As a “power” user in need of productivity tools in 3D and game development, I am still waiting for an up to date graphics card update option to my 2008 Mac Pro. The overpriced Quadro 4800 is not really an option and the Radeon 5780 is still not available for purchase.

In terms of OS X, there are some issues that needs to be addressed. When changing the association of all files of a certain type to be opened by a specific application, it will only be valid for the currently existing files on the system. As soon as another file is added/downloaded, it might have some other application associated with it. Can I please have a more Windows like file association? Not by file extension though, but by actual file/mime type. I am fed up of having the most recently installed app hijacking any file types it want to. I have tried RCDefaultApp, but it just doesn’t work as “advertised”.

Next issue that needs to be fixed is Spotlight. When I search the system for files of a certain file size, Spotlight does not allow for displaying the file size next to the name and date in the listing. I have to Cmd+I click each of them or check their size. Why oh why?

Fix these first, then you can get back to implementing iOS features in OS X.

WARNING! Awesomeness ahead!

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11178910&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

You can download my ControllerMate setup if you feel like.

Cross-platform software toolkits have never — ever — produced top-notch native apps for Apple platforms. Not for the classic Mac OS, not for Mac OS X, and not for iPhone OS. Such apps generally have been downright crummy. On the other hand, perhaps iPhone users will be missing out on good apps that would have been released if not for this rule, but won’t now. I don’t think iPhone OS users are going to miss the sort of apps these cross-platform toolkits produce, though.

http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_apple_changed_section_331

What the heck? So these games are bad and no one would miss them if pulled off the App Store?

http://www.youtube.com/v/pvfVDczQXOY&hl=en_US&fs=1&

http://www.youtube.com/v/xrDW5Dh3pCU&hl=en_US&fs=1&

I don’t think its even a necessary to tell why these falsifies the statement of John Gruber. Unity games have many times over been in the top 10 of popular games, and Zombieville USA is constantly high on the lists, bobbing up and down in the top 100.

Now onto the reason of why this even matters to me. The reason I got a Mac in the first place was Unity, before it was released on Windows as well. First I got a Mac Mini to get rolling with Unity. Later on I got a MacPro 8 core xeon, early 2008 model, a really good deal at the time, unlike the more recent ones. Then I got a Macbook Pro for working on the go and use in meetings. I also applied to become an iPhone developer, got the Unity for iPhone license, got an iPod touch 2nd gen and later a 1st gen for testing. Finally I also got an iPhone 3GS.

Unity turned me into a Mac user. I started to like the system for its underlying BSD foundations, general stability, apps such as Quicksilver and other small clever tools, not having any of the system rotting I have experienced in Windows ( that said, I have been told that its a thing of the past with Windows 7 ). I set up LightWave on my Mac, got the Mac versions of any and all plugins I have purchased earlier, got a Mac license of NukeX and have now been considering to get Final Cut Pro.

If the final word in this situation is that Unity will not be allowed for use as a dev tool for iPhone, iPod, and iPad, then I will most likely end up migrating back to Windows, as I have realized, I am not as much a Mac user as a Unity user and developer. If I am a follower of any sort of technology, its of Unity, and not Apple. The quality of Apple products is good, but if this Apple-Adobe pissing contest will cause too much turmoil in my toolbox then I am a outta here…  I hope and cross fingers that the widespread interpretation of the recent legal changes turns out to be mostly smoke and little fire. One good thing from all of this is that it has reminded me not to put all my eggs in one basket, hence why I offer interface design, VFX workflow tools, web and graphic design, rendered and realtime 3D for industrial visualization, game design and prototyping.

The best thing for now is to wait for official word from Unity, not listen to rumors or interpretations and go back to GSD (Get Shit Done).

Then in Quicksilver, make whatever shortcut you want the “regular” way of launching it, and at the same time set Modifier-only Activation > Double > Option

You don’t want to launch Quicksilver each time the option key is pressed, therefor the setting is Double instead of Single. Whenever you now double tap the caps lock or the actual option key, Quicksilver will come up.

http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/

I came across this media server solution for connecting up my Mac to the PS3, no more need for USB sticks or being annoyed by a lack of format support i.e. QuickTime… This media server plays everything, even stuff that other commercial solutions don’t support.

There was some issues with setting it up though and it can be summed up with one thing. Port forwarding. To make sure the Mac finds the PS3 and vice versa, I had to set up port forwarding in my router. So, I changed the IP on my Mac to be static, and then I went into the web-interface for the router and forwarded all communication on port 5001 to that IP.

Since I am on a Mac Pro, I have two connections on the network card, shown as Ethernet 1 and Ethernet 2 in the Network Preferences. Under the hood these values are shown as en0 and en1, so for the PS3 Media Server to know which one to use, you should select it here here: General Configuration > Force network on interface > en0 (or en1) > Save > Restart HTTP Server, and you should be ready to go.