overunderunderdone writes "According to eWeek, Apple Computer is planning to introduce a new journaling file system code-named 'Elvis' with the 10.2.2 release. Supposedly it will run on top of HFS+ and will be turned off by default. Though it will cost you 10% to 15% performance penalty the article says it is more extensive than NTFS and is on par with BeOS's 64-bit journaling file system. Not surprising since it is being developed by the same person - Dominic Giampaolo." I've been super impressed by OS X having used it as my primary laptop for the last couple weeks. It really is a great unix box- and this is one of the important missing puzzle pieces.

Anonymous Coward writes "There is a beautiful translucent red iBook mod that has surfaced on eBay, and the creator's homepage More and more of these mods are around lately.. pretty incredible." Update: 10/15 23:34 GMT by T : Anonymous Coward writes "Just a little note about the iBook Red Mod. The Ebay link has changed. And the author has posted a tutorial on his site."

droleary writes "Looking for more ways to fit the new iCal into your life, or just a way to check web site updates without it looking like you're not working? Well Subsume Technologies has just announced a cool new way to do it: wCal. You can subscribe to frequently updated calendars that are headlines of (hopefully a growing number of) web sites, including a constant-refresh-ending Slashdot: Apple calendar (the press release has the subscribe link)." I first heard of this idea from Morbus Iff back on Sept. 11, and am still not convinced of the utility, but it's an interesting idea. Maybe it will catch on.

Twirlip of the Mists writes "There's a new page on Microsoft's web site that tells the first-person story of an unnamed 'freelance writer' who made the switch from the Mac to Windows XP. The author of the page -- who never identifies herself, and who could very easily be fictional or a composite sketch -- says 'Windows XP gives me more choices and flexibility.' How, you ask? Why, through Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and modern operating-system features like separate accounts for each user and easy access to the Internet, of course. Maybe somebody should email Microsoft and let them know that the Mac has had all of these things for years now ... nah. It'd just embarrass them. Anyway, it's an entertaining read that's good for a laugh." Update: 10/14 21:12 GMT by P : Apparently, Microsoft has taken the page down, but Google has it.

kaldari writes "After great work by the development contributors and astounding help from the new testing team, the X11 build is now stable enough for beta testing to begin! This build can run both on DarwinPPC 6.0 and higher and also Mac OS X 10.2 and higher with help from other open source projects. For more info, check out the OpenOffice site."

ohmygod2 wrote to us with a story from SF Gate that Apple, unsurprisingly, is going to be one of the purchasers of IBM's PowerPC 970. At this time, though, it's unclear where Apple is going to actually *use* said chip.Update: 10/14 15:53 GMT by H : Follow-up to Tim's story.

bbum writes "Today, Ronald Oussoren and I patched the PyObjC (PythonObj-C) bridge to allow for completely standalone Cocoa applications that are implemented in Python. My 11-Oct-2002 weblog entries provide more detail and includes a link to a PyObjC Cocoa app that can be downloaded and hacked upon (with the app, you can actually create other apps without using the dev tools at all!). As the days pass, I'll be updating the 'blog with new software, updates, etc. A Fink package will be submitted shortly. (In reality -- Ronald did the hard stuff in that he figured out how to subclass ObjC classes in Python!!)" Nifty. Note there is also a PerlObjCBridge module included with Jaguar, and there's also CamelBones for Perl-Cocoa; what other scripting frameworks for Mac OS X are out there?

davidstrauss writes "News.com is reporting that 'Apple Computer is giving buyers of its Mac OS X Server the option of signing on for three years of unlimited access to software upgrades for the same price it charges for a single, onetime upgrade.' This sounds almost like a push in the direction of Microsoft's Licensing 6."

DrStrangeLoop asks: "I am in the progress of getting into coding for Mac OS X, and I am wondering which GUI framework/language i should focus on. Apparantly, there are at least three options: the Cocoa Objective-C API [I don't want to learn Objective-c, but it seems that's how Apple wants me to code], the Cocoa Java API [gets compiled to PPC binaries, lots of APIs available [think Google], but absolutely no decent documentation to be found] and Swing Java classes [look 'n feel of Cocoa, but portable]. However, the most important feature for me is a clean and easy IPC with BSD layer processes. I figure sockets will work with all options, but what about the other mechanisms? Any suggestions?" Update: 10/13 22:08 GMT by C :For those curious about the Cocoa/Carbon debate, you can find an article that discusses this very issue, here. Thanks to the folks over at Freenode's #macdev for providing the link.

