop the damn memory leaks. Web browsers have a long tradition of memory leaks but OmniWeb is by far the worst of Mac browsers in this respect. I have to quit and relaunch OmniWeb at least once a day as it consumes 300 MB to 500 MB of memory after a modest amount of use! Firefox 3 has aggressively addressed its memory problems and now it is time for the others to follow suit.

OmniWeb is by far the finest browser on the Mac and possibly on any platform but for this one aspect.  
(Version 5.7)

BILL CLINTON  Still doesn't work correctly with dual vertical monitors. Horizontal lines now display on the upper monitor but not the lower one. Vertical lines are the same: the line ends at the border between the two monitors, displaying on the top one but not the bottom one.  
(Version 2.2)

BILL CLINTON  This thing kind of goes belly up on my set-up--two monitors, one above the other. Vertical lines appear only on the upper monitor and horizontal lines don't appear at all.  
(Version 2.1)

BILL CLINTON  The baseline adjustment for inline PICTs pasted into Mellel is now better but still not perfect. I sure wish I understood what the issues are with this as it seems like everything is in place to get this completely fixed.  
(Version 5.74)

BILL CLINTON  I'm extremely reluctant to use an organizer such as Together that stores files in its own "way." I know--it stores them in Finder format, but that's not good enough for me. I want to have the organizer be able to bring together files from anywhere on the file system. That way, I get all of the benefits of the organizer (1) without having to worry about accessing the files the normal way and still having them where I would expect, rather than digging through the organizer's own hierarchy every time, and (2) being totally screwed when the organizer is no longer available--AND THAT TIME WILL COME.

Does Together have this capability? Do any of the others?  
(Version 2.1.3)

BILL CLINTON  The interface on this program (9.5) has _lots_ of problems with respect to Macintosh interface guidelines. I saw at least a dozen problems in four minutes of use. I had hopes that it would be better in this regard as Firefox 3 has made major advances in this area. (Still sucks, but less.)  
(Version 9.5)

BILL CLINTON  Great. Thanks for that info. Sounds very reasonable, given the way things work nowadays. (Why, when I was a kid, computers had only 32KB of RAM and it was uphill both ways.)  
(Version 3.1)

BILL CLINTON  I have used version 1.x for a very long time and love it. However, I never upgraded to 2.x (or now, 3.x) because I feel that I didn't need all of the added features. (I would concur with one person who requested a light version). However, this is all moot as long as the program doesn't use tons of RAM or CPU cycles. Now, I see "built-in web server" and I can't help but think that this version will truly use lots of RAM. Can anyone enlighten me on this? How much RAM does it use?  
(Version 3.0.1)

BILL CLINTON  I've tried _all_ the other Mac browsers, most for several days each, and I always come back to OmniWeb. It simply has features that the others don't have or that require adding with plug-ins of variable quality (which then go obsolete when the browser itself is updated).

Why do I keep trying other browsers if I love OmniWeb so much? Memory leaks. I've tested the memory use of most of the Mac browsers and those that use WebKit all leak badly. OmniWeb seems to add on to this bad situation, using more memory than Safari. The more memory my computer has, the more memory OmniWeb uses. I have 2 GB and OmniWeb, over a couple of days, depending on usage, will typically hit 450 MB of Real Memory used, as reported by Activity Monitor. I can watch memory use grow as certain functions and certain pages are loaded; when the pages are closed, memory is not released or is only partially released.

(Some people explain that the numbers reported by Activity Monitor require expert interpretation, saying e.g. that the memory required by certain frameworks is reported as all belonging to each of the applications that is using the framework. So what. That doesn't explain 450 MB. Furthermore, I can quit OmniWeb and relaunch it--the exact same state is restored when you relaunch, one of OmniWeb's nicest features--and the memory used is hundreds of MB less. So much for the "you don't understand Activity Monitor" theory.)

Anyway, the cure for this is to relaunch OmniWeb from time to time. Aggravating to be sure, especially if you were logged into one or more web sites since you'll have to log in again. But the saving grace, like I said above, is that OmniWeb exactly restores the complete state of the browser upon relaunch (related to one of its coolest features, saved workspaces).

