Firefox 3.6 vs Chrome 4 vs Safari 4 vs Opera 10.1

A royal battle for the ages!
In this blog post I will attempt to compare Firefox 3.6, Chrome 4, Safari 4, Opera 10.1 and IE 8. I use all these browsers occasionally. Windows is the test platform, but all except IE work well on Mac OS X (chrome as a beta) and all except IE and Safari work well on Linux (Safari and IE 7 work in Wine.)
We won't be focusing too much on benchmarking or performance metrics and more on features and key functions. As a cursory nod to the standards of browser reviews, i'll post "V8" benchmark numbers and Acid3 compliance scores, but don't take much stock in those numbers!

The standards for comparison are "Unique Features" "Tabs" "Site and OS Compatibility" "Bookmarks, History" "Search, LocationBar" and "Adding features and plugin support." "Security" remarks will be tossed in as well.

"Security"
Firefox 3.6 has a built in phishing and malware filter and integrates with your virus scanner. It does not include a virus scanner. Firefox 3.6 is targeted by many web developers and has a fairly high number of vulnerabilities. Firefox 3.6 identifies when you are on a safe site with the Security System Notifications, which give you green icons when you are on a site that has HTTPS on and confirmed it's name and identity. This is only relevant for online banking.
To use this feature, BTW, click the favicon (small site icon) in the address bar. Relevant security info appears. Firefox does not seperate tabs or use a sandbox model
Overall, Firefox has a full load of anti-phishing features, but lacks critical sandboxing. 7/10
Opera 10.1
Opera has a phishing Filter but does not have a Malware filter to the best of my knowledge. Opera does not verify if the site you are browsing confirms it's identity (if it's an https site) and does not include a virus scanner. It does not use a sandbox model or isolate plugins. Opera has a low number of vulnerabilities and is rarely targeted
Overall, Opera is a classic example of security through obscurity. 6/10, but if it gains popularity, 3.5/1o.
Safari 4
Safari features a phishing filter, it integrates on Snow Leopard with your Snow leopard Virus scanner (included with the OS) and it does offer to confirm your identity of the website. However, safari does not make this feature as obvious as Firefox, nor does it include a Virus Scanner on Windows or Leopard. Safari does not use a sandbox feature, or isolate plugins. In my opinion, these rarely seen features are fairly critical.
Safari scores 7/10 overall. 6.5/1o on windows due to mac-centric security features.
IE 8
IE 8 adds a phishing and malware scanner, sandboxing, and blocks most ActiveX by default (other browsers don't support activex at all). It has a plugin-free "safemode" to protect itself from viruses and spyware already on the system. IE 8 however has quite a few vulnerabililties, but these are not necessarily a good security yardstick. It is also highly targeted.
8/10, however remember you're using the #1 browser so real-life security is much lower.
Chrome 4
Chrome 4 has a phishing scanner, sandboxing, plugin isolation, and has few vulnerabilities. It has not yet been cracked in a major way.
10/10

