MARK EVERITT  Mine stopped updating a few weeks ago too. I think this is normal though because it's happened on a few of my macs. Incidentally a mac friendly partial replacement for tlmgr can be found here

http://code.google.com/p/mactlmgr/  
(Version 2008)

MARK EVERITT  Mine stopped updating a few weeks ago too. I think this is normal though because it's happened on a few of my macs. Incidentally a mac friendly partial replacement for tlmgr can be found here

http://code.google.com/p/mactlmgr/  
(Version 2008)

MARK EVERITT  This is the best way (in my opinion) of installing TeX etc. on a mac. There are a number of other options, but this gets everything installed with minimal effort and includes the utilities that other methods may miss. There is also a smaller installer if you have a slow connection. If you're just getting started with TeX, this is the route to take.

I give this 5 stars as a technical user. If you are not already acquainted with TeX then you won't find this an easy package to use. As TeX is TeX, I'm reviewing this on the function it has as an installer for TeX and utilities, not for TeX itself.

Release notes (sort of) can be found here

http://www.tug.org/mactex/newfeatures.html  
(Version 2008)

MARK EVERITT  Also, it's 8 years old!  
(Version 4.0)

MARK EVERITT  This will need clarification. REVTeX (capital t and x) us a macro package for use with LaTeX, the typesetting system. Specifically it's used to write scholarly articles for the journals of the American Physical Society such as Physical Review Letters.

If you don't know any of the names in that last paragraph, ignore REVTeX. I don't think it should even be here. It's certainly not mac specific and not intended for a non-technical audience. Only those people writing for the aforementioned journals need use it.  
(Version 4.0)

MARK EVERITT  Weird. The thing on the right normally happens at the end of the day, to highlight the most popular updates.  
(Version 3.5rc3)

MARK EVERITT  Fails to log into Twitter for me.  
(Version 2.2.5b)

MARK EVERITT  I mainly use Safari, but I always keep Firefox up to date. It comes in handy for those occasional sites that don't play nicely, and also if someone unfamiliar with a Mac wants to surf on my machine. Obviously it's an extremely solid browser. I use it when I'm on any other platform. Safari is simply a matter of preference.  
(Version 3.0.11)

MARK EVERITT  We've tried. It messes up all sorts of things though. In particular when you're passing a paper back and forth. You wind up with all sorts of crazy stuff going on. In plain LaTeX this happens much less and diffs are simpler.  
(Version 1.6.3)

MARK EVERITT  Whilst I'm told this is excellent for writing, it's causing me nothing but trouble. I author scientific papers and I've learnt to use LaTeX normally. Anytime someone can't use LaTeX and can use only LyX it makes collaboration total hell.

If you write documents on your own, fair enough, but if you write documents with other people who don't use LyX then raw LaTeX obviously supersedes it! Ultimately it's better to learn LaTeX. It really isn't that difficult.  
(Version 1.6.3)

MARK EVERITT  How about this option after a minimum seeding? That keeps the torrents flowing -and- saves on energy.  
(Version 1.70)

MARK EVERITT  I took a look too. I'm not as qualified though. I downloaded and ran the public beta, and I couldn't really get it to do anything. I'm not sure if it -does- do anything! Can anyone else pitch in on this and tell me if I'm wrong?  
(Version 1.0pb11)

MARK EVERITT  This does not link to the installer, just the source code. When I did locate the installer it did not work on my machine (I used the one with QT3 bundled). I really want to try it out though so I'm installing it through macports.  
(Version 0.0.15)

MARK EVERITT  This makes day to day use of git extremely pleasant. On the back of this I recommend git as my VCS of choice simply because it -just works-.  
(Version 0.6.3)

MARK EVERITT  Seems really nice. Sadly I have to connect to an Exchange server for my work email, so I can't use this for now.  
(Version 1.0b12)

MARK EVERITT  Chalk and Cheese!  
(Version 1.8.69)

MARK EVERITT  I'm sure that you could coerce Imagemagick into tasks like clone stamping, but you're absolutely right that this is suited to a GUI. I tend to use Imagemagick for all those cases that are repetitive and could be handled in batch, or if what I want is something really simple, like creating a thumbnail. Most of my work is in technical drawing, not with photographs, so a very high proportion I what I do is programmatic anyway and I've never had a need for photoshop. I'll occasionally use gimp to touch up an image.

