OS X comes with its own encryption feature known as FileVault. But in my experience, FileVault can cause some performance issues. If you don’t regularly log out of your machine, you may find yourself running out of hard-drive space faster than you should. Recovering that space is easy, but can take half an hour or more in some cases.

TrueCrypt avoids FileVault’s disk space issue by giving you the option to encrypt your data one file at a time. [Via Lifehacker]

Well, first Mike Kronenberg cut out a few steps and released ies4osx. Then Sérgio Luís Lopes Júnior added those changes into the latest version of ies4linux.

This isn’t yet a one-step operation. You will still need to install Darwine first.

Google Desktop for Mac seems like overkill since Spotlight is pretty robust (in my opinion). But the ability to deploy Google Gadgets in Dashboard? I’m thinking that’s genius.

Previously: Widgets and Gadgets and Modules! Oh my!
Elsewhere: The Year of the Widget? on Newsweek.com

Validator S.A.C. is a Mac-only, stand-alone version of the W3C Markup Validator. With it, you can check the validity of HTML, XHTML, SMIL and MathML documents right from your desktop. Or you can run the validator as a web service on your Mac, which makes it available to other Macs on your network via Bonjour, and to other computers via IP. Plus you can run Validator S.A.C. from the disk image, or from a USB drive without installing.

The interface is nearly as easy to use as the online W3C validator. Enter a file’s location — either directly in the form field, or by selecting File > Open from the menu bar (or Command + O) — and click “Check” to validate — no Internet connection necessary.

I upgraded my own computer to Internet Explorer 7. And because I’m running Windows XP Home, I couldn’t use the Virtual PC disk image offered by Microsoft. But since I also need to test web sites in IE 7, downgrading wasn’t an option.

Then I found out about IEs 4 Linux. It’s a project that will install Internet Explorer versions 5, 5.5 and 6.0 on any *nix machine running Wine.

Now I don’t have a Linux machine. But I do have a Mac with a copy of Parallels installed. That means I could install Xubuntu, install Wine, and then install IEs 4 Linux.

And aww junk! It almost works like a charm. Just one hitch:* my web site looks all janky now because the fonts are different. Now ordinarily I wouldn’t care, as long as the functionality is preserved, but the whole point of this exercise is to see how most Windows users would see the site.

How to fix? Just install the msttcorefonts package on your Xubuntu install (Applications → System → Synaptic Package Manager). Restart your virtual machine, and your fonts should be loaded and good to go.

Cost of Parallels: $79.99. Cost of a full Windows XP Professional license: $279.99.

By the way, IEs 4 Linux recently released a beta version that loads the Internet Explorer 7 rendering engine on top of IE 6.

Hat tip: John Daigle who told me all about the Wine + IEs 4 Linux combo.

(*Okay, there is more than one hitch. IEs 4 Linux has trouble with some — possibly most — PNG files.)

It’s a … well I’m not quite sure what to call it (it’s not an emulator, and not quite a clone). It’s much like the original Pacman, but the mazes change and each level gets faster. Not only that, but a version of Ms. Pacman is included, as well as a two player Ms. Pacman – Pacman combo game (not quite sure how to play this with one keyboard though).

There are 25 standard board levels and four levels of difficulty. Plus you can create your own set of levels using the game’s level editor.

It’s an updated version of the arcade classics, and a fun app to have on your machine.

See more at TrueNuff TV.

Something I learned while digging around the System Preferences on my MacBook: Mac OS X features what they call “Trackpad gestures.”

Depending on which Trackpad gestures you enable, you can:

• Scroll by dragging two fingers down or across the trackpad.
• Enable the secondary click menu (the equivalent of Ctrl+click, or the Mac’s version of a right click) with two fingers on a trackpad plus a trackpad button click.
• Click by tapping the track pad (rather than the track pad button)

To enable, go to Keyboard & Mouse under System Preferences. Trackpad gestures are at the bottom of the dialog box.

It takes a little while to retrain your brain to use the gestures. But I like that I don’t have to reach for the Ctrl key when I want to bring up a secondary menu. To me, anything that decreases the amount of finger dancing I do with my keyboard is a good thing.

I do find, though, that the click-pad tap can be a little too senstive. Either that or I need to adopt a feather-light stroke.

I also like the two-finger scroll. Much easier to manage, in my opinion, than the two-handed scroll option (one hand holding the trackpad button while the other hand scrolls), or the one-handed scroll motion of death (using your thumb to hold down the trackpad button while using another finger on the same hand to scroll). Now I have no reason to go anywhere near the scroll bar.

