SESQUIPEDALIAN  P.S.: You can get Full Key Codes from http://softwares.bajram.com/utilities/#Full_Key_Codes.  
(Version 5.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  I'll stick with the nice, free Full Key Codes for looking up the ASCII codes (as well as the keyboard codes) of anything on my keyboard just by pressing the key.

And if I ever need to look up the ASCII code for a character that isn't immediately accessible with a key press, I'll stick with Mac OS X's built in Character Viewer (a.k.a. Character Palette in 10.5 and below). Since ASCII codes and Unicode codes are the same across the entire range of ASCII characters, I can already look up these codes with just the included system tools.

In short, DON'T PAY FOR THIS, people!  
(Version 5.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Well, actually the developer is responsible for setting the license type of the software. MU double checks things, which is a valuable service, but it is not MU's responsibility.  
(Version 0.82)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  In order to try out the "advanced features" like showing iCal events, one has to pay $4.95. There doesn't appear to be any possibility of testing these features before paying.

1) How does that qualify as a "fully functional" beta?

2) That means this app is shareware, not free software. The license info on this listing should be changed to reflect this.  
(Version 0.800)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  On both my Macs, one running Leopard and and the other running Snow Leopard, Google Maps is already the default service used for map lookups in Address Book.

While the developer deserves kudos for bringing this functionality to earlier versions, I don't think there is any need for this plugin going forward.  
(Version 2.7)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  This application's description makes it clear that the developer's target market is recent switchers who are simply used to the task bar. I advise such people to wait a week or two before buying this app.

Most people I know find that the Dock is a much nicer system than the cluttered row of buttons of the Windows task bar. That's why clones of the Mac OS X Dock have existed for years on Windows (e.g. http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock), whereas this is the first time anyone has ever bothered to clone the task bar onto Mac OS X.

Of course, it's a wide world, and somewhere there is someone using a Mac who genuinely likes the Windows task bar. But in my experience, people switching from Windows to a Mac usually end up preferring the Dock, which is free rather than costing $15.  
(Version 1.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  PENGUIRL "... OS of choice ..."

Exactly. You've made your choice. You choose not to use the minimum level OS that is required for this software. That's fine, and godspeed to you. But choices have consequences. The consequence of your choice is that you can't run fruux. Those of use who choose to run 10.5 or higher can consequently run fruux. That's just how the world works. There's really nothing else to discuss.  
(Version 0.9.6.2)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  This software is great for what I expect will be its most common use: changing the background image for the login window. Run Ravissant, click Background in the toolbar, and drag the desired image onto the main window. Then just select Apply from the Logins menu, and you are done.

Some of the other features work well, and some are a bit buggy.

Changing the Host Info (e.g. show the IP address instead of the computer's name) works well, but entering Welcome Text did nothing. I didn't try a custom logo or custom OS text.

Unfortunately, the Restore Default menu option in the Logins menu does not behave as expected. Instead of setting the background to Aurora.jpg, it sets the background to a plain blue, and instead of setting the host info to the computer's name, it sets it to the build number of the current version of the operating system. However, the Leopard default setup can be attained easily by manually setting these values correctly.

There is also a Sync with Desktop menu option in the Logins menu, but it seems to do nothing, and its purpose remains a mystery to me.

This mystery would probably be solved if there were any help files or other documentation included, but there is none.

Despite the shortcomings, this software remain useful to anyone who wants to customize the login screen. Thanks to the developer!  
(Version 1.12)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  You are welcome! What sort of extra options do you imagine?  
(Version 1.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Ha ha ha!  
(Version 1.0.2)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  A note for box.net users:

Recently, some users have reported problems using StickiesSync with box.net. Unfortunately, this is a bug with box.net's handling of modification times, and cannot be addressed by StickiesSync.

In particular, it seems that box.net is updating the modification times on all files whenever there is interaction with box.net via WebDAV (the technology that allows Finder to connect to box.net), even though most of the files have not actually been modified. This is a bad thing, and not just for StickiesSync. Box.net users who experience this should file a bug report with box.net ASAP.  
(Version 1.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  It's not a nice software solution like this is for Front Row, but you could try the method described at http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090407144935534  
(Version 1.2)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  I took a look at the code, and realized that version 1.1 would only work if you'd run Front Row at least once since logging in. I've fixed this in version1.2, which I just uploaded. Give it a try and see if it is better for you now.  
(Version 1.1)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Nope. That's just the way Front Row is.

If you want to watch a movie on one screen and work on the other, you'll have to use Quicktime or VLC, etc.  
(Version 1.1)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  What is the method of syncing that you are using? iDisk, a private server, DropBox, or something else?

