Mac OS X comes with dozens of utilities and applications—many of which can be easily cataloged, such as Internet and media tools. Many applications, however, can’t easily be assigned a category. This chapter covers the useful Mac OS X applications and utilities that you’re likely to use regularly.
Mac OS X Panther Applications and Utilities
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I discovered in Panther (it may be in Jaguar too, but I don’t know for sure) is “say”. This is a console utility that will speak-back anything you pass into it. It will also read back text files, or if you wish, write it out as an aiff file.
For more info, open a console window and type in “man say”.
Pretty darned cool if you ask me! 🙂
Pretty darned cool indeed! And funny: it has a thick American accent when you make it speak a foreign language (even in localized versions).
I like that the address book hooks into bluetooth so I can dial my cell phone from the address book, and when i get incoming calls it’ll bring up a window on the mac.
Also, using watson’s phone book, I can add all the contact info from the phone book into my address book with a click (which I then use isync to load up my cell w/ the #’s).
sometimes i have it read a book all night, like Dune or children of the dune
On another note,,,,,,I know this isn’t the story, but it’s taking Apple forever(almost a year)to update the current G5 line. Anyone speculate on the turtling? iPod must be getting all the attention these days..
They did a great job redoing the system profiler. Also, Disk Utility usually seems to be the most overlooked application in OS X.
Other than the 90nm chips, new G5s were never expected until WWDC this year.
Has anyone here connected the address book to a Windows 2003 OWA server successfully?
I have never seen so much focus on every little tiny app of a OS… just to make it look like it has more software.
Maybe the lack of real apps to review makes for a lot of make-work journalism?
It will be another year or so, but every major music software maker for Mac will also be running on Windows. And then we’ll see Apple’s maniacal anti-ISV strategy killing yet another niche that was formerly dominated by Apple.
So the apps are headed off the Mac platform at a breakneck pace. No one wants to compete with Apple in the tiny Mac pond.
“I discovered in Panther (it may be in Jaguar too, but I don’t know for sure) is “say”. This is a console utility that will speak-back anything you pass into it. It will also read back text files, or if you wish, write it out as an aiff file.
For more info, open a console window and type in “man say”.
Pretty darned cool if you ask me! :-)”
That has been useful (and cool) on Amigas since 1985. Has it really only now arrived on the Mac?
“It will be another year or so, but every major music software maker for Mac will also be running on Windows.”
What’s that got to do with this thread?
The tiny Mac pond is a huge torrent in ‘creative’ fields, at least on the professional level. Pro studios use Macs primarily; and while they do have some PCs lying around, they’re usually running single purpose apps. Graphic designers mostly use Macs as well.. The CAD/CAM industry is where Macs, at least now, are more than capible do not have any significant numbers. Macs are now, finally, making there way back into broadcast.
Macs are indeed viable machines for ‘professionals’ who require a minimum of setup time and maintenance. Core Audio QuickTime and color management are strengths of the Mac OS, can we say that about a windows PC?
Jb
Back in 1984 (the year od arrival) Mac OS has MacInTalk, the same jkind of application as “say” with the same American flavour when you write in another language. /I use to change my spanish wording so it “speaks out” more spanished).
I think that the Amiga was a very nice computer, advanced for it time (specially in video) and/or for the market. The Mac was similarlly advanced, IMHO.
I’ll be, with your permission, a little ironic.
There is a “little” utility call “DejaVu” written by a Virginia Tech’s professor that made it possible to put together 1100 G5 and let them run as the 3rd most powerfull computer in the world (see http://www.top500.org) costing 5.2 millions (if we don’t take into account the 700-plus pizzas and cokes to feed the volunteers) far less money than the first two (and a lot others) computers in the list.
In my honest opinion:
The size of the application is not a good measure of its quality.
Neither the quantity of applications (by the way, there are more than 10.000 for Mac OS X).
By example, there are hundreds of “word processors”, not to speak of “text editors” out there (and the real question still is ’emacs or vi?’)
Quality of ideas is what matters, be it implemented in a small or medium sized or huge application. Small ones means –many times– “proof of concept”. Then, they get into other applications.