32 posts tagged “os x”

MS Paint for OS X

Apr 27, 2009
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This at once absolutely wrong....and yet, I can see where he's coming from. All in all, I just use the included Preview.app (for quick cropping, etc.), iPhoto, or GIMP.

clipped from theappleblog.com

Paintbrush is available as a free download and is everything you’d expect from an MS Paint clone. It loads incredibly fast, can open almost any type of image, and lets you edit and paint images quickly and easily. Paintbrush fills the void Apple created when they removed MacPaint from the OS.

I totally missed the Silver Anniversary of the Macintosh, which was yesterday (January 24). I confess I'm an enthusiastic late-comer to the world of Mac. The modern Mac probably has more in common with NeXT than its previous incarnations. That means UNIX under the hood.

That's perhaps what I really dig about them--that I can go to a prompt and be as geeky as I want to be, but, when I just need to deal with e-mail or edit an Excel spreadsheet, it just works.

Many folks are familiar with this commercial, which aired, as a commercial, just once nationally:

Apple - 1984

Personally, I think JoCo puts the feeling best.

iTunesFS

Jan 13, 2008
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ITunesFS

My iTunes library is something on the order of 12 GB. This includes iTunes Music Store purchases, things I ripped from my CDs, etc. For the most part, this is synced to my older 30 GB iPod. Though there are some ways to get the data back to a local drive, I never bothered to look into them.

However, backups have been on my mind. We got a MyBook World Edition, to provide some RAID-protected space for backups and archiving over my LAN. Still, given that I regularly copy my iTunes library to my iPod makes it frustrating to me to give up the space and develop a process to back up that library.

Mounted iPod

This week, coincidentally, a blog pointed me to iTunesFS. This is built upon Google's MacFUSE. What it does is allow you to mount your iTunes library as a file system.

On its face, it doesn't sound that impressive--you can browse your iTunes library, after all. However, it build it based on the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file. Cool things happen. For instance, playlists, normally just a list of songs, show up as folders. I can drag all the files to another media en mass.

The other cool thing is that the iPod can be mounted and copied from. Again, this is something normally not possible. And, again, things can be copied around. Like, say, from a live iPod to a resurrected MacBook.

This is something that probably fairly specialized applications, and is read only. But my solution to backing up my iTunes library (without being redundant of existing processes) is found!

Darwine

Jan 7, 2008
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I just installed Darwine on my OS X laptop. Most unholy.

For those who don't know, Darwine is an API that allows Windows applications to be run on Intel Macs. Though I couldn't get anything to complicated to run, I was able to pull a few simple applications an run them. For instance, here is the (in)famous MS Paint:

MS Paint on My Mac

I probably could have gotten something more significant (such as, say, Visio) to run by messing with a few path files. All in all, this could be pretty nifty.

Oh Noes!!1!!1! An OS X Vulnerability!!1!1!

Nov 6, 2007
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Much has been made of a recently announced Trojan Horse affecting OS X. "See--Macs aren't secure, either."

Though I don't believe that any platform is inherently safe, consider what it takes for this one to gain access to a Mac:

Navigate to certain sites (these happen to be porn sites)
Explicitly choose to download a codec.
Open a disk image file
Launch an installer
Give the installer your administrator (root) password

This requires a lot of action on the part of the user. In contrast, I personally experienced getting Spyware (a Trojan's first cousin) on a Window's box and Internet Explorer just by executing only step #1 (going to a site--not necessarily a porn site).

Further, there are a lot of legitimate programs that require access at the level this Trojan does. Installing an HP printer driver, for instance, is a system modification that requires giving your root password.

Again, I am not saying that OS X (or any other flavor of UNIX, or a UNIX-like operating system (Linux), or VMS) is invulnerable. However, I'd say that so much was required (and so much action on the part of the user), that OS X is more secure relative to other platforms. Users should still be vigilant and take steps to be secure, but they are definitely have a firm foundation.

Upgrading to Leopard

Oct 29, 2007
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I'm an OS guy. My career in IT has mostly been on infrastructure, dealing mostly with systems administration. I was part of the team that made one of the first Windows 95 migrations in Cincinnati. I've worked with a variety of platforms (Windows, NetWare, Linux, and OS/2), but upgrading to Leopard was my first upgrade of OS X.

I have to say, upgrading the Mac, even with a full wipe-the-drive-and-reinstall method, was fairly straight-forward. One key factor was a technology change. USB hard drives are now viable options for storing data. I was able to copy both my Applications and home directories up to a USB hard drive (basically an old hard drive and the appropriate cable).

However, getting applications reinstalled was quite easy. On a Windows machine, large apps put files everywhere, plus registry changes, you had to reinstall everything. Settings were difficult to move from machine to machine.

There were a few applications that needed to be reinstalled. These were clearly more system-interactive, or delicate (Microsoft Office). However, I was able to drag a bunch from the drive and they worked, building their environment as needed. Still, I used the Applications backup more as a reminder of what I had--I took this as an opportunity to upgrade a lot of the miscellaneous applications on my drive.

Some things took a bit more effort. iPhoto and iTunes required transferring the photos and music directories, respectively. Once moved, all the data, smart albums/playlists, etc, worked great.

On others, it took navigating the backup of the Library directory in my home backup. Move the right preferences or application support directory, and we're back in business. For instance, with Vienna, my RSS reader, once I had its application support directory moved, all my subscriptions (and past articles) were there.

All in all, I found the process to be one of the easiest upgrade-and-reinstalls I've ever done.

Installation is Complete

Oct 26, 2007
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Leopard Desktop, Just Installed

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It certainly has that new OS smell. I'm still moving in--and have a ton of data to transition back from the external hard drive. I'm sure it will take a bit before I really scratch the surface.