Existing users, 
User Name petrologist
Member Since 2006-09-09
Total number of Feedback Posts: 7
Total number of comments: 10
Last 10 Feedback Posts by petrologist [ Search for All ]
TinyAlarm 1.3 (Mac OS X)
TinyCal Quick Timer, difficult with iCal 
My memory-limited machine won't run iCal. Also, iCal is not suited to quickly setting a 5 minute or hour alarm (to stretch). When my granddaughter appears, I've used it to instantly have it beep every minute, continually, for 'hide and seek'. A Growl notification appears that my alarm has been going off, then changes to my alarm has gone off. Though iCal's long-term alarms are designed well for careful planning, TinyAlarm is the program I had long sought for the unanticipated, simple alarm, as when baking from another room. Appears appropriately as a tiny icon on the status line of the Desktop's menu bar. A click & set takes about 5 seconds. Its tiny interface takes up little chip memory. The photo above shows TinyCal next to it (as the day of the month), and the two supplement iCal nicely. Does only one thing, and does it well. Though I can't run iCal, I found TinyAlarm & TinyCal offered what I most needed from iCal. I use each several times a day. [alert admin]
Sunday, March 22 2009 @ 03:23 PM PDT
TinyCal 1.4.1 (Mac OS X)
TinyCal & TinyAlarm: iCal for slow computers
My little Mac hasn't the resources to run iCal, and everyone asks me the date. My need is not to schedule reminders (but hour ones to stretch), but quickly check the date and local holidays. TinyCal is a new kind of application, perfectly suited to the 'status menu' to the right of the Desktop's Menu Bar, where it displays a number: the day of the month. There are many preferences, but mine drops down three months (resembling Unix's old 'cal' format), with the current month in the center, current date circled. Moving the pointer over the tinted dates displays what holiday they are. The interface is a model of elegant simplicity. This allows it to take about 2 MB of chip memory, as opposed to iCal's 15MB, though the disk memory is about the same. This can make a great difference on computers with little memory. Though I also have Apple's date status running: day of week and time, my computer takes 20 seconds to display the date (it swaps) when I click this. TinyCal drops down its menu instantaneously. Combined with TinyAlarm, Pixelated Software offers the perfect applications for the status menu. They are in keeping with Unix philosophy: small (interface), simple, each doing one thing extremely well. If TinyAlarm disappears because the current applications overwrites its icon with its menu bar, just define a 'hotkey' of your choice or click the desktop. ('Finder' takes little space on the menu bar.) TinyCal and TinyAlarm both greatly enhance MacOSX. Those who can pop-up iCal in a second may not need these, though usually you only need a quick calendar overview and simple alarm clock. iCal doesn't provide these easily. [alert admin]
Sunday, March 22 2009 @ 02:41 PM PDT
iVCD 3.0.7 (Mac OS X)
iVCD converts iMovies directly to SVCDs 
Last night I had a clip from an iMovie to convert to SVCD using a G3 processor. Not so simple. Quicktime Pro attempted to record a few minutes from my Canon camcorder, but couldn't. Oddly, an old version of iVCD (3.0.8) had no problem converting an iMovie in DV format to MPEG and SVCD, whereas Quicktime Pro couldn't recognize the DV format! The criticisms I read that the 'demo' version leaves green ads all over the screen are valid only in that this should be clearly stated in the documentation. My 5-minute clip took 2 hours to create; but this did not overheat the processor, and nothing could be simpler. Note that creating a DVD with a G3 processor would take days, if possible. However, overwriting the screen with an ad allows the application to be fully functional and therefore fully evaluated. The best aspect is the interface, which is so simple that the lack of a help file didn't bother me. SVCDs are likely attractive to owners of G3 Macs, which can not write DVDs. This will always be slow on a G3. My G4 writes full DVDs in minutes, not hours. One can conclude, then, that the SVCD is still a viable option for recordings of blurry television shows, for blank CD media is less expensive. This application should prove simple and fast in creating these on a G4 Mac. I only wish I could afford the price. (Having more knowledge than money, I'll likely use a GNU/Linux program recompiled for the Mac. However, were I a normal person, I should not hesitate to purchase iVCD.) [alert admin]
