World of Goo

Just got my aluminum imac replaced by Apple. The old one was kind of possessed by gremlins or some such thing. After several failed repair attempts, part replacements, and countless hours of phone support, Apple agreed to give me a shiny new computer. Loving it The specs are not all that much different from the first one, but the parts are better, so it is faster and the graphics are extra kick ass.

While restoring my data, I was having an appreciation of all the great mac software out there. Much of it is free, donationware, or relatively low cost. Here are some of my current favorites (in no particular order):

1. Caffeine (Free) – A one trick wonder. Puts a coffee cup icon in the menu bar that, when clicked, prevents your computer from automatically going to sleep, dimming, or starting screen savers. It is really great for reading long articles and watching videos or screencasts. You can set a default duration for it to stay on so that you don’t have to worry about forgetting to disable it.
2. SuperDuper! ($27.95) – I can’t believe I left this one out! SuperDuper! is a backup program that will make a fully bootable backup, or “clone” of your mac’s hard drive. I clone mine nightly. During my aforementioned computer woes, I recovered my drive several times using SuperDuper! and booted my laptop from the clone while my imac was in the shop so that I could keep working.
3. DropBox (Free to $199/yr.)- Online storage and file sync for mac, windows, and linux. First 2 GB of space is free and you can get up to 3 GB more by referring other people. If you click the link in this article, we will both get 250G extra space Paid accounts are available with 50 or 100 GB storage. One feature I love is that you can create public downloads by right-clicking on a file in your Public folder and selecting ‘Copy public link’. This allows anyone who has the link to download the file.
4. Komodo Edit (Free) & Komodo IDE ($99-$245) – Both of these code editors are great. Komodo edit has an excellent set of features for a free app. Multiple languages, code formatting, auto-indent and more. Komodo IDE adds debugging, a code browser, source-control systems integration, and other handy tools like a regular expressions toolkit.
5. MAMP (Free) – MAMP rocks! It is a really quick way to set up a local development environment. Installs and configures Apache, PHP, MySQL, and phpMyAdmin in a self-contained directory that will not interfere with any existing Apache installations.
6. Transmit ($29.95) – There are some great free FTP clients out there, but I really love the Transmit interface, mac integration, and the fact that it can handle any FTP task I throw at it (SFTP, TLS/SSL, WebDav, iDisk, Amazon S3, server to server transfers and lots more. If you have mobileMe, you can sync your accounts between macs.
7. Bookdog ($19.95) – Syncs bookmarks between browsers. Amazing. Removes duplicates, sorts, and verifies links. Syncs with del.icio.us and Google Bookmarks and works with tons of browsers.
8. ImageWell (~$18) – I have had this tiny app for years and use it all the time. Great for quickly resizing images and adding watermarks. Photoshop and other apps will do the same thing, but none will do it as fast or as easy.
9. ColorTagGen (Free) – Another app I use all the time. Lets you use the mac color picker to generate hexidecimal and RGB values of colors. A closely related app which I also use is Hex Color Picker (Donationware) which adds a tab to the system-wide color panel that allows you to see and edit the hex color code for any color.
10. Bento – ($49) – Bento (made by FileMaker) is drag and drop easy to use database software. I can never decide if I like it or hate it, but find myself using it more and more. It is great for simple databases like a client list or home inventory, but I often wish it had more relational database features like FileMaker. Bento is also slow to open and I use it for information that I need to access quickly. On the other hand, it does more than a spreadsheet and makes data pretty.
11. Together ($39) – Junk drawer software. A place to put all that random information that you want to be able to reference in the future. I tried a bunch of apps when it was time to replace my beloved Yojimbo, which was starting to feel out of date and cumbersome. Together came out on top for having the features I needed without being too complicated or too basic.
12. Text Edit – Basic mac text editing program. I default to plain text format and use this all the time to clean text that was sent to me by clients in Word or copied from a web page. I also use it for a notepad and scratch pad.
13. LaunchBar (~$34) – Quickly launch applications, access clipboard history, find documents, and much more with your keyboard. Very similar to QuickSilver, which I used to love, but started having problems with, possibly because it is in perpetual beta. Still, it is a classic and it is free.
14. MenuCalendarClock (Free, $19.95 for advanced features) – I love this tiny app. Lets you customize the menu bar display of time and date (best to disable default time display in System Preferences). Clicking on the menu bar date/time drops down a calendar that highlights days with scheduled events. Hover over the dates and a tooltip appears showing the events for that day. Lots of other cool features. Not really sure which ones are in free vs. paid version, but there is a comparison at the site.
15. DragThing (Shareware, $29) – Dock replacement. Allows you to create multiple docks, each with multiple tabs, and place them anywhere you want. Along with LaunchBar, this is one of the first things I install on any mac. I wrote a post about DragThing last year.
16. Default Folder X ($34.95) - Adds many useful features to Open and Save dialog boxes. Choose recent and favorite folders quickly. Assign default folders for applications. Menu bar icon for fast access to favorite and recent folders, open finder windows, and all other folders through flyout menus.
17. PathFinder ($39.95) - Finder replacement (works alongside of Finder). Adds about a million features that you wish were in the Finder. More sorting and display options, dual pane browser for side by side folders in one window, tabs, drop stack to hold files in a temporary stack, and more.
18. 1Password ($39.95) – Store logins, passwords, credit card info, and secure notes. Integrates with most browsers allowing you to log into websites and enter credit card information with just a few keystrokes. You only need to remember one master password to allow the browsers access to the stored information. Pretty amazing if you have tons of logins to remember and/or shop online.
19. TextExpander ($29.95), Typinator ($19.99) , TypeIt4Me ($27)   – Thanks to the many mac software bundles, I have somehow managed to have a license to all 3 of these apps. Currently I am using TextExpander, but I don’t think I have a preference. They all have their pros and cons. Mostly pros. All 3 apps basically do the same thing – inserting text and/or images when you type a short abbreviation. For example, when I type bsig, it automatically changes to my 4 line business email signature. Also great for canned responses, code snippets, email addresses, phone numbers, common typos, URLs, and anything else that you type regularly.
20. Paparazzi (Donationware) – Another one trick wonder. Takes full page screenshots of web pages. Very handy for designers and developers that need to view an entire web page at one time.
21. World of Goo ($20) – Not sure what to say about World of Goo except that you should try the demo (mac, windows, linux). Completely original game involving balls of goo with different physical properties. The “dialog” and sounds are funny, the graphics and animation are excellent, and it’s very fun! Warning: May also cause extreme frustration in certain circumstances.

