TidBITS#685/23-Jun-03
=====================
This week's Worldwide Developers Conference spurred a bevy of
announcements by Apple, and we have details of the new Power Mac
G5, the preview of Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, iChat AV and the iSight
video camera. But WWDC isn't the only Mac event in this busy June:
Adam reports on the MacHax Best Hack Contest from last week's
MacHack. Also, we note the releases of Safari 1.0, AirPort 3.1,
iPod Software 2.0.1, and Mailsmith 2.0, plus how to get free
Macworld passes!
Topics:
MailBITS/23-Jun-03
Apple Announces 64-bit Power Mac G5s
Mac OS X 10.3 Panther Springs at WWDC
iSight Eyes iChat AV
The MacHax Best Hack Contest 2003
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/23-Jun-03
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-685.html>
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MailBITS/23-Jun-03
------------------
**Safari 1.0 and SDK Released** -- Apple's Safari Web browser has
officially been set loose in the wild. Safari 1.0 was released
today via Software Update and as a separate 6.2 MB download.
According to Apple, this release improves Web standards
compatibility, is available in all Mac OS X languages, and
is now the default Mac OS X browser (supplanting Microsoft
Internet Explorer, which was recently put into maintenance mode;
see TidBITS-684_ for details). More Safari-related AppleScript
scripts appeared today as well. Apple also released a Safari
software development kit (SDK) to enable developers to access
Safari's HTML rendering engine from their applications. The
lack of a good system-wide HTML rendering engine has hurt many
applications, so we expect HTML display and rendering to improve
throughout the Macintosh world as developers take advantage
of Safari. [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/safari/download/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07227>
<http://www.apple.com/applescript/safari/>
<http://developer.apple.com/internet/safari.html>
**AirPort 3.1 Applies 802.11g Spec** -- One week after the IEEE
ratified the 802.11g specification for higher-speed wireless
equipment, Apple has released AirPort 3.1 for Mac OS X, which
updates Macs using AirPort Extreme (see "802.11g (AirPort Extreme)
Ratified" in TidBITS-684_). The update includes AirPort Extreme
Firmware v5.1 (also available as a separate 2 MB download) to
update AirPort Extreme Base Stations and AirPort Extreme cards.
Along with implementing the final 802.11g spec, the update adds
packet bursting, which improves throughput on 802.11g networks.
Apple also slipped in a few other improvements: an AirPort Extreme
Base Station can be set up as a "relay" device within a network
containing multiple base stations, and networking speed is
improved when interfering equipment (such as 2.4 GHz cordless
phones and microwave ovens) is in the vicinity. Finally, Apple
also released a beta version of AirPort Extreme Admin Utility
for Windows XP and Windows 2000, something the company said was
requested by many users in mixed computing environments. The
AirPort 3.1 update requires Mac OS X 10.2.6 and later, and is
available through Software Update or as a separate 7 MB download.
[JLC]
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07228>
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120224>
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120226>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07047>
**iPod Software 2.0.1 Released** -- Apple has released iPod
Software 2.0.1, improving performance and Windows compatibility
for 2003 iPod models that feature a dock connector (earlier iPod
models remain at version 1.3 of the software). The 2.0.1 update
improves playback performance and handling of MP3 Variable Bit
Rate (VBR) songs, enhances the alarm clock and On-The-Go playlist,
features better support for Asian languages, and fixes problems
with sorting by artist and left/right channel swapping. The
backlight has been improved so that it doesn't automatically turn
off after a few seconds while you're using the iPod. The latest
iPod models work on Macs and under Windows, and Windows users
will be happy to learn that this update provides the USB 2.0
connectivity (when paired with the separate $20 iPod Dock
Connector to FireWire and USB 2.0 cable) that was promised
when the new iPods were unveiled. The update also brings support
for Audible.com content, the capability to use multiple iPods
on one computer, shorter connection times, and better overall
performance. The iPod Software 2.0.1 update requires Mac OS X
10.1.2 or higher and is available through Software Update or
as a separate 30 MB download. Windows users should also download
MusicMatch Jukebox 7.5 to gain USB 2.0 functionality. [JLC]
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120229>
<http://www.apple.com/ipod/download/ipodsoftwareupdate13.html>
<http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?
productLearnMore=M9126G%2FA>
<http://www.audible.com/>
<http://www.musicmatch.com/download/free/?OS=pc&OEM=APPLE>
**The Mail Must Go Through, Faster** -- Bare Bones Software has
released version 2.0 of its POP/SMTP email client, Mailsmith
(see "Mailsmith 1.5: Lean, Mean Email Machine" in TidBITS-638_).
