macOS Archive

A Quick Look at the ‘Advanced Mac OS X Programming’ Book

Eugenia Loli 2005-11-03 macOS 16 Comments

More than 2 years ago we reviewed the excellent "Core Mac OS X and Unix Programming" book. Now, a new edition has been released and it's renamed to "Advanced Mac OS X Programming". We take a quick look as to what has changed since the first edition.

Submitted by Ralf. 2005-10-31 macOS 80 Comments

Apple has released Mac OS 10.4.3. This update weighs around 100MB and includes fixes for AFP/SMB/CIFS/FTP, AirPort/BlueTooth, Core Graphics/Audio/Image, Spotlight, Address Book, AppleScript, Automator, Safari (it now passes the Acid2 test), and much, much more. The update is available via Software Update, or as stand-alone packages (delta|combo).

Mac OS X 10.4.3 Release Imminent

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-25 macOS 93 Comments

Mac OS X 10.4.3 will weigh in at around 100MB and include more than 550 fixes and improvements, although unconfirmed reports have pegged this number at more than 1,000 when smaller, undocumented changes are included in the count. The latest seed added tweaks to CoreGraphics, CoreImage, and OpenGL, as well as iChat and WebKit, among other improvements.

Robin Williams Introduces You to Mac OS X

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-23 macOS 45 Comments

Tiger is the latest and greatest version of the Mac OS X operating system. But even though it's the latest and greatest, it's still Mac OS X. In this chapter, you'll become familiar with Mac basics as author Robin Williams shows you how to use the Finder, Dock, contextual menus, and keyboard shortcuts.

Understanding Xcode Projects; Other OSX Dev Articles

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-21 macOS 16 Comments

In Xcode, projects organize files and resources used to build a software product. Read this article to learn how Xcode handles projects and how best to work with them. Other recently posted dev articles include "Introduction to AGL Programming Guide", "Introduction to Bonjour", "Writing PCI Drivers".

Multicast ASR: The Fastest Way to Manage Mac OS X Deployments

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-20 macOS 11 Comments

Think installing Mac OS X and a suite of applications, documents, and settings on a single Mac takes all day? Imagine doing it on ten or a hundred or a thousand Macs! Fortunately, tools like Apple Software Restore and NetInstall have allowed administrators to do it a little bit faster, and now Apple has provided an even more amazing tool that gives administrators the ability to roll out hundreds of custom Mac OS X installs in a couple of hours!

What Is Quartz?

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-12 macOS 11 Comments

"Quartz is the heart and soul of Mac OS X's graphics layer, which directly supports the defining features of the Aqua desktop experience. Quartz is largely based upon Adobe's PDF specification, but it has roots tracing all the way back to PostScript. The two defining components of Quartz are Quartz Compositor and Quartz 2D. Tiger introduced Quartz 2D Extreme and Quartz Composer, an alternative way to explore the power of Quartz through a powerful visual programming environment."

Understanding Xcode Projects

Submitted by Hakime Seddik 2005-10-11 macOS 5 Comments

"Xcode is a powerful professional tool that allows you to perform the most common software development tasks simply, quickly, and in a way that should be familiar. Its capabilities, however, are much more powerful than what is needed to build just a single type of application. Xcode is designed to let you build any kind of software product you can dream of. From Cocoa and Carbon applications to kernel extensions and Spotlight importers, Xcode is up to the task."

Core Data as a Cheap Database

Submitted by Hakime Seddik 2005-10-10 macOS 5 Comments

"Is there any trivial way to use Core Data? What is the most lightweight way to have a database on a Mac? If I wanted to write an application that needed db capabilities, what options do I have that don't require the user to install mysql and set it up on their own? Core Data is easy enough for non-programmers to handle a basic database with."

SpotMeta Lets Spotlight Users Add Metadata

Submitted by G.S. 2005-10-10 macOS 4 Comments

Spotlight is a rather neat feature once you get beyond the simple text search interface and use the more advanced search in the Finder. However, Apple don't allow users to add their own metadata to files, so you're limited to searching for data which exists within the files and is exposed by the importers. Ben Summers did some investigation and worked out how to add arbitrary and independent metadata to the Spotlight store.