Sorry if my response to your initial post was harsh. I know that it was a legitimate question. There are just easier ways of finding out the answer though. A quick visit to their site would have answered your question and saved you time in the long run. Having said that I really do enjoy conversations like these! I guess, as in most things, the key is compromise. I reckon you should give Imagemagick a go next time you run into batch problems in Photoshop or something similar. It sounds like you're far more advanced than me when it come to real graphical work! I must confess I had to look up clone stamping.  
(Version 6.5.1)

MARK EVERITT  One other important thing!

IF you use a CLI then you're encouraged to think about tasks programmatically. This encourages consistency and thought rather than point and click which sometimes makes ideas too easy to realise.

This is going to make me sound a bit mad, but I actually avoid GUI for image creation, opting for PGF/TIKZ (you may have heard of this or use it if you're into LaTeX) because it keeps things consistent and forces me to think; a must for technical drawing and scientific diagrams.  
(Version 6.5.1)

MARK EVERITT  Did you just not bother to read the comment immediately below yours?

Imagemagick simply has too many features to wrap in a gui, and many people use it from scripts. Take a look around the internet. Anywhere you see a thumbnail it's probably imagemagick doing it. I use it for that and many more things.  
(Version 6.5.1)

MARK EVERITT  Oh I have backups! I'm so paranoid that I have automated backups to completely different parts of the world in case of nuclear holocaust. :D  
(Version 1.0.0.1)

MARK EVERITT  I really like the layout for this, especially the way the tree of TeX files works on the left. I'm writing my thesis at the moment and I may well switch to this. TeXShop is my other editor, and whilst pdfsync allows me to open anyfile with a command-click on the relevant section of the pdf, this always leads to TeX files open all over the place. Until TeXShop does tabs TexWriter wins!

One wish is for pdfsync support!  
(Version 1.0)

MARK EVERITT  Why the bad smilies for the last comment? They're charging $30 for -beta- software. That seems pretty wrong to me too, even if they do give you the final version on the same licence (do they?).  
(Version 1.0b1)

MARK EVERITT  I'm on an intel mac and I've had no problems at all with their visualisers. That's not to say that problems don't exist, just that for me they don't.  
(Version 1.0)

MARK EVERITT  I second this. Come on dev!  
(Version 2.22)

MARK EVERITT  Install Lingon (find it free on macupdate) and run it.

One of the things on the left will be com.google.keystone.agent. Click on this and then disable it. That should stop it the annoying updater running!  
(Version 3.0.4)

MARK EVERITT  It's quite nice. It has a chrome inspired tab bar at the top, which is annoying when you're just trying to select the window with the mouse. Otherwise I've had no problems so far, but I don't use plugins on safari and this seems to be the route of most problems. I'll probably stick to webkit for now.  
(Version 4.0b1)

MARK EVERITT  I don't believe this! The dev has just proven that they wrote the review! Click on the dev's name and it shows both posts in their history.

Admins help!  
(Version 3.0.2)

MARK EVERITT  Ok, look at Kandalu Software's address, as listed on their website.

Kandalu Software, Ltd.

33 Tregunter Road

SW10 9LS

Admin: 6 Harwood Road

SW6 4PH

Company number: 6137242

London - United Kingdom

Note specifically the road name TREGUNTER. Now look at this reviewers name below, TTREGUNTER.

Considering that this software is not what I'd call 5 star and this is the only review posted by this reviewer I think that it is suspicious enough to be removed.

Can an admin take a look at this please? This is not the first time I've spotted this kind of coincidence with respect to this particular developer.  
(Version 3.0.2)

MARK EVERITT  That's where you're wrong. I bought a mac as a machine to work on. I'm a postgraduate researcher and sometimes a programmer. I got my mac because I still get the best of what linux has to offer along with the gloss of OS X. By keeping my mind open and trying new things, I do a lot of things for free which you could wind up paying $100's on. There is a reason that the terminal is a part of OS X.

