Intellij Under OSX

Seems that the bug with IntelliJ under OS X 10.5 (Leopard) (works for me now anyway) is fixed in currently nightly builds and will be in 7.0.3. More information here.

Stacked

Apple to tweak 'Stacks' in Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.2 Update Getting better - now all they have to do is fix Spaces and Java.

No Java 6 for You!

Just in case you're like me and you upgraded to Leopard only to find Java 6 no longer works and Java 5 unstable, here's a fix:

-- First, delete ~/Library/Java/Caches/deployment.properties
-- Move aside your Java 1.6 directory. The 1.6 preview on Tiger does not work on Leopard.

% cd /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions
% sudo mv 1.6.0 Tiger_1.6
% sudo rm 1.6

At least it comes with better Ruby support and a RubyCocoa bridge.

Update: I don't think I like Leopard. I don't like: the 3D or the 2D look of the dock, the semi-transparent menu bar, Spaces behaviour - you can't have multiple windows spanning desktops from the same application (like two browser windows in separate desktops), the removal of text lists (why not have Fan, Grid and List?), in Quick Look you can go to a page in a PDF or Word file but when you click on it it goes to the first page, and Java support (IntelliJ and others seems to have weird refresh issues and you can't seem to allocate it to a virtual desktop).

There's of course a lot to like though too (tab terminals, RSS reader, better Spotlight, Cover flow, Safari, etc).

Update 2: So the Spaces thing. If you minimise a window, it goes to the dock, change to another virtual desktop, then expand, it goes to the desktop that the window was originally in. As noted in the comments though (and it is in the guided tour), if you activate Spaces (the default is F8), then move the window to a new virtual desktop then it is tied to it. There are two other ways: click and hold on the window and switch to another desktop or click and hold on the window, move it to the edge of the screen, wait, and it will go to the next desktop.

To me, some of the behavior breaks the illusion/metaphor of the virtual desktop and seems unnecessarily difficult. I'd prefer non-click and hold options supported as well (pretty much like other features like copying files, etc).

The networking improvements (non-blocking, built in VNC) overcomes what was probably one of the worst things about OS X.

The IntelliJ issue that I mentioned is logged as issue 16084.

A Better NetInfo

Sick of searching for unused GID and manually adding properties using NetInfo? A recent Peachpit artcle, "Master Mac OS X Users and Groups by Making Your Mac Think It's a Server" suggests downloading the Server Admin tool. It can run on any OS X machine by just hitting cancel initially and then connecting to the local directory (Apple+D). It suggests using GID from 600 so it doesn't clash with others.

One View

MacFUSE Release Opens Up File Systems on Mac OS X "Some examples of applications using virtual file systems through FUSE include GmailFS, which allows users to set up a Gmail account as a local disk, and SSHFS, which allows users to interact with files on a remote computer via SSH (Secure Shell).

Singh said Mac OS X users could also use MacFUSE to mount Windows hard drives."

The demo video shows sing RSSFS (view of RSS feeds), ProcFS (view of OS processes), DocsFS (view of Google Docs and Spreadsheet), SpotlightFS (view of Spotlight results) and PicassaFS. The project web site list others.

X for Vista

Windows Vista Vista is not a copy of OS X. The search box is in the completely opposite corner (bottom left opposed to top right), gadgets not widgets, and the 3D chess games in Vista has porcelain as a board type (innovative).

Vista Wins on Looks. As for Lacks ... suggests that the copying wasn't quite perfect, "And then there’s that Sidebar, the floating layer of mini-programs. If you close one of the gadgets, you lose its contents forever: your notes in the Post-it Notes gadget, your stock portfolio in the Stocks gadget, and so on. You couldn’t save them if you wanted to. How could Microsoft have missed that one."

YouTube does Leopard

Mac OS X Leopard Features - Sneak Video Previews iChat and Time Machine (bloody marketing) look good. Who would've thought revision control and backing up could look so flash.

The direct link to the keynote works much better than the main page.

Calendar also is good news (as well as continuing to support OS).

For the Confirmed RDF Query Geek

BIG, FAT, STINKING SOFTWARE has a download of the Mr Sparkle screensaver for OS X.

Look Twice

An interesting post, "Windows XP, Our New Favorite Legacy Operating System" discusses the ramifications of 5 years without a new version of Windows and subliminal logos (I'll never look at an "Ex" the same way).

