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3D File Browser for Mac OS X

3DOSX is an OpenGL-based file browser for Mac OS X.





With 3DOSX you can use your mouse wheel or keyboard to fly through a 3D representation of your file system to launch applications or move & copy files. It also features animated effects such as water & fog and an animated screen saver.

For best results you should have a video card that supports OpenGL accelleration.

For more information or to download a copy go to http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/macwarriors/eoh2k2/3dosx/.

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New Tutorial: Introduction to PowerPlant

For all of the yoots who came home from MacHack with a new copy of CodeWarrior 8, this tutorial will help you get started with powerplant. You can read it here.

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MacHack 17 wrap-up

MacHack 17 ended early this morning. The show was a success and lots of fun. MacHack provides an opportunity to learn a lot and meet old friends who return year after year.





This year, the "Yoots" were the real stars of the show. The Mac's future success depends on attracting enthusiastic young developers, and MacHack plays a big part in that. MacHack is unique among developer conferences since they make a special effort to attract young programmers as well as older & more experienced developers. John Penn does a great job of coordinating the "yoot" activities , which includes special sessions, discounted prices, and lots of free gifts. This year, all yoots got a free copy of CodeWarrior Pro 8 Academic edition and a subscription to MacHtech magazine.

I had an opportunity to meet a few talented yoots and I was very impressed by their ability.

I first met MacMegasite co-founder & staff member Justin Christie at last year's MacHack. He's a smart, talented and enthusiastic young programmer who wrote a nice HTML editor called CreativePage. I helped him out with a hack, but unfortunately we weren't able to finish it when both of our iBook batteries ran out during the Hack Show as we were trying to complete it.

Adam Atlas is one of the most brilliant 12 year olds I've ever met. He taught a session on RealBasic, and his hack took first place in the yoot division and second place overall, winning a free scholarship to next year's MacHack. I predict in a few years he'll be mentioned in the same breath with the old masters like Leonard Rosenthal.

Although I didn't get a chance to talk to him, Andy Furnas is one of the most illustrious yoots at MacHack. This is his 4th year at MacHack and he's the first yoot to join the yoot committee for next year's show.

As always, the Hack Show was the hilight of the conference. It started at midnight Friday night and ended before 5AM, which made it one of the shorter ones in MacHack history. The hacks ranged from videos to system tweaks. One of the more interesting ones was a remotely controlled iMac that kept moving around and popping out the CD ROM drive.

One amusing skit during the hack show was a variation of Monty Python's "dead parrot" bit inspired by a session called "The Future of Mac OS 9" (which consisted of almost a half hour filled with different ways of saying "it's dead").

Saturday's hilight was the awards banquet followed by a movie. Hacks are awarded cheesy gifts from Duke's Hardware related to the theme of the hack. This year we saw "The sum of all fears" in a private theater, which gave us an opportunity to heckle the movie in sort of a live-action Mystery Science Theater show. When we return, as always, Keith explains the movie in great detail during the ice cream social.

Although MacHack is lots of fun, there's also a more serious side as we get to learn lots of new technologies. Some of the more interesting sessions involved kernel extensions and other ways to extend Mac OS X. I gave a session on "Unix tips for Mac OS X Developers", which showed how using the command line can save time & simplify many tasks.

The "Bash Apple" & "Bash Metrowerks" sessions provided an opportunity to meet the developers and voice our opinions on what we'd like to see in future product versions.

MacHack is an interesting show that's well worth attending. It's a lot less expensive than Apple's WWDC (which I've only attended when I could get someone else to pay) and a lot more fun. The regular conference fee is $475 or $50 for "yoots" (students).

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Un-Simultaneous Session Game!

Through the "RhythmEngine, we suggest, the session which is inherited from the past to the future using place as an agent and music and image communication which has rich emotion to the Web-world.

[R h y t h m E n g i n e ] project info.[R h y t h m E n g i n e ] project info.




http://www.photon01.co.jp/reg/

Hello,




I'm Hidenori Watanave,media artist and chief director of Team Photon.









You already know,




We opened the official site of a "communication tool beyond the space-time




[Rhythm Engine].