In addition to standard email client features, Mailsmith
incorporates the key text-handling abilities of Bare Bones's
BBEdit, now including PCRE-based regular expression searching.
This version offers seamless integration with Michael Tsai's
SpamSieve (see "Tools We Use: SpamSieve" in TidBITS-667_), PGP,
and Apple's Address Book. Interface details and the internal
threading and storage implementations have been heavily reworked,
resulting in a smooth, fast, reliable, and intuitive user
experience. Mailsmith requires Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar or later,
and costs $100. This upgrade is free to Mailsmith 1.5 owners;
an $80 crossgrade is available. New purchasers can get a free
copy of SpamSieve 1.3 if ordered before 30-Jul-03. A 30-day demo
is available as a 12.9 MB download. [MAN]
<http://www.barebones.com/products/mailsmith/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06870>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1227>
<http://www.c-command.com/spamsieve/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07076>
<http://www.pgp.com/>
<http://www.barebones.com/products/mailsmith/demo.shtml>
**Free Macworld CreativePro Exhibit Passes** -- With WWDC and
MacHack under our belts, it's time to look ahead to the Macworld
CreativePro Conference and Expo, 16-Jul-03 through 18-Jul-03 in
New York City. If you're planning to attend and want free passes
(a $35 value), our friends at Peachpit Press want to help: send
an email containing your complete mailing address to
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (you'll receive two per request, so
give one to a friend). The passes are available on a first-come,
first-serve basis, so get your request in today before Peachpit
runs out! And hey, if you take advantage of this offer, stop by
the Peachpit booth to thank them and pick up a book by one of
the TidBITS crowd. [JLC]
<http://www.macworldexpo.com/macworld2003/V40/>
<http://www.peachpit.com/>
Apple Announces 64-Bit Power Mac G5s
------------------------------------
by Geoff Duncan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Touting them as the "world's fastest personal computer," Apple
today announced its Power Mac G5 line of desktop computers with
1.6 to 2 GHz processor speeds, high-performance internals, and a
64-bit processor architecture designed to give the Power Mac line
a much-needed performance boost and provide a clear road map for
future development. Standard configurations of the new machines
are priced from $2,000 to $3,000, and will be available starting
in August of 2003.
<http://www.apple.com/powermac/>
**Out of the Wind Tunnel, On to the Cheese Grater** -- On the
outside, the Power Mac G5 establishes yet another direction in
Apple's industrial design, this time sporting an anodized aluminum
case with squared-off handles and perforation on the front and
back to permit airflow through the machine's four internal
"thermal zones." (The new design has already been dubbed the
"cheese grater," and the resemblance is remarkable.) The units
have no less than _nine_ internal fans, yet Apple says in normal
operation they're substantially quieter than earlier Power Mac
G4 (Mirrored Drive Door) systems that were not-so-affectionately
nicknamed "Windtunnels." As you'd expect, the Power Mac G5
enclosures feature a full complement of ports on the back, but
also offer USB, FireWire, and headphone jacks on the front, which
may save some crawling around under desks.
<http://www.apple.com/powermac/design.html>
**The G5's Alive** -- The real changes are inside the box. The
Power Mac G5 systems are built around the 64-bit IBM 970
processor, which Apple has dubbed the PowerPC G5. The PowerPC
G5 evolved from IBM's POWER4 architecture (used in the company's
high-end eBusiness servers), rather than directly following
from G3 and G4 processors developed by Motorola. However, if
the PowerPC G5 isn't a direct descendent of the processors in
current Macs, it's a cousin: the original PowerPC architecture was
designed jointly by Apple, Motorola, and IBM, and was meant from
the outset to be expanded to a 64-bit architecture. Eventually,
IBM branched off with what became the POWER4 architecture when
it decided it wanted to focus on processor clustering, servers,
and embedded systems, and Motorola came up with the high-output
AltiVec unit (aka Apple's Velocity Engine). The PowerPC G5 weds
the two efforts, combining IBM's POWER4 architecture with an
optimized Velocity Engine and a new 130-nanometer manufacturing
process at IBM's new plant in Fishkill, New York.