All browsers in the history of the universe have leaked memory. However, I have used the beta 3 version of Firefox and it isn't too bad--it leaks much slower and seems to not hit sky-high memory use like most of the others. But adding and maintaining plug-ins to make a poor approximation to OmiWeb's features, and then operating with only a subset, is more work for me than relaunching OmniWeb from time to time.

The support from the developers is top notch, always resulting in a quick personal reply by e-mail. Crashes are extremely rare but when they do happen the cost is slight because, once again, relaunching brings you right back where you were. $15 for the top browser is a trivial amount (I think I paid $30 several years ago--not sure).  
(Version 5.7)

BILL CLINTON  This version (2.1) still has a bug where the menu command Create Horizontal Guide or its equivalent, Shift-Command-H, does nothing. I reported this during 2.1 beta testing but they've released it anyway, with the bug. This product seems like something that someone hires contract programmers for from time to time--just guessing. And yes, what were they smoking to set the price this high.  
(Version 2.1)

BILL CLINTON  I received almost immediate attention from the developer who told me to trash the preferences as well as the clip cache file. (I had tried the latter but not the former.) The RAM-eating problem went away. (However, the inability to show RTF text in the expanded text window remains.)  
(Version 4.0)

BILL CLINTON  Original poster here. When I posted the original comment, I also e-mailed the developer. Within a couple days I received by e-mail a special version to try out and indeed, the problem was fixed. Excellent response from the developer.  
(Version 4.0.2)

BILL CLINTON  I updated my system software yesterday, an incremental change to 10.4.11, and now I find that iClip is stunningly unusable. (I don't know for shure if the update is related, but the coincidence is certainly odd.) Upon launching iClip, it uses all available processor cycles and sucks up RAM at the rate of about 12 MB per second, apparently without limit. Soon there is a large bump in the virtual memory as well. I don't know what happens if this continues without limit. the application does not respond to the keyboard shortcut and there is no dock icon so the only way to kill it is to use Activity Monitor. Bummer. I rather liked iClip, even though it never displayed RTF text.  
(Version 4.0)

BILL CLINTON  Version 4 of Default Folder X (and currently version 4.0.2) re-introduced a nasty bug that persisted for a long time in earlier versions but which was finally squashed within the last year. But now it is back. According to Activity Monitor (already on your computer, so you can check this for yourself), the %CPU usage starts at 0% when Default Folder X starts then gradually (but quickly) rises to several percent.l It is not uncommon to see CPU usage fluctuate between 5% and 11%, even as the program is inactive. I don't know if it goes higher if left alone.  
(Version 4.0.2)

BILL CLINTON  SafariStand makes Safari crash sporadically. You can see it in the traceback in the crash log.  
(Version 3.0L151)

BILL CLINTON  OmniWeb is the top memory hog among web browsers, and that's a high bar indeed. With only a few pages open, Activity Monitor reports 250 MB of Real Memory. Safari 3 and Camino report "only" about 150 MB. This is but one example but is typical. Others may respond that Activity Monitor's memory reporting is unreliable and I would be happy to find a reliable report. But I do know that with OmniWeb running, I wait much more often for virtual memory swapping to happen when switching programs. I have used OmniWeb for a long time and I have complained to the developers about this problem. The Omni people are a first class organization and I don't want to give them (much) of a black eye, but maybe posting something publicly with jolt them to reality.  
(Version 5.6)

BILL CLINTON  I really wish that Relaunch would let you reset a Snapshot. Consider that you might relaunch a snapshot, then during the course of working, some of an applications open files might change, or you might open an additional program or close a program. In any case, at some later time your working space has changed. As Relaunch now stands, there is no way to easily capture that change; you must delete the old snapshot and make a new one, saving it and setting its name. It seems to me that providing a Reset feature for existing snapshots would be easy to program and reflects the way one would normally use the program, which is to say, to return to your workspace as it was when you last left it.  
(Version 1.3.9)

BILL CLINTON  This looks promising. Finder Window Manager does similar things but despite its feature bloat, does not let you update a window set. Simple WindowSets appears to allow that.  
(Version 1.2)