Through the "RhythmEngine, we suggest, the session which is inherited from the past to the future using place as an agent and music and image communication which has rich emotion to the Web-world.









We are going to perform "RhythmEngine" to SIGGRAPH(Web Graphics,7/25 @ San




Antonio) and It was archived in [Rhizome] artbase.









I want you to know our project and carry out a test play,




And please give us your comment,and a chance to spread RhythmEngine




And please introduce [RhythmEngine] on your site.









There is access of one days 10000, and it is introduced to [Neural] which is




the media art magazine of Italy,[Art & Science collaborations inc.] of USA,




and Many International site. It seems that the cognition of [Rhythm Engine] is spreading little by little recently.

I'm waiting for your reply.









thank you!

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First MacHack Photos

I just posted some MacHack photos at http://www.macmegasite.com/MacHack.You can discuss MacHack here.

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OS X Webcam App Released

Econ Technologies ships ImageCasterü, a straightforward and easy to use webcam application built exclusively for Mac OS X. ImageCaster is designed around a simple tabbed interface with a full set of features for only $20. Econ makes it easy for anyone to broadcast images with a Mac, a video camera, and ImageCaster. Go to http://www.econtechnologies.com and see how simple it can be to get a webcam up and running.

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Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 5.2

Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 5.2 for MacOS X.

The major new features are Quartz text rendering and "security fixes". I also noticed that it fixes some annoying update problems (most noticeable in Radio Userland's news aggregator page, where text sometimes doesn't appear until the page is refreshed).

Be aware, however, that it will force quit all running applications when you install IE 5.2, and it also changes your home page to MSN.

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Rodney O. Lain has died

Rodney O. Lain, better known as iBrotha, took his own life Friday after a long battle with depression. Rodney is survived by his wife, Irma.





Rodney was one of the most popular (and one of my favorite) Macintosh columnists. He wrote for several Mac publications, including AppleLinks, Applelust, MacAddict, MacConnect, TheiMac.com, MyMac, Low End Mac, and The Mac Observer.

Rodney was outspoken, never pulled any punches, and his columns were always interesting to read. He'll be missed by all of us, and his loss leaves a big void in the Macintosh world.

You can read more about him here.

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MacHack 17

MacHack 17 starts this week. I've created a new forum to talk about MacHack. For more information about MacHack, visit machack.com.

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Apple Launches ''Real People'' Ad Campaign

Apple
today launched a new advertising



campaign featuring real people who have switched from PCs to the



Macintosh
. The campaign will debut today on television with eight



different ads, each highlighting a different "switcher" telling their



story. The "switchers" featured in the Real People campaign come from



diverse backgrounds, including a Windows network administrator, a writer,



an illustrator, a small business owner, a programmer, an interactive



producer and a DJ. This will be Apple's largest ad campaign since "Think



Different" was launched in 1998.

"These are not actors-they're real people who have switched from PCs to



Macs, telling their story in their own words," said Steve Jobs, Apple's



CEO. "More people are interested in switching from PCs to Macs than ever



before, and we hope that hearing these successful switchers tell their



story will help others make the jump."

The TV ads can be seen today on major cable networks like ESPN, CNBC,



Comedy Central and Fox News and will appear this week on ABC's Boston 24/7



and The Drew Carey Show, as well as NBC's ER and NBA Finals broadcasts.



Print ads are in this week's issues of Time and Newsweek, and will appear



this month in a number of other major magazines. As part of the campaign,



Apple has also set up a special web site for users interested in learning



more about switching at www.apple.com/switch.

The ads were directed by Errol Morris, a widely admired director and



producer of documentary films. Morris infused the ads with the same



straightforward, compelling style found in his critically acclaimed opening



segment for this year's Academy Awards, which featured celebrities and



movie goers sharing their favorite films.

