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I've never been a big fan of PDF files and the Adobe Acrobat Reader application. I appreciate the cross - platform transparency and versatility of the PDF format, but Acrobat is a big, slow-starting, cranky to navigate, and otherwise not especially user-friendly application. One of the biggest pains has always been having to start up Acrobat Reader just to look at a one-page press release or application ReadMe formatted in PDF. That's why I'm delighted with a little freeware browser plugin called, "PDF Browser Plugin" from Manfred Schubert. that enables several standard browsers to display and print PDF documents. The plug in a is amazingly small and takes only a few seconds to download, but with it installed in the OS X Library / Internet Plug Ins folder, I can now open PDF files in Mozilla, Netscape, iCab, and OmniWeb and reportedly it works with Chimera and Internet Explorer too. I couldn't get PDF files to open with Opera beta 5, but haven't tried it with the latest Opera beta 6. In supported browsers, PDF Browser Plugin allows you to preview PDF documents before downloading them to disk, and enables your browser to display embedded PDF. In cases where the Save and Print commands are not available from the browser menu (for embedded PDF for example) the plugin's menu button can be used. This is all very cool. 
If such a simple plugin can provide PDF support, whay, oh why, is this not built into every browser? Anyway, thanks to Manfred Schubert for providing this excellent little hack to the Mac community. 
New in the latest 0.2 version:
>System requirements:
PDF Browser Plugin is freeware
For more information, visit:
Another weekend note; I have discovered that by clicking the right button on the Wacom Graphire2 Mouse, which is programmed for click & hold, on and off once, I can drag icons around on the desktop, drag & drop blocks of text within a document, and drag document scroll thumbs using my click with a foot mouse and drag with a hand mouse method. This confirms that OS X's inability to support this function by default is a resolvable driver issue. I hope they get around to fixing it soon. Yet another perspective on OS X Fixing ViaVoice in 10.2 Re: Vanessa Bateman - Odyssey 185 From Joe Reed This is COOL! It does print in color. Also, you can take text from any other source and paste it into Rainbow Text, colorize the text, copy it and paste it in AppleWorks or MS Word, but not in email...I tried colorizing this but it wouldn't copy. Anyway, this is fun. :-) Joe
I thought so. :-)
Charles
Yet another perspective on OS X From Paul Sexton Charles, If I don't at some point weigh in on the relative speed of Jaguar, I'll someday feel like I missed Woodstock again. First, a tip: (I think you already do this?) Partition your hard drive. I have OS9 on one partition, OS X on another, and all the other stuff combined on a third. "Other stuff" includes all the applications, utilities, etc., that aren't explicitly installed with the OS (in the case of OS 9, I copy Applications (Mac OS 9) entire; in the case of X, I use NetInfo Manager to move my Home directory there.) This has two major benefits: When 9 crashes and Disk First Aid runs on restarting, it's dramatically faster if it doesn't have to check 10,000+ OS X files, plus all the applications, etc. You won't believe the difference this can make. Trim the OS 9 partition to the bone! When you need to reinstall or upgrade, you can reformat and install from scratch without losing all your other files. This produces much more reliable installs (I originally did an archive and reinstall of Jaguar on 2 machines, and had more hangs and crashes in a few weeks than in the previous year with 10.0 - 10.1.5.) This also applies to OS 9, using the excellent Clean Install Assistant to save preferences, extensions, etc. I really enjoy OS X myself and I think you will too, once you get used to it (it's a good system that doesn't happen to resemble OS 9 all that closely.) The dirty little secret: it's useless for software developers! I've officially given up and moved my company back to OS 9 for development use, relegating OS X to testing and bug fixing. The hype about Unix heads flocking to OS X misses one thing: most of their programs are small, a few thousand lines of code. Mac OS X itself is huge, but it's made of thousands of small pieces. I'm responsible for a fair sized commercial application, several hundred thousand lines of code. MetroWerks CodeWarrior is the only option for a project like this (Apple's tools are slow, limited, and don't produce OS 9-compatible programs). While things have certainly improved in the last year, working on OS X is simply not tolerable. I can reboot OS 9 several times a day or run OS X and (for example) wait twenty seconds instead of two for the debugger to start up. Same amount of lost time overall, but OS 9 at least lets me run to the water cooler (once) instead of staring at the screen and cursing (ten times). Jaguar, incidentally, is significantly worse: I now test on 10.1.5 as much as possible, then move to 10.2 for Jag specific bugs (and there's plenty of them -- sorry, Steve.) I fully realize that OS X is new and has a LONG way to go, I'm just impatient. And I truly pity developers of large, OS X only applications (like Maya or even Office.) I can't imagine how they do it. Paul
Hi Paul
I agree with you about partitioning. I've been partitioning hard drives since my Mac Plus days (yes; I even partitioned the little 20 MB HD on my old Plus!).
