PETER DA SILVA  So... are nVidia and Apple going to collaborate on some merge of CUDA and OpenCL? Or does it matter, since Microsoft will just implement their own incompatible variant in DirectX 13?  
(Version 2.2)

PETER DA SILVA  I wanted to resize it so I could sit it in the manu bar, but it's not resizable. *sigh*  
(Version 1.1.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Keyboard Viewer is built in to the OS. :)  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  Now it says "error connecting to server". Bother.  
(Version 2.7b15)

PETER DA SILVA  IMPORTANT NOTE:

From the Electric Sheep website...

Before the new hotfix is out. If you have a crash running screensaver just after installation of b15, please try the following:

After installation, check if all folders on the path "~/Library/Application Support/ElectricSheep/content" exist. If not, please recreate those missing manually.

Or just launch this in Terminal:

cd ~;mkdir -p "`pwd`/Library/Application Support/ElectricSheep/content";cd -

When all folders are created, the screen saver should not crash anymore.

I am working on the patch and b15a should be out soon.

If it still crash for you, please let me know.

Thanks,

Daniel  
(Version 2.7b15)

PETER DA SILVA  Same here, Mac mini G4, 10.5.6  
(Version 2.7b15)

PETER DA SILVA  Not discoverable:

No cue that the button on the lower left will rotate the window.

No indication that the buttons on the lower right will provide a dialog before deleting the selected item.

No menu items to add/delete/activate or deactivate items.

No menu item to select the application sets.

No contextual menus.  
(Version 1.2.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Gah, I don't know why I missed the big blue checkboxes next to the items.  
(Version 1.2.1)

PETER DA SILVA  The user interface is not standard and it's also not very "discoverable".

* The buttons on the lower right should also be on the menu.

* Since they bring up a dialog they should be tagged with ellipses...

* The "Delete..." button should be in a contextual menu as well.

* The control to switch views should be visually distinct from a button, perhaps a labeled arrow.

* The animated rotation for Mac OS Software was surprising: simply having more tabs in the tab bar may have been preferable.

* I still can't figure out how to enable or disable a plugin rather than delete it completely. I would expect this to be a button and a contextual menu.

It looks like it could be a very useful tool, once these quirks are ironed out.  
(Version 1.2.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Such innovation. They renamed "Party Shuffle" to "iTunes DJ". Be still my beating heart.  
(Version 8.1)

PETER DA SILVA  I've been using iTunes smart playlists to do this for several years now. You might want to see about using the iTunes Applescript API to pull in specific playlists and the like.  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  So what's the version that doesn't require X11?  
(Version 2.6.3)

PETER DA SILVA  The problem is that these other apps only let you choose between sleep and hibernate all the time. When I'm going to a meeting, I just sleep my laptop while I'm walking to the meeting. When I'm going to head home, I hibernate it so it doesn't burn power overnight. The old "Deep Sleep" in the dock was perfect.

The new Dashboard widget is annoying. Even if I used Dashboard it's an extra step to bring Dashboard up to sleep, so I still use the old dock app.  
(Version 1.1.1)

PETER DA SILVA  I can't move the main window... it's stuck in the upper left corner of the screen. Clicking the "greyed out" maximize icon in the window reveals that this is actually a full-screen Windows style MDI application with a fake OS X window hidden inside the real main window... and the main window has no title bar.

They would actually have done better to make it a plain X11 port. This is so bad a design that I see no reason to bother investigating it further.  
(Version 1.3.5)

PETER DA SILVA  But what does it actually *do*?

That's what people are boggled about... what does this desktop get you that the built-in software doesn't already do much much better? WHy would you use this package instead of Safari, iChat/AdiumX, Apple Mail, etc? What's the point? Cui bono? Where's the beef?  
(Version 1.5b7)

PETER DA SILVA  Dagnabbit, I *just* switched to using Time Machine for my backups and they go and fix at least half the problems I was having with Silverkeeper.

Oh well, maybe I can use it for my bootable backups.  
(Version 2.0.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Needs a "GURU MEDITATION" mode.  
(Version 2.0.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Why do you need an installer at all? Even Microsoft doesn't demand you use an installer, they have one, but when I installed Office X it gave me the option of running the installer or just copying the appdir to Applications. What's the point of installers for trivial apps?

(which does raise the question, why do you need AOL desktop at all?)  
(Version 1.5b6)

PETER DA SILVA  Well, if it was a screen saver that might be amusing...  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  Do we NEED an alternative to Flash?

I'm not convinced we need Flash.