Apple is gaining momentum in its quest to attract the "other 95 percent"



since announcing its pioneering Digital Hub strategy in January 2001. Since



then, Apple has delivered:

• the world's best computers, including the all new flat-panel iMac
  , the
  
  
  
  iBook
  , the Titanium PowerBook
  G4, the Power Mac
  G4, the new eMacü and a
  
  
  
  line of stunning Cinema Displays;
  
  
  
  
• Mac
  OS X, the world's most advanced operating system, offering power,
  
  
  
  stability and elegance. Mac OS X has now "arrived" with better than ever
  
  
  
  usability and amazing third-party software products like Microsoft Office
  
  
  
  v.X for Mac and PhotoShop 7;
  
  
  
  
• the breakthrough iPodü digital music player, which has set the standard
  
  
  
  by which all other portable MP3 players are judged;
  
  
  
  
• award-winning Digital Lifestyle applications like iPhotoü, iTunesü,
  
  
  
  iMovieü and iDVD, which enable "mere mortals" to make movies, create and
  
  
  
  share digital photo albums, manage large music libraries and create and
  
  
  
  burn their own DVDs, all with the Mac's legendary ease of use;
  
  
  
  
• Xserveü, Apple's powerful 1U rack-mount server that is ideal for business
  
  
  
  and education customers and a perfect complement to Apple's UNIX-based Mac
  
  
  
  OS X Server software; and
  
  
  
  
• thirty (and growing) Apple Retail Stores throughout the U.S. that offer
  
  
  
  the best computer buying experience on the planet.
  
  
  
  

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New Host

We've moved to the new host, so if you're seeing this story you're in the right place. It will take a few days for the DNS change to fully propogate, so until then you may see a redirect page if you go to the old server.

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MacMegasite moving to a new host

In the next week, I'll be moving MacMegasite to a new host, BounceWeb. The URL will remain the same, although there may be some service interruption until the transfer is complete.

I'm currently using BounceWeb to host WorldBeatPlanet and I find them faster than my current host, and they also cost a lot less and offer a few extra capabilities.

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Virtual workspaces for MacOS X

If you've used other Unix or Linux desktops, you may be familiar with "virtual desktops", which let you arrange your applications in separate screens to reduce clutter. Space.app brings that same capability to MacOS X.

Space.app can be downloaded free from space.sourceforge.net.

When you run it, a small palette appears which lets you switch between up to 16 desktops. You can also hide the palette and select desktops from a dock menu. To move an application to a particular desktop, just select that desktop and unhide the application. When you switch to a desktop, only the applications in that desktop will be shown and all others will be hidden.

Space.app is free and open source.

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Mozilla 1.0 Released

After a long beta test period, Mozilla 1.0 has finally been released. For more information or to download a copy, go to www.mozilla.org.

This version looks like a winner. It's faster even than the last release candidate, most likely because any debugging code has been removed.

Check out some of the additional themes at mozilla.org - I especially like the pinball theme (even though it doesn't use standard OS X controls), since the toolbars are very small and unobtrusive.

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Unsanity releases Silk for MacOS X 10.1.5

Silk enables the Quartz text rendering and smoothing introduced in Mac OS X 10.1.5 in all Carbon applications. This means antialiased text in Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and many others. Why wait for developers to update their Carbon applications when you can get the silky smooth text everywhere, right now? And of course, Silk is completely free!

Features:

• Enables the Quartz text rendering in all running Carbon applications, such as Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla and many others.
• Exclude list feature allows you to exclude certain applications so they work as before, if the antialiased text there looks bad.
• Convenient drop button in the Silk preference pane to quickly detect if a particular application is Carbon or not.
• Implemented as an easy-to-use preference pane.

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Apple releases 10.1.5 update

Apple has released the MacOS X 10.1.5 update. It's now available as a 22.4M download from the Software Update preference panel.

Update 10.1.5 delivers enhancements which improve the reliability of Mac OS X applications, delivers improved networking, security, support for PC Card serial communication devices, and expanded peripheral device support. Specific improvements include:

Peripheral Device Support:

• Expanded support for new Canon digital cameras.
• Improved support for Nikon FireWire cameras.
• Expanded support for SmartDisk, EZQuest, and LaCie disc recording devices.
• Improved support for MO drives.

• Increased stability of Mail and Sherlock.
• Emails are properly retained when rebuilding the Draft mailbox.
• Support for 2D and QuickTime hardware acceleration for Rage Pro.
• Updated Carbon applications can use Quartz anti-aliasing technology for high quality text display.