That is all I can think of for now. Curious what other people’s favorite apps are. I’ll try just about anything that has a demo version.

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Komodo PHP Sample

Komodo Edit 5 has been my default code editor for the past week or so. It is much faster and nicer to look at than previous versions that I have tried. I switch default code editors almost as often as I switch default browsers. There are so many good ones out there, but none feels exactly right. Considering I spend most of my days switching between browsers and editor, I like to keep up with the latest that is available for mac.

One of the things I am most picky about in an editor is the color scheme. It is very hard for me to find schemes that I can stand to stare at for long periods of time. Schemes with white/light backgrounds and colored text are usually too bright for me and dark schemes are usually either too high or too low contrast. For this reason, I usually end up making my own.

If anyone else is using Komodo Edit (or Komodo IDE) and is similarly picky about color schemes, I have made it available for download.

Click here to download the LB Chalkboard scheme

Komodo CSS Sample

I should mention that the only language specific colors I made changes to are PHP, CSS, HTML, XML, and JavaScript. Also, I am still changing things as I come across them.

Update (3/4/09): Changed CSS comment color from green to default grey.

Update (3/21/09): Downloaded the trial version of Komodo IDE 5 yesterday and noticed that schemes switched over automatically. [update: bought Komodo IDE 5 after trial expired. Still loving it (1/17/10)]

Update (3/24/09): Fixed issue with some defaults changing from white to black text after update to Komodo 5.1. Added language specific colors for Smarty.

Update (8/23/09): Changed Common Syntax bracehighlight background color from dark grey to yellow for increased visibility.

Update (9/17/09): Changed Find highlighting indicator background color from yellow to green for increased readability.

Update (1/17/10): Changed Tag matching indicator background color from orange to light blue for increased readability.

Update (4/20/10): Identifiers color added for JavaScript.

Update (5/30/10): Changed colors of identifiers and strings for JavaScript because the orange identifiers were burning out my retinas. Identifiers are now off-white and strings are light orange.

Update (10/14/10): A few settings were changed slightly after installing Komodo 6.0. Still assessing whether I will change them back or keep them as is.

Update (6/1/11): CSS identifier color changed to increase readability, reduce eye-strain, and match other scheme colors better.

Update (7/9/11): All is well in Komodo 7.0-alpha3 except for the new HTML5 scheme not matching at all. Will get to that if I can ever find some time.

