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There are quite a few good OS X FTP clients available, but the one I have settled on using most of the time is Captain FTP, partly because it is very fast, and partly because I really like the appearance of the interface. Apparantly, I'm not the only one. More than 50 thousand Mac users have downloaded Captain FTP.

Xnet Communications GmbH, the German developer of Captain FTP, gave it a major overhaul this month, a full version number upgrade and a revamped interface, which is happily still very attractive, as well as some significant feature enhancement under the hood.

The new Captain FTP version's new features incluce segmented download, which Xnet describes as "very fast transfer based on an intelligent downloaded file analysis and connection parameters (amount of parallel FTP sessions) can speed up the entire transfer task dramatically."

This is particularly effective when downloading large files from an FTP server that limits bandwidth per connection. In that case Captain FTP maximizes bandwidth utilization and increases performance.

This Segmented Download feature allows Captain FTP to split a large file (recommended for file size over 1MB) into multiple parts and use multiple transfer connections to download those parts simultaneously. These parts are recombined into a single file upon receipt.

"Having added this feature, Captain FTP evolves from the class of a standard FTP-client into a feature rich Download-Manager," says the Xnet release.

"For the last couple of months our development team has been working very hard on adapting some of our top technologies into our Captain FTP," says Xnet CEO Mariusz Roznowski. "Don't forget the FTP protocol was developed in the 1970s, many years ago. Since that time the networking technology has gone through many changes. There are a lot of other protocols for file transfer and Xnet has been dealing with them for more than 15 years. Our company has implemented nearly every new technology, but these solutions were only available to our large accounts. Captain FTP 2.0 is the step into sharing our secrets with smaller companies and home users at an affordable price. It has been our dream for many years and now it is the day we can realize it."

Apart from changes in the Captain FTP core-engine there are many other improvements such as: quick bookmarks, a transfer resume, a very flexible Unicode converter which supports multinational fonts, a local file browser and even some sound after a finished transfer. Captain FTP is available in English, French, German, Japanese and Chinese.

What is new in Captain FTP version 2.0:

New features:

• Segment downloading.
• Resume Transfer.
• MacBinary full support.
• Unicode names support for remote and local sites (Japanese, Chinese, Russian - Cyrillic, etc).
• VMS support.
• Local file browser (copy files locally).
• Improved Drag&Drop support from the desktop. • Finder-like file-name edit.
• Placard (selected file status info).
• Downloaded items date preserve option.
• Disc eject.
• Build-in Trash can.
• Sound after successful transfer.
• GUI facelifting.
• Full localized version: English, German, French, Japanese and Chinese.
• User defined favorites for local and remote files and folders.

Major Bug Fixing:

• Show files beginning with a period on DOS/Windows servers.
• Display context menu function.
• Added option LIST -la (list hidden files on certain servers).
• Sizeable Address Book.

Features general Version 2.0
• Completely new developed for Mac OS X and Jaguar.
• Compatible with all FTP servers.
• Segmented download.
• Resume transfer.
• Simple navigation with quick buttons, Drag&Drop, context menus and built-in trash can.
• User defined file browser look (one or two windows, left, right, reverse).
• Local files Manager (with two browser's windows view).
• Address Book and favorites with quick connect option.
• International font support.
• Import Address Book from NetFinder, Fetch and Transmit.
• Permissions management for local and remote files and folders.
• Extended GetInfo.
• Fast searching files or/and folders.
• Global transfer progress indicator.
• Stop button enabling a user to stop every operation at any time, without the necessity of breaking up the connection with a server.
• Edit files with BBEdit.
• Sound after finished file transfer

I don't personally have very heavy duty FTP requirements, but Captain FTP version 2.0 retains all of the virtues I enjoyed previous versions. Captain FTP brings up the big Applelinks graphics server directory faster than any other FTP client I've used. The address book is attractive, convenient, and intuitive to configure, and the user interface works for me.

And by the way, even if you already have a Mac OS X FTP client that you're happy with, paying a visit to the Captain FTP Website, one of the best and most entertaining I've encountered, is still worth the trip.

Software requirements:
• Operating system: Mac OS X (10.0 or higher)
• Captain FTP works with almost every FTP server (UNIX, DOS, Windows, VMS)

Hardware minimal requirements:
• Apple computer with G3 PowerPC processor
• 64 MB of physical memory
• 1 MB free space on disk

Captain FTP sells for $25. (Captain FTP 1.4 is still available as freeware for personal use).