An anonymous reader writes "Steinberg's flagship Cubase SX is shipping now, with support for CoreAudio, CoreMidi, VST Plugin support, Rewire, and REXort.
Now only ProTools and Digital Performer are left on the Mac OS 9 side. When do they follow?" Well, ProTools for Mac OS X has already been announced.

Fished asks: "Lately, I'm finding that I need to do a lot of research in Libraries -- remember those? I'm tired of feeding dimes to the copiers, and would like to buy some kind of portable scanner to go with my Powerbook. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find one that will work. Back in the eighties, this were as common as dirt: they were small, four inch wide scanners that you could run over the page. Also, while I've found three portable scanners for PC's (from Antec and Pentax) even if I could somehow get them to work with Mac OS X, they are sheet-fed, which is useless for scanning pages out of books. Does anyone still make the old-fashioned Hand Scanners, and do they make them for Macs?"

tarkin writes "Sven Van Caekenberghe just finished a tutorial article, 'Tuning Java Swing applications for Mac OS X', that explains how to tune standard Java Swing applications to conform to the Mac OS X User Experience and make them virtually indistinguishable from native Mac OS X applications. Topics include handling basic Apple events, packaging applications, adding a custom icon, file dialogs, about boxes, preferences, customizing the menu bar, supporting Finder drag-and-drop, standard help, and basic multi-document support, as well as using MRJToolkit and MRJAppBuilder. The PDF of the article, as well as a Mac OS X disk image with a binary version of the two demo applications and the source code can downloaded from his home page."

analog_line writes "According to this article in Business Today, in 2004 the summer Macworld Expo will move from New York City and the Javits Center back to Boston, where it rightfully belongs! As a Boston area resident, I'm ecstatic! Can't tell you how much I look forward to not having to go to New York. ;-)" This was rumored a few months ago, and I am glad to see it happen.

destructo666 writes "Woohoo, the wait is over for Digidesign to get with the program. Read the release and then upgrade and toss Mac OS 9. Now MOTU may finally release DP for Mac OS X." I can't find a link the free version for Mac OS X, though. Some of us are cheapskates, you know.

dmayle asks: "I've decided to do some Mac-based database development, and, since Apple was kind enough to include ODBC Administrator, I decided to use that as a starting point. The only problem is, there doesn't seem to be ANY documentation anywhere about it. I know that PostgreSQL for Mac includes an ODBC driver, but again, I can's seem to find out any docs on how to use it... Are there any developers using this tool out there, and where did you learn how to do it?"

antmo asks: "Mac OS X doesn't allow you to specify which WEP key index (1-4) one wishes to use, via the Network preferences. This causes me much pain, since my employer's wireless network uses a key index other than 1. I know the AirPort card allows for this, as I am able to set all four keys in Open BSD and Debian Linux. I don't know whether this is a limitation of Mac OS X's AirPort driver or simply the preferences. I've looked all over the net, posted to many discussion forums (since March of this year), done quite a bit of tinkering with the config files and still don't have a clue how to, if possible, set which key index to send. I have not heard a thing from Apple about this, which leads me to believe they're not going to add this ability. Does anyone know whether a fix from Apple is forthcoming? Anyone know a hack to get this working?"

Spock the Baptist writes "This website's recent article on the O'Reilly Network is by James Duncan Davidson, speaking at the recent O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference. PowerBook, and iBook owners will likely be intrested in this article, as sending e-mail from multiple locations is less trouble when done via sendmail rather than a remote mail serever. Also, if your ISP's mail server goes down you'll still be able to send outgoing e-mail which can be quite handy."

dhardman writes "iPod Software 1.2.1 adds significant enhancements, including audio playback and user interface improvements, music browsing by additional categories, support for iTunes 3 Sound Check, Calendar, and more. Update can be found online." Also released recently were AirPort 2.1.1 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.2.2 (security update), both via Software Update.

rhetland writes "An article on O'Reilly network discusses the new port of OpenOffice to Mac OS X. The public beta, due out next week, will be posted on the OpenOffice Mac site. I have been waiting for this for months, and can hardly wait."

zzen writes "Aparently, IBM is looking for input on the posibility of their DB2 database being ported to Mac OS X. MacObserver writes: 'IBM has posted a survey asking Mac OS X users if they are interested in having DB2 ported to Mac OS X. DB2 is an enterprise level database solution from IBM, and a Mac OS X port from IBM would be a major boost for Mac OS X in the corporate market place.'"