It only seems fitting with the 500th posting to the site to mark the passing of the six-month anniversary (as of today!) of macosxhints. In that time, the response has been tremendous - we now have nearly 2,000 registered users, roughly 100,000 page views per month, and somewhere around 20gb of monthly data transfer! Wow.

A big thank-you to everyone who has contributed their tips and comments to the system, and a very heartfelt THANKS! to all those who have donated to the ongoing costs of the site.

I'm still looking for a new hosting provider, and have one or two potentials with whom I'm trying to finalize the arrangements. Once the move is done, I'm going to add a true tech support forum board to the site - that's the number one project on my to-do list.

Again, thanks to everyone for reading and contributing their knowledge over the last six months. I've learned more about OS X, UNIX, and Macs than I ever would have guessed possible in that short time frame, thanks to the macosxhints community. I can't wait to see what the next six months brings!

-rob griffiths

I have updated the benchmark results for the G4/733 running 10.0.2. I think my system needs a bit of prebinding tweaking, as my application launch times were mostly slower than 10.0.1, which doesn't seem right -- I'll experiment this weekend and see if I can't improve things a bit. Classic, however, is notably faster in task execution and (not benchmarked, but obvious) in application launching. And iTunes ripping speeds have increased from 4-5x on average to 6-7x on average, plus (of course) the burning ability. Overall, I'm quite happy with the update.

I've also added a permanent link to my introductory OS X Guide in the right-hand box, including a version number (currently 1.0). When a new version is uploaded, I'll update the version number in the box; this should make keeping track of updates easier. With any luck, version 1.1 should be out this weekend. I've added quite a bit, and thanks to all who contributed their suggestions!

The macosxhints.com site has taken off, far faster and bigger than I ever would have imagined. As of today, there are nearly 1,100 registered users, pulling nearly 700mb of data per day from the site. This led me to post a message late last night concerning the future direction of the site (you can read the original post in the remainder of this article). Since I have no revenue streams, the costs of maintaining this growing site were looking a bit daunting.

I asked for help and suggestions, and featured a poll offering some alternatives for the future direction of the site. I was amazed to wake up this morning to a number of emails with positive feedback and great suggestions, and over 35 responses to the poll in about five hours' of night time. Thanks to you, the macosxhints readers, I now have several good leads for new providers with substantially lower costs and unmetered bandwidth, which will alleviate my number one issue. A number of you have also donated to help cover the costs of running the site, which I greatly appreciate.

Based on all the input I've received, the future looks good for macosxhints.com. Read the rest of this article if you'd like to see what's going to happen here in the near future (summary - nothing bad!), as well as the story I posted last night.

--->

There'll be something a bit more interesting there by Monday, I promise!

I have now posted my official review of Mac OS X version 10.0, which includes an extensive page of benchmark test results. You can either read the review, or jump straight to the Benchmark Results page. The review runs four pages, and includes information on installation, performance, bugs, and general observations. Let me know if you find it useful, or if you have any questions about anything I wrote.

On Friday night, we visited PowerMacPac, a local Apple-only dealer. They opened at 11:00pm, providing free cookies and soda, and gave an overview of OS X to about 75 or 80 "Macaholics" for an hour. At 12:01am, they began selling OS X. The first 50 customers received a nice t-shirt with a blue X on the front, and the slogan you see here on the back. The fact that you see a t-shirt picture here means that yes, I now own two copies of OS X (I bought the 40th copy at around 12:15am). The second copy will be going to my father-in-law sometime in the near future, but I'm keeping the t-shirt! They also had Titanium PowerBooks and the 22" Cinema Display in stock, so I guess I got out cheap! :-)

Welcome to the Mac OS X Hints site. Please see the About page for a bit of background on the site and its purpose.

Please post relevant tips only. There are other sites that do a much better job on other aspects of OS X, such as troubleshooting, discussion forums, and the latest applications (visit the "OS X Web Sites" link in the top bar section for a list). The only non-tips that will be published are "Help Me" requests, and those will be the exception to the norm.

I've posted a few of the more useful tips I've garnered during my use of the beta. Please feel free to add yours to the list, and help the community grow!

You can post hints without registering (registering gives you customization and editing options; see the About page if you're concerned about privacy), but you will have to register to post comments.

NOTE: Submitted articles go into a pending queue, which I will review and publish as often as possible during the day. As the site grows, additional volunteers will be sought to help speed the review and publish process.