User Profile for Markarian421

User Name Markarian421

Member Since 2004-03-04

Total number of Feedback Posts: 10

Total number of comments: 6

Last 10 Feedback Posts by Markarian421 [ Search for All ]

VirtueDesktops 0.53r220 (Mac OS X)

In this latest update, any applications where I check "show on all desktops" soon (after say 5-15 minutes) vanishes entirely. I usually have iChat and iTunes "sticky" and now they just go away instead of being on every desktop. [alert admin]

MenuMeters 1.3 (Mac OS X)

A great set of meters

I found Menu Meters when looking for some CPU meter application, and Menu Meters was my favorite. Simple but exactly the information I wanted, and highly configurable as far as what you want to see. My only feature request would be adding temperature readings as an option. [alert admin]

TigerLaunch 1.0.2 (Mac OS X)

A great way to find apps

TigerLaunch is a very simple straightforward application -- it provides you with a single list of every single app on your computer as a dropdown menu. When I found TigerLaunch it wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but now I find it's one of those apps I can't live without it, when I meat a new mac it's one of the first things I install. I use it to find all those apps that I need every once in a great while -- stuff that I don't use often enough to but in the dock but don't want to have to open a finder and go hunting for when I need it. Something a little more configurable would be nice, but the utilities along those lines that I've tried have been bloated and I've ended up dropping them in favor of TigerLaunch's simplicity and easy access. [alert admin]

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Monday, July 17 2006 @ 09:21 PM PDT

iChatter 2.0 (Mac OS X)

One of those little apps I can't live without

iChatter is on a short list of applications I just have to have. On my last project I had iChat on all the time, we had an international team and it was the main way we communicated for the project. So being able to hear the chat (instead of always having to look at the screen) was great -- I had the volume low enough that I could pretty much ignore it if I wanted, but if I heard my name it would catch my attention and I'd tune in. This version added the ability to set individual voices for people on your buddy list. This is a feature I've been wanting for a while, so I'm really glad they added it. There are at least two cases where it's really nice. Only a few of the people on the chat are on OS X, so most of them can't use iChatter, and thus can't set a voice for themselves -- in previous versions of iChatter they all got the same default voice, and you couldn't tell them apart. Now you can. Second, every once in a while someone with iChatter thinks it's funny to pick some really annoying voice, and it's nice to be able to override that! Thanks for a great product. [alert admin]

CodeTek VirtualDesktop Pro 3.2 (Mac OS X)

Did 10.4.7 break CTVD for anyone else?

CTVD quit working for me recetnly. If I try to start it, the pager opens, then it crashes after 5 seconds. I tried deleting prefs, then uninstalling, removing all related files I could find, and reinstalling, and no luck, it acts exactly the same. The strange thing is, it didn't seem to happen all at once -- over the last couple weeks sometimes I would notice it wasn't there after logging in, so I would restart it. And if my memory serves me right, it stayed around for at least a while before crashing again -- I am sure I used it just last week while editing some digital photos. It was only the last few days where it would not work at all. The only recent change I can think of is the 10.4.7 update. Suggestons anyone? I'm still waiting to hear back from CodeTek, but I'm curious if anyone is using this with 10.4.7 with no problems. Thanks. [alert admin]

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Monday, July 17 2006 @ 05:43 PM PDT

VirtueDesktops 0.52r155 (Mac OS X)

Not quite what I was looking for

There seem to be two kinds of desktop managers. This first is a multiple desktop manager -- one that's basically like fast user switching, but you are all the users, a series of independent and unrelated desktops. The second is a virtual desktop manager -- like a single huge desktop. You can only see a portion of it at any given time, but you can move your mouse and widows around it with no hitch. It's nice (essential even) to have a pager where you can see the whole thing and drag windows around as well. Coming from Linux, what I usually want is the second, a large virtual workspace -- when I've run out of room, I want to slide to the right and open an new window there, or drag a window there, etc. Unfortunately for me, most OS X (and Windows for that matter) desktop managers are the second -- not virtual workspace managers, just a series of unrelated desktops you can switch between. From the name you might think VirtueDesktop would be the first, but it's not (with caveats listed below). And I tend to have the same reaction to these multiple workspace managers that a lot of user who have never used any workspace manager have -- what's the point? I might as well use Expose. To its credit VirtueDesktop does seem to include hints that perhaps someday it will include virtual desktop functionality, but what's there right now isn't there yet. The desktop switching with the mouse is unreliable. The mouse cursor doesn't treat it as a single workspace, it stays where it is instead of wrapping. Although there seem to be functions for moving windows (well applications at least) between workspaces with the mouse, I never got it to work. Maybe it's just not what I'm expecting, to be able to just drag a window to a different part of a large connected workspace -- since there isn't much in the way of documentation I don't know. Finally, it's missing a critical feature for a virtual desktop manager, a pager I can always display that shows the entire workspace and allows me to drag windows around is something I just can't deal with. Oh, and the transitions drive me nuts. Now there are hints that a lot of this could be implemented in VirtueDesktops, and I hope it is. The pager shows all the individual windows . . . now if I could just do something with them. And maybe have the pager smaller so I could leave it up all the time. And although the mouse actions don't seem to work reliably (or wrap the cursor) I like the pause before switching way of doing things more than the speed of the cursor implementation that (for instance) CodeTek uses. Right now CodeTek's Virtual Desktop Pro (not free) is about the best virtual (as opposed to multiple) desktop manager implementation I've seen on OS X, but its reliability has not been great over time, new versions of OS X tend to break it (I can't get it to run on 10.4.7, thus a new round of looking at the alternatives) so sadly I can't really recommend it. But it has the right idea at least. So overall I think there's hope for VirtueDesktop -- rIght now it's stuck in a different mindset from what I want. But maybe it will get there. [alert admin]