And this isn't because it's not open, it's because it replaces a clean linkable interface under the control of the user, with one that's under the control of the publisher. Flash is like, "what if half the books you read were only available in encrypted versions that you couldn't make bookmarks in, photocopy, make notes on, ...".  
(Version 2.0)

PETER DA SILVA  "Description: Multiple vulnerabilities exist in vim 7.0, the most serious of which may lead to arbitrary code execution when working with maliciously crafted files. This update addresses the issues by updating to vim 7.2.0.22. Further information is available via the vim website at http://www.vim.org/"

Alternatively, replace vim with nvi. :)  
(Version 2008-007)

PETER DA SILVA  Does it work as a Service, like WordService?  
(Version 2.9)

PETER DA SILVA  I'm confused, and the comments haven't really helped. What does this do that the Apple's own software doesn't do? Or is this just for people who want to move their libraries from XBox to Mac?  
(Version 0.5.21)

PETER DA SILVA  Where do you get 1.0.1? Their site says "Drawit Lite is not available for Tiger and never will be".  
(Version 1.3)

PETER DA SILVA  Thank you for removing Google Updater from this product. Not only is GU unnecessary bloat, but I'm worried about the security implications of the extensions it implements in browsers that allow you yo "push" an update from your website.

Google: I've asked this in support requests, on your forums, in email to your security people, and even on slashdot... could you explain the security model of Google Updater, and the undocumented _GU_*() javascript API in Firefox and IE?  
(Version 1.6.0.1552)

PETER DA SILVA  Is there a similar program for Nero and Toast image files?  
(Version 1.1)

PETER DA SILVA  I have griped about people calling a minimum change to Webkit a new browser, but if this really does provide process isolation inside a tabbed model then it actually DOES bring something worthwhile to the table and so it's not reasonable to dismiss it blithely as merely another 'my first browser' in Webkit.  
(Version 0.1)

PETER DA SILVA  The tab position at the top of the window above the address bar is unfortunate. I believe Google's reasoning for putting the tabs there is wrong: the content of the address bar widget itself may change with the tab, but so does the title bar... and the layout and overall content of the address bar (and bookmark and status bars, if present) is not associated with the tab it is in.

This scheme is too much like the horrid old Microsoft MDI model, and it's annoying enough in Opera that it was enough to make me switch back to Firefox from Opera on Windows.

Please at least make it optional.  
(Version 0.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Wanted an option to swap the other way, because I prefer the PC layout, so I just sent the author a patch for that. Hopefully 0.5 will come out soon. :)  
(Version 0.4)

PETER DA SILVA  I have a small script I wrote called "MountWatch" that does some of the same things... at least lets you see what's got mounted devices open, so you know what to close. It's not polished but DOES run on 10.4. If there's interest I could see about putting it up somewhere after I get power back at home (stupid hurricane).  
(Version 1.8)

PETER DA SILVA  Disabling the iTunes store isn't the same as deleting the iTunes store quicklinks, goldarnit.  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  Removing doublequotes is something you need to do with care.

What happens when you have a row like this....

"1","2,3","4 - ""bob"" - 5","6"  
(Version 1.0.1)

PETER DA SILVA  How does it handle saving and restoring HFS+ metadata?  
(Version 8.06)

PETER DA SILVA  How mysql-specific is it, could it be extended to support postgresql and sqlite?  
(Version 0.9)

PETER DA SILVA  There are other kinds of importers... bookmark importers for browsers and address book importers for all kinds of things and photo importers for photoshop and document importers for office suites.  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  Imports to *what*?  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  Like to try it and see what the improvements are... but iAlertU works on 10.4 and Lockdown doesn't.  
(Version 1.0.4)

PETER DA SILVA  Here's a better USB cat:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/08/05/funny-pictures-now-remove-usb-cat-sfely/  
(Version 2.0.2)

PETER DA SILVA  Thank you so much for fixing the audio cutout!

Did you add some more animations or just reset the animation settings when I upgraded? I'm pretty sure the foundation wasn't swinging around like that before, but I didn't keep the old version to check.  
(Version 1.3.3)

PETER DA SILVA  :)

Wasn't Sweet 16 originally a 16 bit virtual machine running on the Apple ][+?

Oh yeh...

http://6502.org/source/interpreters/sweet16.htm  
(Version 2.0b18)

PETER DA SILVA  When I start it up I get a WHOLE bunch of errors...

> Iterator

Cannot create node of class "QCSmooth" and identifier "(null)"

> Iterator

Cannot create node of class "QCSmooth" and identifier "(null)"

> Iterator

Cannot create node of class "QCSmooth" and identifier "(null)"

[...]  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  Your logic is too subtle for me, longboy.  
(Version 0.12)

PETER DA SILVA  Also, Adium requires 10.4 these days.  
(Version 0.12)

PETER DA SILVA  I'm still using the older deepsleep app, I don't use widgets.

Since Security Update 2008-005 this application just hangs. I suspect it was depending on some setuid applescript backdoor to work. :p  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  The question is... what does it actually DO?