"Site and OS Compatibility"
IE 8
IE 8 supports most IE-compatible sites with compatibility mode, which makes IE 8 act like IE 7. A list of sites that should use Compatibility mode is constantly updated and installed on your machine by MS by default (You can turn this off). IE 8 however lacks standards comaptibility, scoring 20/100 on the Acid3 test. It is slow on webapps (i couldn't get IE 8 to finish V8, but it scored 25.2 on one subtest compared to 220 for Firefox 3.6!) , but overall IE has awesome compatibility. IE only supports Windows XP-7.
7/10
Firefox 3.6
Firefox 3.6 supports pretty much any website on the web with its Gecko 1.9.2 engine. It scores 95/100 on Acid3. It gets 84.9 on V8 (note this number seems to be related to some bugs in 3.6, 3.5 inexplicably gets 137, most likely will be fixed in final 3.6). It has amazing webapp support, and has good standards support as well. it is also fairly compatible with websites designed for IE.
Firefox supports Windows 2000 and later, OS X 10.4 and later, and Linux with GTK 2.x and later. Firefox 2 is still available but unsupported for users of 10.3, Windows 98SE/Me and other systems..
Score 9/10
Chrome 4
Chrome 4 is possibly the fastest browser around with a much higher V8 score than any other browser, but remember these are artificial benchmark numbers. A similarly artificial number, Chrome passes 100/100 on Acid3. Chrome scores 1000 on V8. Chrome, However lacks support for many webapps and web sites that lack knowledge of this new browser. Chrome also is still in beta on Mac and Linux and not available on Windows 2000, 98SE, Mac OS X 10.3-10.4 or PPC macs.
6/10
Opera 10.1
Opera has poor webpage compatibility. Many webapps don't run well with Opera and almost none are officially supported. However, Opera displays most normal pages fine and has a 100/100 score on Acid3. It gets 88 on V8, faster than IE (the crypto test that IE 8 scored 25.2 on and firefox got 220 on, Opera scored 58) but slower than everything else except Firefox 3.6 beta.
Opera 10.1 supports Windows 2000 and later, OS X 10.3 and later, and Linux with QT 4 and later. Unofficially, it also works with Qt3, and Windows 98SE/Me.
6/10
Safari 4
Safari 4 has the best of most worlds:
Fairly good web compatibility, most webapps run fine in safari. Most webpages do as well. High speed, with about 500 on V8, the second-fastest score. It passes Acid3 with flying colors. However, Safari 4 has the second-poorest OS compatibility. It only works with XPSP2 or later or OS X 10.4 or later. Excluded are 10.3, Win2000, Linux, etc.
8/10

"Bookmarks, History"
IE 8
IE 8 uses your filesystem for bookmarks. This interesting approach falls flat on the limitations of the windows filesystem when it comes to tagging, metadata, etc.
IE 8 uses a dialog to add to favorites. This strikes me as clunky.
6/10
Firefox 3.6
Firefox is the golden standard. It is able to search Content, titles, URLs, and search both history and bookmarks simultaneously.
Firefox has a good manager screen, a good importer/exporter, a good synchronizer in the Unofficial Mozilla Weave addon. It also has a smooth add to bookmarks screen. I like the feel of the manager, with it's drag & drop use.
I like the feel of the "folder-less" bookmarks system as well, which relies on tags.
The private browsing mode is in my opinion the best.
The reason the folderless system works so well is because tags and titles are the ideal means of organizing a large mass of websites, and search is the best way to find them. Firefox exploits this. Many addons are available to integrate firefox with Delicious or Google Bookmarks. I find quality of the addons to be iffy but I like Mozilla Weave.
10/10
Safari 4
Safari comes in 2nd in this race.
Safari can't search content and is more limited in it's search. But it's collections oriented, drag n drop screen clearly inspired Firefox.
Safari doesn't support tags but does have more than a bookmarks menu. It also has "collections" and Bonjour bookmarks, which are on other PCs on your local network. Safari supports RSS bookmarks, as is standard.
Safari has a decent search feature.
7.5/10
Chrome
Chrome's bookmarks feature is barebones. There isn't even a bookmarks menu, a concept that feels standard but is not found here. The Links bar is only found on new tabs by default, a clever option. A "manager" (extra window) is needed to open other bookmarks unless you search from the textarea, because unlike Firefox or IE, no sidebar is provided. This feels clumsy, more than any other area of Chrome. Managers are fine for managing, but simply opening and browsing bookmarks should be done through a menu, sidebar, or toolbar button. There are no tags, so one category (folder) is the maximum you can apply to a bookmark. And you can't make bookmarks searchable by arbitrary text (like tags allow) or give a category to Bookmarks Toolbar bookmarks. This all feels very clumsy. Transferring from Bookmarks to history feels unneccesairly difficult, as does editing the name of a bookmark.
4/10
Opera
Opera's bookmark manager is fairly full-featured. It appears as a tab in the browser, a nice touch also found in Safari but not Firefox or Chrome. Opera's manager is not available in sidebar form, but a menu is found on the top-level menus. The standard Collection/Bookmarks two-pane view is used, but a one-pane view is an option, as is many different eclectic sorting orders. The find feature is easily, found, :). Opera can also find from the address bar (more on that later).
7/10