<http://www.apple.com/g5/ibmprocess.html>
Here are the main features of the PowerPC G5:
* High clock speeds: PowerPC G5s start at 1.6 to 2 GHz , and Apple
says 3 GHz G5s will be ready within a year.
* A 64-bit architecture enables Macs to handle up to 8 GB of RAM
initially, with a real-world RAM ceiling of 4 terabytes (TB).
* Full compatibility with existing 32-bit PowerPC software - i.e.,
_everything_ which runs right now under Mac OS X, including
Classic applications and the Unix environment. Existing
applications can run on the new processors with no penalty -
no emulation or recompiling required - and current applications
optimized for the Velocity Engine garner an instant speed bump.
Programs recompiled specifically for the PowerPC G5 processor
will see even greater performance enhancements.
But wait, there's more. One of the problems with modern personal
computing architecture is that processors spend a surprising
amount of time twiddling their thumbs waiting on other parts
of the computer like RAM, the PCI or FireWire buses, or (horror
of horrors!) a mere disk drive. Processors engage in branch
prediction (er, idle speculation?) while they're waiting so
they'll be ready to go when a computer's subsystems catch up,
but basically, you want the processor waiting around as little
as possible. To that end, Apple has put nearly every major
subsystem in the Power Mac G5 on its own high-speed bus (avoiding
traffic jams as data moves between components: RAM gets a 333 or
400 MHz bus, PCI-X cards get a 133 MHz bus, etc.) and - most
significantly - a separate pair of 32-bit unidirectional buses
for the G5 processor running at speeds from 800 MHz to 1 GHz.
Combined, these are termed a frontside bus, and they represent
a substantial leap forward from the 167 MHz system buses used
in previous high-end Power Mac G4 systems, and - even better -
dual processor G5 systems have a separate frontside bus for
_each_ processor, further enhancing performance on dual
processor machines.
**Apple's Top Models** -- Apple will be shipping three
configurations of the Power Mac G5 beginning in August. All
configurations can handle Bluetooth and Airport Extreme wireless
networking and feature 8x AGP Pro graphics slots, a Serial ATA
hard drive, 512K of L2 processor cache per processor, 4x
SuperDrives, one FireWire 800 port, two FireWire 400 ports
(one on the front), three (new!) USB 2.0 ports (one on the front),
two USB 1.1 ports (one on the keyboard), two internal hard drive
bays (one empty), built-in Gigabit Ethernet, a 56 Kbps V.92 modem,
analog and (new!) optical audio in and out, and a front headphone
jack. These systems boot into Mac OS X, and cannot start up from
Mac OS 9 (although, of course, the Classic environment is still
available within Mac OS X).
The low-end $2,000 model features a 1.6 GHz PowerPC G5 processor
with an 800 MHz frontside bus, 256 MB of PC2700 (333 MHz) RAM, an
Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra video card with 64 MB of video RAM,
an 80 GB hard drive, and three available full-length 33 MHz,
64-bit PCI slots. The mid-range $2,400 model has a 1.8 GHz PowerPC
G5 processor with a 900 MHz frontside bus, 512 MB of PC3200 (400
MHz) RAM, an Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra video card with 64 MB of
video RAM, a 160 GB hard drive, and three available full-length
64-bit PCI-X expansion slots (one at 133 MHz, the other two at 100
MHz). The $3,000 high-end system features dual 2 GHz PowerPC G5
processors with a 1 GHz frontside bus for each processor, 512 MB
of PC3200 (400 MHz) RAM, an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro with 64 MB of
video RAM, a 160 GB hard drive, and three full-size 64-bit PCI-X
expansion slots (one at 133 MHz, the other two at 100 MHz).
Each of these configurations can be customized using build-to-
order options through dealers, Apple Stores, or the online Apple
Store.