Not everyone shares your opinion of how to use an operating system. If by PC you mean windows, then this software is not available for it, and this type of install would be highly irregular. If you mean linux then for the major distros this is available as a binary, so more like windows than the procedure I linked to for the mac.

I've simply suggested an alternative for those people who are prepared to experiment. I'm not forcing it upon you. I've had a good experience with this software and I wanted to save some people money. If you don't want to mess around in the terminal, just skip over my post. Buy Medialink. You'll be happy with their software. I'm sure that it's a cleaner looking app and performs very well too. My post is in no way a criticism of MediaLink or similar commercial software and was not intended to be read as one.  
(Version 1.72)

MARK EVERITT  A free alternative (for a little legwork) is Mediatomb. You have to install it via Macports, but once Macports and Porticus are installed it's simply a matter of finding Mediatomb with the search in Macports and enabling it. This gives you a web interface to add files to the Mediatomb database too, so you can easily select what you want to stream.

The link below describes the process (using Fink instead, but it doesn't really matter how you install Mediatomb) and how to alter a couple of files to tweak Mediatomb for the necessary formats.

http://www.applesource.com.au/how-to/soa/How-to-Stream-media-to-a-PS3-from-a-Mac/0,2000451082,339287550,00.htm  
(Version 1.72)

MARK EVERITT  I've never had a single complaint from a windows user, and I've been sending zipped archives for years. Still, I guess that this could happen to some people. I'd suggest lowering the cost of this to a couple of dollars tops, especially considering that you could write a little shell script to do this without much thought.  
(Version 1.7)

MARK EVERITT  Imagemagick is far too full featured for a single GUI! You could happily have multiple programs for various tasks and still not use it to its full potential.  
(Version 6.4.7)

MARK EVERITT  Ah. Sorry for my paranoia! Please delete my previous post if you feel it's putting a slur on this product.

Cheers  
(Version 1.2b)

MARK EVERITT  These comments look rather suspicious, and I can't click through to see their profiles. Can an admin tell us what's going on here please?  
(Version 1.2b)

MARK EVERITT  It doesn't seem to be present in my Safari. I'm running a completely up to date 10.5.5. Is it in some other place than right-click?

I know that they've done a lot of work on it anyway. The webkit blog has details.  
(Version 0.5.40)

MARK EVERITT  Thanks for clearing that up. My outrage is justified then!  
(Version 2.6.6)

MARK EVERITT  Xplicit... Is that pronounced like Explicit? ;)  
(Version 0.2.6)

MARK EVERITT  Very useful when you need to jump in and out of a terminal. I use it when I need to do diffs or run a python script etc.  
(Version 2.2)

MARK EVERITT  I don't get this allergic reaction some people have to the terminal. If you want a bit more finder integration then use

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/24105/%3e-cd-to-...

to put you in a terminal in the current directory in finder and the rest is a sed one liner. I agree there's a lot of potential for user error, but you can get sed to echo what it'll do before wrecking up the place.

I guess my point is that nice GUIs go a long way, but at the end of the day there will always be those tasks that are better suited to the terminal. It's a shame I know. I'd rather have a nice graphical doodad to do this in a clever way using finder but nothing I've seen (forgetting cost for a moment) comes even close to the capabilities of sed. I'm not a computer scientist you know, and even my modest mind can cope with a bit of command line.  
(Version 3.7)

MARK EVERITT  This is one of my favourite and most commonly used utilities. Whenever someone at work converts to mac the first thing I recommend is this (after mactex of course, we're in academia). It's useful in so many ways!  
(Version 1.16)

MARK EVERITT  I adore this! It looks great and there are loads of options. Works perfectly for me.  
(Version 1.0)

MARK EVERITT  Wow. Ease up on the aggro there! You've made a fair point and cleared up my question. Still, it's not exactly in the spirit is it?

As far as I know the major contributor to Darwin is Apple (they host the source code on their servers) to separate the open source chunk from their proprietary chunk, so I'd counter what you're saying. They are giving the OS away for free. Darwin is the OS, and Mac OS is Darwin plus some sugar. That is getting a bit pedantic though.  
(Version 2.6.6)

MARK EVERITT  I know a lot of people like a nice GUI, but the terminal comes with your mac and with just a little effort to learn your way around, tasks like batch renaming become trivial.

