Mac OS X

Mac OS X Software and Information

Family Ties (Familienbande) – February 26, 2007

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Family Ties Familienbande

A few days ago (February 26, 2007), a new version of Family Ties/Familienbande was released. It’s a free Mac OS X (andMacOS 8.6/9 with Carbon) genealogy application from Stefan Mettenbrink. It is only available in German, but it can be used by non-German speaking genealogists. We’ve provided a page with a list of translated features here. There is apparently an Intel-specific version available if you contact the author (the normal version runs fine on either PowerPC or Intel-based Macs).

The following is a translation of the changes, using Google’s language tools. There maybe inaccuracies.

Changes/Fixes:

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ohmiGene 1.49.45

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ohmiGene 1.49.45 has been released. ohmiGene is a cross-platform commercial genealogy application (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X PowerPC, Mac OS X Intel), and is designed to “respect a GEDCOM file at import (and export).” It allows you to associate an unlimited number of files to the genealogy data in your GEDCOM (notes, text data, sources, pictures, etc.).

It can be downloaded here (ohmi.celeonet.fr)

MacFamilyTree 4.4

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MacFamilyTree

MacFamilyTree 4.4 has been released by OnlyMac Software. This is a major upgrade to MacFamilyTree, which is a Universal Binary. Among the changes – there is now a new major topic in the reports.

New:
* Reports: MacFamilyTree got a new major topic. The first available report is a kinship report that lists all related persons to the currently selected family. The kinship report can show all relatives and name them up to the 6th generation. The revised Person List is also under Reports as well as the Summary.
* The Media folder with the pictures can be placed inside documents/pictures, we advise to place it there.
* Personal dates from living persons can be hidden
* HTML export
* You can set the name of the index file

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Personal Ancestry Writer II Version 52 (5 June 2006)

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Personal Ancestry Writer II (PAWriter II) version 52 (5 June 2006) was released today.

As you may know, this is a free Mac genealogy application from Howard Metcalfe, that was developed to share many of the same features found in the original Personal Ancestry File genealogy program (PAF) for Mac, to allow for an easy transition for those moving from PAF for Mac to a more modern genealogy application.

This version “adds the generation of an HTML file containing a simple indented list of all descendants on file for the current person” and goes along with the HTML pedigree. Once you’ve downloaded the update, you can access this new feature through the HTML File menu.

Macs, Virtualization, and Genealogy Software

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RandomGenealogy.com has written up a fairly extensive overview of the new Intel-based MacBooks/MacBook Pros, and how they could be of use to those genealogists wanting to switch to Macs, but still hold onto some of their Windows software until they have any and all migration issues sorted out.

You have to understand, this is head and shoulders above previous “Windows on a Mac” software – in this case, Windows has direct access to the Intel hardware and can run very fast. He discusses both options – completly booting Windows by itself with Boot Camp (there probably is no Windows genealogy software that would ever need to have Windows booted by itself), and using a new (and it looks like the only) piece of virtualisation software available – Parallels Desktop. It’s running Windows in a window under Mac OS X (although you can switch to full-screen, you are still running under Mac OS X). It’s not just for Windows either – it’ll handle DOS and other applications written to run on Intel (and AMD) hardware.

It’s interesting, and reasonably priced – if you know of anybody thinking about switching to a Mac, this might be the article to email them.

The article – RandomGenealogy.com.

Apple MacBooks

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As you may or may not know, Apple has rolled out their iBook replacement, the MacBook, which is based on an Intel CPU. This replaces the iBook series (both the 12-inch and 14-inch), as well as the 12-inch PowerBook. It starts at $1099 US, and surprisingly, it is an Intel Core Duo – that is is, it’s a dual-core CPU – the equivalent of having two CPUs inside of your machine.

They are going with only one display for the MacBook, a “glossy” 13.3-inch widescreen display. It’s also back to being available in more than one color – black or white.