OT: You OS/X Users...question for ya...

[Bill Campbell]

On Wed, Feb 28, 2007, Fairlight wrote:
>Confusious (Bill Campbell) say:
>> 
>> I'm hardly an expert in video for anything so take this with a grain of
>> salt.
>> 
>> The .mov QuickTime format may well be the best on Macs as it's the native
>> format if you will.
>> 
>> WMV files are now supported under QuickTime using flip4mac, available from
>> versiontracker.com, and, I think, from Microsoft.
>
>Perhaps I'll grab the codec+plugin for my converter then.
>
>> Funny you should bring this up as it was a topic at an intermediate OS X
>> SIG meeting I attended tonight.
>
>I'm funny like that.  :)
>
>> Stuffit isn't used much any more, with most things being distributed as zip
>> files, or as disk images in .dmg files, either of which are handled easily
>> with the default tools.  They can also deal with normal *nix formats such
>> ag tar.gz and cpio.
>
>I'm tempted to get it.  For less than the cost of WinZip it includes zip
>-and- stuffit functionality, plus it does self-extracting executables
>without having to license -another- program (winzip charges extra).
>Tempting.  Who cares if it's in stuffit format if it's self-extracting?  :)

Why bother?  Macs handle standard .zip files just fine, and they
can be created on pretty much any *nix box, and probably Windows
as well using open source software.  Macs can also deal with
standard ISO files -- clicking on them in the Finder will
automatically mount them.

>Sounds like a better bet than WinRAR.
>
>> These aren't your father's Macs any more :-).
>
>Knew that, but...  Some things don't totally change.  I've had plugins for
>World of Warcraft that come with __MACOSX or somesuch directories that I
>-assume- are the appropriate representation of what used to be the resource
>forks.  Actually, I dunno what that's for for sure, but it made the most
>sense to me.  :)

Those files are automatically created under OS X when files are
on UFS (Unix File System) or other non-Apple file systems.  The
metadata in the resource forks is hidden when using the Apple
file systems.

The older Apple file systems aren't case sensitive, and I use a
case-sensitive UFS partition for all source code and development
(it took me about an hour to find things broken by their lack of
case sensitivity trying to build software I've been using on *nix
systems for 20+ years :-).  When I installed OS X 10.4 Tiger on
my PowerBook, I did a fresh install on a case-sensitive Apple
file system rather than having a machine with a split personality.

I've only come across one program, Reunion 8 genealogy, that
looks at resource forks -- and I think it also gets confused on
case-sensitive file systems in that I can generate reports with
it that it can't then read.

>Can OS/X actually handle .sit natively now, similar to how WinXP (and I'd
>presume Vista) handle .zip natively (albeit FAR more slowly than with any
>actual zip handling program I've ever run, including the original)?  I
>mean, do people still have to buy the actual Stuffit, or would an .sit
>actually be useful to an OS/X user with a fresh dist out of the box?

OS X can handle .sit files now, but I haven't seen much within
the last couple of years distributed in .sit files.  Many
programs are distributed as .dmg disk images (similar to ISOs).

>> I spend the vast majority of my desktop time using a Mac Mini in my office,
>> or a 15in PowerBook, generally with a bunch of xterms in ssh connections.
>> 
>> 	http://www.celestial.com/Members/bill/images/desktop.jpg/image_view
>
>I prefer one PuTTY session hooked to a linux system running screen.
>Wireless dies temporarily, I'm safe and can recover.  The lack of a
>gazillion individual windows for emulators is for my terminal emulator
>experience what tabbed browsing is for my browser experience.

One session doesn't do me much good when I'm connecting to a
dozen or more systems.  Putty doesn't do me much good as I don't
have any Windows systems and ssh with xterms does everything I
need quite nicely.  My normal e-mail reader is mutt in xterms.

When I click on a mailbox in the column on the right side of my
desktop, it runs ``xterm -e mutt -f ~/Maildir/.$foldername'' to
read the mail in that folder.  Once a day I may read e-mail with
Thunderbird, primarily to get messages where I want to click on
URLs in the message body and to access my .Mac and AIM mailboxes.

Bill
--
INTERNET:   bill at Celestial.COM  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
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