When you don't need to run AOL software to log in to AOL, what benefit do you get from AOL Desktop? What does it actually do?  
(Version 1.5b2)

PETER DA SILVA  I normally just use "sudo lsof | grep Trash"... but I gotta agree that's a great icon. :)  
(Version 1.3)

PETER DA SILVA  Note that for some phones they don't support, you can modify an XML file in iSync to add support. I did this for my Nokia 6263 by telling iSync it's an N40 series phone.

http://scarydevil.com/~peter/io/nokia6263.html  
(Version 1v1)

PETER DA SILVA  dent du midi works for me, and I can change the instruments in Garage Band  
(Version 1.2)

PETER DA SILVA  Even if this didn't use APE it would still have to use some kind of code injection, and MacSpeech would still object to it. If you have problems with MacSpeech software that seem related to it, then disable it for that program and if that fixes the problem just uninstall it before sending them any *other* trouble reports. If that doesn't fix the problem, then removing it won't either, so either way as long as you remove it before you send them any trouble reports you should be fine.  
(Version 1.5b4)

PETER DA SILVA  You can tell APE not to run in specific applications, have you tried that?  
(Version 1.5b4)

PETER DA SILVA  Try dropping back to iScrobbler 1.5. It's much smaller and tighter.  
(Version 2.2b4)

PETER DA SILVA  8-track? Man, does that tickle my nostalgia bone.  
(Version 2.1.3)

PETER DA SILVA  I think we have pretty well confirmed that the ARD exploit does NOT exist (at least not in Tiger) if you have not run ARDAgent. That's not "counter to reality", that's just the way osascript works... it doesn't go grovelling through the disk looking for programs that might register with Applescript.  
(Version 1.2)

PETER DA SILVA  That's precisely correct: I'm not putting your work down, and if your patch allows people to use ARD safely, that's great. If they don't have a need for ARD, though, don't you think it might be possible to remove the registration of ARDAgent's Applescript dictionary so that osascript doesn't use it?  
(Version 1.2)

PETER DA SILVA  If you were going to do something useful, like say stripping Adium of all the webkit spam so it runs on 10.3 again, I'd be excited.  
(Version 1.0b1)

PETER DA SILVA  I wish people who insist that "the article is correct" would try it.  
(Version 1.1)

PETER DA SILVA  I suggest you try it on a Mac taken straight out of the box. Seriously.

Until you run ARDAgent, its Applescript dictionaries do not seem to be registered with anything. You don't have to poke around in the .plist and you don't have to start up remote management. I have tested this on my Mac which is, as far as ARD is concerned, taken straight out of the box, and the "do shell script" does NOT run ARDAgent.

If you do not use ARD, then how do you imagine osascript will know how to find ARDAgent?  
(Version 1.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Friend, I do understand how it works. I've getting on for 30 years experience with UNIX, and 20 years as a network and security administrator, and I have not only read the original report and article, I've tried several variations of the attack.

What I got was an error message, no shell script ran. Unless ARDAgent has run, there is no way for osascript to pass the "do shell script" command (or any other command) to the privileged ARDAgent process... because there is no such process for it to pass it to. Either my copy of Tiger is fundamentally different from every other copy of Tiger out there, or there's something else involved in this attack than simply "do shell script".  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  I have not been able to reproduce the ARD attack on my machine. If you do not have ARD enabled, then the ARD component required to launch the attack is not running and accepting Applescript messages.  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  I filed a ticket for 1.2.7b1 and 1.2.6. The problem also occurs for 1.2.5 debug build only (evands changed the description to include 1.2.5, but it only happens for the debug build).  
(Version 1.2.6)

PETER DA SILVA  Tracking this problem with AdiumX here:

http://trac.adiumx.com/ticket/10324  
(Version 1.2.6)

PETER DA SILVA  1.2.5 is happy with AOL and jabber, and I could care less about ICQ. Thanks.

1.2.6 is not working for AOL or Jabber on Mac OS X 10.4.11, Core Duo (original Macbook Pro).  
(Version 1.2.6)

PETER DA SILVA  Updated to 1.2.6 and could not log in anywhere. If anyone has a copy of the 1.2.5 DMG at hand I'd appreciate it.  
(Version 1.2.6)

PETER DA SILVA  Hey, I know that it's got to be possible to capture an application windows in OS X, since the window is just an OpenGL texture. How about an option to do that, capture the application's window (even without allowing interaction) and displaying it in the screen saver, similar the way you can use any application as a screen saver on X-Windows?  
(Version 2.0b)

PETER DA SILVA  Large complex application that doesn't even take advantage of Apple's built-in PDF support. Not green at all.  
(Version 8.1.2)

PETER DA SILVA  What does this do that the keychain doesn't?  
(Version 1.1)

PETER DA SILVA  This appears to be a commercial for-pay product.  
(Version 2.6.2)

PETER DA SILVA  Could you turn the joy up a little? I can't find a "joy" slider in the options (is it a hidden pref in the plist file?), and it's not quite overwhelming me yet. It's getting there, but I'm still merely whelmed. I can feel it trying to overwhelm me, particularly in strong trumpet passages, but it's not quite making it over the top. :)  
(Version 2.25)

PETER DA SILVA  It's still not really vi.