**Five and Dime** -- There's no doubt that, when they finally
become available in late summer, the Power Mac G5s will represent
a substantial performance improvement for Apple's aging Power
Macintosh line - no doubt many Macintosh proponents have already
placed their orders for these machines. Significantly, the PowerPC
G5 processor and the new system architecture give Apple room to
grow: expect to see more multi-processor systems become available
as the product line evolves, along with concomitant speed
increases in processors, frontside caches, and other internal
components.
It remains to be seen how transparent developers will be able to
make the transition to the PowerPC G5. High-end media applications
and action games will want to compile specifically for the PowerPC
G5. Hopefully, programmers will find a way to make PowerPC G5
versions of their programs available without creating confusion
amongst existing and future PowerPC G3 and G4 users, particularly
since Apple's laptop line may be using G3 and G4 processors for
some time to come.
PayBITS: Contribute to TidBITS and help us continue to bring
you detailed information about Apple's latest hardware!
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/contributors.html>
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Mac OS X 10.3 Panther Springs at WWDC
-------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Today at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, Steve Jobs
unveiled the next version of Mac OS X, codenamed Panther and
scheduled to ship sometime before the end of 2003 for $130.
Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar was a major upgrade with numerous large
and small improvements over the previous version, and from initial
impressions, it appears that Panther will follow in Jaguar's
footsteps. Jobs said that Apple has made over 100 major changes
to Panther. Here's a brief overview, based on the information
available at this point.
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther/>
**New Finder** -- Panther sports an all new, brushed metal Finder
with several significant changes to standard windows that Jobs
claimed were more user-centric. In particular, Apple tried to
emphasize those folders that people actually use by putting them
in the new Places sidebar on the left side of the window, much
like albums in iPhoto or playlists in iTunes. The top part of the
Places sidebar lists accessible volumes; the lower part holds your
favorite folders. Clicking an item in the Places sidebar jumps to
it directly. The Finder will feature new Open and Save dialogs
that also use the Places sidebar; we'll see if that's sufficient
to help us wake from the horrible nightmare that Open and Save
dialogs have been for so long.
Labels have finally returned to the Panther Finder, as has network
browsing using the Network icon that has long sat (mostly) unused
at the top level of everyone's hard disk. Searching should be
faster in Panther's Finder as well, and like searching in iTunes
and Mail, it will refine the visible items to those that match as
you type. In a fascinating twist, Apple has also added an Action
menu to the toolbar of Finder windows; it simply contains the
content of the contextual menu that would appear if you Control-
clicked or right-clicked a selection in the Finder. That says to
me that Apple is acknowledging a basic usability problem with
contextual menus for many users; there's no way to know a
contextual menu is available simply by looking.
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther/finder.html>
Lastly, a new feature called Expose (actually spelled with an
accent on the final "e" and pronounced "ex-po-zay" from what
little I could hear of the stuttering QuickTime webcast) aims
to help us clean our cluttered Desktops. Expose offers three
functions that can be invoked with a function key, by throwing
the pointer into a corner of the screen, or with a button on
multi-button mice. The first function uses Quartz to tile all
open windows; mousing over a window displays its title, and
clicking one expands it (along with all the rest) and makes it
the foreground window. The second function tiles all the windows
in the current application while making windows in other
applications go grey; again, a click in a window activates it.
The third function simply hides all open windows, providing access
to the Desktop. Apple doesn't say if pressing the function key
a second time will show all those hidden windows again.
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther/expose.html>
**Network Improvements** -- As is fitting for today's emphasis on
the Internet and local area networks, Panther incorporates a
number of changes that should make Macs even better network
citizens. SMB and Active Directory support has improved, which
should enable Macs to coexist on Windows networks better. IPSec-
based (IP Security) virtual private networking is also included.
On the Mac-only side, Panther can automatically synchronize files
with your iDisk in the background, making it easy to maintain
backup copies of important files (although 100 MB of iDisk storage
disappears awfully fast these days). The better iDisk integration
also means easier sharing of files between computers, and Jobs
claimed it works particularly well with laptops that connect only
sporadically. It's basically a local folder that syncs via .Mac.