For more information, visit:

Product information portal:
http://captainftp.xdsnet.de/ftp/home.php

Captain FTP download:
http://captainftp.xdsnet.de/ftp/downloadfile.php

Erratum re: TypeIt4Me 1.0 and Koala Calc

A couple of corrections to recent mini-reviews in OS X Odyssey.

In Odyssey 211 I said:

"TypeIt4Me X works pretty much like its Classic predecessor, but there are some differences. Most notably, triggering a macro in the OS X version copies the macro text to the Clipboard, which erases whatever was there and makes combining a TypeIt4Me macro with a string of Clipboarded text (which I have been accustomed to doing in Classic for years) clumsy and cumbersome....."

This was incorrect. I was sure I was still experiencing this behavior, (although I hadn't done any production work with OS X after installing the final version). However, a heads up from reader Jonathan Tyzak (below) clued me in to the fact that it's been fixed. Apologies to Riccardo Ettore for the miscue. The error has been corrected in the original column.

And in the Koala Calc review in Odyssey 210 I said:

"Unfortunately, there is no paper tape option."

Reader Robert McMahan (also below) noted that there is a paper tape option, toggled from the File Menu.

Also now corrected in the original.

Thanks for keeping me on my toes, guys.

CM

OS 9 vs. OS X again

From William H. Timberman

Charles,

Like many other Mac owners, I've followed your OS X odyssey with interest. Although I've been much happier with OS X than you've been from the the very beginning, I've also agreed with many of your observations about its limitations -- until the advent of version 10.2.

Since that update, my experience has been radically different, and I think I know why. It isn't so much that the new version feels feature complete, and much more polished to me than version 10.1 -- which it does -- or that my work is different from yours -- which it is. (I work in a Windows environment, with a need to run Virtual PC and share files with Windows and Unix servers over a LAN. The Mac programs I use most frequently -- Adobe Acrobat, Graphic Converter, Photoshop, and MS Office, as well as e-mail and scheduling programs -- must be up and running all day. OS X beats OS 9 hands down for this kind of thing, believe me.)

The real reason, I'm happier, I think, is that I'm running a G4 machine with bags of RAM (1.5GB,) and a very fast hard drive. In my opinion, all three are essential if you want to get decent speed from OS X.

I found this out recently when the original 40GB hard drive in my Cube died. Up until that time, I'd been running OS X on one partition, with OS 9.2.2 on the other. My OS X partition was first created for OS X 10.0, with upgrades over time to OS X 10.2.2.

I replaced the failed drive with a new Western Digital 80GB 7200 rpm drive with an 8MB cache, and did a clean install of 10.1 on a single partition, then ran the Apple updates to bring it up to the current state of 10.2.2. I didn't install 9.2.2, although I hedged my options and installed the OS 9 drivers.

The result was a revelation. Suddenly OS X was as responsive as a racehorse. No spinning pizza wheels, no scrolling lags, no excruciating window refreshes or hanging redraws when bringing another program to the foreground. Programs launch with one or two icon bounces, font menus drop down instantly, QT movies play without a hitch. For the first time, it feels as fast as OS 9 used to, and this, mind you, is on a 500MHz single G4 processor, which is hardly the state of the art.

On my 500 MHZ dual USB iBook, which is comparable to your Pismo, I suspect, OS X is serviceable and stable, but nowhere near as responsive as OS 9. I can understand why you find it frustrating to use.

The moral of this story for me is a simple one: your interface issues notwithstanding, more horsepower will confirm the superiority of OS X for all users. Of course, not everyone can afford a new whiz-bang every two years, and for those folks, OS 9 is still essential. I remember running OS 7.1 on a Mac Plus with 4 whole MB of RAM. I enjoyed the stability, but hated the sluggishness. When I upgraded to an 040 Performa, all my speed issues went away, and I was a happy camper again. In my view, history is simply repeating itself. In time, all will be well once more -- at least until the next cycle begins.

One last note -- for anyone who spends a lot of time web-browsing in OS X, my assertions above will probably be seen as a form of insanity, as in "What planet is he living on?" For those folks, I recommend Chimera. Nothing else in the Mac world can touch it for speed, on either OS. It's positively addicting, and leaves me, a chronic complainer, with virtually nothing left to complain about.