When Apple replaced good solid vi with vim in OS X the first thing I did was compile nvi and completely remove that abomination known as "vim".  
(Version 30)

PETER DA SILVA  Oooh, what a good idea. How about extending it to remove the ".Mac" stuff from everywhere in the UI? Because it feels a lot like nagware having all these reminders thoughout the system about .Mac.

Hmmm, and maybe remove the [Pro] items from the Quicktime Player menus?

:) :) :)  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  According to the Ambrai home page, the 10.0.11 evaluation version expired April 2007.  
(Version 3.10)

PETER DA SILVA  I'm still using iScrobbler 1.5 because all the extra features added since have made it less stable and more cpu-hungry.  
(Version 2.2b2)

PETER DA SILVA  The website doesn't go into a lot of detail, but it says this is "sponsor supported" and requires an account on their site, so I assume that it's a VPN to their server, and puts ads on yur screen while you're using it... yes no?  
(Version 0.942)

PETER DA SILVA  What do the little number badges on the file icons represent?  
(Version 2.5)

PETER DA SILVA  I think people are hung up on the fact that the description doesn't explain what the program's for. It really *is* confusing, because it implies that there's something wrong but doesn't explain what that something is.  
(Version 0.3)

PETER DA SILVA  Have you tried putting your license keys in your keychain? :)  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  No "install" button ever comes up on teh download page.  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  According to Apple's site this is ONLY for Macbook Pros with Core 2 Duo processors.  
(Version 1.5)

PETER DA SILVA  Should default to ~/Library/Logs/...  
(Version 1.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Indeed, Real is no longer the evil proprietary format of choice, it's been replaced by flash.  
(Version 0.8.6f)

PETER DA SILVA  Is the source available so users of older versions of OSX can build it?  
(Version 0.1.6)

PETER DA SILVA  OK, make it with "bsdmake" not "make".  
(Version 4.9)

PETER DA SILVA  That means the Makefile is for BSD make, not GNU make. A configure script is possibly misidentifying the OS.  
(Version 4.9)

PETER DA SILVA  Same problem in Safari.  
(Version 1.4.1)

PETER DA SILVA  You might want to zip this up with some documentation. Right now it comes down as plain text and is displayed in my browser (Camino).  
(Version 1.4.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Oh, I see them. Why isn't the "relaxed rules" checkbox in with the rest of the variants?  
(Version 1.3.1)

PETER DA SILVA  How about supporting the variant that gives you one pass through the stock one card at a time? My grandmother played that one and got quite sarcastic when I re-used the stock.  
(Version 1.3.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Pretty but buggy. It wouldn't let me move a 4H3S stack onto 5S to free up a 5C to move to the foundation.  
(Version 1.3)

PETER DA SILVA  Following up to myself... OK, this is basically a dummy CDRW that saves you a few pennies per cycle. Fair enough.  
(Version 1.3.2)

PETER DA SILVA  What does this do that creating a playlist, burning to a rewritable CD, and immediately re-ripping it doesn't do?

Smart Playlists make the process painless. You even keep the metadata, and you can rip to any format that iTunes supports.  
(Version 1.3.2)

PETER DA SILVA  I wonder how hard it would be for MacUpdate to add filters for required OS X version, so Tigers wouldn't need to be tantalized by Leopard-only apps? :)  
(Version 2.4.5r2)

PETER DA SILVA  This seems to be a pretty common side effect of Objective C 2.0, since you need Leopard to run programs compiled with all the neat new features like garbage collection.

It's really annoying that Apple has failed to maintain at least one release level of backward compatibility with this.  
(Version 2.3.7.4)

PETER DA SILVA  I like it a lot just from a brief acquaintance with it. I have one comment about their web page, though... they give Word too much credit: "Bean is not a replacement for MS Word. It does not do footnotes or hierarchical styles."

Word doesn't do hierarchical styles either. The only hierarchy in Word is "next paragraph style" and tables. The same is true of Pages, by the way. If they do ever decide to add these kinds of features I hope they follow the lead of markup languages like SGML and HTML and make a hierarchy a real feature of the program, rather than something faked by the user interface the way Word and "Word wannabes" do it.  
(Version 0.9.12)

PETER DA SILVA  Why would a TCPDump (or rather libpcap) GUI "not be a real sniffer"?  
(Version 0.46.5)

PETER DA SILVA  The file referenced by that web page doesn't appear to exist any more. Have they fixed the bug?  
(Version 20080309)

PETER DA SILVA  Why do you ever "need to make an internet-enabled dmg"?  
(Version 1.1)

PETER DA SILVA  It's also a security issue, since it allows people to drop trojanned files on your desktop just by following a link in email or in Safari with "open safe files" turned on.

Apple REALLY needs to reconsider having this functionality at all. It's not as daft as Microsoft's ActiveX, but that's damned faint praise.  
(Version 1.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Rather annoying that it requires Leopard when Adium itself runs fine on Tiger. What is it doing that actually requires features of Leopard?  
(Version 1.3.1)

PETER DA SILVA  I think that might perhaps be better expressed something like "CVS does not provide the tools we need to support [our] model of open source development".

