My project is looking for Beta testers

Ahh so it is just your personal home page?

Kinda weird to have Application like 'features' like Safari in a personal home page... and this is exactly the thing that made me thought you are developing some kind of web OS.

On a peak of the source code... you seem to have comments about how others can use your code... so are you really develop this for yourself only or do you plan to release it or something?

And yea it seems like only 1 of your 4 loading screens are actually pre-loading the images... surely you are just having fun mimicking OS X? You could spread the image pre-loading over the 4 load screens, however.
 
Sunnz said:
Ahh so it is just your personal home page?

Kinda weird to have Application like 'features' like Safari in a personal home page... and this is exactly the thing that made me thought you are developing some kind of web OS.
Click to expand...

It is just my personal homepage. Or let's say, once it's done, it will complete the missing content on what I already have on the domain. ;)

Sunnz said:
On a peak of the source code... you seem to have comments about how others can use your code... so are you really develop this for yourself only or do you plan to release it or something?
Click to expand...

Basically, I have done this for myself, to learn about web technologies and stuff. However, I am planning to create a Mercury 'application' called "MCode" :D, with which people can look into the code of everything in there.


And yea it seems like only 1 of your 4 loading screens are actually pre-loading the images... surely you are just having fun mimicking OS X? You could spread the image pre-loading over the 4 load screens, however.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's true. I think I gonna spread it to all the screens.

Thanks for that idea =)
 
Wow!!! Very nice and practical, if you want to have OS X on a PC. But I found two bugs/errors:

1. The dock disappears after opening & closing any app.
2. I can't type new websites into Safari, as in when I type www.macosx.com it doesnt work, though when I click on any bookmark, apple.com/macosx for example, it works. Then I can navigate around there using the links provided on the website.

Great stuff though!
 
Ferdinand said:
Wow!!! Very nice and practical, if you want to have OS X on a PC.
Click to expand...

May I quote that as a beta test testimony on my site? :D

Ferdinand said:
But I found two bugs/errors:

1. The dock disappears after opening & closing any app.
Click to expand...

Let me check that... I know that the dock shows some weird overlapping right now, I have to find a way to make that disappear :D

Ferdinand said:
2. I can't type new websites into Safari, as in when I type www.macosx.com it doesnt work, though when I click on any bookmark, apple.com/macosx for example, it works. Then I can navigate around there using the links provided on the website.
Click to expand...

In the moment it works when you enter "http://" in front. I have to add a routine that adds that automatically.

Ferdinand said:
Great stuff though!
Click to expand...

Thanks! =)
 
I'm still not so sure why you're calling this "beta test" and are looking for testimonials and such. I _think_ the whole misunderstanding from the beginning was that everyone thought you were trying to get beta-testers for an application. Software, one can run on his/her Mac. If you continue to talk about it with those terms, you'll continue to confuse people. Make it clearer that it's about your personal homepage. If you want to spread the code for it, make it clear that you do so (or will do so) as well.
 
It is said that the code is open and he will release it on the web page...

And yea it is damn confusing!!!

I think he is just having 'fun' imitating Apple than anything else. (No offence.)
 
fryke said:
I'm still not so sure why you're calling this "beta test" and are looking for testimonials and such. I _think_ the whole misunderstanding from the beginning was that everyone thought you were trying to get beta-testers for an application. Software, one can run on his/her Mac. If you continue to talk about it with those terms, you'll continue to confuse people. Make it clearer that it's about your personal homepage. If you want to spread the code for it, make it clear that you do so (or will do so) as well.
Click to expand...

I call this a beta test because I want to know if it runs in real life as expected, I believe to have mentioned this before.

But what is wrong with looking for opinions of what people think about it?

So here goes:

I am looking for people who have a look at my personal homepage to make sure that the code runs as expected.
 
SystemError51 said:
Other people have done similar things by trying to replicate a OS X like desktop, used the same icons, the same names. No lawsuit has happened.
Click to expand...

Not always. Lots of people have "borrowed" Apple's icons and used them on their web pages in some small way. Typically Apple hasn't bothered to pursue them as it is hardly worth worrying about. However, there have been incidents where people have been sued or had takedown notices for extensive and blatant misuse of Apple's icons - including an RIAA created site about the importance of respecting copyright which was taken down at the request of Apple legal because they had used Apple's icons for the site.

Several desktop themes and website skins, including some for open source CMS systems, have also been taken down at the request of Apple legal for copying from Mac OS X.

Even if you only copy a little bit here and there, it does present a very poor impression. When it comes time to use your design, perhaps for a portfolio or a product or service, even a little copying will leave a bad taste.
 
SystemError51 said:
But what is wrong with looking for opinions of what people think about it?

So here goes:

I am looking for people who have a look at my personal homepage to make sure that the code runs as expected.
Click to expand...

Nothing's wrong with looking for people to take a look at your personal homepage's beta stage. The problem, as I see it, was that you initially (and on your website) word things as if you're going to release a product. A Web OS of some kind, that people will pay to use, license or get for free. With that expectation in mind, it looked as if you were trying to rip off Apple's intellectual property, using their graphics etc. (or re-creating them).
If you had used that last quoted sentence from the beginning as well as prominently on your webpage, it would've been _much_ clearer.