Update (12/28/11): This scheme has been included as a default scheme in Komodo 7 and is now called Dark_Chalkboard. Thanks to ActiveState for including it.

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I was browsing Macworld online this morning and watched Jason Snell’s video about DragThing, a utility that replaces the mac OS X dock. It can also be used in addition to the standard dock.

Half way through watching the video, I could barely wait to try it. I downloaded it before the video was over and installed it right away. It took me a little while to get it all configured, but so far it totally rocks.

I like the mac dock but I have so many things on it that they are hard to find. I run my cursor back and forth all the time trying to remember what I was looking for. Drag thing organizes dock items in several ways. There are options to create multiple docks, each with the option of tabbed sections. Many themes are included and the docks can be moved around.

I chose the blueprint theme and created one dock with 6 tabs (main, docs, folders, URLs, dev, and misc). I am also using the ‘process dock’, a dock showing all open applications. I chose to show these as drawers that need to be clicked to open (hover over is another option). One cool thing I noticed is that even with the drawers set to open on click instead of hover, I can still drag a file to a tab and the dock will open so I can drop the file onto the program I want to open it with.

Docks with drawers closed:

DragThing is shareware. It is free to download and try and $29 for a single user license. I will try it for a while before I pay for it, but even after just one day I can see how this could easily become a ‘must have’ app.

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I was surprised to say the least! Me and Karen and TC were hanging out in the living room when the doorbell rang. I answered it and looked outside to see about 10 or 12 people who I know and like standing there holding balloons and smiling at me. I honestly did not know what to make of it. I think I figured it out about a minute later when they all quietly yelled “Surprise!”, but my brain was still trying to make some sense of it as they started coming inside the house.

For a moment, I was angry. I am not an angry person in general and it is especially hard to imagine staying mad at K for very long, but she broke 2 huge rules. I don’t have many rules and lying is one of the hardest things for me to deal with. The thing is, I know K as well as I’ve ever known anybody, and she would never lie to me or break a promise like that unless she really had a good reason. Her reason was to let me know that there are people who love me and care about me. She didn’t want to let my 40th birthday pass without marking it in a special way.

Her plan worked. I had a great time at the party and it was really nice to see everybody. It has been a long hard year and I have been more isolated than usual due to a combination of meds not working and dealing with side effects from trying to find new ones that will work.

I felt the love. More than anything, I felt the love from K. I know it was a huge deal for her to go against my wishes to do something that she really thought would help me feel better. I also felt the love from all the people who came and helped to plan it. I imagine it is not an easy thing to plan a surprise party for a person who can not make plans in advance, especially if those plans involve leaving the house. Very ingenious idea bringing the party to the house instead of trying to get me to the party!

Thanks to everyone who came and also the people who sent good wishes. I was really surprised at how good it felt to see people and how much I really missed them even though I didn’t even know it. K knew it. Thank you again K. I am not mad. I am very lucky to have you.

I didn’t get much sleep after all the excitement. I got up at 2am and could not get back to sleep. I was thinking about how much work I have to do this week. Several of the clients who I was waiting to hear from have sent me their content or made their decisions. I have two new sites to start, one site to finish, and am waiting on the photoshop files for a design that I will likely code into a site for another new client. It hit me hard that I really had to find a way to test sites in IE6 soon!

I considered buying a cheap used pc laptop, but in the end decided to ask my folks for an early birthday present of Parallels Desktop and Windows XP Home edition. I got them this afternoon (thanks mom and dad!), and as of this evening, I am running Windows XP on my mac. It hurts a little.

Both the Parallels and Windows installation went very smoothly. I played for a few minutes; just long enough to test IE6, change my user picture, and have a minor freakout that I didn’t remember to think about any anti-virus software. It is kind of nutty that I have anti-virus software installed on OS X, and not on Windows. I will deal with that tomorrow.

Warcrack update:
I have yet another new character. I decided that Greggo, the dwarf warrior, sucked too much for solo playing, so I went back to my night elf hunter on Scratch’s server with a new appreciation for my pet nightsaber, Bob. I quickly discovered that I really hate playing on a PvP server and started a new night elf hunter character on a normal server. The difference in server types is that real people players (as opposed to computer generated characters) can attack you at any time on a PvP server and on a PvE (normal) server, there are rules about when and how that can happen. I gave my new character the same name as my old one (Tsayad – hunter in Hebrew), but the new one is male instead of female, and a skinner/leatherworker instead of an herbalist/alchemist. So far, it is my favorite one yet. I still have one more level before I can get a new pet. Perhaps I will name it Bob.

