I first used a Mac in 1996. It was running System 7 on some clone or other.
Sitting down in front of a Mac in 1996 was, though I had no idea at the time, incredibly good timing on my part. That was the year that Steve Jobs returned to the company he co-founded and promptly set about transforming it, and his industry (for the second time).
The first fruit of Jobs’ return was also the first computer I owned, the “Bondi Blue” iMac G3.
Since the day I set up that iMac—There is no step 3!—Apple machines have helped me lay out pages, design posters, write tens of thousands of words for newspapers, magazines and weblogs, play DJ sets in nightclubs, publish websites and make friends.
Fluid lets you create a Site Specific Browser (SSB) out of any website or web application, effectively turning your favorite web apps into desktop apps.
HyperDither is an OS X image processing utility that converts color or grayscale images to 1 bit black & white using a sophisticated dithering routine. Specifically, HyperDither implements the “Atkinson” dithering filter.
Essentially a nostalgia machine for Mac & Netwon users. Click the screenshot above for the full effect.
A few folk have been in touch asking for more information on using an ExpressCard SSD as their main drive, so I thought I’d (belatedly) write up the process.
I got the idea from this post on Mac OS X Hints in which ctapley details his use of a 24GB SSD as the boot drive on his Macbook Pro.
If you’re thinking of going the ExpressCard SSD route, read the above, and their comment threads: not all ExpressCard SSDs are suitable, and some earlier Macs with an ExpressCard slot can’t boot from an SSD. In other words, don’t rush out and buy a drive until you’re certain it works, and works with your particular Macbook Pro.
For my Macbook Pro 2,2, I opted for the 48GB Wintec Filemate SolidGo, which you can get from Amazon US for $137 or Amazon UK for £216. If you’d like a bit more headroom, there’s now a 96GB version available for $290/£216, which is reported to work well.
Here’s how I made the move to SSD:
Make a complete bootable backup of your existing system on an external drive, make sure Time Machine is up to date, burn the baby photos to a DVD, push all your git repositories, &c.—in short, make sure you’re backed up to the hilt.
Boot from an OS X install CD, and install the OS to the SSD. If you like, use the Customise option to trim away stuff you don’t need (I didn’t bother).
Reboot, hold down ⌥ and boot from the SSD.
Run Software Update.
Set up your new system with the absolute bare minimum you need to get stuff done—for me, that meant installing Dropbox and running it, installing git and pulling down my config files and code, installing 1Password, mutt, Notational Velocity, TextMate and vim.
Open Disk Utility and wipe your internal hard drive. (You might want to wait a week between 5. and 6.)
Use Disk Utility to partition the internal drive in two: one 50GB partition for making bootable backups of the SSD with Carbon Copy Cloner, the other for media files, downloads, &c..
When you find yourself reaching for an application, install it—I was amazed at how few applications I actually use on a regular basis.
Bonus link: Poor Man’s SSD, in which K. Mandla upgrades his 14-year-old laptop with an 8GB CF card and CF-to-IDE adapter—now that’s making the most out of old hardware.
Go SSD
Yesterday on Minimal Mac, Patrick pointed to a 40GB internal SSD for $99.
If you have an ExpressCard slot on your Mac and an extra thirty bucks to spare I can heartily recommend the Wintec FileMate 48GB Ultra ExpressCard (the same drive is available in the UK for £130).
I use one as the main drive on my Macbook Pro, and there’s more than enough room for the OS, all my applications and all my non-media files—I still have 17GB to spare, three months after upgrading.
Advantages:
Time to boot, and launch Notational Velocity, Textmate, Safari and a handful of Menu Bar items: ~16 seconds.
Half an hour of extra battery life (if I’m only using the SSD).
Applications launch instantaneously. Even iPhoto.
No spinning beach balls, ever.
Everything is just much faster, even stuff I’d assumed was limited by processing power (like building software) or RAM (like working with large files).
I get to keep my large internal hard drive, where there’s room for a bootable backup of the SSD, media files, big downloads and hefty apps that won’t fit comfortably on the SSD (Ableton Live, in my case).
Disadvantages:
The Macbook Pro gets a bit toasty on the ExpressCard slot side.
Er, that’s it.
So, switching to an SSD has completely transformed my 2007-vintage Macbook Pro. For everyday tasks it’s significantly faster than more recent models I’ve used with far beefier processors and much more RAM, which means I won’t be tempted to think about replacing this machine for many years to come.
TL;DR: if you spend $100 or so upgrading to an SSD, it’ll feel like you’ve spent thousands on a brand new machine.
Moving an application to the trash is simple and easy. Shouldn’t true uninstallation on the Mac be the same way? With AppTrap, when you move an application to the trash, you’re automatically asked if you want to move the associated preference files as well. Now that’s uninstallation, the Mac way.
Unlike rivals AppCleaner or AppZapper, AppTrap installs as a Preference Pane and runs silently in the background watching the Trash for incoming applications. (NB: Hazel does the same thing.)
Bean is a small, easy-to-use word processor (or more precisely, a rich text editor), designed to make writing convenient, efficient and comfortable. Bean is Open Source, fully Cocoa, and is available free of charge! MS Word, OpenOffice, etc. try to be all things to all people. But sometimes you just want the right tool for the job. That is Bean’s niche.
There are a lot of ways to approach burning discs. Burn keeps it simple, but still offers a lot of advanced options.
(the same drive is available 
for £130).