That provides the same information, without begging the question as to why so many projects on SourceForge are not open source. :)  
(Version 1.0b3)

PETER DA SILVA  Ye gods, yet another source code control system.

Why not use sourceforge CVS?  
(Version 1.0b3)

PETER DA SILVA  Where is the source?  
(Version 1.0b3)

PETER DA SILVA  I'm still using the 1.5 series even on my Macbook. 2.x has not been reliable for me.  
(Version 2.1)

PETER DA SILVA  What does this do that Tinkertool doesn't?  
(Version 1.4.2)

PETER DA SILVA  Why, indeed, I understand that Safari does all these things, but I am surprised that any of them would cause significant overhead. In addition, there are many webkit-based browsers that do not. What are you doing differently from the others?  
(Version 1.5)

PETER DA SILVA  I'm a technical guy.

I want to know what you're doing... where are you beating Safari or other Webkit apps, how do you do it, what's Safari and the rest doing wrong that you're doing right? :)  
(Version 1.5)

PETER DA SILVA  Hey, Brock, how's old Doc Venture doing?

I'm not hassling anyone. I'm just trying to understand what his program does... also, if there's heavy overhead in Safari caused by download managers, well, I want to know about that too.  
(Version 1.5)

PETER DA SILVA  You don't need to do anything but package up the source tree when you make a release. That's it.  
(Version 1.5)

PETER DA SILVA  You also need an option to select "web-friendly" colors!  
(Version 4.0)

PETER DA SILVA  I much prefer the old icon.

Please give us back the old icon, at least as an option!  
(Version 4.0)

PETER DA SILVA  There have been two cases of malware for OS X that could have been considered to be "in the wild". One was distributed by AIM file transfers, and the recipient had to explicitly save and run the program, and one was disguised as a special codec to allow the victim to view images at a porn site... and again the victim had to explicitly install it.

Neither lasted long enough for antivirus software to have a detection pattern added quickly enough to have made the inherent dangers of running antivirus software worthwhile.  
(Version 02/20/08)

PETER DA SILVA  It doesn't seem to me that this could possibly be a significant cost, and that this would only apply if you had installed a downloader, no?

How does this differ from other webkit browsers in general (not just Safari)?  
(Version 1.5)

PETER DA SILVA  And, to complete the loop, you have the agreement of all the contributors to Tominated that this is OK? It doesn't matter if it's a branch or not, if it's derived from Tominated you still need that.  
(Version 1.5)

PETER DA SILVA  Technically, the GPL does not apply to the author of the GPLed code, but it does apply to all derived works from that code. This means that if "Tominated Browser" is entirely your work you do not need to obey your own GPL, but if it isn't you can't withdraw the GPL from it without the agreement of all contributors.  
(Version 1.5)

PETER DA SILVA  I must admit to some confusion as to the exact meaning of your explanation. What do you mean by it running with no other parts of the application "directly tied" to the browser? Do you mean it does not include components such as the ones you listed, or that such components are handled by some kind of indirect mechanism (such as a background helper applications), or something else that I have failed to think of?  
(Version 1.5)

PETER DA SILVA  Could you elaborate on exactly what you did to make web browsing faster in this program than in the webkit demo app, or Safari, or any of the other versions of the webkit demo app that have come up here?  
(Version 1.5)

PETER DA SILVA  Anyone have a cobntact for the developer, his website is 404-compliant.  
(Version 0.8)

PETER DA SILVA  There doesn't seem to be any monitor for arbitrary USB control inputs (like, extra keyboard keys). There's a standard API for enumerating these so it should be possible for Proxi to support any USB keyboard, mouse, or game controller.  
(Version 1.5.2)

PETER DA SILVA  How about an option to composite transparent images against a #BFBFBF background before installing them?  
(Version 1.0.1)

PETER DA SILVA  So download the source and take over. That's the whole point of open source software. The real question is why the author didn't do that...

It's as easy as "svn co http://virtuedesktops.info/svn/"  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  Still doesn't work with the latest iTunes unless you split the tracks out first with the split tool.  
(Version 1.0.2)

PETER DA SILVA  There's a bug in the user interface.

If you click on a cell while it's displaying multiple cells exposed by a single click, it treats it as if you clicked on the cell it's currently considering for display. If that cell is unoccupied it can go unnoticed, but if it's occupied it kills you.  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  By "years past" you must mean a time long before the foundation of the British East India Company, before Dante, before the scourging of the moneylenders, before Hamurabbi, and quite possibly before recorded history. :)  
(Version 1.2 DR3)

PETER DA SILVA  People have been saying that for thousands of years. I'm sure there's cuneiform graffiti somewhere bemoaning the way everything is about money these days... hell, the Babylonians invented bookkeeping and bureaucracy in the first place. :)  
(Version 1.2 DR3)

PETER DA SILVA  That's not consistent: there were a lot of machines Jaguar and even Panther were supported on that had the old Grackle bridge chips. OSX and the Grackle have never gotten along well, and there have been spectacular failures. On the other hand, Leopard is supported on systems that have the same components as unsupported systems, except for the processor clock speed.

