The product even includes a simple tool for designing custom labels. And, after you’ve gone to the trouble of cataloging everything, DiskTracker can print labels for almost all removable media - including CDs and floppy and Zip disks. Once you’ve found the file you’re looking for, just double-click on it in the window, and DiskTracker prompts you to insert the disc or disk containing the file. DiskTracker can also read the contents of StuffIt archives - a nice touch. It can create catalogs for multiple discs in a batch mode, saving file information in a master catalog that’s searchable by name, date, label, file type, and more. I do a quick search and then flip through my CD holder right to the CD I need.ĭiskTracker catalogs any removable media connected to your Mac. Instead, I just fire up Portents’ $30 DiskTracker, which keeps a catalog of all my media. When I want to find a file, I don’t bother rummaging through multiple CDs. While I back up my most important files with Dantz’s Retrospect, I also have stacks of CDs and Zip disks with digital images, articles I’ve written, and tons of older applications. The developers often hang out online to help with support issues and snag feature requests. You can go to the Gimp-Print support forums to see if the printer you own might benefit from Gimp-Print. (Gimp-Print is constantly being updated and improved.) When I ran Gimp-Print with seven older, supposedly supported ink-jets, two of them didn’t work at first, although a subsequent update fixed the problems. While the developers have done a great job, the driver works best when printing text and business graphics, and it won’t necessarily support all of a printer’s features. However, you should carefully read the included installation notes several times before getting started - this will help alleviate potential problems down the road.
Gimp-Print is fairly easy to set up, and it runs transparently once it’s installed.
Gimp-Print is an open-source print driver for OS X 10.2 that supports hundreds of older, non-PostScript printers, including most ink-jets from Epson, Canon, Hewlett-Packard, and Lexmark. While we’re not likely to see companies developing drivers for five-year-old printers, there is a free solution for many users with older machines. And my heart was heavy when OS X came along, because of the problems I (and many other Mac users) had getting older printers to work with the new OS. OS X for Retro PrintersĪs the piles of printers strewn about my basement will attest, printing is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart.
They’re all available individually (and you can get fully functional versions of some of them without having to pay the developer), but I think it’s vital to pay shareware fees, and Ten for X delivers a hand-picked collection of excellent utilities.
There are also two file-launching applications (LaunchBar and piPop) that work very well together, a utility for printing selected text from within any program (PrintMagic X), a full-featured alarm clock and task scheduler (AlarmClock S.E.), and a file-synchronization tool (Executive Sync).įew people will use all of the utilities in Ten for X, but anyone who uses OS X for more than an hour a day will find three or four must-have utilities - I can’t live without LaunchBar, WindowShade X, and FruitMenu, for example.Īll of the Ten for X utilities are licensed from their authors and are fully functional and registered versions. Others, such as Pseudo, make it easier to work under the OS X hood. Some of the programs, such as FruitMenu, Xounds, and WindowShade X, add OS 9 features (the Apple menu, system-sound customization, and collapsible windows, respectively) that Apple removed in OS X. Combining the efforts of nine shareware developers, Ten for X includes 12 utilities for OS X (apparently “Twelve for X” didn’t have quite the same ring). Aladdin Systems, the purveyor of StuffIt Deluxe and Spring Cleaning, has borrowed a page from Mac history with the very cool Ten for X, a $50 group of utilities that improves OS X in some excellent ways.
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