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther/idisk.html>
**Mail 2.0 and Address Book** -- Apple's bundled email client will
receive a significant upgrade with Panther. Performance has
reportedly improved significantly, and Mail will use Safari's HTML
engine, which will help HTML rendering quality and speed. For
those who subscribe to mailing lists, Mail will provide a new
interface for tracking and reading discussion threads. Mail's spam
filter has reportedly been improved for better accuracy, and it
can take advantage of server-side spam marking tools like Spam
Assassin or Brightmail. One last neat feature that previously
existed only in Microsoft's Entourage: replies and forwards are
linked to messages, making it easy to track what you've done to
a message.
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther/mail.html>
Mail also has more integration with Address Book, and a number
of new small features that some people may find helpful when
addressing mail, such as the capability to highlight messages
addressed to domains not in a "safe" list. Another interesting bit
of integration - if you change some of your contact information
in Address Book, a new option in that program can automatically
notify all your contacts of the new information. Finally, Address
Book can print labels and phone books.
**User Switching and Security** -- In the keynote, Steve Jobs
admitted that Windows XP had trumped Mac OS X in how it handled
multiple users, since in Windows XP, you don't have to quit all
your applications to switch from one user to the other. That
feature will be coming to Panther, and it should make Mac OS X
significantly faster and easier to use for families having trouble
justifying the extra work of multiple accounts. You set up fast
user switching in the Accounts preferences pane, which also offers
more levels of security that can be assigned to individual users.
Other security improvements include FileVault, which encrypts the
entire contents of your home directory using 128-bit AES (Advanced
Encryption Standard) encryption. It works on the fly, and is ideal
for protecting files on a PowerBook or iBook. Laptop users will
also appreciate a new Panther setting that requires a password
whenever the Mac wakes from sleep.
Finally, a few utilities from independent developers will suffer
from the addition of a new secure delete feature in Panther that
writes seven passes of random data over deleted files to prevent
them from being recovered.
**Faxing and Preview** -- With Panther, Apple is entering a mostly
ignored field that has seen little decent software over the years:
faxing. If you hook up your Mac's internal modem to a phone line,
you can fax any document from the Print dialog to contacts in your
Address Book with fax numbers. Incoming faxes can be printed,
forwarded to an email address, or viewed in the new Preview
application, which can now handle multi-page faxes. Preview
converts black-and-white images to 8-bit grayscale using anti-
aliasing and smoothing techniques, which may make the faxes easier
to read on screen. It would be nice to see additional integration
with Internet fax services like eFax, since no matter what Apple
adds to Panther, there's no way around the annoyance of dealing
with fax reception without a dedicated second phone line.
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther/faxing.html>
Preview has received additional improvements, particularly in
terms of performance and linking. Apple claims "URL support in
Preview makes short work of navigating long documents," which
I hope means that it supports PDF bookmarks and links. Also
supported are links to other documents and out to Internet
resources. If Preview offers support for all those types of links
and proves to be faster than Acrobat Reader, it may supplant
Acrobat Reader as the most capable PDF browser on the Mac. Other
features that would help Preview overthrow Acrobat Reader include
improved text copying from PDF documents (currently tricky with
Acrobat Reader) and indexed text searches.
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther/preview.html>
**Font Book** -- Secure deletion utility developers are
undoubtedly upset at Panther, and font utility developers may be
as well, once they see the new Font Book. Like Suitcase and Font
Reserve, Font Book helps you install, preview, search, activate,
and deactivate your fonts. Activation and deactivation happen
dynamically, so you don't need to relaunch applications to take
advantage of the changed font sets.
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther/font_book.html>
The Font Panel has been enhanced to help you take advantage of
font ligatures, kerning, number spacing, rendering fractions,
and more. The Character Palette even lets you preview a character
rendered into every available font, something that will probably
be appreciated by Unicode users.
**The Upgrade Question** -- Steve Jobs claimed Apple has seven
million active users of Mac OS X and said that the transition to
Mac OS X will be done by the end of the year. I suspect that means
that he thinks all of the people who are going to switch from Mac
OS 9 to Mac OS X will have done so by that point, though there's
no question that some people will remain with Mac OS 9 until they
have reason to buy a new Mac.