The choice of supported systems is, like much of what Apple does, all politics and marketing. How much of the user base will they lose if they dump support for this system or that system? What story will people buy? Will they remember us telling the opposite story five years, four years, two years, one year ago? Probably not.

Apple does a lot of stuff really well, and that's why I use their kit, but I don't make the mistake of assuming they've got my interests in mind, or that they've even got a good technical reason for anything they do. Public companies just can't act that way. Hell, that would be a breach of their fiduciary duties to the stockholders.  
(Version 1.2 DR3)

PETER DA SILVA  This is the second simple Webkit App that's been posted to MacUpdate without a clear focus. What gives?  
(Version 1.0.2)

PETER DA SILVA  User interface: great.

Relayability: none. Scoring for the "pathmaker" is just plain worthless. Your score is the number of mines, so after going for the large map you start with pathetic difficulty, then medium, that's a bit of a challenge. Then hard.

OK, the deal with minesweeper is that you need to reduce the number of times you have to guess to a minimum, because each time you guess you have between 20 and 50% chance of dying. If you have to guess more than 3 or 4 times you might as well play russian roulette.

At "hard" difficulty on the large map there's basically zero chance of reasoning your way through the map without having to guess at least a dozen times. So instead of being a test of skill, it's a game of chance... is there a path that it's possible to reason through or not?

Needs to have "hard" changed to "impossible", and two more levels. Oh, and something done about adjusting the scoring by number of guesses or something, so there's a way to improve your score by improving your skill.  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  As far as creating queries algorithmically goes, that's a big part of what I've been doing for the past three years, doing things like automatically creating tables from SNMP MIBs and HTML forms and C structures (and vice versa in the latter two cases). There's a lot of low hanging fruit there, but I didn't want to get stuck into you about that because your description did say it wasn't aiming to be a query generator.

(that kind of thing is also tremendously fun :-> )

I found the Smalltalk browser and the iTunes smart playlists to be really great sources of ideas.

Oh, one more point I forgot to add:

* Clicking on a column header should sort by that column.  
(Version 2.0)

PETER DA SILVA  For the pathfinder mission, the number of clicks you use should be part of the score.

Possibly the number of mines minus the number of clicks?  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  This is useful, but the user interface feels incomplete and it's missing a couple of features that, right now, mean that the "psql" command line is actually more useful.

* There is no feedback from commands like "drop view" in the query window or any feedback from the browser (like, refreshing and showing the view is gone).

* There is no way to refresh the browser except by switching namespaces.

* There is no way to copy the name of a table or view from the browser to the query window.

I am not a Mac user interface expert, but ideally you should be able to both copy the name of the selected object or column to the clipboard, and drag a column or table name to the query window. Failing that, a menu for "copy name" would suffice.

Also, the results of command queries should be available, not just the tuples.  
(Version 2.0)

PETER DA SILVA  How about open-sourcing it?  
(Version 0.9)

PETER DA SILVA  Really needs to be hooked in to spotlight rather than being a separate pop-up window.  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  What does it require from Leopard, or is it just not tested on Tiger?  
(Version 0.5)

PETER DA SILVA  That's one thing that Microsoft did right. If you uses a newer component (library, what have you) in your app, you can include that component with it. Their implementation was horrible, of course, because they used simple unversioned names rather than versioned file paths to identify components (which led to DLL Hell), but the goal was sound.  
(Version 1.0.2)

PETER DA SILVA  Why on earth would this require Leopard?  
(Version 1.0.2)

PETER DA SILVA  Wonder if it will work on my "Beige G4". :)  
(Version 1.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Widgets are application windows, and unless windows can be allowed in multiple spaces, Konfabulator can't do anything about it.  
(Version 4.5.1)

PETER DA SILVA  It's saved as a "run only" script, but since it's just a little wrapper around "'/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession' -suspend" it shouldn't be too hard for you to cons up an HID-compliant version. :)  
(Version 1.0)

PETER DA SILVA  The correct fix would be to get rid of the "jar:" URI scheme. The problem is that "jar:" breaks the model of the protocol defining access and the mime type defining content.  
(Version 2.0.0.10)

PETER DA SILVA  It sounds like Konfabulator with less transparency and more overhead.

Konfabulator is already as cross platform as AIR, and has been around for years...  
(Version 1.0b2)

PETER DA SILVA  I was using Mail Badger for a while but some recent update to Mail.app seems to have broken it... I'm getting the same problem as you.  
(Version 0.2)

PETER DA SILVA  It's not THAT hard to implement version-specific features so they're no-ops on earlier versions. That way you retain a single code base that works on multiple releases.  
(Version 2.1)

PETER DA SILVA  You're not making a light browser.