We are all focusing on OS X releases (and how Vista is copying OS X) during that time but I haven't found anywhere focusing on the progress of 5 years of Linux development.

Native Vice

"MacViceBuilder is a set of tools to build a Mac version of the famous VICE emulator suite...Universal Binaries for PowerPC and Intel Macs are created...For each emulator a bundled Application is created that starts up on single click...Launches required X11 automatically"

Burst of Links

• As everyone knows OS X's default behaviour is to replace a folder not merge it. Luckily, there's Apple's free FileMerge utility.


• Peter Singer: The Ethics of What We Eat mentioning his books "Unsanctifying Human Life: Essays on Ethics" and "The Way We Eat : Why Our Food Choices Matter" - providing more than one example of the differences between moral and religious. His entry on animals also reinforces this. His essay "The Singer Solution to World Poverty" reminded me of the recent Richard Curtis movie "The Girl In The Café".


• The Asymmetric Web "Then began an awful period - which continues to this day, sadly -- of companies developing intranet applications and then concluding, erroneously, that the application can be deployed on the Web by just flicking the proverbial switch."


• Redux: Enterprise Software Licensing on Life Support "...by 2008 conventional software licenses will account for less than 10% of total revenues for all software companies, and less than 20% for leading enterprise search vendors..."


• Converting Between XML and JSON "In an ideal world, the resulting JSON structure can be converted back to its original XML document easily. Thus it seems worthwhile to discuss some common patterns as the foundation of a potentially bidirectional conversion process between XML and JSON."


• On First-Order-Logic Databases "We have demonstrated an equivalence between dependency statements (or functional dependencies) of a relational database on the one hand and of implicational statements of propositional logic on the other hand." Hopefully this means what I think it means.

Mustang for Intel Macs

Bit behind the times. Available Now: Java SE 6.0 Release 1 Developer Preview 1 (Intel) "We have just released Java SE 6.0 Release 1 Developer Preview 1 and it is currently only available for Intel-based Macintosh computers. We will be releasing a DP in the near future for PPC also. We just wanted to get 1.6 out as fast as possible. It is available at the usual location of http://connect.apple.com. Please give us you feedback."

Via, Mac Java Community.

Kicking Native OSX Games in the Happy Sack

Boot Camp Public Beta As Apple now says, "Macs do Windows, too". The download page says this is a feature coming in Leopard. Boot Camp Beta: Requirements, installation, and frequently asked questions (FAQ) "Even after installling the Macintosh Drivers CD, the Apple Remote Control (IR), Apple Wireless (Bluetooth) keyboard or mouse, Apple USB Modem, MacBook Pro's sudden motion sensor, MacBook Pro's ambient light sensor, and built-in iSight camera will not function correctly when running Windows."

For some reason I haven't been able to bring myself to install it.

I found this a good summary of the issues with dual booting: "We've found that dual-boot scenarios tend to leave users spending the bulk of their time booted into one of the two OSes—typically the one that hosts the most narrowly compatible software (that is, many Windows applications).

Virtualization or terminal services work much better for enabling, for instance, a Mac OS X or Linux user to run Windows-only software.

When users lack full access to files on either operating system's partition, as is the case with Boot Camp, users will find it that much tougher for the OSes to coexist.

We'd love to see VMware cook up a version of its VMware Player for the Mac. "

Update: Easy DOS It "So Apple will at least offer the option for users to run a virtualized version of Windows Vista atop OS X, which brings with it two HUGE advantages. First, the bad guys and script kiddies will have to get through OS X security before they even have a chance at cracking Vista security. Second, by running a virtual version of Windows Vista loaded from a read-only partition, Microsoft's recommended method of dealing with malware (periodically wipe the OS and application from your disk and load them anew) can be done in seconds instead of hours and can be done daily instead of monthly or quarterly or yearly."

Subversion Clients for OSX and Java

• RapidSVN
• SmartSVN
• svnX
• eSvn
• Subcommander
• JSVN
• JavaSVN
• Subversive
• sventon

Tiger Disappointment (not for long though)

> java -version
java version "1.4.2_07"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.2_07-215)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.2-50, mixed mode)

No download, no update, no Tiger on Tiger.

UPDATE: Found these links: Java 2 SE 5.0 Release 1 and Java 2 SE 5.0 Developer Documentation on the Apple Java mailing list.