Location bar & search
(ie will not be featured in this segment yet)
Firefox 3.6
Firefox elects to make the locationbar divided into two parts: a versatile search bar, capable of acceepting search engines in multiple formats, and a address bar, which also searches history, bookmarks, urls in nearly any order, and provides a more flexible experience than the traditional address bar (which is now uncommon, as Opera, Safari, and Chrome also adopted unique address bars recently.)
However, the tag feature of Firefox's bookmarks and history give it an edge in adddress bar searches if used well. And the separate search function is very powerful, comparable to Operas.
The main advantage of Firefox is the Search bar. It is tremendously powerful and even gives suggestions on some search engines. The awesome bar also benefits "from tagging.
10/10
Safari
Although safari was one of the first with a seperate search bar, it still only supports Google (and yahoo,) lacking a multi-functioned search bar. Suggestions and recent searches are provided, a nice touch. OpenSearch Search Plugins are not supported. In fact, the bar is incapable of using third-party engines, a critical flaw! Safari supports bookmarks, and history searches, and cleanly seperates them, along with providing a "top hit" and differentiating URL hits from title hits. It does not search page content.
7.5/10, 9/10 if search plugins don't concern you.

Opera 10.1
Opera is average in this category. It supports searches, but because of the lack of tags, the awesomebar is crippled comapred to firefox. It supports multiple search engines, but not using the OpenSearch standard. Support is limited comapred to firefox in that respect.
8/10
Chrome 4
Chrome elects to combine the search box and the address bar. Chrome also elects only partially support OpenSearch. However, Chrome overall is above average in this category. It's support of multiple search engines is second only to IE 8 and Firefox, which have full OpenSearch support. It's method of activating search plugins, with a keyword, is unique but you may end up liking it more. It's history and bookmark search is thorough, but it only reports the top hits.
8/10

"Tabs"
IE 8 will not be in this section sorry :(
Safari 4: Safari 4 supports dragging tabs without reloading them. It supports dragging tabs into a new window, but not moving the new window automatically to where you dragged the tab. It does not show the tab bar by default if one tab is open, which can make it hard to drag tabs. Safari 4 has a poor method when too many tabs are open in one window :(. It provides a 3d rendered new tab page.
8/10
Chrome 4
Chrome has extremely poor massive tab support. It does not provide a drop-off menu and the tabs gradually shrink to nothingness. It also does not provide a list of tabs in a menu, critical with large amounts of tabs, as provided by Firefox and half-heartedly by Safari. It provides a very good new tab page with recent pages, bookmarks, etc. Chrome 4 does support a very unique feature called "Chrome snap" that allows you to drag a tab to a location, and it stays in that location, as a new window. That is, drag a tab to an arbitrary new location, and a new window opens in that very location. Drag a tab to the side of another window and a split view appears. To the side of the screen, it opens on that half of the screen. This feature is ripped off of window 7 but is very nice. Because of Chrome snap and good drag-n-drop tab support, Chrome gets
9.5/10
Firefox 3.6
Firefox 3.6 has the best massive tab support, but this is undermined by Chrome Snap and multiple window support of chrome IMHO. Firefox 3.6 has a drop0ff menu for massive tab support and a scrollable tab list. Extensions provide multirow tabs. Tab dragging (from one window to another or between tabs in the same window) feels clunky, like it was tacked on. Dragging a new tab to open a new window works, but the window appears right next to the old one instead of where you dragged it to. A blank page is the new tab page. Boring :)
7/10 (6/10 if massive tab support is unimportant to you).
Opera : 6/10


"unique Features"
Opera: A very configurable settings dialog, lots of security options, greasemonkey built in. 10/10
Firefox: Large addon base, Cross-platform XUL interface, about:config, download pausing and managing. 6/10
IE 8: Web accelerators, Web Slices. 9/10
Chrome: Google Gears, webapp-as-application. 9/10
Safari: Snapback on Google search, 3d new tab page. 7/10

