Mokka mit Schlag » Mac

When I first started speaking at the Software Development conference in 1997, I lugged my PowerBook 5300c with me. Typically this was one of maybe two Macs to be found anywhere at the show. After the first year or two, it was usually the only Mac at that or any other show I attended.

When I started talking about XML, my PowerBook was no longer capable of running enough software to support the talk. The Java VM was atrocious and years behind what was available for Windows or Unix. Much XML software didn’t run at all. At first, when I spoke at a show, I made sure a PC was set up for me; and I’d load my presentation onto it from a CD. Then around 2000 I bought a Dell Latitude LS laptop that served me for the next few years. At this point, there were usually no Macs to be seen anywhere at any show. The presenters didn’t use them. The exhibitors didn’t use them. The attendees didn’t use them.
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Unison didn’t take long to rule itself out. It’s essentially a command line application with a weak GUI shell, and full of errors like these:

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What software are people using for designing book covers these days? Right now I’m using Adobe Illustrator 9 for Mac OS 9, but that’s not going to last for very much longer, since I’ll probably upgrade my main system to an Intel Mac that won’t run Classic in the new year. Should I just upgrade to the latest version of Illustrator or should I look at something else?
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Watching yesterday’s Steve Jobs keynote at WWDC, the thing that really surprised me was Time Machine. Where has this been all my life? I am curious about some of the tech details. For instance, does it store diffs like CVS or only entire files? How do I securely delete something? Can I exclude large files I don’t want to back up to save space? (Update: Yes.) Can I specify redundant backups across multiple hard drives and network connections? Are the backups compressed? Can you backup to removable media? Is a .Mac subscription required? Will this backup system files or just home directories? (Update: Yes.) Will it create bootable backups? Do different file types require custom support, as with .Mac Sync? Can I back up network clients too? But overall these are only things a geek would think of and half of them only a geek would care about.

I wasn’t so impressed when I just heard about Time Machine, but when I actually saw it I was astonished. What surprised me was the user interface. This is decades beyond any other backup program I’ve ever seen. Once again, Apple threw out conventional thinking and designed something that’s actually easy to use. I don’t think other backup programs have changed in any significant way in the last 15 years. Why is only Apple able to think of things like this?

It sometimes amazing to me the products that don’t exist. All I’m looking for is a simple program that will allow me to bidirectionally sync my desktop Mac to my PowerBook over the network while excluding a few large folders. My PowerBook drive is quite a bit smaller than my desktop drive and I don’t want to carry around my entire music library. Near as I can tell there is nothing out there that will do this.
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Here’s something I just figured out a year+ too late. If you’re using Apple Mail (at least in version 2.0, but probably others as well) to access an IMAP server for a Unix account with shell access, it will treat your home directory (i.e. ~) as the mail folder. This is almost always wrong. It may work for mail only accounts, but regular shell accounts usually place the mail somewhere else; for instance in ~/mail.

To tell Apple Mail where the mail folder is, place the relative path to the mail folder (starting fromn your home directory) in the Advanced tab of the Accounts pane of the Preferences dialog:
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