Flash Player Update

Flash Player Universal Binary no longer works with Safari - fine with Camino

Flash Player Version 9,0,28,0 works with Safari 2.0.4 (419.3) OSX 10.4.8 on Intel MacBook Pro (Boot ROM version MBP11.0055.B03)

Flash Player Version 9.0.20.0 was incompatible with Safari 2.0.4 (419.3) OSX 10.4.7 on Intel MacBook Pro (Boot ROM version MBP11.0055.B03)

Shockwave & Flash for Intel Mac

The latest Universal Binary Flash Plugin (9,0,28,0) now works in Safari 2.0.4 (419.3) — see Flash Player Update

A Universal Binary Flash Plugin is available, but Shockwave is still PPC only. Solution: run Safari in Rosetta.

Download the latest version! (as of 20060910: 9.0 r20 for Intel; 9.0 r16 for PPC)

Fink on Intel Macs

Summary: It works for me!

The newsflash is discouraging:

A preliminary version of Fink for the Intel architecture is now ready. No binary packages are available, and things are still rough around the edges, but it should be usable if you are patient!

but gives the following instructions:

To install it, you need to install the XCode compiler and SDK packages (at minimum). Then you need to get the file fink-0.24.14.tar.gz from the Sourceforge file release page for Fink, expand the file, and run the command
./bootstrap.sh
At the end of the bootstrap process, run
fink selfupdate
and you'll get the currently available packages.

I tried it and it works! The Intel Mac is fast enough that installing everything from source doesn't take forever.

I then downloaded the 0.5.4 version of the Fink Commander binary from SourceForge - this works.

You can also download the source using CVS:

First login anonymously (this is a single instruction, and should be given on a single line, just copy the whole instruction, and paste into the terminal - when challenged for password, hit return):
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@finkcommander.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/finkcommander login
Then checkout the whole tree (another single instruction - this will create a directory namd FinkCommander):
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@finkcommander.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/finkcommander co -P .
open FinkCommander/FinkCommander.xcodeproj - this should launch XCode.

In the Project menu, Set Active Build Configuration to Deployment; in the Build menu select Build. Wait a short while and voila - your own universal 0.5.4 binary! Find FinkCommander.app and move it into your Applications folder. Make sure you tick use unstable packages under the Fink tab of FinkCommander preferences.

I use Fink primarily to install the latest emacs (emacs21) and L^AT_EX (tetex), but also for other goodies such as unison (which now does doesn't yet build on Intel) and bibtex2html.

DivX for OSX 10.4 Intel

Since the DivX plugin is compiled to PPC code you have to ensure Quicktime or Safari run under Rosetta - in the finder use get Info (command-I) then click "Open using Rosetta". Update 2006:04:12 The plugin provided by the official release of DivX Player for Macintosh is a Universal binary. You can run it native. Curiosly, the DivX Converter and DivX Player are still PPC. Download the DivX 6 for Mac Installer.pkg
Double-click the installer to install the codec. Restart, and use Quicktime Player or Safari, to watch the latest day's work on the building (around 1.5Mb). You can also see the day at a slower pace (around 170Mb) or a directory of other views.