Friday, March 06 2009 @ 12:14 PM PST
StuffIt Expander 11.0.2 (Mac OS X)
Apple offers a free Alternative
Last year's IMAP mail I just finished archiving (before old mail is deleted by Apple). Though it's only text, 11.0.2 doesn't compress all that much: 333.7 MB of text was compressed to a 235.4 MB zip file: 29% 'disappeared'. Perhaps my expectations are too high, such as 50%. The only good news is that a nifty icon with a zipper is hidden deep in /Library: Ctrl-click on a Stuffit zip file and open the info window. Click 'Open with' and drop down the menu: BOMArchivehelper is the default, and mine, on MacOX 10.4.11, is labeled 'BOMArchivehelper (default) (10.4.11)', suggesting this could be more than cosmetic. However, it compressed my mail to 235.4 MB, so maybe not. However, I've always compressed using the Mac contextual menus and used BOMArchivehelper, its default, to expand. Never a problem here. Compresses & expands to the same folder. If you have this option without obtaining Stuffit yourself, at the expense of all your personal information, I should use it. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 2 of 5 users found this helpful
Friday, February 22 2008 @ 11:19 PM PST
Iris 0.5.6b (Mac OS X)
Iris appears to not work with G3
Though my little G3 iBook had no other user applications running, and 256Kb of RAM (double the original amount), Iris essentially froze the computer, even though I made the video windows as small as possible, and requested lowest quality previews of only 5 frames a second. It didn't appear to work with Ecamm's iGlasses, but this was impossible to say because of the computer's duress: RAM was filled, and the disk was thrashing rather than paging (expending more on on setting up the pages than benefiting from them). The G4 can process 12 bytes (I think) at a time, and is needed for some CPU intensive, graphical applications. This appears one such application. (Ecamm's Conference Recorder works wonderfully, though the movies are very small.) Iris offered many cute filters. The ones of interest to me (which I hadn't time to check for) would have been very low light and infrared (which iGlasses could offer). This, in combination with motion detection, a snap, and e-mail (Growl I don't know about) made it initially attractive. [alert admin]
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Saturday, August 18 2007 @ 04:32 PM PDT
Apple QuickTime 7.1.3 (Mac OS X)
Should one have to pay for a security upgrade?
Quicktime Pro I use almost daily for recording video, but if I upgrade it now I shall lose my recording ability, unless I pay about $20. Yet Versiontracker's description emphasizes this upgrade contains important security repairs. Should one have to pay to plug a security leak or fix a bug, or should versions with new features and with fixes be released separately? [alert admin]
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Wednesday, February 07 2007 @ 05:05 AM PST
RealPlayer 10.1 (build 412) (Mac OS X)
Versiontracker client takes basic users to GOLD download
It's hard to find the basic, free, download of RealPlayer on their website. Although mine is free, the download button on Versiontracker apparently cant' find the basic, or free, version either: one is presented with links to download the expensive, GOLD version. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 3 of 4 users found this helpful
Wednesday, February 07 2007 @ 04:50 AM PST
Last 10 Comments by petrologist [ Search for All ]
We (or I) should like to know what applications you've found useful substitutes for Apple's. (I consider Apple's consistent OOUI very important.) iPhoto I find useful for organization, fitting standard-sized photos onto letter paper, and its cute film canisters. However, I edit & organize the originals before dragging their 'shoot' folders to iPhoto. Anything that grows forever, I archive onto optical media. This is mounted by *nix read-only, but otherwise similar to a hard disk. Mail is…
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Saturday, March 28 2009 @ 09:50 AM PDT
Runs instantly & flawlessly on my latest MacOSX 10.4.11 on a G3 (PPC) iBook with 256 MB real memory. (Even the OS will barely run.) If you had iClock installed before, you don't really need this; and the two are so similar, they may have interfered in strange ways.
