All Courses in the Web Applications Development Certificate:


browsers: For OS X, I don't recommend using Safari for development.  It's a little buggy in rendering in places.  Firefox (see http://www.mozilla.org/) from Mozilla is a good bet.  OS 9 doesn't have FireFox available, but Netscape Communicator 7.0 is a good substitute (see  http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/archive70x.jsp).  Newer versions of browsers are not really available for OS 9.  


FirstClass was written originally for the Mac both OS 9 and OS X flavours are available.  You can download those directly from Centrinity (See http://www.firstclass.com/ClientDownloads/).


pdf reading: Mac OS X comes with Preview, a very fast PDF renderer.  This will likely be the default application used to open PDFs.  For OS 9, you'll need to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader (see http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html).


ssh/sftp: Mac OS X has both ssh and SFTP built into it and accessible via OS X's Terminal (it's in Applications/Utilities/Terminal).  You'll need some understanding of the UNIX command line for that , although some people use a "helper" like JellyfiSSH (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/11282)  If you want upload content to ttasp/ttphp, many GUI FTP programs also support sftp, such as Transmit (see  http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16683)  Mac OS 9 needs a separate program.  I recommend MacSSH (see http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macos/8913)  SFTP can be done with the Interarchy FTP program if you want a nice GUI (see http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macos/22532


text editor:  For OS X, professionals use BBEdit Pro (see http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/index.shtml)  It's a little expensive, even with a student discount but is designed to support progamming and HTML editing.  An older freeware version (BBEdit Lite 6.x) which will also run on OS 9 is available (see http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/604).    Another possibility on OS X, with support for programming languages, is SubEthaEdit (see http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/).  It's available free for non-commercial use.


word processing: For OS X, OpenOffice is now available if you're happy running it under Apple's X11.   OpenOffice is an Open Source office productive suite similar to Microsoft Office which can produce Word or RTF documents.  You can download it from OpenOffice.org (see http://download.openoffice.org/1.1.2/index.html)  Most Macintosh word processors (OS 9/OS X) will be able to produce RTF files with no problems.


zipping: The eTMA system wants zip files and some materials are distributed as zip archives.  Most OS 9/OS X machines will have Aladdin's StuffIt Expander installed which will open zip archives with no problems.  However, most machines do not have an equivalent program to make zip archives.   If you can afford it, the easiest solution I've ever found was to use Aladdin's StuffIt Expander (Standard) edition which comes with a droplet to just drag folders/files onto and it creates proper zip files.  It's $49.95 US.  The latest version (10) is OS X only.  You need to purchase 7.x for OS 9.  See http://www.stuffit.com/.   For cheaper options, have a look at ZipIt (see http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/5070)  for OS 9/OS X.  OS X (Panther) has a built-in archive utility.  Right-click on the folder/file you wish to zip and select "create archive".  I personally haven't had much luck with this.  You might want to experiment with a PC friend first to be sure it's working correctly. 

[Many thanks to Michelle Hoyle for these comments!]