macOS Archive

Apparantly, Apple is interested in porting Sun Solaris' ZFS to Mac OS X. From the zfs-discuss mailinglist: "Chris Emura, the Filesystem Development Manager within Apple's CoreOS organization is interested in porting ZFS to OS X. For more information, please e-mail him directly at . Speaking for the zfs team (at Sun), this is great news and we fully support the effort."

"Mac OS X includes many open source projects that contribute to the stability and robustness of the system. While Apple provides working versions of these for both PowerPC and Intel architectures, sometimes you want to build your own to tune performance or enable custom features. Plus, distributing a single binary is often preferable to keeping track of separate, architecture-specific binaries. These objectives can be accomplished by building the project as a Universal Binary, a file that contains code for both the PowerPC and Intel architectures." This article shows how to use Xcode (using Xcode 2.2.1) to construct a make-based project that builds OpenSSL as a Universal Binary."

Noted PC Magazine columnist John C. Dvorak was one of the first to predict the release of Boot Camp. His prophesizing continues in his lastest column. "A cloud is rising over Mac OS X and its future unless Apple makes its boldest move ever: turning OS X into an open-source project. That would make the battle between OS X and Linux the most interesting one on the computer scene. With all attention turned in that direction, there would be nothing Microsoft could do to stem a reversal of its fortunes."

Robert X. Cringely thinks that Apple will offer virtualization in Mac OS 10.5, but in order to do that, he thinks Apple will need to drop Mach. "So Apple will at least offer the option for users to run a virtualized version of Windows Vista atop OS X. Don't be surprised, either, to see that OS X 10.5 has a new kernel, finally giving up Mach and a big piece of its NeXTstep heritage. I write this for one thing - because OS X has kernel problems and needs some help, especially with swap space. I say it also because of the departure of Avie Tevanian, Apple's chief software technology officer, and the guy who hung onto Mach for so long." The Mach kernel has recently been the target for complaints; esp. in server duties, OSX' kernel lags behind significantly compared to i.e. Linux.

Apple delivered a new version of Remote Desktop to customers Tuesday, the first update to the software in nearly a year and the first major revision in almost two years. Remote Desktop 3, which allows users to control and administer Macs remotely, packs more than 50 new features, Apple said. Among these are support for Spotlight searching across remote Macs, a Dashboard widget, Automator support, an AutoInstall feature that automatically installs software on Macs when they reappear on the network, full drag and drop support to and from remote Macs, Application Usage and User History reports, and more.

Core Data is one of Apple's latest technologies that allows the developer to effortlessly develop applications with a very complex data store. By utilizing Core Data your Cocoa application can instantly have access to a full database for storing the applications data. All without a single line of code. But what if you want or need to store parameters that may be file specific but not application specific? In this article InformIT will walk through one solution that allows for elegant access to document specific parameters in a Core Data application.

"This project is an attempt to bring a Linux/Unix like development environment to the MacOS X platform. We believe that the Macintosh operating system has alot of potential and would like to help it reach it's potential. These libraries are not only compiled for MacOS X but are provided in a convienent form as a MacOS X Distribution Installer Package. This unfortunately means that the package is only compatible with MacOS X 10.4 Tiger. The Installer Package contains the following (and more): Sandalous Software's (partial) XML toolkit; Subversion 1.3.0; GTK+ 2.8; Glade-2; GNOME 2.12; Mono 1.1.14; and MonoDevelop 0.10."

Parallels beats big shots Microsoft and VMWare in being the first to offer a virtualization solution for Intel Macs. "Parallels announced today that it is beginning beta testing for Parallels Workstation 2.1 for Mac OS X, the first virtualization software that gives Apple users the ability to simultaneously run Windows, Linux or any other operating system and their applications alongside Mac OS X on an Intel-powered Apple computer." Some users complained about Apple's Boot Camp, which is merely an elegant form of dual-booting, and actually wanted virtualization.

Someone who claims to have an NDA with Apple, has revealed the new features MacOS 10.5, Leopard, will have. He claims all these details are already available on other websites, hence he can list them without having to worry. The most interesting bit: Leopard will ask during install if you want to install Vista or Linux on a seperate partition so you can run them simultaneously (a heavy Mac is required). Please note that the authenticity of these words is debatable at best. My take: There have been numerous rumours that Apple is going to add virtualization support to Leopard, so that might be true. And I expect Microsoft to support this. Why? Because of this, and because a Windows install equals money to MS. Whether on a Mac or not.

" This database stuff is clearly the next frontier. If we are ever going to have natural speech interfaces and virtual assistants that collect and display our information in more useful ways, the computer is going to need to know much more about how our files relate to each other and remember what we’ve done to them and who’s done it. Moving all this organization to the system level instead of locking it up in separate applications that are then duplicated in a search index seems like the best way to get there."

In my house today, all of the computers are Macs. This is a long way away from three and a half year ago, when I said that Jaguar could not replace my PC. We're chugging along happily running Tiger, just as productive as before, and enjoying every bit of eye candy. But OS X isn't always cherry pie, it's got its own set of faults, and some can be downright annoying. UPDATED

As Apple moves from IBM's and Freescale's PowerPC RISC architecture to Intel processors, developers must rebuild their products to support both platforms, into what Apple calls a UB (Universal Binary). And while Apple lists over 1000 UB applications currently available, this process is challenging developers, especially those of some of the largest and most critical applications for the platform.

Todd Blanchard has released version 1.7 of ObjectiveCLIPS. "ObjectiveCLIPS allows the creation of intelligent Cocoa applications with persistent object models and complex business rules. Out of the box, Apple gives you the ability to write Cocoa applications with dumb passive data models using CoreData. However, there is no convenient way to express complex constraints and dependent values without writing custom business objects. Even if you write the custom objects, your code will likely be fragile for a variety of reasons. ObjectiveCLIPS allows you to write rules about your objects and execute actions when rules match."

Informit.com's very own Mac Reference Guide, Owen Linzmayer, again risks the slings and arrows of Apple's most ardent admirers with another look at how Tiger rubs him wrong. Take a look at "Ten More Things I Hate About Mac OS X" to see if you recognize any of your own pet peeves. Elsewhere on the same site, this chapter covers the initial installation and setup of Mac OS X Tiger, either as a fresh installation, or as an upgrade from a previous version. Detailed instructions are given to help you set your Mac up just how you want it.