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Sunday, March 22 2009 @ 03:32 PM PDT
That I can explain. I discovered that Steve Jobs waits for no system programmer. :-) During the mid-80s, he was demonstrating and selling the first NExT cubes on the Princeton campus, before the OS even ran. "Probably just a race condition somewhere." (Perhaps he was hoping a buyer would fix it for him. :-) So, I'm not surprised he was selling MacOSX 10.1 on Macs before it ran. (MacOSX 10.2 ran fast and flawlessly on my G3…
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Tuesday, November 25 2008 @ 11:38 PM PST
Little caveat here. :-) Didn't I see just a MacOSX 10.2 requirement above? That suggests Seamonkey's code will run fast, give a fast OS. G3s were sold with this operating system, and mine, with 256 MB RAM, ran 10.4.(small number) fast. My suggestion is, since the G3 has plenty of RAM, it should run it well unless (1) your OS is too large or disk space too small, or (2) your OS is too slow.…
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Tuesday, November 25 2008 @ 11:03 PM PST
And while youre at it on v1.67...
Yes, reboot to the default, boot disk. Actually, on my little laptop, one can't even properly shutdown. If you reboot the computer, or shutdown with Ctrl-Cmd-Power Button, or just Power Button, the computer will reboot using the provided CD unless you first remove it or (in my case) pull the 'hotplugged' Firewire socket to my external CD player. When repairing the boot disk from the Tiger install disk, after repairing I chose the option to next…
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Saturday, October 25 2008 @ 05:03 PM PDT
Update Check Pop-under is ANNOYING!
VersionTracker will inform you instead. Perian is a plug-in, a (very) 'background' process. Macs, I believe, pop windows in front of the window that belongs to the process (in this case, no window). However, it's critical to be informed as quickly as possible of updates, for Perian provides code that interacts directly with remote computers. Vulnerabilities in this code are of the greatest risk to your computer's security. Sometimes annoyances are good.
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Friday, July 18 2008 @ 03:56 PM PDT
I'm afraid you comment serves no purpose whatsoever, for it doesn't list the codecs missing. Remember that Perian provides codecs for many international standard multimedia formats. Microsoft isn't fond of these standards, and it offers its own formats or modifies standard ones so you must buy a Windows machine to play them.
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Friday, July 18 2008 @ 03:48 PM PDT
Very nice review. I never discovered what those words meant. I had assumed 'Online' defragmented those parts of your home folder with closed files, and 'Optimize' defragmented the system folders as well, but I really don't know. Can't say I find 'optimize' useless; if fact, I usually prefer it. I even optimize my temporary & log files: that way temporary files will likely fit in the same place when rebooted, and fragmented log files are…
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Monday, July 16 2007 @ 12:19 AM PDT
i'm about to buy iPartition to create an HFS+ non-journaled partition w/o Spotlight, to allow me to write defragmented disk images before burning them. I have a tiny iBook, but had no trouble writing iDefrag to two CDs (backup copy), and it defragmented my hard disk w/o problems, though I have only half the required memory. iDefrag takes only 6.8 Mb on my disk, and I defragmented my PowerBook's 60 Gb drive in Firewire Target Disk…
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Saturday, July 14 2007 @ 02:52 PM PDT
Defragging is for PCs. Not Macs.
Here's another suggestion from Apple: 'TIPS FOR IMPROVING THE FRAME RATE [OF QUICKTIME] Defragment your disk drive! A badly fragmented drive impacts performance.' Because reading & writing files is the bottleneck in most of my computing, I've always spent effort optimizing my hard disks. Windows's disk format was an insult to computing, but Mac OS X, Unix, & OS/2's real disk format simply fragmented more slowly than Windows's. When consulting, I used to install a program that recorded…
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Wednesday, April 25 2007 @ 03:55 PM PDT
