I think I mentioned below that the OS X Finder creates Classic Mac OS-style aliases by default. I also mentioned that you can create Unix symlinks and that the OS X Finder treats them like aliases. From the command line, however, Classic Mac OS aliases just look like files, not like symlinks. I booted back into OS 9.1 the other day—surprise, the Classic Mac Finder sees symlinks as just plain old files, not like aliases at all.
The big news is that I got a G4 Cube. It arrived yesterday. I am so far liking it very very much. Admittedly, the extent of my use so far has been:
- plugging it into a cable modem
- downloading NiftyTelnet SSH so I'll be able to read my email until I transfer all my Eudora mailboxes over
- downloading all the various updates to the system (I purchased it refurbished—the keyboard and mouse were brand spanking new; the assorted cables that it came with were in good condition; the speakers look fabulous and sound almost as good; the Mac itself only came with Mac OS 9, which is interesting because Mac OS 9.1 was released six months ago. That means, of course, that this is actually a pretty old computer. One hopes that it spent most of its time sitting on the shelf in a warehouse and not in actual use) which took a while (the 9.1 update by itself is 70 MB).
- installing Oni, breezing through the first two levels and promptly getting my ass kicked at the beginning of the third level.
The Cube is a really quiet computer. I like that a lot. It'll be on, and I'll walk right on by, not even noticing that it's on. Which is pretty impressive, particularly considering that right now it's in the middle of my living room floor.
I still need to buy a few gadgets for it—a USB hub, a USB-serial converter for my printer, and the like. But so far, I'm giving it an enthusiastic two thumbs up.
Now all I gotta do it put X on it...
Site update:
- Reduced the default text sizes one point. This site is rather copy-intensive, and I seem to suffer from logorrhea a wee bit, so making the typefaces slightly smaller will fit more text on the page at once.
- Installed, after a little mucking about, ispell on OS X. I now have spell-checking on all appropriate systems. The key, if anyone's interested, is that OS X's brand of Unix doesn't have /usr/local/lib (in fact, there's nothing in /usr/local). All the stuff that you'd expect to find in /usr/local/lib now lives in /usr/share instead. You also need to download the developer tools, if you don't already have them.
- Still need to migrate the rest of the old pages over as well as insert a placeholder for the writing page.