MARSVIOLET  It hasn't been updated in a few years, but it seems to work perfectly under Leopard.  
(Version 3.0.5)

MARSVIOLET  A powerful but unforgiving 3D program crippled by instability and longstanding bugs, with a customizable but unwieldy modal interface that hinders more than helps, lacks support for standard Mac key bindings such as the Apple key, and in general shows contempt for the Apple Human Interface Guidelines. A wealth of training materials is available online, but the included documentation is simultaneously incomplete and redundant, and the user community is defensive, arrogant and hostile.  
(Version 302)

MARSVIOLET  A powerful but unforgiving 3D program crippled by instability and longstanding bugs, with a customizable but unwieldy modal interface that hinders more than helps, lacks support for standard Mac key bindings such as the Apple key, and in general shows contempt for the Apple Human Interface Guidelines. A wealth of training materials is available online, but the included documentation is simultaneously incomplete and redundant, and the user community is defensive, arrogant and hostile.  
(Version 302)

MARSVIOLET  Could be great and useful, but it's as buggy as hell on my system. Some corners activate the wrong things, others won't accept the 2-second delay, etc. Frustrating.  
(Version 0.8.1)

MARSVIOLET  And quicker.  
(Version 1.0)

MARSVIOLET  Great app, but I won't pay for software that requires activation. Please reconsider.  
(Version 1.41)

MARSVIOLET  While it may lack the scruffy, dishevelled geek charm of Nisus from the System 7 era, this new all-Cocoa "Pro" version is slick, polished and fully featured. I'm impressed with the progress made in this second public beta to squash the few bugs I ran into. Very cool.  
(Version 1.0b2)

MARSVIOLET  From what I can remember, Nisus always said that Express was intended to be a less featured version of their future pro product. I imagine they'll offer a cross-grade of some sort.  
(Version 1.0b1)

MARSVIOLET  This is looking really nice. I have only one gripe so far, and it's silly, but hey — I don't like how the "close" Xs in the formatting drawer are on the right rather than the left.  
(Version 1.0b1)

MARSVIOLET  Well, I hope so. Then again, the only Adobe app I still use is Photoshop, so really I'm sort of barking just for the sake of barking. I never used the CS or CS2 icons either. I held onto the older, prettier ones.  
(Version 1.0a1)

MARSVIOLET  If all you have is Photoshop's blue [Ps], sure — it'll stand out and be easily identifiable — but get four or five of these things in your Dock — god forbid ten or more — things are gonna get ugly.

Plus, relying on letter combinations is a really poor idea. Let me illustrate. Tell me what these apps from my Dock are:

[Tr] [Qt] [Ma] [Ap] [Gb] [Fl] [Pr] [Tx] [Mo]

Even if I color-coded them it would be a needlessly abstract puzzle. I believe in minimalism in graphic design — consider the original simple System 1 icons — but even Egyptian hieroglyphics would have been better than this utter silliness.  
(Version 1.0a1)

MARSVIOLET  If all they care about is people being able to spot Photoshop in a crowded Dock, a large Inuit phallus fetish would have worked just as well, and would have required some actual graphic design skill to execute successfully.  
(Version 1.0a1)

MARSVIOLET  Well at least Adobe's application icons now accurately reflect the quality of its products and the aesthetic taste of its upper management.  
(Version 1.0a1)

MARSVIOLET  Really, Zune is the worst name ever, but SeaMonkey does make you wonder.  
(Version 1.1)

MARSVIOLET  I can't see myself ever needing this app, but that's a damn funny name.  
(Version 1.0)

MARSVIOLET  Which begs the question, Why did you upgrade to Panther then?  
(Version 1.3)

MARSVIOLET  Yeah sure. If it were $19.95 you'd complain and say it should be $9.99.  
(Version 3.0.3b5)

MARSVIOLET  Very useful for many years, but please do something about the Convert & Modify dialog. It's like it's stuck in System 6 — clunky and annoying to use.  
(Version 5.9.4)

MARSVIOLET  I have owned Aperture since version 1.0 and have been using it on the same hardware as you, and it finally has gotten to the point where I don't want to use it anymore. The eye-opener for me was finally giving iPhoto a try for the first time and discovering how much faster and more pleasurable it is to use than Aperture. Smart Albums in iPhoto are instantaneous. In Aperture, Smart Albums take forever to open, and frequently cause a spinning beachball. And the whole app is like that. It's powerful, but an unbelievably lethargic old dog on a hot day to use. And I have found it to be quite counter-intuitive in a lot of ways. Very disappointing.

After three years advocating shooting RAW and using apps such as Camera Raw and Aperture to complicate my life, I have finally come to the realization that RAW is a huge waste of time for very little tangible benefit, and that apps like Aperture, Lightroom and Camera Raw are a needless category of software with little reason to exist except for the highly anal retentive control freak in all of us.