"Addon support"
IE 8
IE 8 uses ActiveX for all addons. This means a lack of support for the most common type of addon, NPAPI plugins. It also means that addons are very insecure. There is no approved addon page, but addons are flexible and powerful when they exist.
6/10
Firefox 3.6
Firefox has XUL extensions, XUL themes, Personas themes, and Jetpack Extensions (in Labs) as well as the standard NPAPI plugin. An official addon website is provided, but not for Jetpack yet. Large addon market. Greasemonkey provides userscript-style addon support unofficially.
10/10
Opera 10.1
Opera supports themes, of which very few are available, and userscripts. Opera also supports NPAPI plugins.
7.5/10
Safari 4
Safari supports Input Manager extensions on Mac OS X 32-bit versions, and supports NPAPI plugins.
2/10
Chrome 4
Chrome supports Chrome addons and userscripts (on Windows).
8/10
Arbitrary Final score:
Firefox 4.5
Chrome 4.0
Safari 3.0
IE 2.5
Opera 2.5
Rules: 0.5 point for second or third finish in a category, 1 point for first or second (both in the case of second, this rule is used if first and second are close).
Firefox comes in third in security, IE second, Chrome first.
In site and OS Compatibility
Firefox wins, second is opera, third is IE
In bookmarks History
Firefox wins, Safari Second, Opera third
In Location bar & search
Firefox wins, Chrome and Safari tie.
In tabs: Chrome wins, Safari Second, Firefox and Opera trail far behind.
In unique Features:
Opera takes the lead, Chrome and IE 8 tie for second. Firefox and Safari trail.
Addon Support:
Firefox wins, with Chrome and Opera coming in close for second and third.

Camera Rants: Why don't camera makers make a hybrid?

This is the start of a new series called "Camera Rants". I will rant about Camera features that are lacking.

Why don't camera makers make a hybrid of SLRs and viewfinder digicams? Here's what my ideal hybrid would have:

• 6-7 megapixel large CCD/CMOS sensor - good pictures at ISO 800.
  
• Interchangeable lenses using a new format, designed for viewfinder digicams.
• EVF technology with at least 400,000 pixels and dioptric adjustment. (Electronic Viewfinder)
• 2.5" LCD that has live preview, aperture preview (like aperture lock on some SLRs)
  
• Thumbwheels - two, set to ISO and exposure comp/Aperture/Shutter (in P/AV/TV respectively)
  
• Flash - Hot Shoe, Powerful internal
• RAW capability
• Movie Mode - MPEG-4, 640x480x30.
• Zoom- 6x.
  
• CF card slot, included in box: one SDHC/SD/MMC multi adapter and one miniSD adapter.
  

A smaller version would use one 6-7mp with a good CCD as before, but would have a fixed lens, one thumbwheel, no hot shoe (External connector port though), and no MPEG-4 movie mode, plus a SDHC slot instead of the legacy compatible and slightly higher capacity supporting CompactFlash.
This would fix most of the problems with compact digicams, but without the complexities of SLR hardware, which must cost at least $75 in "consumer price" to implement, counting the SLR-live-preview function.
Plus, It would give movie mode, good LCD, EVF, and ultra-zoom functions to a truly high-end camera. And it would be somewhat smaller, a lot smaller without interchangeable lenses. Why doesn't Canon do this?

Emulating iLife on Windows Vista

To get the features of iLife in Windows, emulate them using free or inexpensive programs. Here's some tips.
iPhoto
One of my favorite parts of iLife, it's also easily replicable in Windows. Windows Photo Gallery sucks, but you can easily use Picasa and it's features to nearly replicate iPhoto. For advanced image touch-ups, I recommend the Gimp, as it is a wonderful program. If you prefer a Photoshop interface, try Gimpshop. Paint.NET can do basic editing, drawing and touch-ups, and all these programs work with folders, so they have a key advantage over iPhoto's confusing database; easy interoperability with non-first-party programs. On the downside, these tools are all made by separate authors so they don't really integrate as well as iPhoto with programs such as Movie makers, DVD makers, and website authorers. That's a key advantage of iLife. As a side note, these tools are free. No reason to pay good money when open-source/freeware tools are available.
Tip: Using Linux too? Try F-spot and The Gimp. Picasa is available for Linux as well.