• Improves networking via AFP when accessing multi-level directories on Windows NT file servers.
• Significant improvement to file searching on local and remote volumes.
• Includes a generic PC Card driver to support a variety of PC Card modems.
• Mail accounts go offline to indicate that SSL encryption settings are not supported by mail server.
• Includes the Security Update April 2002.

• More efficient iDisk mounting and file navigation.
• Added support for connecting to iDisk using default DNS settings of AirPort.
• Support for mounting a WebDAV volume from a non-standard http port.

• Significant updates to the Korean Input Method, especially important when using AppleWorks.
• Internet Connect and AirPort applications updated with Chinese and Korean localized content.

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iBook wins Mac converts

I just returned from a visit with several PC using friends, and after seeing my iBook most of them changed their mind about the Mac.

During the weekend, I took pictures with my Canon S100 and downloaded them (as well as pictures from a Nikon CoolPix 990 and other cameras), burned both music CDs and CDs containing their photos, and played DVDs on the TV.

Most of them had only limited exposure to Macs and admitted they couldn't do all of those things as easily with their PCs.

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CodeWarrior 8 ships

Metrowerks has started shipping CodeWarrior Pro 8.0, the latest release of their development tools.

Version 8.0 adds support for Objective C, Cocoa, and integration with Interface Builder, as well as an improved IDE.

My copy arrived today, although I haven't installed it yet. I'm in the middle of a project, and I'm sharing my code with another programmer who still has v7, so updating would cause me to lose several days of work and prevent the other programmer from being able to work on the project.

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Apple Announces Public Preview of QuickTime 6

Apple
today announced that the publicpreview of QuickTime
6 is now available as a free download from Apple(www.apple.com) for both Mac
and Windows. QuickTime 6 is the industry'sfirst mainstream MPEG-4 solution for streaming media to all MPEG-4compliant players. In addition, Apple announced the public preview ofQuickTime Broadcaster, which captures and encodes QuickTime content inMPEG-4 for live streaming over the web.

MPEG-4, the next-generation international standard for digital video, wascreated by the group that created MPEG-2, the "gold standard" of digitalvideo used by every DVD player and DVD. There are hundreds of companiescommitted to the MPEG-4 standard, including Apple, Cisco, Ericsson, Intel,Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Panasonic, Phillips, Real Networks,Samsung and Sun.

"QuickTime 6 delivers the world's first complete media solution forcreating, streaming and viewing MPEG-4 content," said Steve Jobs, Apple'sCEO. "MPEG-4 is an open standard being adopted by wireless, computer andentertainment companies around the world because it delivers the highestquality digital video, and allows content creators to scale thequality/bandwidth tradeoff all the way from MPEG-2 quality to dramaticallylower bandwidths for streaming over the Internet."

QuickTime 6 includes the new Instant-On Streaming feature that eliminatesfrustrating buffer delays and provides users with the ability to quicklyand easily scrub through streaming media content to locate and instantlyview specific sections. In addition, QuickTime 6 running on Mac OS X nowsupports JPEG 2000, the next generation JPEG standard that allows users tocapture still images in a higher quality and smaller file size than everbefore.

QuickTime 6 also includes Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), the standard MPEG-4audio format. AAC is the next-generation professional-quality audio formatthat delivers vastly superior sound quality at drastically reduced filesizes-better than MP3 and better than Windows Media Player (WMA).

Additional features of QuickTime 6 include:

• a new ISO-compliant video codec for encoding and decoding MPEG-4 videocontent;
• adherence to the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) 1.0 specification;
• DVC Pro (PAL) support; and
• an updated user interface for easier access to QuickTime content.

• live encoding with real time preview;
• the ability to record and hint in real time to the computer's hard diskfor quick video-on-demand posting;
• support for QuickTime codecs as well as MPEG-4 video and AAC audio;
• AppleScript support;
• the ability to create custom settings;
• support for reliable communication via TCP between Broadcaster andServer;
• auto configuration of connections between Broadcaster and Server.

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