Take a look at Sed:

http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sed.html

The first example pretty much does everything you'd ever need in this program.  
(Version 3.6)

MARK EVERITT  No, you please tell me why your site and the description above disagree. They can't both be true.  
(Version 0.7b)

MARK EVERITT  Incidentally, you claim >1.9x speed gains in the description above, but this is contradicted by your website that shows far more modest gains.

http://www.turbokitproject.com/statistics.html  
(Version 0.7b)

MARK EVERITT  You appear to be assuming that I made a mistake I have not. I was merely stating that I use the webkit nightly for the record and that it's a little buggy. Given that you're using a modified version of the framework installed with osx (plus updates etc.), doesn't that immediately put you at a disadvantage compared with a webkit framework built from svn?

I realise that I'm contradicting myself there. I'm not giving you a bad review. It's a comment. I was concerned that someone may install something unstable that would screw things up. If I wanted to give you a bad review then stars would be involved. Please consider these two posts a question (which you have kindly answered), and constructive criticism. If your product is good then you'll see the reviews get better!  
(Version 0.7b)

MARK EVERITT  This appears to use webkit. Whilst I use it as my main browser at the moment, the nightly builds are unstable. Does that not mean that this product is going to install an unstable framework for use with critical applications such as mail and safari? The stable code is safari so I don't see what benefit using the stable code would yield.  
(Version 0.7b)

MARK EVERITT  Have you tried the new webkit nightly builds? The firebug equivalent (right-click then inspect element) is really good! I use it all the time now and I strongly recommend it.  
(Version 0.4.24)

MARK EVERITT  I really like it! The only thing it lacks that I use quite a lot is quicklook integration. I know that's asking quite a lot though and I'm not even sure if it's possible.  
(Version 0.8.3)

MARK EVERITT  The Webkit nightly builds are pretty good. They've scored 100 on acid 3 for several months now. Much faster on javascript too.  
(Version 3.1b1)

MARK EVERITT  Another suggestion is Octave. It's extremely close to Matlab (especially since version 3) and all the code I have written now runs in both. The best part is that it's free!  
(Version 7.7)

MARK EVERITT  I'm confused. The libraries mentioned below are GNU GPL. Does that not require that the source for MacTheRipper is freely available? If this is the case then we need to put on some serious pressure to make this source available for download because this project is an abuse of those libraries.  
(Version 2.6.6)

MARK EVERITT  Have you used the editor in Maple? ;)  
(Version 3.1.2)

MARK EVERITT  I only commented before but now I'm reviewing. I've had the misfortune of using maple 12 due to some legacy files and I'm actually shocked. The interface simply doesn't work. There is no undo! And apparently matrices no longer obey A+B = B+A (I did check element by element). If I need help then clicking on the help menu works maybe 50% of the time, and when it does it takes at least 20 seconds to appear. This is the biggest load of **** I've used in a long time.

You have two reasonable options:

a) Use SAGE. (see my reviews)

b) Use Mathematica if you don't mind the cost. It may be as ugly as sin but at least it works.  
(Version 12.0)

MARK EVERITT  I think that this suite may be primarily for UNIX and Linux boxes on which configuring SAMBA can be a bit of a pain (although I've got it working fine on Ubuntu and Debian).

As far as OS X goes it's not needed. We all seem to be aware that we can mount windows file servers and alter files in situ etc.  
(Version 3.6)

MARK EVERITT  A simple one to get you started. If you have a bunch of png image files in a folder you want to convert to pdf then open a terminal, cd to the directory and type the following:

mogrify -format pdf *.png

You will need to install imagemagick first. The equivalent in SIPS is something like:

mkdir outputdir

sips -s format pdf *.png --out outputdir

And everything to do that is already installed as standard!  
(Version 1.0.1)

MARK EVERITT  If you're prepared to spend a little time learning a couple of terminal commands then Imagemagick is capable of doing stuff like this for free, and it's a cross platform standard. If you have a particular set of commands you always use then you can wrap your terminal commands into a bash script, apple script or even with automator.

Alternatively SIPS comes with osx, and although I've never used it I've been told that it provides similar functionality to Imagemagick.