There's a highly sophisticated RAW processing program built into your camera that works instantaneously, functions flawlessly, and requires no user interaction. Take advantage of it. Shoot JPEG, and get on with life.  
(Version 1.5.1)

MARSVIOLET  Fantastic. Clever and very Mac-like. Love it.  
(Version 2.0.1)

MARSVIOLET  Most impressive. Quick and fully featured, and does things Final Draft still can't do after 10+ years. And cocoa no less! Très cool.  
(Version 1.0b7)

MARSVIOLET  Lightroom is Camera RAW spun off as a standalone app (not a bad idea, frankly, since Camera RAW is terrific) with web page and slideshow features added, all slathered over with one of the most unfortunately hideous GUIs ever conceived, which is all the more perplexing when you consider that this is a Cocoa app. It runs decently (faster than Aperture at a lot of things, just as slow at plenty of others). Clearly Lightroom is being rushed to market in response to Aperture, even if it's been in development (e.g. sitting on a shelf) for two years. It looks and feels like some kind of Flash app. The best thing in my opinion, being an owner of Aperture who is really beginning to like the app, is that Lightroom means that Apple will really hustle to improve Aperture.  
(Version 1.0b1)

MARK T  The CocoaTech website has been offline for at least a week. Anybody know what's up?  
(Version 3.2.2)

MTHOMAS  A GUI should be clean, clear, consistent, easy on the eyes, and should not draw undue attention to itself. Iridium is nearly perfect in this regard. Unlike most themes, Iridium stems from an extremely simple concept -- unify "unified" -- and succeeds tremendously. The simplest solutions are always the best.

At the same time, Apple's mix of Aqua and Textured (brushed metal) is not without some merit, as windows with different looks make them easier to tell apart at a glance, e.g. Mail from Safari, but giving each application an unique GUI is ultimately not a good solution. It's schizophrenic. And I fear this is what OS X is becoming with its Textured, Aqua, Aqua Unified, Pro and Garage Band appearances all cluttering the screen at once.

Iridium takes a conservative approach like Platinum did, but keeps most of the charm of Aqua intact and propagates itself system wide (or nearly so), without stooping to over design or becoming gaudy and intolerable.

Inspired.  
(Version 1.6.3)

M THOMAS  The click delay was a side effect of the chording feature. Disabling chording was a way to eliminate the click delay.  
(Version 2.6)

M THOMAS  I like the new icon. I think it makes Intaglio look more like a professional app. The funny thing is if you look closely, you'll see that the new icon incorporates the old da Vinci design anyway. So quit yer hollerin.  
(Version 2.3.1)

M THOMAS  How utterly, wonderfully glorious. I almost did not upgrade to Tiger simply on the grounds that Tiger's Mail 2.0 was too ugly to possibly use on a daily basis. This rules.  
(Version 1.0.1)

M THOMAS  Well done. Support for Adobe's DNG files would be a nice addition.  
(Version 1.0)

M THOMAS  Masterful. Great job.  
(Version )

MARSVIOLET  Nice! It would be cool to have a drop shadow option for the icons.  
(Version .8)

MARK THOMAS  >>how does an image editing app

>>NOT have a crop feature?

The crop tool is in the Tools palette.  
(Version 0.1.4)

M. THOMAS  You were right, Steve -- it was the chording! Incredible. I've been dealing with this for YEARS! LOL.  
(Version 2.5b2)

M. THOMAS  Can anybody tell me if the problem of dropped clicks -- that has plagued both my Studio Mouse and my Expert Mouse trackball -- has been addressed? It's been years and I've been through several new Macs and this is still happening to me.  
(Version 2.5b2)

M. THOMAS  Refuses to burn from my SuperDrive to either HP brand or Imation brand CD-R media. Complains media is "wrong type" (HP) or "not writable" (Imation). Normal SuperDrive burns from the Finder work, however. Now what?  
(Version 3.0.2)

JE SUIS MARS  Thanks again.  
(Version 2.0)

JE SUIS MARS  Sweet! I've been hoping somebody would make something like this to help me with my French learning. Je suis endetté à vous.  
(Version 2.0)

M. THOMAS  Sorry, BB. The author neglected to mention that this app requires a sense of humor to function properly.  
(Version 1.0)

MARSVIOLET  1.0.4 breaks more than just the "w" key. I use "e" to move forward, but after applying the patch, pressing "e" causes me to move backward, and attempting to change "e" to any other key results in "x" instead. This is the last straw for me.

Halo is unique in that it is 75% brilliant, but 25% totally lame. And that 25% -- clearly the result of Microsoft's influence -- just completely ruins the game for me. Bummer.

Bungie was so cool once. My have they fallen into disgrace.  
(Version 1.0.4)