What utilities will Tiger kill?

[mkrishnan]

Windows XP (Home and Pro) has a built-in zip compression and decompression utility.

Good.... My department owns WinZip licenses, of course, but for some reason, all of their machines are imaged with god-awfully old versions of WinZip that are not licensed. And so you keep getting these insanely annoying messages to buy it, to not use the version installed because it's too old, blah, blah, blah.

 

[taeclee99]

Dashboard is a separate environment in itself (you have to hit a hot key to access it). Once you hit the assigned key, dashboard widgets appear and the rest of the desktop is grayed out. I think Konfabulator is much better than Dashboard because of this reason. I will continue to use Konfabulator because you can access it's widgets directly on the desktop. I don't see why Apple chose to implement Dashboard separate from the main desktop? It makes no sense in my opinion.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Dashboard is a separate environment in itself (you have to hit a hot key to access it). Once you hit the assigned key, dashboard widgets appear and the rest of the desktop is grayed out. I think Konfabulator is much better than Dashboard because of this reason. I will continue to use Konfabulator because you can access it's widgets directly on the desktop. I don't see why Apple chose to implement Dashboard separate from the main desktop? It makes no sense in my opinion.

The reason is this: like Steve Jobs said in the keynote, most of the time you don't need the widgets, and they just get in the way at those times. Bring up Dashboard, check your widgets, then send them away so they don't distract you from your real work.

 

[Dr. Dastardly]

The reason is this: like Steve Jobs said in the keynote, most of the time you don't need the widgets, and they just get in the way at those times. Bring up Dashboard, check your widgets, then send them away so they don't distract you from your real work.

This was the biggest reason why I didn't get Konfabulator. Just wanted to check something and go and not get in the way of anything else. Basically wanted it more of a convient tool like how Dashboard will be then to make my desktop look nifty.

 

[Mechcozmo]

Mechcozmo, I had no clue that .sitx files could compress so much! What kind of things were you compressing that made up those large files?

I was compressing my Garageband loops because my friend had managed to do something to them that caused them to disappear. Garageband was fine-- just couldn't do anything in it.

1.8GB compressed to ~700MB IIRC. Made it a lot easier to transfer to him. (Send over the internet by connecting to his IP, etc.)

 

[Mechcozmo]

The earlier trackpads are different of course and not all of them have the ability to scroll using the trackpad. I've been using the iScroll2 on my PowerBook without issues. The iScroll2 website has a page on how to tell if your iBook/PowerBook can do two finger scrolling.

I don't know if Apple themselves will implement a driver similar to iScroll2 or not. I just hope that it (iScroll2) gets updated for Tiger asap.

This is a great program... I can't believe NOT having it! It works great. Its a lot of fun to show off to your Wintell buddies.

 

[mkrishnan]

This is a great program... I can't believe NOT having it! It works great. Its a lot of fun to show off to your Wintell buddies.

So you find iScroll to be more intuitive than Sidetrack / Windows-style scrolling? Hmmm...maybe I'll have to try it. The idea of the rotary scroll being continuous, and not having to pick my finger and go back to the top of the trackpad does sound nice.

 

[x86isslow]

Tiger does not break Sidetrack, at least on my Powerbook

 

[mkrishnan]

Tiger does not break Sidetrack, at least on my Powerbook

So basically, just disable it, install Tiger, and then re-install it? *twiddles thumbs evilly* Excellent.

 

[nina]

Did you even disable SideTrack? I've been using it for so long, I didn't even think about disabling/uninstalling it!

I'm putting Tiger on my 12" PowerBook tonight.

 

[x86isslow]

nevermind

 

[Stewie]

This was the biggest reason why I didn't get Konfabulator. Just wanted to check something and go and not get in the way of anything else. Basically wanted it more of a convient tool like how Dashboard will be then to make my desktop look nifty.

But with Konfabulator you have the best of both. You can have it always display your widgets or only bring them up with some special key combination or mix and match the two.