Granted this isn't for everyone, but I highly recommend trying it out. Imagemagick is available from MacUpdate and it's very easy to get started.  
(Version 1.0.1)

MARK EVERITT  For some who use this it may be worth looking into CiteULike

http://www.citeulike.org/

It allows you to upload pdf files, and if you navigate to a journal's website you can automatically get all the details for the paper and it will assemble the bibtex for you. It's neat because I can get hold of my papers wherever I am and searching in it is nice too.

Before CiteULike I used JabRef a lot.  
(Version 1.3.18)

MARK EVERITT  I've noticed this too, but I occasionally have keychain issues anyway so I put it down to that. I'll do a repair permissions before I put it down to macfusion.  
(Version 2.0.1)

MARK EVERITT  Thanks again. :D  
(Version 2.0)

MARK EVERITT  Thanks. I'm liking the new interface, very slick!  
(Version 2.0)

MARK EVERITT  Sorry, that's what I meant by the menu items in the configuration box. Everything in the plus and the cog is greyed out.  
(Version 2.0)

MARK EVERITT  I can't seem to add favourites in version 2.0. I can connect to server, but the Favourites menu item is greyed out as are all the menu items in the configuration box.

Otherwise it's fantastic as always!  
(Version 2.0)

MARK EVERITT  Have you updated? I had this issue until I installed the latest version.  
(Version 1.52)

MARK EVERITT  Virtual Box is one that Sun distributes for free, and seems to be pretty fast. A good (free!) alternative to Parallels and VMWare.  
(Version 7.0)

MARK EVERITT  If you only need the unrar utility you can get it using macports. This has some advantages such as not needing to install stuff into /usr/bin, and if you use porticus with macports then the only use of the command line will be to use unrar itself.

Macports, Porticus and unrar obtained this way are all free.  
(Version 3.8b1)

MARK EVERITT  I use this for producing research posters, and even our group logo. Very easy to use and intuitive! The best free vector graphic program there is, and it's available on windows and various linux too, so collaboration is nice and easy.  
(Version 0.46.3)

MARK EVERITT  Fair enough!

* Firstly it's free (or open source if you like).

* It embeds a useful programming language (python) rather than some proprietary language.

* It includes lots of tools and older computer algebra alternatives such as Maxima and numerical systems like Octave.

* The interface is your web browser! It also does a very nice job of typesetting equations and will even give you the LaTeX code if you ask nicely.

* Plots are interactive. You can even view them in stereo if you have some 3D specs or can go cross-eyed.

* If you like to collaborate then anyone on your network with a browser can join in.

* Much much more!

Ok, I'm done being the salesman now. ;)  
(Version 3.0.1)

MARK EVERITT  I can't possibly recommend this enough!  
(Version 3.0.1)

MARK EVERITT  Thanks! :D  
(Version 12.0)

MARK EVERITT  I'm not sure about one star; Maple's works well enough for me for a while. It's interface is a bit crappy. It looks nice and clean on the surface, but just try to copy and paste stuff!

Anyway, I prefer SAGE. It's a relative newcomer, but it's extremely good and free! It's development has been extraordinary. Amongst it's benefits are that it uses a web browser for the interface (and it even typesets better than Maple), it allows easy collaborative use, it comes as a nice compiled package that you just drag and drop (no installer) and it incorporates Python, so you can actually program properly in it. You can even use stereoscopic glasses to view 3D plots in 3D!

http://www.sagemath.org/  
(Version 12.0)

MARK EVERITT  Works perfectly for doing proofs of research posters. Plus this way I get a safe copy if the poster tube gets lost in transit. Thanks!  
(Version 2.2)

MARK EVERITT  My department has a Joomla website, which I've had the dubious pleasure of being an admin for. I'm not sure if the newer versions sort out a lot of my problems, so I can't review this release with a rating.

I'd warn admins away from using it, as for editing it doesn't work with Safari, amongst other issues. It's simply a pain to use! On top of that, we've had quite a few complaints that it's confusing to use and add content to. We've had much more luck with a Moin based wiki.  
(Version 1.5.3)

MARK EVERITT  Those are fair points. I don't see the clutter so much because I use Unison to backup my laptop home folder to a server, and when at work I use macfusion to contact that backup directly, so I expect mac clutter. I never use my laptop with macfusion, and my desktop etc. are set not to sleep so I don't get the sleeping and wake up problems either. I guess I use macfusion in a way that minimises it's shortcomings naturally. :)  
(Version 1.0.4)

MARK EVERITT  Macfuse with Macfusion do exactly the same thing and are free. I use them all the time with more than 5 different servers on various operating systems and I've had no issues.