iMovie
This is one area where MS's tools are competent. Try Windows Movie Maker. It's comparable to iMovie '06, it uses a different philosophy then '08 and has some features '08 doesn't and doesn't have some '08 does.
Make sure you have at least v.2. For comparable capabilities to iMovie '06, specifically, HD editing, you need the version included in Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. The Version in Home Basic, Business, Enterprise, and XP is not HD-capable. Most people won't use this feature, however. If you need a DVD editor, Nero covers photos, videos, and DVDs. If you're really looking for a MS free solution, try a live-cd with Cinelerra (Knoppix, for instance.) Or a LiveCD with Kino. (Dreamlinux, or others.)
Tip: Using Linux? Kino and LiVES are good bets. See the iDVD for codec selection, and also note that VLC will export WMV9 files as MPEG4 or other formats - good since WMV9 is the standard format of Windows Movie Maker.

iDVD
To match iDVD would require matching it's themes. Such a feat has not been accomplished that I know of. However, there is a $79 program (Nero 8) that comes with a DVD editor, photo editor, video editor, and CD/DVD burner.
If you don't need themes, SUPER! is a format-to-VOB conversion program. These files can then be burned with a program such as Nero Lite (usually included with your system/DVD burner) or Vista's DVD burner. If you're still running XP for whatever reason, you need a third-party dvd burner (you can still use SUPER! so it just needs to support writing files to and finalizing DVDs) or you can use http://smithii.com/cdrtools and Cygwin. These are free, Open-Source tools. They're a pain in the butt to use though. If you need to write DVDs, it might be better to pay for Nero 8 (79) or Vista Upgrade Home Premium (around $149). Vista also comes with a small DVD writer, Windows DVD maker, however it primarily supports WMV; support for AVI, MOV, MP4 and such is poor, unlike SUPER! (which is quite a bit harder to use.) If you use mostly WMV, that's fine; WinDVD Maker is simple and not advanced, but it gets the job done in most cases. If you use files in Xvid, x264, or MOV format a lot, like I do, however, it can be limiting. You can always use Windows Media encoder to convert MOV/AVI/etc. files to WMV; this is an extra step and reduces quality though. Windows Media Encoder is available free from MS. You'll need codecs for MOV, AVI, Real, etc to do this though, and they have to be DirectShow or Video For Windows codecs, not Quicktime engine/Real engine codecs. You can find some converters adapters and codecs at free-codecs.com. Be sure to have a virus program and Windows Defender on while downloading any codecs, particularly if they don't come from that site (which, as of right now, appears to be safe.) If you don't have a virus program, download in Firefox/Opera and test the downloaded files in ClamWin, a free antivirus program (non-realtime though.) Be aware that QuickTime Alternative, which supports playing Quicktime files via VfW, and Real Alternative, which does the same for RealMedia, require QuickTime and RealPlayer, respectively, to be installed to work properly. Both are free downloads.

iTunes
Use iTunes on Windows! However if that's not your thing, use Windows Media Player, or Winamp 5.5 (which is a great player.) Use Songbird! Use whatever you want. Try to encode files in AAC or preferably MP3 for compatibility and long-lasting support. WMA has an uncertain future, wheras AAC is supported by the MPEG group, who created MP3, and by Apple, who manufactures the #1 music player line. Meanwhile, MP3 is supported by everyone, from Winamp, to Amazon, to Apple (somewhat- iTunes can encode Mp3s, but doesn't by default,) and by MS (same thing as apple.) AAC has higher quality, but the encoders for MP3 are faster, and more players support MP3. If your player doesn't, you can add it using RockBox to select players, or you could make sure your manufacturer doesn't offer an upgrade to the firmware that does. Or just use MP3. My personal recommendation would be Winamp for pros, and iTunes for novices.
Tip: On Linux use Amarok, or RhythymBox. Many people swear by Amarok. You'll also need to use Grip to rip, or you could use Wine and a Windows CD ripper, like iTunes 4, as it will be easier to use. Finally, to burn Audio CDs, use K3b.

