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Rainbow Text Is a little text editor by Sarah Childers that can colorize text in rainbow patterns. 
It has a surprisingly complete set of menu selections and tools, and even supports the OS X Cocoa spell checker from the edit menu. 
The document window toolbar is customizable using a handy drag and drop dialog box. 
Features
I was able to paste the rainbow-ized text into Tex Edit Plus, but it did not translate to html successfully, so I'll have to show it here as a graphic image. 
I assume that the rainbow text will print out using RainBow Text's print command, but since I don't have a color printer, or indeed any printer supported by OS X, I couldn't check that out. Rainbow text actually seems like a pretty good little basic text editor. I used it to write this review, and the ability to access OS X services makes it quite versatile and surprisingly powerful. It can save documents in RTF and RTFD formats. The font dialog is quite interesting. 
Rainbow text is a very small download -- just 168k for the disk image. If this sort of thing strikes your fancy, there's really no reason not to check it out.
Rainbow Text is freeware
Re: Equation editor Entering Math equations Re: math notetaking Jaguar speed boost OS X and Hard Drives Re: Speed of Jaguar... "Mathematical Word Processors" From Doug Rowland Charles, In response to Vanessa Bateman's query about "mathematical word processors", I would like to recommend my own freeware application, called "Equation Service". It's not a standalone word processor, instead it's a system service and GUI front-end to the LaTeX typesetting system (the de facto standard for mathematical typesetting). The nice feature about it is that it uses the system services functionality of OS X to make it easy to put nicely typeset equations into any application that supports services.
These applications include, but are not limited to: Mail
You can find out more about Equation Service at its webpage: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/EquationService It requires an installation of pdflatex (you can get an installer from Gerben Wierda at http://www.rna.nl/tex.html) Here is a screeshot of the GUI window for Equation Service: 
It can work in one of two ways: You can either type some text into the Equation Service GUI window, click on "Typeset" and a few seconds later drag the resulting PDF into another application (like the ones mentioned above, but also including Word v. X or Powerpoint v. X). Or, you can use it as a system service, in which you type some LaTeX syntax into your other app (like TextEdit), highlight that text, then click on "Services > Equation Service > Typeset Equation" in the app menu. A few seconds later, the typeset equation will replace the LaTeX "code" you entered. In certain circumstances, you can even reverse the process, edit the original code, and retypeset it. Here are two screenshots, giving an idea of how the process is used. The top one has code like \gamma and E=mc^2 that are really LaTeX syntax describing the equation you want. The second one has the result of running Equation Service on those strings. You don't have to use TextEdit, that was just the program that I popped up for this example. 
It will also require you to learn a little syntax. For example, some things are simple, but the more complicated you want to get with your equation, the more brackets and commands you'll have to put into your LaTeX code. There are plenty of excellent "how-tos" and quick-start guides out there that have some of the basic syntax in them.
As a final example, the way I would advise doing this kind of thing is using a good "notepad" program and a good drawing program. The two I would recommend are "iOrganizeX" (notepad program) by Bruno Blondeau (http://iorganize.brunoblondeau.com) and "OmniGraffle" (drawing program) by the Omni Group
Equation Service is beta software and the documentation is still pretty poor, but I am happy to help anyone who wants to try it out, and I will be updating the app and the documentation in the near future. Anyway, sorry for the length of the email and the PDF screenshot attachments, but I hope this info is of some use. I have to second Vanessa Bateman's point about OS X being a huge boon to those of us in technical fields - the ability to use UNIX and Mac apps together on the same box is absolutely fantastic and makes for an incredible synergy that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Doug
Doug Rowland
Thanks Doug. Looks like a very capable little application.
Charles From John Konopka Charles, Note that Nisus Writer has an equation editor, and it is a great word processor. However, my experience is that equation writing on a computer is much slower than writing by hand. This would be a great application for using the trackpad as a graphics tablet so you draw eqations with a stylus and then have inkwell convert them to text.
