Apple have always built stellar hardware, but...

[jsbowden]

I have found a fatal flaw. I have no serial port. This is a problem. A big one.

I live and die on machines and appliances whose only way to talk when they are in trouble or have yet to be configured is via rs232. Routers, firewalls, high end Sun and SGI hardware...all of them have a network connection and a serial console. I normally use one of the rs232 <-> cat5 converters that Sun, Juniper and Cisco ship in every box (so I have far too many) to run the console to the quad cat5 block in my office, and convert back to 9pin serial there, which conveniently plugs into my laptop. Even if the Mac had a serial port, there's no application to actually talk to it. I could compile Seyon (my personal favorite X based terminal emulator) except for that pesky lack of serial device entries for it to connect to, but it's far easier to just drop the laptop into FreeBSD and use cu (cli) or Seyon (gui).

A major failing of OS X that's really starting to grate on my nerves is the lack of focus follows mouse. Windows doesn't do this by default, but installing XP Powertoys gives me the option (which I take full advantage of). There are many times when I need the window I'm reading to be on top, but not be the focus so I can type in another window simultaneously. If any of my fanbase who are Mac users have a suggestion on how to do this, I'm all ears.

And why am I posting about this? Because I'm at work today, upgrading our primary NIS/NFS/DNS/SMTP/HTTP/SMB/NTP/etc. Unix server. I could do that during normal hours, but I suspect the rest of the unix boxes being lumps of expensive silicon when people are trying to work wouldn't go over very well.

Comments

[sungo.livejournal.com]

there are a few addons to osx that should give you focus follows mouse. CodeTek's Virtual Desktop for instance. (I recommend the old free version that does FFM and doesn't require a payout.) There is also a hidden setting for Terminal.app that will allow FFM apart from any add-on. (Why only Terminal has ffm and not anything else is beyond me)

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

The newer versions have 'improved ffm' which means the older version has issues. What I really want is something from Apple in the vein of MS's TweakUI. I have absolutely no doubt that Apple would never release such a beast, since they are the ultimate UI fascist, but it would be nice, damnit.

[sungo.livejournal.com]

codetek always says that. i used virtualdesktop back a few years ago and ffm was just fine even then. especially if i just activated ffm but not the rest of virtualdesktop's crap.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Won't a serial USB cable work for console use?

[paoconnell.livejournal.com]

That's what I was about to suggest, as I have a USB-RS232 conversion cable for my Windows laptop just for that purpose (serial interface for my Celestron Nexstar telescope). The issue would be a need for a Mac driver for the cable.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

http://www.keyspan.com/support/macosx/usa/

[kjn]

An option to the serial-USB-converter is the stealth serial port.

It replaces the built-in modem (no great loss) and you'll get the old mini-DIN8-connector that was used in previous Macs.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

A major failing of OS X that's really starting to grate on my nerves is the lack of focus follows mouse

After getting used to that on X for about two years, the first time I tried to use an x-windows program on Windows in front of a teacher I actually forgot myself enough to swear. Majorly irritating.

What is this XP Powertoys of which you speak? If it's free or not too expensive, it sounds intriguing.

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

TeakUI is the one you're looking for, and yeah, they is free.

[kjn]

Copied from Mac OS X for Astrophysicists":

"Focus follows mouse
If you use quartz-wm then try at the command line the following:
'defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm -bool true' to get focus-follows-mouse in your X windows.
'defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_click_through -bool true' to disable the way that a click will activate a window but not pass the click itself through to the application underneath.
Want it in Mac OS X itself? Have a look at Codetek Virtual Desktop linked above. Also, the Terminal program has an option for this, enabled with 'defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse -string YES' and disabled with 'defaults delete com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse'. It might be a bad idea to extend it to OS X applications generally since you'll inevitably want to use the menubar at the top at some point, and you could easily end up switching application en route!"

I think they raise a good point with their last remark, but it should be possible to handle with good UI design (basically, the pointer has to be stationary for a short time).