 

[Mechcozmo]

So you find iScroll to be more intuitive than Sidetrack / Windows-style scrolling? Hmmm...maybe I'll have to try it. The idea of the rotary scroll being continuous, and not having to pick my finger and go back to the top of the trackpad does sound nice.

Yeah, I hate having to get my fingers 'just-right' to have it scroll, and with my 12" trackpad I don't have a lot of room to dedicate to scrolling. The two-finger scrolling just works, and leave me with all my trackpad space.

Plus, you can have it so if you have 2 fingers on the trackpad, you right-click. Its just so nice...

 

[mkrishnan]

Plus, you can have it so if you have 2 fingers on the trackpad, you right-click. Its just so nice...

This part does sound nice. I've found corner tapping on my 12"-ers trackpad to be problematic at best. Hmmm, maybe I'll give it a try! Thanks, as always, for your insight, my friend!

Hmmm...now...should I try uninstalling S/T and installing this now, so that if I don't like it, I don't have to install it on my clean copy of Tiger (well, archive and install without transferring users or preferences - just leaving the files for me to mine in previous systems). Hmmm...*gets lost in obsessive thoughts, absentmindedly paces, walks into wall, falls over*

 

[Lacero]

Once you hit the assigned key, dashboard widgets appear and the rest of the desktop is grayed out. I think Konfabulator is much better than Dashboard because of this reason. I will continue to use Konfabulator because you can access it's widgets directly on the desktop.

You don't have to continue using Konfabulator. You can use Dashboard widgets directly on the main desktop. Here's calculator being placed on the desktop. Second pic shows it in use.

 

[x86isslow]

hey lacero, how are you doing that? i can't see any useful options in dashboard preferences.

 

[Lacero]

Press F-12 again while holding the widget as you drop it on the desktop.

 

[aswitcher]

Press F-12 again while holding the widget as you drop it on the desktop.

Thanks. Will be needing this next week

 

[MacSA]

Press F-12 again while holding the widget as you drop it on the desktop.

I always had the impression that you could only use these widgets when dashboard came up and with the desktop greyed out and not accessable?

So you can have any widget you want remain on the dekstop when dashboard disappears?

Could you explain how this works a little more, and also how you close the widget? Thanks

 

[bluesloth]

Press F-12 again while holding the widget as you drop it on the desktop.

It cool how it works. Could come in handy. Trouble is, at least for me, is that it returns to the Dashboard layer the next time Dashboard is used. Hopefully someone will be able to create a hack that will keep it there until dismissed.

 

[mnkeybsness]

I can't get the widgets to be able to use outside of the actual dashboard 'screen'. is there any true documentation on this?

 

[ravenvii]

It cool how it works. Could come in handy. Trouble is, at least for me, is that it returns to the Dashboard layer the next time Dashboard is used. Hopefully someone will be able to create a hack that will keep it there until dismissed.

So you can't actually have more than one widget on the desktop at once? Since you have to go back to the dashboard to grab another widget... That seems weird.

 

[Flying Llama]

You know, that dashboard trick Lacero showed us is probably a bug instead of a feature, I'm pretty sure apple didn't even notice that soon enough, maybe they'll add that compatibility in a future 10.4.? update, or just remove it completely.

 

[Westside guy]

WinSwitch

Looks like WinSwitch will be obsolete, since Tiger's fast user switching allows you to use an icon instead of account long names. But I'm guessing the developer will likely be pleased that they're doing this - most freeware developers seem to be driven by necessity rather than opportunity.

 

[Lacero]

It cool how it works. Could come in handy. Trouble is, at least for me, is that it returns to the Dashboard layer the next time Dashboard is used. Hopefully someone will be able to create a hack that will keep it there until dismissed.

I was able to get it two work with 2 or more widgets without the first one being pushed back into the Dashboard background. Here's a weather widget being placed on the main desktop. And the second pic shows the weather in NY, NY.