As with the migration to Jaguar, I fully expect many existing
Jaguar users to be unhappy about paying $130 for the upgrade to
Panther, and it's entirely likely that a non-trivial percentage of
users will stick with Jaguar. When I asked a roomful of shareware
developers at MacHack how many users they estimated hadn't
upgraded from Mac OS X 10.1 to Mac OS X 10.2, I heard numbers
as high as 20 percent. That surprises me, since Jaguar is so much
better than Mac OS X 10.1. Obviously, we won't know for a while
how much better than Jaguar Panther really is, but I expect the
number of people who consider Jaguar sufficient to be potentially
even higher than the number who stuck with Mac OS X 10.1. Apple
clearly expects that some people won't upgrade as well, since
they're offering iChat AV for free with Panther but charging $30
for those who want to use it with Jaguar.
We'll certainly be ponying up the $130 for Panther when it comes
out, so you can look forward to much more detailed coverage and
thoughts about whether Panther will be worth your hard-earned
cash.
PayBITS: Contribute to TidBITS as a way of saying thanks for our
on-the-day coverage of Apple's WWDC news! Now with PayPal support!
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/contributors.html>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
iSight Eyes iChat AV
--------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
If you're the type of person who bemoans the impersonal nature
of email or text messaging, Apple wants to offer you a little
face time. At the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) today,
Apple introduced iChat AV, adding audio and video conferencing
capabilities to its iChat instant messaging application. A public
beta of iChat AV is now available as a 3.6 MB download. Also
introduced was the iSight, a compact video camera that takes
advantage of iChat AV's audio/visual capabilities; the iSight
is available now.
<http://www.apple.com/ichat/>
iChat AV supports any FireWire DV camcorder or webcam, according
to Apple, and automatically configures itself during installation.
Other iChat AV users appear in the Buddy List with audio or video
icons beside their names to indicate the type of connection that's
available. In addition to a default window size of 352 by 288
pixels (which can be resized during video sessions), the software
also includes a full-screen mode. iChat AV will be included with
Mac OS X 10.3 Panther when it is released later this year. Those
who wish to stick with Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar and above can upgrade
to iChat AV for $30 after 31-Dec-03.
That said, Apple would prefer that you not only upgrade to
Panther, but also purchase the $150 iSight, a video camera
designed to be mounted on Apple displays and laptops. The iSight
includes an auto-focus lens with 640 by 480 resolution, a lens
aperture of F/2.8 to collect more light in poorly lit situations,
and a video frame rate of up to 30 frames per second (fps). For
audio, the iSight includes a dual element noise-suppressing
microphone. It's also small and light, weighing in at 2.5
ounces (63.8 grams).
<http://www.apple.com/isight/>
We'll have more on iChat AV and the iSight in a future issue, but
in our preliminary testing of iChat AV with various microphones
and FireWire webcams, the application performed well, with the
audio being both surprisingly clear and full-duplex.
The MacHax Best Hack Contest 2003
---------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The touchstone for the MacHack developers conference has long been
the annual MacHax Group's Best Hack Contest, in which numerous
Macintosh developers of all skill levels work alone or in small
groups to show off their programming talents and learn new skills,
all while having some fun and entertaining their friends. Despite
the reduced number of attendees due to Apple's rescheduling of the
Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the Hack Contest received
more than 50 entries. Although the raw number of submissions was
lower than in recent years, the overall quality and humor level
was high.
<http://www.machack.com/>
Taking notes during the often raucous Hack Contest is tricky,
since you're trying to pay attention to what's happening on
screen, correctly transcribe the name of the presenter and the
hack, and make comments to your neighbors, all while keeping an
eye out for the various tchotchkes being thrown to the audience
from the stage. So this year, after hearing about it from another
attendee, I tried an experiment in collaborative note-taking. I
took my notes in the Hydra collaborative editor, which enables
multiple people on either the local network or the Internet to
edit the same document simultaneously. It was simple for people
to connect to my document via Rendezvous, and after we implicitly
worked out some techniques for avoiding each other's lines, it
went quite smoothly. You can see the raw transcript at the second
link below, though we could find no way to preserve the colors and
internal identification of who wrote what in the saved text file.
<http://hydra.globalse.org/>
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/685/hack-contest.txt>
The theme of this year's MacHack was "Unstoppable", which was a
tongue-in-cheek comment both on Mac OS X's reliability and on the
damage done to the conference by Apple rescheduling WWDC. As such,
many of the hacks used the theme as launching pad, with Mac OS X's
busy cursor, the rainbow-colored Spinning Pizza of Death
(affectionately known as "SPOD"), making frequent appearances.
