E-Maculation News: August 2004

Anonymous writes “Hey Guys…

Just wanted to give you a heads up that I have posted a new tutorial on PearPC/Active Directory integration (BTW, I love the headline on the last update about my site

Marc Hoffman

http://os-emulation.net/pearpc/web.”

— ClockWise, August 3, 2004

Reliable sources (har har) indicate an official .3 release of PearPC will soon be available.

— ClockWise, August 11, 2004

I neglected to mention it when it happened (since I've been out of the skinning loop), but our comrades over at Aqua Soft have a great new website design. Check it out. Also, The Duck is looking trendy as all get out!

— ClockWise, August 14, 2004

An official release of PearPC 0.3.0 has been made. Download at the official site.

The prose description of changes goes like this:

“The most important change of this release are the accurate timing facilities which made PearPC faster and allowed us to implement idle-sleep. So PearPC no longer consumes CPU time when the client is idle. Other changes a an SDL port (faster graphics), full screen support for Win32 and SDL and of course a lot of optimizations.”

The changelog is over here.

Forum thread, if you want one, is over here.

Show your appreciation for the new release by making a five dollar donation over here.

Bob McGee has updated his “PearGUI” program to be compatible with the newest release. Snag the program over here. The pertinent forum thread is over here.

Additionally, you might want to check out this surprisingly awesome William Shatner/Joe Jackson song from Shatner's new album.

— ClockWise, August 17, 2004

Anonymous writes “Object Dock Version 1.04 Has Been Released Check it out at Stardock.com.

More Dockstyle Lovin' on a grand scale!”

— August 19, 2004

I've been a little distracted, so missed the coolest part of the ObjectDock release: ObjectDock PLUS!

This enhanced version of the Dock sports additional features and customizations, the most important being the addition of tabbed docks.

ObjectDesktop subscribers will notice the program is similar in function to Stardock's circa 1996 application “Tab Launchpad,” which originated in the company's OS/2 ObjectDesktop suite.

Of course, the functionality of the dock is much different than that old application, and even the freeware release. Particularly noticeable are the “Fly-out menus” of the new dock.

I spoke to developer Jeff Bargmann, who indicated that he plans to momentarily pause development of the Dock to focus on development of the 2.0 release of Objectbar. When this is completed, he hopes to add new features to the new dock release.

The Plus release is available for sale at the official site. The program costs $19.95 USD, and is available at a discounted price of $14.95 for ObjectDesktop subscribers.

— ClockWise, August 21, 2004

PearGUI saw a minor update since that .3 release already mentioned here. You really ought to download it.

Meanwhile, the “DMG2ISO” converter tool now has a neato front-end. Get it over here.

— ClockWise, August 22, 2004

Little update to the program changelog:

• (Win32) fixed: '`'/'~' key wasn't mapped
• (SDL) fixed: right-alt was mapped to left-alt
• fixed: German '<>|' key wasn't mapped
• JITC_X86: corrected tw/twi instructions (should fix java native IO calls fail)
• fixed: rfi instruction (should also fix java native IO calls fail)
• fixed: some mysterious partition mappings in src/io/prom/fs/hfsplus/partition.c
• (BEOS) updated
• disabled unused keyboard shortcuts

Talk about it over here.

— ClockWise, August 24, 2004

A fellow named “chelios” just made available a little application for PearPC called “KwaiStub.” He says of the program:

“What KwaiStub does is remove the need to keep the command box with the console open all the time you're running PearPC. It's very small (80KB) and in my debugging it's actually made PPC start a little quicker…”

Download link and pertinent forum thread over here.

— ClockWise, August 24, 2004

File this one in the “so simple it's fucking brilliant” drawer:

“I know… Yet another PearPC GUI… although this one doesn't have all those fancy wizards and crap like that, its strictly for ppl who know what they are doing.

PPC_CFE is just a text editor that opens up the config file so you don't have to open up notepad to edit it.”

Download link and chit-chat area is over here.

— ClockWise, August 30, 2004

Just wanna highlight the ObjectDock area at Aqua Soft.

The pertinent forum folder has a lot of good stuff. The bug report thread has some nice stuff, including some comments from Jeff Bargmann. Aficionados will certainly appreciate this comment:

“ObjectDock isn't shareware and I've always promised that I'd keep all the original dock stuff that people loved free free free not just use it to force people into buying the plus [release]”

— ClockWise, August 30, 2004