UDF Media Reader (download disk image or source) is a small Cocoa application that reads disks created by packet-writing applications like Adaptec DirectCD. You may not realize you need this. When you load a DirectCD CD-R, OS X (through 10.4.8) reads the ISO 9660 information and shows the directory structure. Look carefully at the file sizes and try to load files that seem shorter than they should be. Files that cross packet gaps are truncated at the beginning. For hackers, you cannot use the dd program to copy the raw information from /dev/disk* or /dev/rdisk* because the BSD-level driver will also fail at each packet gap. This was annoying and surprising (especially since Linux has supported this format for years) and gave me the incentive to dive into OS X programming.

UDF Media Reader is a userland program (not a driver, not a kernel extension) that reads raw data from /dev/rdisk* and presents it to you as a file tree. You can copy the whole disk or any sub-tree to any other device. This is the first program I have made under Cocoa, so don't expect too much polish, but I have used it to successfully migrate about forty archive CDs to an external hard disk, so I know it works reliably with Win9x-era DirectCD disks. I suspect it will work with Nero InCD and Sony camera formats, but I don't have any test disks. If you successfully use it with those disk types, please let me know at udf@taffysoft.com.

2006-06-28: Updated UDF Media Reader so that it will recognize and try to open any mounted but ejectable disk image. Now it can see mounted disk images and try to open them.

2006-07-01: Made several user interface improvements. Added an automatic scan feature so that you can tell if a disk has a problem format before you try to open it. Added the mount point to the device name (disk2 = /Volumes/XYZ) to make it easier to keep track of which is which when you have multiple logical disk images open. Directory contents are now sorted by name.

2006-08-18: Rebuilt UMR using the 10.2 SDK. The rebuilt version loads on at least one 10.3.9 machine but crashes during or just after the VAT scan. I don't see anything in the code that would be 10.4-specific. Maybe it is a driver or filesystem issue. If you want to try it, here is the disk image or source. Let me know if it works for you.

2006-10-06: Added drag and drop support (this does require OS X 10.4). Double clicking a directory line will expand or collapse the directory just as if you had clicked the disclosure triangle on the left side. Added a way to mark certain items as "no copy" so you can drag a directory but exclude individual items.

QuickStep (download disk image or source) is a fast, simple image viewer. It can read JPG, PNG, GIF, and TIFF images. It can locate and display those image types in ZIP, RAR, and TAR archives. QuickStep can be started from the Finder but is also designed to work well when started from a terminal. It is keyboard friendly: most commands use single keystrokes instead of Command-key combinations. It can display images fullscreen and run a slideshow.

Please send comments, questions, or bug reports to quickstep@taffysoft.com.

rdec (download source) is a command line program which decodes attachments from mail or usenet messages. It's interesting feature is the way it saves partially analyzed input files as 'frozen input states' to reduce virtual memory thrashing. For a longer introduction, see this.

2007-06-03: Check out my new Topic Outline. I used to maintain a clumsy weblog, but looking back over the past year, the quality was erratic and the volume too low to draw an outside interest. I still think Diary Driven Development is a valuable idea, but perhaps better performed with a time delay. If I keep a private diary and generate an occasional digest of it, I would not feel as if I were wasting a random reader's time with my less useful gibberish.