Do you normally have full permissions for the folder you are trying to use as the go-between? The underlying system simply uses rsync to update the file from one location to the other. If you don't have full read, write, and execute permissions, it will fail.

Finally, remember that if the folder is on a shared volume from another computer, it has to be mounted before this will work. StickiesSync will not mount it for you.  
(Version 1.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Wow, this looks great. I can't review it yet, since I'll need to buy a Wiimote first, but this looks like it has great potential.

For those who are interested in what this does, see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ  
(Version 1.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  A follow-up to my previous review:

I've found that using FlexCal is a great complement to SoCal. SoCal is free and a very nice way to view and edit tasks. FlexCal is free and a very nice way to create tasks and events. Between the two one can perform almost all task-related functions without ever having to resort to iCal's much less fluid task interface.

My major outstanding wishes for SoCal are (1) that it could show due dates, and (2) sort by due date or calendar and not only by priority.  
(Version 0.5+)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  It's not my software. I have nothing to do with it. Heck, I've never even used it. Under no circumstances should my comments be in any way attributed to the developers of fruux.

Now, in full recognition that I am just some random person whose views are semi-educated but authoritative for nothing:

I doubt fruux will face major problems regarding forward compatibility any time soon. 10.6 continues with the same system used in 10.5. If 10.7 introduces any changes, the fruux team will have access to developer betas of it long before end users, and will therefore have time to implement compatible changes as necessary.

The only way to kill fruux going forward would be if Apple removed the Sync Services API, thereby cutting off all third party access to syncing. The chances of that are close to zero.

If changes to, say, the iCal format are introduced in 10.7 or later, fruux may have to be updated to deal with the new formatting. That would not be trivial, but it would be doable. And there would be motivation to do it, because the new format would be adopted by many.

Going back to support obsolete formats, on the other hand, is not very worthwhile, since they have a dwindling user base. Your own comment, for example, would seem to indicate that you are likely to upgrade once 10.6 comes out, or if not, 10.7.  
(Version 0.9.6)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  I made a typo when I created this listing. It was supposed to say 10.5, not 10.4. I've corrected it now.  
(Version 1.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Like all Dashboard widgets, if you hold down the option key and mouse over a Sticky, the close button will appear in the upper left corner. Click that to delete the note.  
(Version 2.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Many of the forms of data fruux syncs is implemented completely differently in Leopard than it was in Tiger. The fruux team would have to write what would amount to an entirely new application in order to work with Tiger.

So in effect what you are saying to the developers is "Hey, you guys should reduplicate all the many man-hours of work you've done so that you can cater to my refusal to meet the system requirements of your software. Clearly your time and energy are so worthless compared to mine that I think you should do this—for free—so that I don't need to spend any money on anything."  
(Version 0.9.6)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Disk Utility only fixes permission problems on files installed as part of the operating system. It doesn't do anything with user files.

It looks like Permission Reset gives you easy GUI control to work with permissions on your own files.  
(Version 1.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  I think I need to look into finding hosting on another server. This one (vndv.com) seems to be getting flakey...

Sometime this afternoon the zip file somehow became 0 B in length instead of its proper 3.3 MB, causing the download to be just an empty file. I've uploaded another copy now, and it seems to be downloading properly. If there are any more problems, email me at tag-folders@googlegroups.com  
(Version 2.3)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  I think I need to look into finding another host server. This one seems kind of flakey...

Sometime this afternoon the download became a zero byte file instead of its proper size. I've re-uploaded another copy, and it seems to download okay now. If there are any more problems, please email me at tag-folders@googlegroups.com  
(Version 2.3)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Oops, did it again. Sigh.

Fixed now. :)  
(Version 2.3)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  The developer is right. This app is not really managing processor resources. Rather, it allows you to completely pause an app, effectively freezing it and liberating all the system resources it was using. Once the app is resumed, it will pick up from where it left off.

I haven't tried Process Wizard, but it sounds like a graphical interface to the command line tool called nice. App_Pauser is a graphical interface to the kill and/or killall command line tools. Different job.

Personally, I won't buy App_Pauser, since I would just pop open Terminal and type in "killall -STOP Photoshop" if I wanted to pause Photoshop, and "killall -CONT Photoshop" when I wanted to resume Photoshop. But for those who aren't comfortable with Terminal and still want the ability to do this, App_Pauser should meet that need.  
(Version 2.1)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Ah, so it brings a Leopard-only feature to Tiger.