I wish you all the best, Charles -- perhaps even a TiBook in your near future,

Bill Timberman

Hi Bill;

Thanks for the musings. I've essentially come to similar conclusions. The Pismo, perhaps largely because of its 8 MB of VRAM and modest RAGE 128 video card, is not powerful enough to make a really satisfactory platform for running OS X.

Still, it has more than twice the clock speed of the minimum machine officially supported by OS X, so I think it is fair to comment. I also suspect that it would be possible to get somewhat better performance if I had the time to do some tweaking and tuning, but that's part of the story too. OS 9 doesn't need a lot of stroking to perform well.

Makes me wonder a bit about my tentative plan to buy an iBook as my next computer. Still a G3, although it does have lots of video RAM now and a good video card.

I agree with you about Chimera 0.6. Even on my slow dialup connection, the speed advantage over other browsers, including its Mozilla and Netscape stablemates, is outstanding. It's one of the few OS X applications I miss when I'm running in OS 9.

Charles

Re: OS X Odyssey 211 - Checking Out TypeIt4Me X Final

From Jonathan Tyzack

Hi Charles,

I just thought I'd write in and sing the praises of TypeIt4Me too. Like you, I'm not so keen on the X version as it has a few quirks still, but that doesn't prevent it from being one of those must have bits of shareware (especially so for people who do write technical documents). It probably saved me at least two days worth of time when I was writing my thesis owing to its usefulness for auto-expanding two or three letter codes into the complex chemical and biochemical names I needed - an absolute godsend for a document of 200+ pages!

Unfortunately that saving was more than wiped out by the downright buginess of MS Office 97 and 98 when I came to use them and also the appalling flakiness of Mac OS 8.6 - combined, they cost me about 3 to 4 weeks of lost time and, unsurprisingly, considerable amounts of stress! <sigh> Remembering that just now has made me all the more thankful for OS X... why, oh why couldn't it have been around back then?

;-)

Cheers,
Jonathan

P.S. The Jaguar calculator has a couple of annoying missing features - no bracketing capability and for the life of me, I can't work out how to get a negative power of 10 (e.g. 1x10 to the power of -2). I'd greatly appreciate it if someone could tell me how to do the latter - if it is possible!

Hi Jonathan;

TypeIt4Me is great.

I likewise found OS 8.6 a less than stable OS on my WallStreet. OS 9 cleared things up nicely.

Can't help you with the math query -- way out of my innumerate depth. ;-)

Charles

Odyssey 211 - Follow up to TypeIt4MeX

From Jonathan Tyzack

Hi Charles,

Just a quick note to let you know two things about TypeIt4MeX version 1.0 in case you hadn't already realised them already:

1) It no longer replaces the clipboard when you expand an abbreviation so that irritation no longer exists as you reported in Odyssey 211:

"TypeIt4Me X works pretty much like its Classic predecessor, but there are some differences. Most notably, triggering a macro in the OS X version copies the macro text to the Clipboard, which erases whatever was there and makes combining a TypeIt4Me macro with a string of Clipboarded text (which I have been accustomed to doing in Classic for years) clumsy and cumbersome. Just another OS X angularity."

2) Unfortunately, if your input text contains a bracket - i.e. a ( - it will not be selectable in your Abbreviations Pallette (in either OS X or OS 9). E.g.:

I've contacted Riccardo Ettore about this and it appears that it is a Mac menu limitation:

"Yes, the ( is causing the menu item to go gray. It's actually a "feature" of the way the apple menu manager works."

Riccardo is going to try and find a workaround, but in the meantime the shortcut still works when typed so it is not a huge problem unless you are prone to forgetting your abbreviations.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Thanks Jonathan,

See my Erratum entry above.

Charles

Koala

From Robert McMahan

You said about KoalaCalc, ver. 2.0.4:

"Unfortunately, there is no paper tape option. "

I have version 2.0.2 and it has a paper tape function. Surely it still exists in version 2.0.4. Look in the "File..." menu for the "Show Tape" function.

Robert

Hi Robert;

You're right. My error.

The File Menu toggle is there in version 2.0.4 as well. Guess I was looking for a button like in the OS X Calculator.

Now corrected.

Charles

The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here:
http://www.applelinks.com/news/odyssey/

CM

Charles W. Moore

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