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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

T h e   R o a d   L e s s   T r a v e l e d
Five ways OS X shines:
Nisus Writer Express, NTI Dragon Burn, Apple Mail, ExhibitionX and Safari


Dec. 10, 2003


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, The Post-Standard

   Windows users sometimes admit they like the design of Apple's new Macs but are worried about finding good software. The reality, as Mac fans already know, is that programs for Mac OS X are often clearly superior to Windows programs in many ways. I'm offering five examples this week.
   -- Nisus Writer Express ($59.95; www.nisus.com) is the best word processor I have ever used. Period. I love Microsoft Word and use it daily in one form or another, but Word (whether on Windows or Macs) is a minor league fielder compared to the slugger you'll find in Nisus Writer Express.
   The Nisus software is fast, handles all sorts of complicated formating perfectly and stays out of your way when all you want to do is write. (Turn on "Draft View" to get rid of all the clutter, for example.)
   The spell checker is first rate, as I expected from this stalwart of the Mac community. But it is the thesaurus that made me smile. We're probably all used to real-time spell checkers such as the one used in Microsoft Word; Nisus has that, but takes things a step further and makes the thesaurus a real-time function, too. You'll find this amazing feature in the "Writing" section of the "Tools" drawer. The real-time thesaurus suggests alternate words while you are typing, and never gets in the way.
   -- NTI Dragon Burn ($45, download; $49.95, boxed; www.ntius.com) is the new champ of the Mac OS X CD-burning derby. It's the latest rival for Roxio's outstanding Toast CD-burning software, and in the month or two that I've used Dragon Burn it's proven easier to use and more informative while creating CDs. Like Toast and the burning method built into OS X, Dragon Burn also makes data DVDs and audio CDs and can copy CDs, audio CDs and data DVDs easily.
   Dragon Burn even has an audio recorder so you can roll your own audio CDs or DVDs without buying a separate sound-recording program. It will record from a microphone (or a pair of them) or from a tape deck, an old-fashioned record turntable or even from an iTunes radio broadcast.
   -- Apple Mail (free with OS X; www.apple.com) is one of those rare software programs that gets better every time I use it. what I'm actually saying, of course, is that I get better at figuring out its many charms day by day. (Most programs never reach that level.)
   Proof that Apple knows how to make outstanding software is evident even in this humble e-mail program. For example, like all other modern e-mail programs, Apple Mail lets you include the letter you received when you write a reply. But if you select just part of the text, Apple Mail includes only the portion you selected within the reply.
   Another example: Apple Mail has an extraordinarily powerful spam filter built in, and unless you turn it off it is always hard at work blocking spam. But this comes at no cost to the responsiveness of Apple Mail; it flies through its tasks, never delaying a single operation. It filters out 400 to 600 spam letters on an average day from my mail, without imposing on me in any way.
   -- ExhibitionX ($15; www.davidahmed.com) might end up costing you more than the $15 fee; you might have to invest in new carpeting after your friends, neighbors and cousins finish drooling all over the floor. I have never seen a 3D image-display program as clever and as creative as this one. It's too stunning to explain. Try it and you'll buy it. (Don't forget to take a romp on the beach with your photos. Watch out for the billboards, and bring along a gallon of paint; the backs of your billboards need a little touching up.)
   Keep the neighbors in the dining room for the first few minutes. Carpets cost a lot to clean.
   -- Safari (free with OS X; www.apple.com) is the Web browser Apple designed with immense help from the Open Source programmers of the Konqueror project. (Konqueror is a Web browser and file browser in the KDE desktop, popular on Linux computers.)
   Many OS X users haven't ever tried Safari because it was introduced after OS X came out. If you're one of the holdouts, drop whatever you are doing and grab Safari from Apple's download site, www.apple.com/software. It's the fastest browser I've ever used on Windows, Linux or Mac OS X, and it's also the easiest to use. The tabs are a great feature; be sure to turn them on.