That's the thing that you're missing. Your browser is just as "heavy" as Safari. Because it's the same browser. The bits you're leaving out aren't the bits that weigh it down.  
(Version 1.1)

PETER DA SILVA  You're missing the point, son.

Most of that 55 megabytes you see in Safari IS WEBKIT.

When you install or upgrade Safari, most of what that does is install or upgrade webkit. You can't count those 50+ megabytes of webkit as part of Safari and refuse to count them in your own package.  
(Version 0.7)

PETER DA SILVA  Your browser is not "496 kB" either.

Your browser is 50+ MB, just like Safari, because all it does is piggyback on Safari. Without Safari it's not a web browser, it's an error message.  
(Version 0.5)

PETER DA SILVA  Your browser is NOT "500kB".

Safari's 55 MB includes Webkit. Your browser is based on Webkit. Without most of those 55 MB your browser isn't a browser at all.  
(Version 0.5)

PETER DA SILVA  Is it in fact lighter than Safari?

99% of the code is the same code as Safari. Safari and all other webkit browsers are just shells around webkit... if your shell is 10% the size of Safari's shell that will still leave your program 99.1% the size of Safari. The remaining 0.9% isn't going to make any difference.

  
(Version 0.5)

PETER DA SILVA  I'm using ControllerMate to make it come up on middle-mouse-button myself. It really should have mouse support directly.  
(Version 1.2.2)

PETER DA SILVA  Why have two versions for Tiger and Leopard? It's not that hard to make code conditional depending on the version.  
(Version 2.5)

PETER DA SILVA  Um "yes". Definitely, that would be "yes".  
(Version 1.2)

PETER DA SILVA  vim doesn't cut it for me. I use nvi, and it just fits my fingers better than vim. I wish Apple would have left well enough alone and let third party efforts like this provide vim for the people who like it, and stuck with the standard BSD vi for the default  
(Version 0710b)

PETER DA SILVA  This isn't about "waah, my laptop's not bleeding edge any more". It's about "my laptop's not getting supported any more".

I also have the original Macbook Pro, and there are issues with the graphics and stability. Could they be fixed by firmware changes, or by software changes? I don't know, but it's unlikely they're going to be.  
(Version 1.2)

PETER DA SILVA  It's almost a complete replacement for MenuMeters. The only problem is that it tends to only allow one option for each tool in the menu bar at a time... for example you can't show disk activity *and* percentage used.  
(Version 1.2)

PETER DA SILVA  Like I said, I thought Linux developers were bad about portability.

Retaining compatibility with multiple versions of the same operating system is not a hard job. I've written software for 64-bit Alphas running Tru64... based on the last release of 4.3BSD before the 4.4 one that OS X is based on... that compiles and runs without change on 16-bit segmented pre-TCP/IP pre-BSD Microsoft Xenix, and I've got software I wrote 25 years ago for 6th and 7th Edition UNIX that compiles and runs without change on Tiger. I've written software that I've ported with *minor* changes to VAX/VMS, UNIX, AmigaDOS, MS-DOS, and CP/M-80.

Portability between two subsequent releases of the same operating system should be expected, not something that you blow off with "you can still download the no-longer-maintained old version".  
(Version 2.0.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Yah, I'm a little disturbed by the people coming out with Leopard-only software less than a week after the release of the OS.

I thought Linux developers were bad about portability (it works on Red Hat 7 *and* RHEL 4!), but this is just silly.  
(Version 2.0.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Requires 10.5 *already*? 10.5 has only been out a couple of days!  
(Version 2.0)

PETER DA SILVA  Thanks for changing the name. :)  
(Version 1.3)

PETER DA SILVA  What's this planned to do that Adium doesn't?  
(Version 0.1)

PETER DA SILVA  I've missed this, thanks for the UB.  
(Version 2.7)

PETER DA SILVA  Summary in the index is "enables any application to read RTF files". In fact it should read something like "Allows applications to read PDF files".  
(Version 1.1)

PETER DA SILVA  Spotinside's author is resistent to going Open Source, but he is very responsive to suggestions. It's a nifty add-on for spotlight, and I hope he either polishes it up so it's friendlier to the average user, or open-sources it so I can. :)  
(Version 1.3.0.748)

PETER DA SILVA  Fair enough. Now you've got that, the next thing is coming up with something you can only do when you have a browser in your pocket. You need an itch to scratch. :)  
(Version 1.5.1b)

PETER DA SILVA  What is the goal of this browser?  
(Version 1.5.1b)

PETER DA SILVA  The first seafood petting application, the command line based "angry starfish adventure" for the Nautilus Squid, Heathkit H19 and 16k Altair (published in Doctor Froggs magazine), is still the best domestication game out there. None of the GUI-based applications I've seen hold a candle to the classic "puzzle" petting games... if your lobster doesn't start out trying to eat you how can you possibly claim to have "domesticated" it? There's no problem solving and hardly any room for role playing in these fluffy "eye candy" applications.  
(Version 1.5)

PETER DA SILVA  PS: Mac viruses, these days, aren't just "few and far between". They're non-existent. There are no current OSX viruses propagating in the wild, and the closest thing to one that ever showed up was passed through an instant messenger program that you should be blocking at your corporate firewall.  
(Version 10/03/07)

PETER DA SILVA  There's a lot of things that everyone knows that ain't so.