My current Pismo PowerBook has four hard drive partitions -- the top one for OS X; the next for applications, and with an OS 9.1 sustem installed; the third maily for documents, and with OS 9.2.2 installed (also used for Classic Mode); and a fourth for software installers and other less frequently accessed storage.
Your comments on developing in OS X vs OS9 are interesting. I've heard the diametrically opposite point of view expressed. I'm not a programmer, so I have no frame of reference to make a judgment on this issue.
Charles
From John Dennis I thought that you might like this article I found on Mac OS X Hints. I am sending you what was said and not a link. "For months I was bemoaning the lack of ViaVoice support in OS X 10.2. On launch I got a message that the Mic device could not be found. I assumed it was a driver issue. Finally I searched the web about it again and found that it was a careless oversight. Some users may have to re-install ViaVoice, but what I did got it working. Just go to System Prefs, and select the USB Mic from the inputs in both the Speech prefs and the Sound Prefs panes." I hope this helps some people put, I was certainly glad to have the app back.
Thanks John;
I got it working by activating the Apple Speakable Items in the Speech pane and dictating a few words, then turning ASI off again. Goess there's more than one way to skin this cat.
Charles
Re: Vanessa Bateman - Odyssey 185 From Dr. Jonathan Tyzack Hi Charles,
. All that is needed is a knowledge of the syntax which isn't too hard to learn, then you highlight the equation you've typed in and press command-/ to have it convert into an inserted PDF image file in your text (which Vanessa could easily do after the lecture if time is pressing). Alternatively, you can use the Equation Service window to create drag and drop pdf's: You will also need pdflatex installed, but you can do that by installing the equally useful TeXShop (see http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=8523&db=mac). TeX of course, is the de facto standard for creating mathematical expressions and wipes the floor with any of the crummy editors you will get with Word and the like. A few quick comments on your Jag speed issues - it seems that you really haven't left anything like enough disk space on your OS X partition. Your swap file will need at the very bare minimum the size of the installed RAM and ideally you want something at least 2 times larger than that or more - I forget how much RAM you have installed, but if it is 640MB then I'm afraid your 640MB "free" space probably just doesn't cut it. I say this because for practically everyone else with Jag, Classic launches much, much faster than it did in 10.1.5, and especially so the second time around in a session (guesstimating, I would say that my extension set launches in about two-thirds the time it did in 10.1.5). Also, the upgrade install was by far and away the one which caused the most problems for people on the basis of what I read at various Mac fora. If you can't backup easily to do a clean install, then the archive and install is the way to go (assuming you have enough disk space for two system folders on the disk at once). Also, did you update to the latest WindowShadeX? If you recall, there is a serious hit in the GUI responsiveness caused by the previous version. On the whole Jag is mostly more responsive than 10.1.x on my G3... scrolling, however, is still bad in many applications so you can't win them all ;-)
Cheers,
Hi Jonathan Thanks for the tips Re: Vanessa Bateman's query. I have 640 MB of RAM, and am currently showing 688 MB free on my OS X partition after a bit of weeding. I shall continue to weed as time permits. I did install the very latest version of WindowShade X. Charles 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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