If you want to try it out, search for macfusion and the site tells you exactly what to do. In short it's simply an installer for macfuse and a drag and drop for macfusion.  
(Version 1.0.4)

MARK EVERITT  This is rather expensive! I use Unison which is free and excellent for file synchronisation between two folders on a single computer (you can repeat for more than two etc.) and was designed to synchronise a local folder and a remote folder. I'm not sure how it handles merges though, as I only work on one machine at a time and then synch before switching machines.

http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

Alternatives for merging are command line utilities such as Bazaar (bzr) for version control systems. Bazaar happens to be easy to use too if the command line doesn't scare you.

http://bazaar-vcs.org/  
(Version 2008.3469)

MARK EVERITT  Excellent. A must have if you use fink or ssh with X-tunneling. It gets rid of that annoying yellow cursor thing and a bunch of other gripes.  
(Version 2.1.1)

MARK EVERITT  This appears to be a cross platform app with the interface coded in Java. That makes a lot of sense for the company who make it in terms of developing a user base and supporting multiple platforms without having to recode the GUI every time.

This is very easy to use! Thanks.  
(Version 1.38)

MARK EVERITT  You mean the applicator from a bottle of Tipp-Ex right? If you don't know what that is then wikipedia it, I think americans may call it "liquid paper".  
(Version 4.6.32)

MARK EVERITT  This should probably be directed at the OpenOffice developers rather than those of NeoOffice. Remember that NeoOffice is a port of OpenOffice to Aqua etc. and the authors do not set the features, which are inherited from OpenOffice.

The NeoOffice developers do this with little funding, and the people at OpenOffice are in a similar position. Add that to the fact that Microsoft is obviously not going to make it easy to understand some of their file types and interactions within the MSOffice suite.

So, one step at a time. OpenOffice and NeoOffice should be considered up-and-coming. The development in the last few years has been truly staggering, so you may get your wish one day.  
(Version 2.2.2)

MARK EVERITT  I use cable broadband here in the UK. The way it works is that when you activate the broadband, your computer has to be plugged directly into the modem with an ethernet cable, and the modem locks to that computers MAC address.

Usually you'd use a router with MAC address cloning to clone the computers MAC address so the modem will think the router is the computer. In the case of my Airport Express however, MAC address cloning is not a feature. The way around this is to spoof the Express' MAC address before registering the broadband.

That requires software such as this (I use MacDaddy), and is completely legal and necessary with the equipment I have.  
(Version 2.11)

MARK EVERITT  Your review was a contradiction. I'm just pointing that out.

Anyway, would you rather a program just sat there looking nice and doing nothing? Of course functionality comes first.  
(Version 3.0.1)

MARK EVERITT  True, but rating it one star across the board was contradictory to his comment.

I agree that it's ugly, but it's a work in progress after all. Functionality must come before aesthetics.  
(Version 3.0)

MARK EVERITT  Still works fine for me. I've just installed it on a fresh system and it works on that too.  
(Version 1.49)

MARK EVERITT  "the features are arguably good, it's fairly stable, and free cant be beat"

So you gave it one star for features, value and stability? This is an abuse of the review system. Well done for being such a nice guy, you're unreasonable review could do some lasting damage to the developer in terms of MacUpdate downloads.  
(Version 3.0rc3)

MARK EVERITT  I'm currently using this as my default browser. I don't really bother with bookmarks except for a few on the bookmarks bar, so that doesn't really bother me. My one issue is that find doesn't appear to work, and that could be a deal breaker. If you can get that to work, then this is perfect for me! Thanks for a neat browser.  
(Version 2.2)

MARK EVERITT  Does what it says on the tin. It makes life so much easier! Thanks to the developers of both this and MacFUSE for two of the most useful and timesaving pieces of software I've downloaded this year.  
(Version 1.2b3)

MARK EVERITT  It doesn't seem to be working for me. I get the frame of the lamp, and a little lego brick with a question mark on it where the lava should be. I've played sudoku on my dashboard for about an hour waiting for it to kick in, but nothing...  
(Version 2.1)

MARK EVERITT  ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange

But I'm stumped too. Surely this comment about -American- keyboards has no place as a review for an English key map. I can appreciate this because it was awkward for me to adject from a UK standard keyboard to a Mac UK keyboard.