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• Adium – multi-protocol instant messaging client
• Butler – application launcher with many other handy features
• Camino – mac-like gecko browser. not as many features as firefox, but faster.
• ClamAV – Antivirus program, because you just never know…
• Colloquy – GUI IRC client
• ColorTagGen – Use the eyedropper to get fast hex color codes. This little app rocks!
• Dashboard KickStart – brings up the dashboard for a second at startup so that you don’t have to wait for it to load the first time you use it.
• Firefox – I Firefox
• MAMP – Mac, Apache, MySQL, PHP server environment in an easy to install, easy to use package. Includes Apache v2.0.x, phpMyAdmin, MySQL v5.0.x, PHP v4.4.x and v5.1.x, and more.
• NeoOffice – Mac version of OpenOffice (OO also works on a mac). No need for X11 with Neo. Prettier than OO.
• Onyx – tweaking, maintenance, etc.
• Quicksilver – similar to Butler, only geekier. I use it on my powerbook. I find Butler’s interface a little more intuitive.
• Smell-O-Mints – Periodic table with some nice features
• TextWrangler – I actually use BBedit, but TextWrangler is an excellent free text editor that does much of what BBedit does so I have to mention it here.
• Transmission – BitTorrent Client

Widgets:

• Image Shackle – fast easy way to resize images. Just drag the image to the widget, set a size, and click ‘shackle’ for a copy of your image at the specified size. I love this widget!
• Panda Cam – live feed from the San Diego Zoo’s Panda Cam
• PHP function reference (PHPfr) – comprehensive PHP reference
• iStat Pro – system monitoring widget

There is a great list which includes many of the programs mentioned above (and many that aren’t) at xfreeware.com.

Anyone else have any favorite mac freeware? Please share…

*I am using the word freeware because payment is not required to use these apps with all features enabled and without a time limit. Many of the programmers accept donations to compensate them for their time and effort. If you can afford it and use the program regularly, please consider donating

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This is not a professional web design/development application, and anyone who is looking for that will not be happy with it. Design options are limited in many ways. Programming options are limited to what is built in. Generated source code is mostly lots of divs with tons of repetitive inline styling and NO semantic markup. If you need a pro wysiwyg web app, Dreamweaver 8 is the way to go.

iWeb comes with an impressive list of built in features, including automatic photo slideshows and photocasts for photo pages, podcast pages, and blogs. Most things, including RSS feeds for blog, podcast, and photocast syndication, are completely automatic and ready to go as soon as you upload your page to .mac (see diversion). You can use iWeb without a .mac account. I have not tried that yet. I don’t know if one click publishing is available and if all features work the same way. That is an experiment for another day. With a .mac account, it couldn’t be easier to use.

iWeb is a great application. There is plenty of room for improvement, and I am guessing it will arrive in future versions. Should you wait for the next version? My answer would be no. Anyone can make nice looking websites quickly and easily with iWeb 1.0! It is web publishing for everybody. I like it!

Diversion
Okay, .mac… that is another story. After using it for a year, and not being sure it is worth the $50 I paid last year (Amazon w/discount for applying for credit card) or the $70 I paid this year (after rebate for buying imac), I have decided that it is worth the money.

Last year, I got a bunch of free software (some of which I actually even use), and this year, just having the ability to sync my 2 macs to each other so easily and automatically is worth the price. Retail version is $99.95/yr from Apple or $79.99/yr from Amazon. I think the Amazon price is very fair. I think the Apple price is a little high, but still worth it if you use the syncing, backup, and software integration features.

There are ways to do the things that .mac does without having a .mac account. The main thing that makes .mac worth the price is the convenience, ease of use, and integration with quite a bit of mac software (both apple and third party). If you look hard enough, you can do everything that .mac does for free (assuming your time is not worth anything!).

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Day 1 of the dreamweaver power tools conference was great; even better than I was expecting. Dave McFarland (the guy that wrote the ‘missing manuals’ for the last few versions of dreamweaver) was running the presentation. He is a good speaker; very knowledgeable, interesting, entertaining, and flexible.

This conference is geared towards intermediate dw users, and I was afraid the level of the first day sessions would be too basic, but for the most part, I was wrong. I even enjoyed hearing about things that I am very familiar with, like CSS.

The way Mr. McFarland explained CSS to the people who were new to it, made me excited all over again about css. It’s great! I am a web geek, and would happily praise css to anyone who will listen, but in my usual life, most people I come across do not know or care about css.