iWeb
Replicate the photo album functionality of iWeb with Picasa Web Albums (you are using picasa as your photo organizer aren't you?) or Flickr. Replicate the Blogging functionality with a free blog at Blogger. Replicate the Web-page creating techniques using Nvu, a free program for Web Editing, and more flexible then iWeb too. (http://www.nvu.com/) Replicate Video hosting with YouTube, Google video, or for longer videos, encode them in Quicktime format (that's the most cross-platform compatible) and possibly WMV9 too (plays back on all Windows machines, without needing to install Quicktime) using Windows Media Encoder and SUPER!. Specifically, to encode in quicktime format with SUPER!, select h.264 or MPEG-4, as the encoding for video. Select MOV as the file format to save in. Select AAC as the audio format to save in. Choose bitrates (for the web, 250-700kbits is good for video, with 64kbits for audio, or for an audio-centric video, like a music video, 128kbits.) Then select resolution (640x480 is usually recommended) and encode. Now just use Nvu to put the video on the web by linking to it, or using the EMBED tag to include it on the page.
You'll need hosting for custom webpages. Good hosting services are available, with around 750 MB or even 2GB storage for less than .Mac, and they have features like PHP too. They are coming down in price.
Tip: All this except SUPER works on Linux.
GarageBand
I don't know of any good music editors other than one program by Adobe that costs around $99 dollars.
:(

iChat
Not actually part of iLife, iChat is part of OS X. However, it is a very cool application and there are two apps for windows that are similar and about as good or even better. Skype provides Video and Audio chat. And for text chat on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, Icq, IRC, and more, use Pidgin (also known as Gaim) for Windows. Yes, you could download AIM 6, but why deal with slowness, ads, AOL intrusiveness and other annoyances just to get videochat over AIM when Skype does videochat over Skype and you can text chat over AIM and about half a dozen other systems at the same time with Pidgin?
Tip: On Linux? Try Ekiga for video, Skype for audio, and Pidgin/Gaim for text.

Summary

As you can see, there are quite a few alternatives to iLife for Windows and Linux that are free or low-cost. Many of them are open-source or even come with Windows.

Finder and Explorer history

Finally A New Post!
I mentioned this in Windows Me II but I think it should have it's own thread... in my opinion, both Windows Explorer (especially in XP) and Mac OS X Finder are simply a little messed up, but are slowly getting better.

A little history...
Windows 3.1 had File Manager. Now File Manager was very powerful for its day but very unintuitive. It's list view was extremely competent, and for those familiar with paths it was often faster to use FM than Explorer. FM major weaknesses were poor support for drag-n-drop and poor file association suppport. The Tree architecture was powerful, and the menu driven interface took up very little space. OTOH, File Manager was meant to be used full screen, it's window-in-window philosophy and tree view meant you couldn't really use it side by side with other apps without at least a 1024x768 screen, huge for the day.


Windows 95 had Windows Explorer and My Computer. According to plans I've read from beta documentation the plan was WinExp was to be the "pro" file manager and MyCom the "novice" file manager.

By 98, MyCom had more advanced features added to it, and MS made their biggest blunder - web integration. Web Integration involved integrating WinExp, MyCom, and IntExp into one program and one interface despite the security holes and UI problems with this. MyCom became a confusing mess of a browser, with none of the intuitiveness of the spacial MyCom of 95 and only part of the sophisticated features of WinExp.

With Mac OS 7.6 Apple had refined the Finder but it had a number of shortcomings relative to Windows 95, its main competition. It was not multithreaded, it was slow, it had limited long filename support, and sophisticated navigation, like tree navigation, was lacking. Furthermore, The requirement for drag-n-drop was annoying.

With Mac OS 8.0/8.1 Apple had refined the Finder and filesystem. Pop-up folders Allowed convenient storage of folders at the bottom of your screen, an innovative feature that only with stacks is anywhere close to being copied on any OS, OS X, Win, or Linux that I know of. Spring-loaded folders proved that drag-n-drop had power in it if you added the right features to it, and multithreaded capability was added. The biggest problems with the finder were fixed, but the tree solution was yet to come...

Mac OS 8.5/8.6/9.x added Sherlock and then Sherlock 2. The key feature here was indexing, which was previously available in NT 4 and UNIX but not to a wide market. With Mac OS 8.5, indexing was put in a consumer system. Indexing however was relatively poor performer and background indexing was not possible due to the Mac OS's inherent multitasking problems so the best was yet to come...

Windows 2000 continued the Search feature that had been available since Win95 which was simply awesome for a non-indexed search (although technically you could use indexing in 2000 - not in 98 or 95). Including Saved Searches, and many many search features, it was one of the most missed features during many a upgrade from 2000/98se to XP. Windows 2000 also improved the web integration, by taking it down a few notches to a more acceptable level. Double-click was back, and many other integration features were modified. Overall, the feel was smooth, like a good browser should be.