BILL CLINTON  MathMagic is an excellent program for setting equations, with an easy-to-use interface and _tons_ of settings to tweak if you want; however, the defaults are just right for almost all work. The quality of the output is top-notch and way better than the ever-ugly MathType and its cheap little brother that comes for free with some word processors such as Microsoft Word. The developers of MathMagic are very responsive and find little ways to keep improving their program, even though it doesn' tneed it. I'm thankful that we have developers that (a) are passionate about making beautifully set equations and (b) know how to make a proper Mac program (really unusual in the developer community when a Mac product has a Windows counterpart).  
(Version 5.6.2)

BILL CLINTON  MathEQ (formerly known as Expressionist) is the best-of-breed mathematical typesetter, providing ease of use with exceptionally good output. I have used it for many years and have also tried (extensively) the others as they have appeared, including (especially) the free program that is commonly shipped with Word and other word processors.

For those reviewers who tout LaTeX, you should know that they are techies who love messing around with computers as opposed to getting their main work done. LaTeX is a mark-up language that does not let you even see how your program will look without going through a separate rendering stage; in the meantime, you are looking at gobbledygook expressions. With all respect to to Donald Knuth whose TeX is the basis for LaTeX, please--join the twentieth (that is, 20th) century. If you really want to use TeX or LaTeX, GraphEQ will politely export in that format. But in the meantime, you get to set your equations using common GUI techniques.  
(Version 4.0.8)

BILL CLINTON  This program does not work correctly with vertically-oriented monitors of unequal size. (I can't test with monitors of equal size.) This is a common configuration for laptop users. Many programs have problems with this configuration, including Apple's window manager, so Rulers is not unique in this regard.  
(Version 1.0.168)

BILL CLINTON  I wish that developers of screen and window utilities such as MondoMouse would bother to test them on dual-monitor systems, especially when the monitors are in a vertical configuration such as is common with laptop computers. When dragging or resizing windows with MondoMouse in a very common way, the window can jump around like a schoolgirl on Friday night.  
(Version 1.4)

BILL CLINTON  This is a really cool and well-done program. The recent version, 1.3, appears to be a complete re-write of the interface in Cocoa with extra goodness added.  
(Version 1.3)

BILL CLINTON  First of all, I believe that this is a very good backup program. But here is some constructive criticism, some things which bother me a lot. Mostly my complaints are about the scheduling (I haven't used any of the stored scripts yet, but see below.)

Let's say you want to examine your backup schedule, so you click on Schedule.... The program doesn't actually open the schedule window itself, directly, but rather drops down a sheet asking you to actually set up a new schedule. Very confusing the first few times, and annoying thereafter.

Second complaint about schedules. Once a backup has been scheduled, there is _no_way_ to examine its parameters. Say, you want to see if you have specified that permissions should be repaired--sorry, can't do that. Let's say you want to see what scripts are being used, or if there are shell scripts that you have specified to run before and/or after--again, you're out of luck. Your only option is to delete the entire backup scheme and build a new one from scratch. But let's say, you have been backing up to a disk image. Once you delete the backup schedule, the program forgets that it ever saw that disk image. I think that you have to mount the disk image and then select it from the list of disks--very unintuitive.

What I'm saying is that the program has a fundamental flaw(s) in its interface and that the developer seriously needs to consider a do-over. There needs to be a _clear_way_ to set up multiple backup schemes (as he so correctly recommends doing) and associated with each backup scheme a set of one or more schedules. The schedules should be editable separately and without upsetting the backup scheme. Try doing this--back up daily to a partitioned volume without repairing permissions, back up every other week on weeks 1 and 3 to a disk image and repair permissions, and back up every other week on weeks 2 and 4 and repair permissions. If you can figure that out you are a SuperDuper! master, but your blood pressure will be higher. A woe to you if you want to change one of those backups to include a script or change permission repair.

Sorry for the rant but I only do this if I think a product is worth the effort, and SuperDuper! certainly is that.

On other notes, I was annoyed with the backup turning up results when I did Spotlight searches--since it is a clone of my main disk, I would get double hits for everything. The developer sent me (some time back) a shell script to fix this. There were other problems with backing up certain obscure files, so I got a script from the developer called "No Hotfiles Backup - All Files." I have no idea what this does but it works.

And the developer is about the most responsive I have seen when responding to e-mails.  
(Version 2.1.4)