No offense here from my side! I'm just trying to help here. See, if you, for example, make a website about the greatest car EVER and say that you're going to sell it for 150 dollars, people would expect a real car. If it later turns out that you simply build a model at a 1:10 scale for your _own_ enjoyment, people's expectations clash with reality, and they tend to get angry. ;)
 
SystemError51 e-mailed me the link to his beta site. This cleared up all the confusion and questions I had about the tread here and his statements and claims. I do believe the site is like nothing I've seen before... it's just like working in OS X.... very close to logging on to a MAC via remote connection. It's a great idea for a personal homepage and as a relatively new Mac user/switcher I love it. I could see how visiting and using his site would help non OS X users get a better understanding of how the operating system works and feels like. (e.g.: you change the background in System Preferences, music is linked via iTunes, pics are stored in iPhoto, etc..)
It would have helped reinforce my decision to "switch" just by experiencing the beautiful layout/design of the software. I would encourage SystemError51 to post the link to his site here for you to check it out....it's great stuff!

The question was raised if SE51 is a native English speaker. I can relate. I'm a native German speaker and also living in Canada for a few years now, its not always super easy to relate all the subtleties and find the correct terminology. We tend to translate more literally and that often skews the meaning of what it is one tries to get across. In the case of this specific thread, I know after looking at the actual beta site, can understand the difficulty in explaining what the objectives are... again, the link should just be posted for all to see what is going on with this project. I'd be very interested to find out if it's just me who thinks highly of this project.
 
I don't know if it is just me...

But at first I thought this is some kind of web OS, then to realise that he is just trying create a personal home page, NOW I still think this has potential to be developed as a great web OS!!
 
There's quite a bit more to a web OS than a slick UI. (Actually, in my opinion, a good web OS should have a spartan UI, similar to Gmail's interface.)
 
Hi guys :)

Thank you all for your encouraging words! Fryke, thanks for your advise... you're right with what you are saying.

I'm sorry if I got you all confused at this one. Please believe me that this was not my intention. The only problem I have as a non-native speaker is basically that describing something like this is not easy.

=============

So... on ever more requests and recommendations from all who have seen it, I have decided to make the beta test public and freely available to anyone so that you all get a better understanding of what I am trying to accomplish.

You are all now welcome to have a look at my homepage project and post your opinions here or send me an PM or so...

OS X Mercury, Beta 2
http://www.se51.net/index.php?page=mercury-beta

=============

:)
 
Fantastic work; if this doesn't land you a job, I don't know what will.

Beta 2 shows more than tons of potential. It's already a well-developed system, and very impressive. The processor demands are a bit high, but with the way the market is obsessing over the latest and greatest, I don't believe that's really a problem.

It almost seems like an idea born from dream. Where did it come from, anyway?
 
Qion said:
Fantastic work; if this doesn't land you a job, I don't know what will.

Beta 2 shows more than tons of potential. It's already a well-developed system, and very impressive. The processor demands are a bit high, but with the way the market is obsessing over the latest and greatest, I don't believe that's really a problem.

It almost seems like an idea born from dream. Where did it come from, anyway?
Click to expand...


Thanks Qion! :)

It basically came from the idea to have my content in sync in the web... and, well, I like Apple and I would love to work for them. That's basically how it started ;)
 
It seemed to have optimised a bit this time!!!

Some annoyance that I have found:

Dock, the magnification just isn't right... you are not doing it different just to be different, right?

Resolution, I know this can be very tricky... but it is a weird to have something beyond the Dock and some space to the right of the HD. And the resolution thing in System preference doesn't really help, since a 17-inch screen isn't really 17-inch, on a Mac, Firefox doesn't expand to the Dock and the menu bar is always there... err.. I guess I'll upload a screen shot.

And the log out shutdown thing... what is it really supposed to do anyway?

P.S. upload doesn't work... unless someone fix it up, I can't give a pictorial explanation of the Dock and resolution thing... hope you understand what I am trying to say though...
 
BTW, I noticed that you have a link to Kubuntu, are you triple-booting Linux Windows and Mac while developing this? ;)
 
Sunnz said:
It seemed to have optimised a bit this time!!!

Some annoyance that I have found:

Dock, the magnification just isn't right... you are not doing it different just to be different, right?

Resolution, I know this can be very tricky... but it is a weird to have something beyond the Dock and some space to the right of the HD. And the resolution thing in System preference doesn't really help, since a 17-inch screen isn't really 17-inch, on a Mac, Firefox doesn't expand to the Dock and the menu bar is always there... err.. I guess I'll upload a screen shot.

And the log out shutdown thing... what is it really supposed to do anyway?

P.S. upload doesn't work... unless someone fix it up, I can't give a pictorial explanation of the Dock and resolution thing... hope you understand what I am trying to say though...
Click to expand...

The Dock zooms slightly different than the original. For example it begins to zoom when the cursor comes into a certain area of the screen. I have tried several settings and combinations... This really is the best I can do.

The resolution thing... I put this in in case someone has a big screen, so there's more real-estate to use the entire thing. I know that 19-inch isn't exactly 19-inch anymore on a Mac, but I also had to keep visitors in mind who are using a PC with a standard 4:3 screen. This is why this is kept in those relations. But you can send a screenshot to mail@se51.net ;)

Shut Down is supposed to simply close the window (there's not much of a point implementing a whole sequence of screens doing nothing until eventually just the window gets closed :D ). Log Out brings you to a log in screen, which in turn lets you log in again. Restart basically restarts the thing, in case some graphics got not loaded or so. Restart basically starts over from the very beginning. You know... the Apple bong thing.


Sunnz said:
BTW, I noticed that you have a link to Kubuntu, are you triple-booting Linux Windows and Mac while developing this?
Click to expand...

There was a link to Kubuntu on my previous page... I see you used Time Machine :D I am actually developing the whole thing on my MacBook. Tests are done on my iMac, XP and Vista machines here at home.
 
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