Anyone ever seen a keyboard with the QWERTY replaced with ' !"#$'? ASCII indeed!  
(Version 070426)

MARK EVERITT  Wow, thank you!  
(Version 1.0.7)

MARK EVERITT  I really like this. It doesn't get in my way! The only thing is that I'm a little old fashioned, and I play entire albums at at time so in iTunes I navigate through the library. Would it be possible to add in a library tree in the drop down menu?

Thanks for this excellent software!  
(Version 1.0.7)

MARK EVERITT  As I wrote above, I will not pay for a product that I cannot first try out. What about that could you not understand?

If the product measures up, then I'll happily donate, as with other software I use.

If you have nothing helpful or relevant to add to this thread, then please leave it be. Nothing about what I'm saying is a joke. Again, I'm sorry for the tone of my initial comment, but I still desire a demo version at least.

And lastly, your use of my name has a derogatory tone. Please just call me Mark. After all, we're all friends here. :)  
(Version 2.6.6)

MARK EVERITT  Seems good so far. Mostly just the same old Safari plus a few features that are very useful. Inline search is nicely done, and the tab moving/undocking is another thing I've missed before this. Still a little heavy on the RAM though. I guess you don't get all the cool stuff for free!  
(Version 3.0b)

MARK EVERITT  In light of this spectacular aesthetic debacle, perhaps we should ask MacUpdate to add an extra out-of-five score for 'look and feel', or maybe a specific review type such as 'It looked too terrifying to download'.  
(Version 1.0)

MARK EVERITT  Thanks for making this free. Choice is important! However, this is seriously ugly in my opinion.  
(Version 1.0)

MARK EVERITT  I'm having no trouble landing the craft. Sure it's difficult, but as long as I'm paying attention then on easy it's -easy-. My thanks to the developer, I remember a game like this and you've replicated it nicely.  
(Version 1.0)

MARK EVERITT  Great idea. I'd previously been put off of Papers because it didn't support arXiv.org which is the bare minimum for me. I'd also like to see the various APS journals etc (esp. PRA and PRL). Is anyone writing plugins for these? I'd love to but I don't have any free time at the moment!  
(Version 1.0)

MARK EVERITT  Sorry this was directed at an earlier thread of comments. I attempted to reply to the comment but something appears to have gone wrong. Sorry about this!  
(Version 0.8.1)

MARK EVERITT  Awesome, but not exactly constructive. ;)  
(Version 0.8.1)

MARK EVERITT  Help! amsn crashes and quits on launching...  
(Version 0.96)

MARK EVERITT  Cheers, I'll check it out.  
(Version 1.8)

MARK EVERITT  Got that problem sorted, and it turns out it was just me being stupid. Excellent app! Just what I've been looking for.  
(Version 1.0)

MARK EVERITT  That did the trick! Just my own stupidity getting the best of me again. ;)  
(Version 1.0)

MARK EVERITT  I've got the newest MacFUSE installed. The icon sits in the menu bar, but the submenus are greyed out. None of the non-greyed options work, including quit (so I have to force it). Any idea what's wrong?

This'll be perfect when I get it working!  
(Version 1.0)

MARK EVERITT  I like it! This is just what our group has been needing.

To the other reviewers; this is a cross-platform piece of software, and developing in Cocoa adds complexity which simply is not necessary. Java and SWT on the other hand work on all the major operating systems without modification. Read the developer blog.

My thanks to the developer.  
(Version 0.1.2)

MARK EVERITT  I really want to like Mercury. I've been using it for quite a while, and I've stuck to it because it offers so many features that I use.

