Longevity of OSX

Seen here looking more like a desktop icon*, is the first release of OSX. It's now older than the classic Mac OS (up to 9).

I remember the sense of awe at the non-jagged icons, transparency, more realistic-looking shadows and the new traffic-light 'sweeties' in the top-right corner of windows.

It really doesn't look *that* dated. That Mail icon has hardly changed, just a bit more kiddie-coloured, and the magnification effect is still there.  Glassy-looking buttons were cool at the turn of the century, but by 10.6, the aqua look was looking a bit unnecessarily clumsy. The stripey background of windows and sheets didn't last so long. We had a weird dual-look with the windows. OS9 was already experimenting with the brushed aluminium look. Very different from the more plasticky look of the regular window borders and backgrounds. From memory, I think the human interface guidelines said that the aluminium look was appropriate where the window was to minic a control panel.

I really lament the passing of the 3D hyper-real-looking buttons and controls. I regularly use a couple of Macs on Snow Leopard and Mavericks.  I get the very 'clean' concept but when you can't immediately see whether some text on a plain white background is a button, input field or just some text, that's just plain unhelpful, however beautiful it looks.

Thanks to Jason Snell for the facts and figures:
https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/05/today-mac-os-x-is-as-old-as-the-classic-mac-os/


* My clamshell iBook, the first Mac I had that ran OSX, had a screen 800 x 600 pixels. That's less than the highest resolution that we now make application icons (1024x1024)

This *one weird trick* will cure your website of all ills

Do people really fall for those headlines? Surely we're all aware by now that anything that sounds too good to be true always is. And that if you ever do take the plunge into that clickbait labyrinth and ever do find the promised information, it's sure to disappoint.

A spam email about Mother's Day, which turned out to be selling cleaning products, nearly made funniest spam email this week (also the one from Dick Richardson offering to send a bag of gummy dicks to the person of your choice for $15) but all of that was pipped at the post by this one:

When I say funny, I do find it sad that it's reinforcing and preying on fear and anxiety. The funny part is the '4Idiots' part.

I can almost understand how the 'for Dummies' series works, people are often self-deprecatory when it comes to technical things.

But what man with anxiety about his height is going to click a link that says 'for idiots'?

I'm still wondering whether it's a parody. The author appears to be saying 'you'd have to be an idiot to believe this!'

(For the record, the subject line mentions HGH. This can significantly increase height but only if you haven't stopped growing, this may work into someone's twenties but there's no mention of that here.)

Anyway. You clicked a 'one weird trick' link and arrived here. Maybe it's not an empty promise this time; we're responsible for Scrutiny, which can quickly scan your website and report broken links, SEO issues, spelling and much more.

Scrutiny is the premium product. For no-frills link-checking, there's the free Integrity, and for more features, it's paid sister Integrity Plus. Too good to be true?  The paid apps offer free trials, so you've nothing to lose by finding out.



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