All the Tiger users should be happy about that, then. Good job.  
(Version 1.10)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Actually, it can't be done with a symlink. Stickies deletes and recreates the StickiesDatabase every time it updates the contents, and for whatever reason it doesn't follow symlinks. Instead, it deletes the symlink and writes a new copy of the StickiesDatabase in its place.  
(Version 1.2.2)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  You're welcome! :)  
(Version 1.1)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Sure there are.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=free+iwork+templates+keynote  
(Version 8.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Oops! Download link is now fixed.  
(Version 2.1.1)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  I would encourage you to look into using OpenMeta. There is a nice source code pile available if you want to use it, or since you've already written code to create tags using the same basic mechanism (extended attributes), perhaps just adjust the output to write OpenMeta-compatible tags.

http://code.google.com/p/openmeta/

TagoMan seems to be a really useful app with a lot of promise. If it could read and write the OpenMeta tags I already have in place, it would probably find a way into my workflow in short order.  
(Version 0.5b)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Does TagoMan use OpenMeta tags?  
(Version 0.5b)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Note: The second paragraph in my comment above was supposed to read:

Uninstalling the launch agent is as simple as going to ~/Library/LaunchAgents and deleting net.jonstovell.keepDriveNameSpinning.plist, where DriveName is the name of the drive. Each drive will have its own plist file. But in 1.1, I've adding a button to do it for the user.  
(Version 1.1)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Each drive is handled individually, and you can keep awake as many or as few as you like, in whatever combination you like.

Uninstalling the launch agent is as simple as going to ~/Library/LaunchAgents and deleting net.jonstovell.keepSpinning.plist, where is the name of the drive. Each drive will have its own plist file. But in 1.1, I've adding a button to do it for the user.

The launch agent won't "run away." The command it runs only does anything if it finds the hidden file on the drive. If the drive isn't present or the file is deleted, it exits silently and nothing is written to the console logs.  
(Version 1.1)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  True for most drives. But Western Digital's MyBook drives have their own built-in energy saving settings, and don't respect pmset's instructions. (The Energy Saver preference pane's option not to let drives sleep does the same as fiddling with pmset on the command line.)  
(Version 1.1)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  $10 for that?! This really should be freeware.

Edit: In fact, I just made some freeware to do it. Took me a few minutes to write. It's called Keep Drive Spinning, and hosted here on MacUpdate.  
(Version 3.1)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Simply wonderful. It does everything I want in terms of adding functionality to Safari, for free, and with style.

Plus, it is very actively developed, and the developers are quick to respond to, say, unexpected actions from Apple that break stuff.

If there were a way to integrate the search engine selection/recent searches and the search suggestions/top hits all into one dropdown instead of two, it might make ease of use go from 4 stars to 5 stars, but even as it is now it is still quite easy to use.

Coupled with the free Safari Adblock plugin, Glims makes Safari my favourite browsing experience, full stop.  
(Version 1.0b14)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  This issue is now fixed (as of build 14 on March 3, 2009).

And I agree, don't rate it down the instant something beyond their control breaks their software. The problem was temporary, but low rating sticks forever, and you can't just cancel it out with a higher rating later; statistical averages don't work that way.  
(Version 1.0b14)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  It is hard to imagine a scenario where someone would need this very often, let alone pay for it. If one does need this ability often, the basic functionality can be accomplished with a single line of Applescript:

tell application "Safari" to set the clipboard to the name of the first window whose name is not ""

Still, if you find yourself constantly needing to send the name of one of your browser windows to the clipboard, you might find this app useful.  
(Version 1.0.1)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  There is also the very full featured and entirely free Unison, available at http://alan.petitepomme.net/unison/index.html

Unison's official homepage is at http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/  
(Version 3.1.3)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Does Dropbox support resource forks, extended attributes, etc. yet?  
(Version 0.6.456)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Sounds like the ISP is choking unencrypted traffic. Try telling Transmission to ignore unencrypted peers (in the Peers section of Transmission's preferences).  
(Version 1.50b3)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  If you go to the Tag Folder support group and post your problem there, it will be much easier to try to fix your problem. The address for the support group is http://groups.google.com/group/tag-folders. You can also get there by clicking the More Information link at the top of this MacUpdate page, and going to the support section of the Tag Folders website.  
(Version 1.3.3)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Thanks for that! This is just what I was looking for.  
(Version 0.4.1)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Er, why release a version 1.2 AFTER he won the presidency?  
(Version 1.2)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  By the way, the Donate link in the About box points to apple.com. You might want to fix that. :)  
(Version 0.5+)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  This is a great start for a truly easy to use task list app. I've tried Anxiety, which quickly became wearisome with its floating window, and various Dashboard widgets (the best being To Do Widget). SoCal, even at version 0.5+, is the most fluid way of managing to do items I have tried yet.