I ended up learning much more than I thought I would. I still think it may be faster and easier to hand code basic page styles than to click through the dw menus and dialog boxes, but once the stylesheet starts getting longer and more complicated, I can see where using the new CSS tools in DW8 can save gigantic amounts of time, and make things much less confusing than trying to muddle through a giant css file looking for the cause of a style over-ride problem, or even just all the CSS that is relevant to a particular element or selection.

I was going to write more, but it is already the 2nd day and I must write about the keynote now.

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Today is also my first day w/Tiger. So far, so good. Very smooth upgrade, even though I chose the ‘erase and install’ option. I transferred my user settings and apps from my panther clone on an external firewire drive after installing. Next time, I would install the apps manually afterwards, but truth be told, I was too excited, and didn’t feel like dealing with it. I had already found tiger compatible updates for most apps before the install. Only problem was virex, which i knew wouldn’t work; and I had to get update for sidetrack. I hated not having it, even for the 1/2 hour that it was gone.

Widgets are pretty cool. I downloaded one that is a rubik’s cube for the desktop, one for easy uploads to flickr, one that makes a user defined slideshow from flickr, jiwire hotspot finder, wikipedia lookup, and a color picker. I liked the included weather, dictionary, calculator, unit converter, translator, flight tracker, and tiger tile game, but have not yet figured out how to type on the sticky note.

Spotlight rocks as hard as they promised it would, and as of now, I have retired my ever faithful copy of Quicksilver application launcher. Safari RSS reader is WAY better than anything I was expecting! I’ve still been using netnewswire for subscribed feeds, but I’m using safari for viewing feeds that i click on.

I am SO excited for automator, but haven’t had time to play yet. Also haven’t tried new mail, ical, or address book yet. I wonder if they can sway me from Entourage…

Update #1:

- Rubik’s cube widget is a pain to maneuver.
- new Mail app rocks! Way better than the last one! No autocorrect for spelling, though.
- address book and iCal still suck…
- i’m not so into the bright blue apple logo (don’t mind the spotlight one for some reason), but the graphite setting makes my scrollbars grey, and that just won’t do!

Update #2:

- turns out the “can’t type in stickies” thing is an intermittent bug

Update #3 – the next day

- ok, widgets are cool, but dashboard is a pain!

For example, I want to upload a photo to flickr. I have to start dragging the file, click on F12 (to bring up dashboard), drop it in the flickr widget if it’s open in dashboard (otherwise, have to open it and start again). Not hard, but I really wish I could just leave the widget on my desktop and just drop the photos in.

I don’t like that dashboard is always running and using system resources. I just downloaded Amnesty Widget Browser. Widgets loaded in Amnesty run completely independent of dashboard. So far, it is doing exactlly what I hoped it would. It creates a menu bar menu that gives you a choice of which widgets you want open, and several ways to display them.

Update #4

- spoke too soon about retiring Quicksilver! Spotlight is very cool for a lot of things, but Quicksilver does the job of a launcher way better/faster than spotlight.

- flickr widget is buggy in Amnesty and I have no idea what to do w/the versiontracker widget

RANT: I am trying to use ical, since I’ve pretty much made the switch to mail2 and address book (from entourage), but it’s hard not to hate it. Entourage calendar imported as one calendar, so no categories were transferred. Not so hard to fix, but not what I felt like doing either. The only reason I’m even trying to switch is because it opens so much faster than entourage and my calendar needs are relatively basic. I think I can adapt, but ‘the drawer’ may be more than I can handle. I hate the drawer! And I would be greatly indebted to anyone who can show me how to remove the whole calendar list/minical/notifications pane on the left side from view.

Update #5 – Utilities – 5/8/2005

- OnyX does not yet have Tiger compatible version. Older versions will not work.
- There is a Tiger update for TinkerTool
- MemoryStick 1.3.4 works fine w/Tiger
- macjanitor 1.2.1 also fine w/Tiger
- Cache Out X – 4.0.1 – broken in Tiger. No update yet.

Amnesty Widget Browser update… There are a few bugs still, but the developers seem to be fixing them almost as fast as they are discovered, so keep checking for updates. I sent a bug report this morning about color picker and flidet, and got a response in under an hour. I haven’t had a chance to try flidget in the new version (0.60b as of today) because flickr has been down since I woke up.

Update #6 – Widget Manager

- Just downloaded Widget Manager. It’s a preference pane that allows you to inspect, remove, and disable dashboard widgets. Very handy! Thanks to Randy at ebmug for the tip.