Mac OS X 10.0/10.1/Public Beta had one of the worst browsers ever. With virtually no spatial support and limited browser capability, Icon view was poor, leaving the most practical options as List View and the impressive new Column View. Column View was a high point in a poor browser. Another high point was the auto indexing in Sherlock 2.

Mac OS X 10.2 was similar with only minor changes, but improved performance and bugfixes made the finder acceptable as a browser. The new File>Find command was an excellent finder with auto background indexing and many finding features. Mac OS X 10.3 and the amazing morphing window will be covered shortly...

Windows XP added a strange task-based perspective to MyCom - by now WinExp was almost completely eliminated. The tree view was apparently not in style in favor of browser style management, unfortunately. The task-based perspective added some strange weirdness - advertising popped up in various areas and strange tasks and icons would appear in weird places. Task-based generally tried to be to helpful but ended up wasting space on the left.

Mac OS X 10.3/10.4 Had a revamped Finder that was pretty good from a browser perspective, but Icon View remained weak and slowness was still an issue. The revamped Finder's sidebar included hot links to your favorite places and things, replacing the Favorites Folder (see end of article.)

Windows Vista added a new, seperate Computer Explorer which was now completely separate from IE, and had an optional view that can display both tree and Tasks - very useful. Downsides? The lack of menu bar. Upsides? Incredible search, a reasonable browser, and limited spatial support, as well as a simplified filesystem that is easier to understand and use, especially for UNIX users.

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard adds an all-new Finder Sidebar with Bonjour-networked servers, VNC servers, favorite places, drives and smart folders all automatically lined up in the proper slots, just like iTunes. Finally, a good browser finder. Icon view is also better, and Quick Look shows promise as an easy document viewer.

Well that's the summary, from 3.1 to Vista and 7.6 to 10.5. Thoughts? Which is better? Siracusa? :-). Oh and check out http://toastytech.com/ although I certainly don't agree very much with him he makes some interesting points. And the GUI gallery is good.

Impressions on iMac

Well, I just got a iMac 20" Intel 2.16 Ghz and I'm also happy with this machine. It justs seems so smooth. I rip DVDs, use iPhoto, iPulse, etc. and everything goes so well. Well, I guess it's time for a review:

• Screen; 10/10; The iMac's screen is gorgeous. Humongus, widescreen and lush. It's amazing. One of the best parts. The 1680x1050 resoultion is excellent, but 1920x1200 might have been nicer. Of course, that would kill sales of the 24". :D
  
• Processor; 9/10; The Core 2 Duo, faster then my G4 [1.25 Ghz] by about 4.5x at some things, it's quite fast. Downsides? Being a notebook processor, it costs about the same as a 2.33ghz desktop model (it's 2.16Ghz,) but is slower. Of course, this saves power.
• Memory, HD, and Video: 8/10: Decent for a machine of this caliber, the video processor, a X1600, will play many games capably. The HD is huge; this scores a 10/10. The RAM is decent. It's 1GB; 2GB or 1.5GB would have been better.
• Other stuff and Design; 10/10; The design is excellent. It's slim yet comfortable and not awkward looking. The iSight camera and Dual-layer DVD burner are nice bonuses, and the keyboard and mouse are first rate as far as bundled ones go. The amount of USB ports is a nice touch; three on the machine and two on the keyboard; with keyboard and mouse plugged in, you still have 3 ports left. There are also two FireWire 400 ports, absent on many machines, as well as gigabit, not 10/100, Ethernet.
• Software and OS; 9/10; The bundled software suite is nice but not as good as Apple used to do. It contains a movie editor, picture manager/editor, outliner, board games, music/video organizer/player, DVD burner, and music maker, as well as a Web Publisher. Most applications are absolutely first rate and excellent. The OS is smooth but has a few faults; I wish the UNIX integration and Web server were better, and I wish that a Backup program were included. Furthermore, the iChat software, while nice, has poor compatibility.
  