I wasn't the Mac administrator. We didn't have Macs. I was the Windows admin, with 150 developers, and most of them couldn't run any antivirus most of the time because of the effect it had on the development environment... all the problems that AV can cause in even the most conventional Windows environment were far far worse.

Even after we were "borged" we still had to run subnets without AV, with corporate approved firewalls, and those were the only parts of the network that were really secure. It wasn't until almost the time I left that we were able to find AV software that didn't screw with developers.

The head of IT in the US told me that we were the best run network in the company. So don't talk to me about "mom and pop" shops, "mom and pop" shops don't have 150 developers.

The cause of the virus flood that started in '97 and '98 was Internet Explorer and Outlook and the merge of the desktop and the Internet... we stayed out of that, and avoided the virus plague. Even when the rest of the company, thousands of employees, were regularly being shut down at least partially for half a day, a day, three days, ... we dodged the bullet. Why? Because we took action to keep from getting infected in the first place. We didn't join the Internet Explorer / Outlook virus-soup monoculture. I found the places in Windows that were wide open, from applications to network protocols, and jammed them closed. Do that and Windows is no worse off than any other OS.

If you company is too inflexible to bite the bullet and dump IE, I can understand. In the end, we were too. If corporate policy stands in the way, if you HAVE to run dangerous antivirus software on your Mac, I commiserate. But don't tell me that standardizing on broken software that's wide open to infection and then taking a "morning after" pill in the form of antivirus is "safe networking". It's no such thing.  
(Version 10/03/07)

PETER DA SILVA  I've run one, and I only had to accept the mandate when they centralized IT.

We only had antivirus on specific systems that were likely to be a problem, our antivirus policy was mostly based on not running applications that were too risky. When they switched us to the corporate AV scheme and forced us to use risky applications (primarily IE) we had the first site-wide virus incident in five years within a week. We had several of them over the following two years until I left in 2005. And yet we were "technically" safer.

So what I'm saying is that antivirus is NOT the best solution anywhere, and certainly not on Mac.  
(Version 10/03/07)

PETER DA SILVA  First of all, if the virus is not active on your computer it's vanishingly unlikely to get stored on your computer anywhere it's even potentially transferrable to another computer to begin with.

Second, what mechanism are you proposing by which a virus would be transported from your computer to a susceptible computer in such a way that the susceptible computer would potentially be infected by the virus, and where there are not better mechanisms available than running antivirus software on your computer?

Files sitting on a shared folder? First, they won't infect anyone just sitting there. Second, you need to be able to scan them periodically from a central server anyway, to take care of network attached storage that can't run a local antivirus, so add them to the regular background scan.

Email? Your mail server should be doing the virus scan for you.

Memory sticks? Unless you deliberately put an autorun file in the root of the memory stick, it's just like a file on a share. It will be scanned when they plug it in.

The most important thing you can do to protect yourself and people around you is to disable "automatically open 'safe' files after downloading" in Safari.  
(Version 10/03/07)

PETER DA SILVA  the language looks interesting as an embedded language, separate from the webserver part. How much are the two aspects tied together? And how about LGPL on the language part so it can actually be used as an embedded language?  
(Version 1.4)

PETER DA SILVA  Seems to be free-as-in-beer. Would it be possible to open-source this to help improve the performance of VNC clients everywhere?  
(Version 0.92)

PETER DA SILVA  Seems to be a misleading description, since it opens the URL in a browser anyway. Since both OSX and Windows have a mechanism for creating shortcuts to URLs already, I'm not sure what the point of this application is.  
(Version 2.0.1)

PETER DA SILVA  I don't have that problem on my Macbook, but it's not starting at all on my Mini (10.3.9), so I think the listed requirements might be off.  
(Version 1.51b1)

PETER DA SILVA  OMG!

I was so depressed when Last.FM said they were replacing iScrobbler with that pig-dog new application, and I've been sitting on the old version just because I didn't know it was still alive.

Viva iScrobbler!  
(Version 1.51b1)

PETER DA SILVA  The site has gone down. Has someone got a copy of the source (it's GPL) so I can try to build and maybe even fix it?  
(Version 4.0b)

PETER DA SILVA  Lots of things that are "universally known" ain't actually true, so you'll have to do better than that.  
(Version 1.1.0.520)

PETER DA SILVA  What's the benchmark level of awesome moosey goodness? Does it conform to open moosey goodness standards?  
(Version 1.0)