Update #7 – maybe the dashboard’s not so bad…

- I’m starting to like the dashboard for certain widgets; things like weather, calculator, etc. It’s nice to be able to just pop it up and down easily. I’m still using Amnesty for widgets that require more complicated interaction, like fliget (still buggy in amnesty, but works fine through dashboard).

Update #8 – 5/27/05

- iCal helper (whatever that is) wants my password all the freakin’ time! May have something to do w/syncing, but I can’t really see any pattern, logic, rhyme, reason, or external explanation of why it is happening. Searching the net, including apple support forums bring me only the knowledge that I am not alone with this problem, but no solution. So far, this is the most annoying thing since installing Tiger. Other than that, I have come to love dashboard, appreciate Mail 2 even more, and tolerate iCal a little better aside from the password thing.

Update #9 – 8/18/05

Tiger is close to perfect now. After a clean reinstall and adding apps back manually, a few updates from apple, and tiger compatible versions of other software, tiger is running clean and fast. I use dashboard all the time, especially for the calculator, but also for BART schedules, address book, dictionary, and a bunch of other useful things. Spotlight can still use a little more work, especially in making it not index my external backup drive when I plug it in, and staying more current on my internal hd. Still it works amazingly fast in Mail, and is also very fast at finding the items on my hd that it has already indexed.

Update #10 – 12/21/05

I am still loving Tiger, but there have been some annoyances since the 10.4.3 update.

Mail was crashing and freezing a lot until I disabled rules created with mail ‘act on’. I haven’t checked to see if there is a newer version that is compatible w/10.4.3. I also disabled the junk matcher ‘extension’ that I found somewhere on the web. It is actually just a rule, very similar to the built in junk filter. I don’t miss it at all, and have edited the regular junk rule to do what junk matcher used to do. Mail does not crash anymore.

I haven’t used Amnesty widget browser in a long time, and haven’t missed it either.

I switched to ‘Cocktail’ for maintenance. It was too confusing using 5 different apps to get things done. SuperDuper! released a new version which is even more excellent than the first version. Both apps run fine even after 10.4.3 update.

Random problems with Firefox 1.5, but I don’t think I can blame that on Tiger. I am also suddenly getting error messages when I open Safari that simbl (latest version) is not compatible w/safari v2.2. No idea if that is tiger related or not, but it is annoying.

Things seem to be moving slower in general since the 10.4.3 update. I am hoping this will be fixed in 10.4.4. From what I have read, other people are having even worse problems w/10.4.3, like not being able to connect to wireless networks with airport, or having very slow connections. My connection seems slower in firefox, but is still speedy in Safari.

Spotlight seems to be finding more than it used to, and it is finally following my instructions that both partitions on my external drive are ‘private’ and should not be indexed every time I plug it in!

Update #11 – 1/15/06 – 10.4.4 update

I updated to 10.4.4 about a week ago, and as of now there are no problems. The upgrade was smooth and all problems from 10.4.3 seem to have been fixed. I re-enabled Mail Act-On, but haven’t used it enough yet to see if there are still problems. So far, so good.

Switched to G4 optimized version of Firefox 1.5 and still having the random script errors as I was in regular firefox. It is noticeably faster than regular Firefox 1.5.

Uninstalling SIMBL fixed Safari problems. That would be a crappy solution if I was using Safari as my main browser, but it is no big deal since I’m not.

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Other things:

• Set vertical and horizontal scrolling to edges of trackpad. You can also control the size of the area on the pad that is used for scrolling.
• Set trackpad button to either regular click or ctrl-click (right-click)
• Set each corner of the trackpad to a different mouse button or keystroke combination. For example: I have bottom left corner set to ctrl-click, bottom right corner set to ‘hide’, top left to ‘back’, and top right to ‘forward’. Very handy.
• Custom settings for applications.

Requires OS X 10.2 or higher.

Shareware – 30 day free trial. $15 to register.

Some people have experienced the ‘cursor freezes on wake from sleep’ bug. So far, I’ve only had one problem. After installing 10.3.8 OS update and turning off computer, cursor was frozen when I turned it back on. I had to turn it off, and back on. Since then, all is good, but I haven’t turned my computer off again since then.

Side Track does seem buggy at times, but still worth using, even w/the bugs. Messing with the settings can help some (or make things worse!).

It may take some time to get used to using it, but if you have any frustraton at all with the regular trackpad, side track may fix things, as well as adding a bunch of other very useful features.

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