After all, the Spinning Pizza of Death is itself usually
unstoppable as well. Anyway, on with the hacks!
**The Best of the Rest** -- As usual, many of the hacks that
didn't place in the top five were still impressive or amusing.
* John Vink's Stinkin' Badges hacked Mac OS X's screensaver to
display Dock icons that have status badges in them, such as iChat,
Mail, and Mailsmith.
* Maurita Plouff and Chef Chris from the Holiday Inn collaborated
on a pair of huge cookies decorated to look like the Spinning
Pizza of Death (although I suppose this raises the question if it
might in fact be a Spinning Cookie of Death). It wasn't clear who
ended up eating them, or if they were at all tasty.
* Mike Cohen wrote a Perl script that enabled remote control over
iTunes via a Web browser, but members of the audience figured out
it was readily accessible and started controlling it during his
demo.
* David Shayer used the Notes reader in the iPod 2.0 software to
recreate the classic game Adventure. You can install this on your
own iPod if you buy the CD; details at the end.
* Darrin Cardani's GLCheat put any OpenGL application into
wireframe mode, which meant that you could see through walls
in games.
* In an amusing twist of events, a doctor named Carl Williams
accidentally wandered into the conference and ended up porting a
medical information application he wrote for NeXTstep to Mac OS X
for his hack.
* Nicholas Riley and Avi Drissman showed EdgeWarp, which enabled
drag & drop between computers.
* Noah Spies and Andy Furnas did a clever hack that showed what
was "under" the Desktop (a Terminal window, of course!).
Lastly, though not an official hack, I was pleased to discover
that my running MacHack joke of storing a four-foot wooden stake
in the hotel was able to continue (see "The MacHax Hack Contest
2001" in TidBITS-585_ for how it started). Last year after the
Hack Contest finished, I buried the stake in the flower beds that
line the raised lobby of the hotel. I forgot to leave myself a
note in my calendar to that effect, but when people started asking
me about it I managed to dredge the location out of my memory.
Presenting the dirt-encrusted stake during the Hack Contest as
an example of an unstoppable hack got a good laugh, and I've
increased the difficulty level for next year by leaving the stake
in plain sight. No one seemed to notice it during the last day of
the conference, but I won't know until the next conference if it
will escape the attention of the hotel staff for an entire year.
Given that the point of being awarded the stake several years ago
was to see how I'd get it home, the contest organizers raised the
stakes (sorry!) this year by awarding me an emergency flare, which
I could neither bring on a plane nor mail home and which I wasn't
comfortable stashing in the hotel somewhere. Luckily Dick and Andy
Furnas offered to drive it home to Ithaca.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06470>
Enough of the also-rans, though - here are 2003's top five hacks.
**Fifth Place: Size Doesn't Matter** -- Nicholas Straker's hack
was dizzying, and I'm not speaking at all figuratively. Playing
off a movie that showed how the next version of Microsoft Windows
would be able to rotate windows smoothly (presumably to
demonstrate graphical processing power), Size Doesn't Matter
brought a similar lack of utility to Mac OS X by spinning all
sorts of windows around one of the corners. By the end, Nicholas
had so many windows spinning, including the menu bar, that many
in the audience felt distinctly queasy. But enough people had
recovered by the next morning to vote it into fifth place.
**Third Place (Tie): GUI Kablooie** -- Andrew Pontious and Mac
Murrett tied for third place with this extremely well-presented
hack. Initially, they said they were trying to make a Breakout
game using Finder windows, but after lowering everyone's
expectations, their hack just kept getting better, until it
became clear that they had in fact written an Asteroids-like
game in which you fly around your screen, shooting SPODs to blow
up windows and icons. This not only demos well, but it also turns
out to be surprisingly fun, as I discovered when I tried running
the hack myself. I may have to keep this one around for when I
feel like letting off some steam. (Be warned that although GUI
Kablooie doesn't delete files when you blow up icons, it does
close windows, and you must restart when you're finished to see
everything properly again.)