The hot new thing now that new Macs come with a remote are programs that let you control any application from your Mac — not just iTunes and your DVD player.

I haven’t experimented with any of these, but I’m interested in trying them. But since I use NeoOffice, rather than Keynote or PowerPoint, I’m not sure if they’ll have the flexibility I’ll need. Anyone have any experience using one of these apps? Do you know of any others?

• Sofa Control by CASE Apps; US$9.99
• Mira by Twisted Melon; US$16
• iRedLite (beta) by FileWell; Free
• Remote Buddy by IOSpirit; 9.99 € (about US$12)

UPDATE Sept 1: 10 more tips for those switching from Windows to Mac

Inspired by both my recent demi-switch from Windows to a Mac (Windows desktop / Mac laptop) and Flërnk’s recent blog post, I’ve decided to post a list of my favorite ‘Make the Switch’ apps. Bonus, all of these are either open source or freeware.

Fugu

An open source, SFTP-capable file transfer client. A replacement for: FileZilla. (Although I highly recommend biting the bullet and shelling out the $29.95 for Transmit, which is just excellent).

TextWrangler

It’s BBEdit’s little brother – a free text editor that is surprisingly rich, though without some of BBEdit’s fancier features (like language-specific palettes). A replacement for: HTMLKit and jEdit (which does run on Mac OS X because it’s Java).

ClamXav

Open-source antivirus software that uses the Clam AV engine. A replacement for: ClamAV for Windows … which can probably be considered a replacement for most antivirus apps (Although I’m running both Norton AntiVirus and ClamAV on my Win box).

gDisk

gDisk is a tool that turns your GMail account into an online storage account. A replacement for GMail Drive shell extension for Windows.

NeoOffice

A Mac-friendly port of the open source OpenOffice.org suite. Unlike OpenOffice.org for Mac, NeoOffice uses native OS key commands (like Command-S instead of Ctrl-S). You’re also not hamstrung by the inability to cut and paste between applications. And you don’t have to install X11. A replacement for: OpenOffice.org, which is a replacement for Microsoft Office.

AbiWord

A simple open-source word processing application. Also, incidentally available for Windows. A replacement for: MS Word or WordPerfect.

WikiNotes No longer under development from what I can tell.

A lovely app that allows you to take notes much like a Wiki. You can export it to HTML, change fonts and search notes using Spotlight. Your data isn’t quite stored in plain text, but you can extract it as such. You can even sync it with your iPod. A replacement for WikidPad.

Adium X

An open source instant messaging client that will let you connect to AOL, Jabber, ICQ, .Mac, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, and some other stuff. Fab client, though that quacking thing might work your nerves. A replacement for the open source Gaim and the proprietary application, Trillian.

Terminal

No need to download and install this. Terminal comes with the OS. Because the Mac is essentially a shiny user interface on a UNIX frame, it comes with many of the utilities you find on UNIX systems. That means SSH, crontab, and other shell tools. You can also zip and unzip files from the command line. There’s no need to download a separate program (although Stuffit Expander comes installed). A replacement for: whatever SSH client and zip/unzip program you’ve got on Windows.

Of course, there are also plenty of apps that have both Mac and Windows versions, including Opera, Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird for example (There’s also Camino, which is a native OS X browser from the Mozilla family. It’s hella fast, but lacks Firefox’ library of extensions). Yahoo! Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger have Mac OS clients. And some Java programs (like FreeMind) work swimmingly well with OS X.

Plus your Mac will come pre-loaded with a lot of goodies too, such as iCal, iDVD, Dashboard, PhotoBooth, and Stickies. Oh how I love Stickies. Think of them as digital Post-Its®. Added bonus: you can share files (erm, at least those that are platform-independent) with Windows machines on your home network.

Now I’d definitely be remiss in my switching ambassador duties if I didn’t mention Monolingual. It removes unnecessary language files (be aware that British, Australian, Canadian and U.S. English are all pre-selected as ‘unnecessary’) from your hard drive. In my case, Monolingual returned 2.8 gigabytes of space.

So for all you Windows users who are considering a switch, what application (or reason) is holding you back?

And for all you Mac OS X users who made the switch (or a demi-switch, as I did): what apps have you found that eased the switch? What are your favorite applications that tackle common tasks or replace popular Windows applications?

• Worth reading: Switching from Windows to Mac from PC Magazine