With the default OS X settings, the Finder will not display invisible files. This pertains to the Find Files results window as well, even when the search criteria include “invisible files”. This can certainly be considered as a bug. As a registered Apple Developer, I just filed a bug report for that.

Now there is a supported, though somewhat hidden workaround. The Finder includes an option to display all files, even invisible files. Of course, if you turn it on, all invisible files will show up, and you might not like it.

Clearly, Apple’s choice was the right one: displaying invisible files for all users is an invitation for the user to tamper with them – bad idea.

The Finder option to display invisible files is not exposed to the user. It might have been better for Apple to expose it. Or not. That same request could be done to many many kinds of options. This is the difference between an Apple Preference pane and a Linux or Microsoft Preference pane. I tend to err on Apple’s side on that one.

So here is how to activate the Finder option to display invisible files: open the Terminal application, and type (or paste) the following command:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

after which you need to restart the Finder (for example by logging out and back in).

On a side note, Blender defaulting to rendering to an invisible folder is *bad*. The blame is on them. Not Apple.

(and I don’t recall the TCP issue you mention. A bug too, by your description).

You missed my one about not being able to search for invisible files any more, lost in Tiger (don’t know about Leopard). Actually, you can search for them, that option is listed under OTHER – but invisible files won’t show up in the results. That is a loss of functionality that has near driven me mad on occasion.

I mentioned Blender earlier and Blender default-saves renders to an invisible TMP folder. That isn’t Apple’s fault and is changeable – but it happens (it also uses an invisible setup file) and when it does, searching for the file you just rendered is useless, even if you choose to search for invisible files. The option is there – it doesn’t work and hasn’t worked for quite some time.

(I also seem to recall a munted TCP control in OS 9.x that caused connections to drop-out after a few minutes. The solution required finding and re-installing an outdated TCP control.)

That’s all from me on this because my opinion holds no sway with anyone at Apple and my head is marginally softer than these brick walls.

GAry 7

I’ve still got a VIC-20 and a C64 laying around in the attic, both were very decent tools for their price point, back in the day anyway. The most powerful computers? By no means no, but with Amiga, that was not true. It was an awesome computer, and really ahead of its competition. Unfortunately, it was also made by a company whose management was far less than their competition’s’.

At one point Apple commanded 86% of the total PC market. That was shortly before the entrance of IBM’s second PC, the one we know and love (or not) as having started the DOS Revolution. People forget the first one, it was an abysmal failure.

What made the IBM machine get into business in a big way was Lotus 1-2-3, which blew away Visicalc. It also did not hurt that Wordstar’s implementation on the PC was very fast, and together the two together made for a complete (at the time) business solution. Coupled with IBM’s very effect corporate sales force, which was long seasoned in the Fortune 500’s computing needs and everyone was toast…except Microsoft.

People forget that Microsoft didn’t even create DOS, Seattle Computer Products did. Tim Paterson wrote DOS in 1980 and it was sold by Microsoft to IBM in the pre-production days of the PC when the IBM Boca Raton engineers came to town looking for applications, not operating systems. Those same engineers had just come from a bad experience with Gary Kildal and Digital Research, who made the then-standard OS of the day, CP/M. Had Kildal not asked for an extremely high price for CP/M for each copy IBM’s PC, then Microsoft would probably have never gotten into the OS business and we would not know them as the de facto standard they are today.

Basically, in the end, Microsoft leased Q-DOS from SCP and eventually bought it. The young businessman, Bill Gates, outsmarted them all.

Everything Mac enthusiasts claim for their system was true of the Amiga…only with the Amiga it was actually true.

Like what?

I’m not being defensive; I’m very promiscuous when it comes to the OSes I use. I’m just genuinely curious because I have no idea what sort of claims you’re talking about.