**Third Place (Tie): Interface Unbuilder** -- If GUI Kablooie will
be useful for taking out generalized frustration on the visible
items on your Mac, Gorman Christian's Interface Unbuilder hack
is a tool for people who feel like being more methodically
violent. Once Interface Unbuilder is installed, you can
Option-drag any control in a running Cocoa application to
a new location. Even more astonishing, you can also drag controls
to other applications, and no matter where they've been moved,
the controls continue to operate on their original application.
Needless to say, there were no derisive cries of "Useful!"
for Gorman's hack.
**Second Place: AirPong** -- Written by a pair of 18-year-olds,
Paul Scandariato and Jon Johnson, AirPong takes a simple concept
(the Pong game in which you use paddles on either side of the
screen to keep a ball bouncing around) and extends it. In this
case, they extended it over the network, so up to four Macs could
be used to widen the AirPong playing field. The ball was of course
a Spinning Pizza of Death, and it was both technically impressive
and amusing to see the SPOD bouncing from screen to screen across
the network while they were playing.
**First Place: Unstoppable Progress** -- Capturing first place in
a runaway vote (more than double the number of votes than any
other hack received) was Unstoppable Progress from the father and
son team of Jon Gotow and his 15-year-old son Ben. Unstoppable
Progress hacks progress bars such that after the bar fills up,
"water" from the Aqua-themed bar starts spilling out the end. A
few seconds after that, the dialog containing the progress bar
starts to fill up with water, complete with waves sloshing back
and forth. (And yes, it could have been called MacLeak, the
nickname for the now-defunct MacWEEK magazine.) The ovation
immediately following their presentation made it clear to me that
Ben and Jon were in line for an award, since Unstoppable Progress
epitomized the theme of the conference, was technically clever
without providing any utility whatsoever, offered high graphical
production values, and was extremely funny. First prize was, as
always, the coveted Victor A-Trap award, a Victor Corporation rat
trap whose name is slightly modified with an X-Acto knife (the
R and T in RAT are excised) to match the name of the trap
addresses used by programmers to patch the classic Mac OS. This
year, however, Jon and Ben also won a FireWire drive kit and
an Nvidia video card.
Jon Gotow is best known for Default Folder, a long-standing system
utility for enhancing Open and Save dialog boxes, and the only
such utility to have made the jump to Mac OS X. Most recently,
Default Folder X won the 2002 Best System Enhancement Utility
Editors Choice Award from Macworld. Ben has written a math quiz
application called FlashMath that works for one or many students
and intermittently interrupts whatever they're doing to ask
questions. Congratulations to them both for a hack well done.
<http://www.stclairsoftware.com/>
**Acquiring the Hacks** -- Despite the need for everyone to catch
up on their sleep after MacHack (one night I made it to sleep by
2 AM; bedtime for all the other nights came after 4 AM), the MacHax
Group has managed put together a CD containing all the hacks for
those who want to check out the source code or try the hacks. Keep
in mind that the hacks will almost certainly crash, and you very
well may need to restart afterwards. The CD costs $20 plus $5
shipping within the U.S. and Canada, $15 shipping elsewhere in
the world.
<http://www.hax.com/BestHackCDForm.html>
PayBITS: Help us keep covering Macintosh industry events by
contributing to TidBITS. Now you can use PayPal to contribute!
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/contributors.html>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/23-Jun-03
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
**Replacing a Power Mac G4 power supply** -- Readers chime in
on their own experiences with Apple's replacement power supply
program, including ruminations on why Apple doesn't build quieter
machines in the first place. (11 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1976>
**Microsoft drops Mac Internet Explorer** -- With Microsoft
ceasing new development of Internet Explorer, how does this affect
Web browsing on the Mac? Safari continues to charge ahead, but
there are still things that Internet Explorer can do better.
(24 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1975>
**NoteTaker 1.5 issues** -- A new version of NoteTaker appears and
promptly generates some back and forth discussion about problems
that people are having with the upgrade. (3 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1974>
**PowerPC G5 coming out soon** -- Leading up to this week's
Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) and prompted by reports
of leaked G5 specs on Apple's Web site, readers prognosticate
on Apple's hardware future. (8 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1973>
**Apple and the UNIX trademark** -- It's an age-old tale: who owns
Unix? Discussion of the many permutations of Unix and how Apple
is using it in Mac OS X. (12 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1971>
$$
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