Update

Apr 27 2009

Freeloader on Safari

Don the pith helmets, it’s time to take Jaguar on Safari. Steve may have taken the crowd at MacWorld by surprise, but we’ve had some time to tinker with Apple’s answer to Internet Explorer.

safari Freeloader on Safari

On my 867 Quicksilver, Safari made game of Internet Explorer and even caught Chimera. Launch time and load time are faster than anything on my system.

Safari has quite a few features on IE, one of which is support for Favicons (those nifty icons that show up in the address bar). Also included is text spell checking, something only found in OnmiWeb. Add on pop-up blocking, SnapBack and Google built-in and you have quite the browsing experience.

Chimera Navigator, my pick for 2002′s best browser, still has a few advantages like tabbed browsing and Keychain support, but Safari is still in beta. A handy “bug” button lets you submit bugs, but don’t forget to submit those feature requests.

Here are a few tips for those of you joining the Safari:

  • Don’t forget to turn on pop-up blocking. Safari can dodge unwanted pop-ups, but only if you activate it on the Safari menu (or by pressing Command-K).
  • Command-click opens a link in a new window, option-click to download a link’s source. [NOTE: This feature has been reported to case data loss.]
  • Option-shift-A opens the “Activity Window” that lists current process.
  • While Safari only supports importing IE bookmarks, bookmarks from some other browsers can be dragged into the bookmark window. [UPDATE: Chimera users: check out this utility for migrating Chimera bookmarks to Safari!]

Script Editor 2.0

In an update that went pretty much unnoticed, Apple released a beta of its new AppleScript editor. Now OS X native, it also sports a new interface, find and replace and support for plug-ins.

X11 support

Apple also released X11 for OS X (public beta). This is full, side-by-side support for running X Windows applications, enabling you to install a slew of free apps without a nasty installation process.

Well, thatís our look at Safari and friends. Enjoy your browsing and please, donít feed the animals.

Until next week,

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

Revert to an Older Mac OS X Version

Brought to you by: James

Is the latest 10.3.9 update causing you some problems? More than likely, it’s because you haven’t been keeping up with your routine maintenance. Of course, it could just be a bad update too. Either way, reverting back to an older version of Mac OS X is easy, but time consuming.

1. Make a backup copy of your current system (IOW, everything). (Time: 1-3 hours)

2. Boot from your most recent Mac OS X Install CD by restarting while holding down the ‘C’ key. (Time: 10-20 minutes)

3. Proceed through the installation menus, but after the license agreement, click “Options,” select “Archive and Install,” and select “Preserve User and Network Settings.” Proceed with the installation. (Time: 1-3 hours)

4. Now, you’ll probably want to bring your system back to the version it was just before your failed update. To do this, proceed to Apple Support Downloads and grab the appropriate Combo Updater. (Time: 30-60 minutes)

5. You will now have to restore your system settings and any third-party system add-ons. Your old system files can be found in the “Previous Systems” folder on your hard drive.

Hopefully, this short article will help you get back on track. And, remember to keep up with your routine maintenance!

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Apr 27 2009

Filter Mail Like a Pro

Most of us power user types get a fair amount of email. I don’t know about you but when I sit down to do email, I don’t want to be bothered by having to sort it all out. I have my mail forward to several different mailboxes: MacMerc, Friends, and Work. Anything that doesn’t fit those three and isn’t spam gets sent to a "First Timers" folder. The only problem with this is that the cool red icon in Mail.app doesn’t show up right since your new mail is strewn via a few boxes. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next update (Apple, this is a hint).

The problem with sorting mail is that it’s a pain to set up. Here’s where the tip comes in. In Address Book, set up groups. For instance I have one for Friends, one for MacMerc and one for Work. You can have more, and in fact I do, but at least have ones that match up with your main categories. You can create a new group with the + that is below the first column. You can add contacts to it by dragging them to the group icon. Once you have all your contacts sorted nicely in groups, go back to Mail.app.

This is really powerful if you think about it. When you add someone to your address book and make them a member of a group, suddenly they have been added to a rule that sorts your email in real time!

To create a new mailbox in Mail.app, just go to Mailbox>New Mailbox… and name it something you’ll remember. It shows up in the drawer. You can even nest mailboxes which is really handy if you want to archive off mail. I like to keep my mailboxes under a few hundred messages to keep things really speedy, and put the rest in an archive file that is nested underneath the mailbox.

The hard part about keeping this up is adding people to the right groups. It’s one of those 2 second things that seem to never get done. My advice, suck it up and do it. There is nothing like sitting down and seeing 20 emails all nicely sorted for your reading/replying pleasure.

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