Regards,
From David K. Watson Regarding Vanessa Bateman, who was having difficulty taking notes on her computer when mathematical equations are involved: If she had difficulty entering in equations in a timely manner using using Word or Appleworks, then your suggestions (MathType, Liebnitz, Expressionist) probably will not help her very much either. MathType, for example, is basically an expanded version of the Equation Editor that Word and Appleworks use for entering equations, so entering an equation using MathType would probably take even longer because she would have more options to sort through. For the most part, these programs work by presenting the user with palettes of the basic mathematical forms and symbols, and the expression is formed by clicking on the palette to put the appropriate form (definite integral, for example) onto the equation window and then clicking on the various parts of the form and filling them in (like upper and lower limits, integrand and variable of integration, etc.). This takes time and attention to the computer screen, when presumably Vanessa wants to be fast and to devote most of her attention to the teacher and the board. MathType and Expressionist are useful primarily for entering relatively uncomplicated mathematical expressions into standard documents. I have the following suggestions that she can try: first, learn a how equations are typed in the mathematical typesetting program TEX, where all mathematical expressions are represented by text strings in a source document which TEX then interprets to produce the actual mathematical output. For example, TEX uses \int for integral, _ for subscripts and lower limits of integrals, and ^ for superscripts or upper limits, etc., so x^{a+b} represents x raised to the power a+b, for example. This is shorthand is already somewhat familiar to anyone who uses graphing calculators or mathematics programs, and is generally what mathematicians will use when sending short mathematical communications to each other via email (For more complicated communications we would likely send either the TEX source file or the TEX output in the form of a postscript or pdf file.). The shorthand is generally fairly straightforward to interpret. Done this way, straightforward mathematical expressions can be touch-typed relatively quickly during the lecture, and (if desired) can later be replaced with the actual equation using Equation Editor or MathType, etc. One word of warning: do not be put off by the complexities involved in using TEX as a typesetting tool (e.g., print styles, centering and/or aligning equations, running TEX and the like), and concentrate on the representation of commonly used expressions. A second alternative would be to use a small graphics tablet to draw the equation and paste in her notes as a picture. I just got the Wacom Graphire (which I think you reviewed not so long ago), and I haven't tried this yet myself, but I don't see any real problems doing things this way. This method would probably be even quicker than using mathematical shorthand as above, and should also work well for entering diagrams and graphs. However, Vanessa would have to carry the tablet around (they are small and light, though), and if she sits at a standard 1-person classroom desk she probably would have to keep the tablet in her lap and it could be awkward to use. While I would expect either of these suggestions to work for classes with a mild number of mathematical expressions, I can't think of anything that would work well for on-the-fly notetaking in a heavily mathematical course like calculus or differential equations. David Watson From George Woodrow III Quickly entering formulas in any computer is tedious. I have a couple comments. First, MathType is essentially a fleshed out version of the equation editor shipped with MS Office (and AppleWorks, I believe). The intent of the application is to make beautiful output, and it is very tedious. Expressionist (which has not been supported in a **loong** time) has essentially the same feature set. If you don't like the equation editor in Word, you won't like either of these two programs. Leibniz is an alternative front-end to the Mathematica program. I have not used it, but it is probably non-functional without Mathematica. Provided that Vanessa is a student (appears to be), she can get the student version of Mathematica for about $140. It works well under OS 9, and great under OS X. The only difference between the student version and the commercial version is that it does not come with the big mathematica book. It is included in electronic form, and it can be purchased separately. There is also limited tech support. I use Mathematica a lot, and it haas some impressive word-processing features. For note-taking, it would be possible to enter formulas in mathematica's 1 D (plain ASCII characters) format, and then use mathematica to switch the formatting to the traditional 'pretty' format. For $140, Mathematica might be worthwhile just for this. However, Mathematica is one of the truly great programs ever written. Anyone who uses math should have a copy -- especialy at the student price. It would be great to enter an engineering formula, and then evaluate it with different inputs, plot the results (2 and 3 D), etc. The program (version 4.2) runs great on my Pismo under OS X 10.2.x, and I have tested it on my son's iBook. The only drawback to the program is that if one is not a student, the commercial price is $1850. George Woodrow From Dan Buchan One thing I found that really kicks up the speed of Jaguar is to backup, and do a reinstall with erase, then copy your stuff back. When I first upgraded my G4/933 at work, I noticed a speed increase, but it wasn't that great (I did a regular upgrade/update, installing over what was already there). Then I read somewhere (one of the umpteen message boards I check daily) that reformatting and clean installing really helped the speed. So I backed everything up to a FireWire drive and did a reformat/clean install, and was amazed at the speed increase. I followed this practice with my TiBook at home, and experienced the same speed boost. Just to test, I did a reformat/install on a toilet seat iBook (192MB RAM), and even there I see a significant speed increase. Most apps launch in 3 or 4 bounces, and Classic launches in 34 seconds. For comparision, my G4/933/512 takes 17 seconds to launch Classic, and my TiBook/667/512 takes 28 seconds. Now, if a reformat/reinstall can do that much for a toilet seat iBook, think what it can do for your Pismo! I'm also guessing that this would solve the speed problems all the other folks are experiencing -- in all the installs I've done, on many different machines -- I've done a reformat/install and I've *never* seen slow-opening windows and menus, or anything I would call "sluggish." Whoops, I take that back. Actually, the only sluggish thing I've seen is the abysmal, execrable network "browser" for logging into servers. Surely Apple would have been better off just carbonizing the old Network Browser from OS 9. If there's one thing that Apple deserves a beating with a bag of oranges for, it's this. Dan
Hi Dan;
I expect this is good advice. No to just get the time to do it!
Charles From Peter Gøthgen Hi, Charles, The quickest and best thing you can do for yourself is to download SwapCop and move your Swap file onto a different hard drive, preferrably one with a lot of breathing room. UNIX makes very heavy use of virtual memory and it will choke if it has to keep using a small space. Peter Andreas Gøthgen
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Hi Peter;
I'll check it out. Love your signature quotes!
Charles From Gene Steinberg I'd also recommend that you clear as much space as possible on your computer.
Peace,
The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here: Note: Letters to Moore's Mailbag may or may not be published at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context. Opinions expressed in postings to Moore's MailBag are those of the respective correspondents and not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Editor and/or Applelinks management. If you would prefer that your message not appear in Moore's Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published. CM
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