• Value; 8/10; You can't really compare this to a PC. The PC will be faster, more expandable, and more compatible, whereas the Mac will be easier to use, come with more cool stuff, and be designed better, and have better support.
• Overall: 9.5/10: One of Apple's Best. A worthy competitor to the PC world.
  

Switching to Linux: Impressions

I recently switched to Linux on my Compaq M2000. Windows was slow, buggy and problematic. I switched to Ubuntu 6.10 and have been quite happy. I had already used Linux in the computer in my room, in the form of Mandriva 2006, but this was the first time I was using it on a regular basis. Overall, I'm very impressed. It's quite nice, even on a laptop. Standby works, Wireless should work with a little ndiswrapper, and even my new Win/Mac Dreamweaver 8 copy works fine under Wine, allowing me to write webpages on my Compaq very easily. I've heard reports that Flash 8 and Fireworks 8 also run on Linux - I'm gonna try that out. For those who haven't heard of Wine, it's a Windows simulation layer for Linux that allows you to run some windows programs. With the exception of web page creation, most every need, however, has been filled by a Linux program (and a free one, too) anyway. So I am very happy and thoroughly enjoy Ubuntu. Setup was painless and it automatically detected my hardware. Ubuntuguide.com helped me through adding non-open-source features, such as flash and Java. I especially enjoyed Automatix2, a simple program for adding popular multimedia and other apps to Ubuntu.

Compaq M2000 review

Well we got a Compaq M2000 a few months ago for $500 and I figured I'd post my impressions.
Hardware features.
The speakers are excellent. The keyboard has a nice feel to it, but the delete key is placed in a awkward spot. The keyboard function keys are really nice and work well. The trackpad has a good feel to it, but the scrolling (scroll wheel style) software is broken. The wireless signal strength is strong, and consistently gets connections. The processor is fairly weak but never too slow for me, even while emulating systems or managing dozens of web browser tabs. The RAM at 512 MB is plentiful and I haven't gotten close to filling up the Hard Drive yet.
********* out of 10 stars.
Software features
The laptop comes with almost no software. I quickly loaded it with Firefox, ZoneAlarm Security Suite, OpenOffice.org and miscellaneous other software. I'd say if you want a secure, productive install for free, OpenOffice.org, Picasa, The GIMP, Firefox, Avast!, ZoneAlarm free firewall and Windows Defender are essential. They're all free and adware, spyware and virus free AFAIK.
Windows XP Home Edition is included, a reasonable choice for a PC laptop. I like Mac OS X more but only Apple can bundle computers with OS X.
The software for managing the Compaq, such as Trackpad drivers, DVD players, keyboard drivers and HP Wireless Assistant are intuitive and functional. The desktop is not loaded with millions of useless icons
****** out of 10.
Overall:
I like the feel of this laptop. Like any Windows laptop it often slows down or acts weird, but it's overall a good performer and I like the hardware.
******** out of 10.

Mac Mini is Disappointing?

Sorry for lack of posts lately. Anyway, here are my thoughts on the Mac Mini

* The small thing is nice but limiting. C'mon: I mean, if it were bigger, we could put in a 3.5" drive slot (thus allowing 120GB drive BTO upgrades cheaply), PCI-e Slot (especially for a possible graphics upgrade to make it a budget gaming machine), 3-4 GB RAM support and a real speaker for the same price or even $50 less.
* Front Row looks cool and worth the money.
* The GMA950 is fine for 85% of users. Even I would be OK with it. I just would use my GameCube for games. Of course, if it were bigger, you could have a PCI-e slot for graphics upgrades.
* The 1.5 Ghz Core Solo is to be expected of a budget machine.
* The price would have been more reasonable at $499/$699.
* There's no reason for AirPort or Bluetooth in the budget model.
Overall:
******* out of 10 stars.

iWeb

I've got a detailed report on iWeb at http://web.mac.com/ryaxnb2/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html.

My Css skills

I'm learning CSS and my new webpage, which I created yesterday, uses quite a bit of CSS. Don't forget to check it out. I'm having particular difficulties with multi-column layouts. I just picked up HTML & XHTML & CSS Visual QuickStart Guide and CSS The Definitive Guide. Both are excellent resources.

Welcome to my new blog

This is my first real blog. Be sure to visit my real website at http://homepage.mac.com/ryaxnb2/foggy.html.