IORegistryExplorer lets you look through the hardware registry. So you can see entries for the CPU and other chips and functions. Very technical and something I'll never use. JavaBrowser allows you to "browse Java classes, documentation, and source files." There is a three-paned browser that shows you all the java packages installed. You can drill down to a specific class and see the constructors and methods in that class. Click the source button and view the source code (though the included libraries don't have source code). Click the documentation button and see the included documentation (again, the included libraries don't seem to have any documentation accessible by this tool). I'm not sure if this will be a useful tool for me.

MallocDebug is a bit too low level for me. Malloc being memory allocation, this tool seems to allow you to inspect memory, set mark points, and change memory directly. More important for C programmers than Java programmers, I suppose. MRJAppBuilder. Well, you do need to be able to create double-clickable Java apps, otherwise you have to run everything through the Terminal. You can specify the main Java class to run, the classpath to use, the output file, Mac OS X specific properties (the stuff you'd see when doing a Get Info), the Java property list (a simple way to set config parameters, XML seems to be the preferred way now), and what files to include in the application. I bet I'll use this one a lot.

Next up we have ObjectAlloc, which surprisingly does not have a menu, and in fact blanks the menu bar. You get a file open dialog box (titled Run) and not many other clues. Beats me what this application does other than run something. OpenGL Info brings up a window with Renderer 0 and Renderer 1. You can drill down and se the different modes that the renderer uses and some properties like is it full screen, is it hardware accelerated, is it multi-processing safe. Doesn't look all that useful to me. PackageMaker. Packages are self running installation programs in Mac OS X, based on the Redhat Package Manager (RPM) format. You can specify the root directory for the source files, some package info, the default destination, and some toggles like Requires reboot and Needs Authorization. I probably won't need to use it, but I could see it used in lieu of Stuffit or another compressor, if it doesn't mangle files too badly.

PEFViewer. Darn, I forgot what a PEF is. You have to open a file and can go almost anywhere with the file open dialog box. But I didn't find any files that it could open. Of course I didn't look long. Pixie is a screen magnifier, showing you the pixels that make up the part of the screen that the cursor is over. Useful for checking gui layouts and for the anal retentive. PropertyListEditor lets you create Property Lists, which are Mac OS X preference files. It seems to be a multi-level directory of key-value pairs. You can store a few data types and when done you can dump the property list into an XML file. Of course you can also edit existing property list files.

QuartzDebug is another application with no obvious documentation. You can bring up a window list which seems to display a list of every window, whether it's buffered or not, whether it's currently visible or offscreen or obscured, and some other properties. You can also set Autoflush drawing, Flash screen updates (this one could be annoying), and No delay after flash. Other than that though, I'm not sure how it's supposed to be used. Sampler is used to monitor a running application, periodically sampling where it is so you can get a picture of where the application spends its time and what functions it calls. Very useful, though I probably won't use it. ProjectBuilderWO is an older version of Project Builder for use with Web Objects. There are three sample applications. BombApp makes itself crash, I suppose so you can test system stability. Sketch is a Java version of sketch, a simple draw program. WorldText is a simple word processor that you can use to test Unicode and other typographic formats.

Finally we get to Project Builder itself. When you first launch it there is a setup assistant. Only a couple of simple preferences before you're done. Not a very complex IDE, although it does support CVS which is what we use internally. You can import CodeWarrior project files, if they're in XML format (don't think my version of CodeWarrior can do that). Find only works within a file. You do have syntax coloring, multi-paned split windows, and a debugger. I can't figure out how to use CVS, something about having to have the files checked out already, which means you can't create a new CVS checkout. Rather inconvenient though I guess you can use a third party tool to create the initial CVS checkout.