Of course, as a beta level app, SoCal still has a few missing features. The most important is already on the developer's roadmap: creating new tasks. Right now, SoCal can only manage tasks that already exist. The second missing feature (and the first I noticed was absent) is the ability to choose the sorting order. Right now the list sorts by priority, whereas I usually like to sort by due date. I would love to see a menu item near the bottom of the menu (along with About SoCal, Open iCal, and Quit) that let me choose the sorting order. Third, it would be very nice to be able to see the due date of an item in the list.

A last minor criticism is that completed items are indicated using a pushpin icon. A check mark would be much more appropriate (in fact, switching the pushpin to be the main menu bar icon and the check mark to be the completed item icon would make the best sense to me).

On the other hand, SoCal already includes some features that are just brilliant. First is the addition of flagging, which provides another way of differentiating tasks from one another. I've only had it for a few minutes and it already seems natural. (The term "flagging" is a bit of a misnomer, since no flag icon is displayed next to flagged items. Instead, a flagged item is shown in bold text. Personally I find this to be better than a flag icon, since it draws attention to the item more effectively.) Second, the Collections menu item gives fast access to all sorts of smart groups within your tasks, including grouping by calendar, priority, due date, completion status, and flagged status. It's a great way to get to just the tasks you need.

Finally, I love that almost all the things one would want to do with a to do item can be done with just one click. Move your mouse over an item, and a submenu immediately pops out to let you change its priority, mark it as completed, flag it, etc. Or just click once on the item itself to edit it in iCal.

Thanks to the developer. I look forward to seeing the upcoming versions!  
(Version 0.5+)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  I've opened a Google Group for Tag Folders. Help requests, bug reports, suggestions, and such can be made there.

http://groups.google.com/group/tag-folders  
(Version 1.2.5)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Does what it says on the tin.

A great help would be if the window did not always float on top, since it can get in the way.

Also, if I close the window there is no way to reopen it except to restart the app.

Nevertheless, this looks promising.  
(Version 0.1)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  For those who are interested, it seems that somehow the folder ~/Library/LaunchAgents was missing/corrupted, and caused the installation to get an error. In the next release I will include code to check for this possibility, but in the meantime if anyone gets this error, make sure the folder ~/Library/LaunchAgents exists, and then run the installer again.  
(Version 1.2.2)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  I have an idea what is going wrong here, but I'll need more information from you first. Can you please email me? My address is included at the end of the user guide.  
(Version 1.2.2)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Should be fixed now  
(Version 1.2.1)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  That was meant to refer to your getting things working, Mathew.  
(Version 1.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Glad to hear it. :)  
(Version 1.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Do the tags appear in the Spotlight comments section of the Info window of the file?

During testing I noticed that occasionally files on the Desktop would have the tag applied to their Spotlight comments, but it would take a few minutes for the change to be reflected in the Spotlight database, and thus for the file to show up in the Tag Folder's Smart Folder. This always cleared itself up after a few minutes on the occasions it happened. If you want an immediate fix, temporarily moving the file into another folder typically does the job.  
(Version 1.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  I don't sell on eBay, but I do buy on eBay. And for me, seeing a product on a fake background does not increase my sense of confidence. If anything, it makes me more suspicious because the product seems less real.  
(Version 1.0.5)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  It isn't a bittorrent client. It automatically downloads the little torrent files that you would otherwise need to download manually from a webpage. You still need to use your favorite bittorrent client to download the actual videos. RTFM.  
(Version 0.3.4)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  What a helpful program! I no longer need to struggle with physical notecards or (worse) word processor documents full of quotes. TextCite brings sane quotation and citation to the digital world at last!

The integration with RefWorks, Endnote, etc., for inserting citations is straightforward and effective. However, in upcoming releases it would be very nice to see a function to import bibliographic data from such programs, if only in the form of reading a text file, in order to save the user from manually retyping data he or she already has in such databases. Adding this would bring up my ratings on Features and Ease of Use to 5 and 4, respectively.

The interface is fairly intuitive, with the necessary functions easily accessible wherever one may need them.

Don't drag the toolbars around. I did, and one of them disappeared. Reinstalling fixed the problem easily enough. But that is the only bug I have found.

Thanks to the developer. I look forward to further updates!  
(Version 1.0)

SESQUIPEDALIAN  Wow! This lands a place on my short list of truly useful Dashboard widgets. I'll be using it to prep photos for web pages, presentations, etc.

Although the interface is very intuitive, it would be nice if there were some fuller documentation available. The design is beautiful and a pleasure to use. Nicely done!  
(Version 0.5.1)