However, it has some problems. It's a bit buggy for a start. It'll randomly crash from time to time, or hang for a while. The worst thing by far is the amount of RAM this uses. Activity Monitor usually reports that Mercury is hogging ~ 150MB of RAM, which puts it at the top of the list most of the time. I only have 1GB of RAM, and giving over this much memory is no longer an option.

I'm afraid that unless this can be optimised somehow to use much less memory, I'll have to bin it for good.  
(Version 1.8)

MARK EVERITT  An incredibly useful application! I've only had it for one evening and it's already streamlined my research. I have to digest a lot of papers, and this allows me to highlight and annotate only what I need. Many thanks to the developer for this! Many thanks to the developers!  
(Version 0.2)

MARK EVERITT  Fantastic app! I have to admit that I kinda like the icons too...  
(Version 2.2.7)

MARK EVERITT  I agree. LaTeX is free and easy to learn. It is also the de jure typesetting format for most scientific publications, and has been for quite a while now. LaTeXiT is a neat little utility for turning LaTeX equations into drag-and-drop pdf images.  
(Version 4.0.7)

MARK EVERITT  Looking through your past postings, it seems to me like you're trolling. I happen to be a developer as well and we I don't appreciate help from trolls.  
(Version 2.6.6)

MARK EVERITT  Ok, I'm sorry if I sounded whiny. I was just a little annoyed at the time when I know that there's an intel version. It seemed like the developer was making a distinction between ppc and intel users that was unfair.

I donate to all the open and/or free projects that I'm aware of using on a regular basis. As soon as I can try out an intel version of this, and see if it suits me, I'm not inclined to pay for it.

I know that my previous comment was insensitive, and as I've said I am very sorry, and I partially retract it because of the tone. However, I stand by my desire for an intel version to try out.  
(Version 2.6.6)

MARK EVERITT  Exceptionally promising! Sure it's a bit heavy at the moment, but it is in development. I work in a completely cross-platform environment, and a cross-platform player suits me down to the ground. I still use iTunes more, but with each release iTunes is getting more bloated and less worth it.

With regards to the interface, this is a cross platform player, so of course it's never going to look mac native. I think it's a good thing to take a unique look rather than try to blend in unsuccessfully. Kudos to the developers, and keep up the good work on this amazing project!  
(Version 0.2.5)

MARK EVERITT  Come on. Isn't it about time for a universal app? I know about the beta, but this is getting to be a joke.  
(Version 2.6.6)

MARK EVERITT  To be fair, OSX comes with a built in unpacker for a lot of compressed files, including .zip, .tar, etc. I don't understand why some developers insist on using stuffit compressed files when it entails another step in the install. In fact, it's probably easiest to put files into a compressed .dmg file, and distribute that way.

It's nice to see that this developer has reconsidered and put their file in a standard disc image as described above.  
(Version 12.56)

MARK EVERITT  Sorry, but this looks awful. It doesn't fit in at all with anything else on my desktop. This can't possibly comply with the user interface guidelines.  
(Version 1.03d)

MARK EVERITT  Have you tried using the last stable release? This works for all devices that I use, some of which won't be on any supported list. New betas generally have usb related problems.

http://download.parallels.com/GA/Parallels-Desktop-1970-Mac-en.dmg  
(Version 2.5.3106)

MARK EVERITT  Maple is now slow. Labels on tabs and panels have gone. It crashes constantly. Has anyone else had these problems? This is not isolated, as I uninstalled and tried an install on my macbook too.  
(Version 10.06)

MARK EVERITT  Finally! I didn't anticipate a software fix to the RSS (random shutdown syndrome) problem. Fingers crossed now!  
(Version 1.1)

MARK EVERITT  The enforced syntax debate is well known and argued elsewhere, in forums specifically for arguments such as this. The result is that you get people who do like it, and people who don't. I learnt C first myself, but when it comes to rapid prototyping, and scripting, python is excellent. I use it as a replacement for Matlab, and it performs very well indeed.

For learner programmers, python is great to teach syntax of course. An alternative starting language such as C gives you more of an idea about how machines work, but this can be extremely intimidating for those just starting out.

Posting about learning a language on here is perhaps moot, due to the MacPython 2.3 installation present by default which is fine for begginers programming. A new user certainly shouldn't start with beta software.  
(Version 2.5b1)