An Embedded View of the Mac Mini: Working with USB

Submitted by anonymous 2005-10-05 macOS No Comments

"This installment takes a fairly detailed look at USB drivers. The primary application is of course the Mac OS X driver architecture, but the test program I used was actually developed in parallel on Mac OS X and NetBSD."

Installing Fink on Mac OS X

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-05 macOS 11 Comments

At its heart, Mac OS X is a Unix operating system. This means that plenty of Unix open source software compiles and runs on it. However, compiling software can be tedious, especially if it has many dependencies, or if it hasn't been tested on Mac OS X. You have to perform the usual configure/make/make install process and hope it all works fine. Maybe you have to tamper with the makefile or even the source code. Moreover, you'll need to make sure all libraries used by the software are installed. Here is where Fink comes in.

Unsolved Language Error Haunts Tiger

Submitted by Anonymous linguist 2005-10-04 macOS 10 Comments

"Many languages that worked flawlessly in Panther do not work in Tiger, due to an ill-conceived attempt at better cross-platform font support. For the first time in a decade, Windows is actually ahead of the Mac in supporting complex typography and Asian languages."

Taking Advantage of the Accelerate Framework

Submitted by Hakime Seddik 2005-10-04 macOS No Comments

If your application is computationally intensive, you need to know about the Accelerate framework. The Accelerate framework is a set of libraries containing high-performance vector-accelerated libraries that run on PowerPC-based Macintosh computers and Intel-based Macintosh computers. Using the framework can be advantageous, in terms of code maintenance and reliability across the architectures.

Mac OS X 10.4.3 Includes Over 500 Fixes, Due This Month

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-02 macOS 38 Comments

Another pre-release build of Mac OS X 10.4.3 was among the software seeds reportedly released by . Now at build 8F31, the third maintenance release to Tiger is is approaching 110MB in size and includes well over 500 minor fixes and enhancements. The frequency in which Apple has released new builds of the update indicates that a release is on tap for the first half of October.

Scoping Your Transition Projects

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-01 macOS 7 Comments

Read this article to determine your transition path and learn what you’ll need to do to make your application ready for Intel-based Macintosh computers.

Submitted by kellym 2005-09-19 macOS 13 Comments

"I find Tiger to be a good release in terms of its stability and some of the new features that it offers but I don’t think it is as much of an upgrade as Panther was. Gaming performance under Tiger seems better, but not much, while other parts of the system seem more sluggish." Read the review here.

Apple Bolsters Mac OS X for Intel Development Efforts

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-14 macOS 16 Comments

The new Developer Transition Resource Center is targeted at developers who have been tasked with moving their applications to Apple's forthcoming Intel-based Macs, scheduled for release in 2006. The site ties together topics, resources and tutorials, some of which were previously available on other parts of Apple's site, including QuickTime archives of WWDC sessions. In addition, Apple today updated its Xserve RAID storage system, a 3U high-availability, rack storage system to deliver a massive 7 terabytes of storage capacity at an aggressive price of just $1.86 per GB.

The Many Faces of OS X

Submitted by Jonathan Hohle 2005-09-09 macOS 58 Comments

"Until yesterday, there were 4 different variations of the Aqua theme used by Apple for OS X: the standard Aqua theme, the new Platinum theme, the much distained Brushed Metal theme, and the funky Woody theme. Commentators have pointed out on more then one occasion that while Apple's Human Interface Guidelines has guidelines for which theme to use where, even Apple disregards those rules and uses whatever theme some unknown source in the company chooses."

Nifty Utilities to Hack Mac OS X Tiger

Submitted by Jeremy 2005-08-26 macOS 23 Comments

An excerpt fom the book "Nifty Utilities to Hack Mac OS X Tiger" has an overview of OS X apps like TinkerTool, Carbon Copy Cloner, BatChmod, Memory stick, and others, that help you tweak apps like Safari, adjust and monitor memory status, bring the world of Unix file ownership and permissions over to the Mac, and more.