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Saturday, July 15 2006 @ 12:57 PM PDT

Google Earth 4.0.1563.0 (Mac OS X)

Really poor performance on a quad

As I posted months ago on the Google forums, when I got a PowerMac Quad with the nVidia 7800 GT card and 2GB memory, I was shocked to find that my 800MHz iBook runs Google Earth better than this machine does. I previously had a Dual 2.3GHz PowerMac (ATI X800 card, 2GB) and Google Earth worked great on that machine. But not on the quad, at least not with this card. It's so slow and uneven and jumpy that I can't really use it any more -- something like 2-4 fps with frequent several second gaps with no updates. If you're looking at your neighborhood and accidently set the globe in motion, the next time the screen updates you may well be in another state. Several others have reported the same problems, months have passed, a new version has been released . . . and at least for us quad users, nothing has changed. If I was using any other computer I'm sure this would be a very different review. [alert admin]

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Tuesday, July 04 2006 @ 03:24 PM PDT

iChatter 1.1 (Mac OS X)

Broken (in a minor way) in 10.4.2

Setting custom voices stopped working after the OS X 10.4.2 update -- I hear whatever voices I set (mine and the default for everyone else) instead of the custom voices other people set for themselves. So everyone else sounds the same! The same is true for the only other person I know who upgraded to 10.4.2 and uses iChatter. [alert admin]

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Tuesday, July 12 2005 @ 03:03 PM PDT

USB Overdrive 10.3 (Mac OS X)

settings for individual apps, middle button

I installed this today in order to try and get my gamepad to work with MacPlay's Incoming. I noticed two things: First, it would not let me create separate settings for the Incoming app -- when I tried it said there was already an entry for it, which I had to edit or delete. There was no entry, only the global settings entry. It did allow me to create a custom set for a different game, so I don't know what it had against Incoming! The second thing I noticed (while searching the we for the problem) was that my middle mouse button (clicking the scroll wheel) stopped working. I disabled USB Overdrve for the mouse and all was fine, but it seems straange that the default settings in USB Overdrive wooud make my ouse less useful than normal! Sorry for the complaints. Thanks for the hard work. [alert admin]

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Wednesday, February 16 2005 @ 12:32 AM PST

iPodderX 2.2.7 (Mac OS X)

frustrating

I used iPodderX for a few days because it looked lke it was exactly what I wanted. It worked exactly as I wanted the first time I ran it, but after that things went downhill. It kept loading old files instead of new ones, and it would load the same old files over and over even though they were already listed. Maybe I just hit a bad version, but after a few days of fighting it and never getting any new content, I gave up. Hopefully yhey will work out the bugs soon, it looks like there is a lot of potential here, but for now I'd prefer functional. [alert admin]

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Tuesday, February 08 2005 @ 01:52 PM PST

Last 10 Comments by Markarian421 [ Search for All ]

Developer announcement at front page

Anyone heard anything more? I'm afraid they've given up. I've been using Virtue since CTVD quit working but it falls pretty short on features by comparison and is pretty buggy.

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Wednesday, December 13 2006 @ 01:05 PM PST

Really poor performance on a quad

Maybe if I had _any_ other graphics intensive app that had problems on this computer, I'd buy that. But I don't, and I run a lot of graphics intensive apps, from games to image processing, from open source to Photoshop. Google Earth is the only one that acts like it's running on a 486 with intel onboard graphics and makes my ancient G4 iBook look like a graphics powerhouse. So I really…

Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)

Tuesday, August 01 2006 @ 10:46 PM PDT

Not quite what I was looking for

First, once I looked back at this . . . yeah, I think I'd probably bump up most of the ratings by at least one star. What was I thinking? I must have been in a bad mode. (Where is the edit?) alandrew, I guess I would not agree with your "extremely well" claim. I think Virtue looks good, but it is very very far from working extremely well. I've been…

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Thursday, July 20 2006 @ 10:59 PM PDT

Maybe I'm Missing the Point.

Maybe you don't have many applications on your computer? I don't use TigerLaunch to find my favorites, I find it to use the things I only go hunting for once in a while. TigerLaunch makes it easy to find all all the apps on your computer in one menu. So yes, I think you were missing the point.

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Monday, July 17 2006 @ 09:17 PM PDT

Maybe I'm Missing the Point.

Original feedback item : Read More

Monday, July 17 2006 @ 09:13 PM PDT

Not quite what I was looking for

"Unfortunately for me, most OS X (and Windows for that matter) desktop managers are the second -- not virtual workspace managers"
First I mean. Ugh.

Original feedback item : Read More

Saturday, July 15 2006 @ 01:02 PM PDT