Apple Mac - Safari vs Firefox

Safari is a fast, very simple and elegant web browser. In fact browsing the internet on the mac has been somewhat a pleasurable experience compared to the pc. Little cosmetic things here and there.

That was until I started to fill in some applications on line. It's foreign language support for changing on the go seemed broken and some sites just plain refused to run on Safari. It just blew my mind that the only thing useful about this browser was just browsing big news sites and apple trailers.

The internet offers far more than just browsing and access to online services seems to be a problem. Even certain email websites just seem to take forever to load or even refuse to work. I guess that's why there is such a need for Parallels.

Determined to persevere, I installed Firefox 3. This looked similar to Safari, but I missed the feature where the window size adjusted accordingly to the website. Firefox was fast, but very PC in nature. Lots of add ons and themes. Nothing Mac like about it except the theme.

All websites that had problems with started to just work. However, some websites just look plain broken, and all over the place, where as in Safari, they were rendered great. I'm pretty sure it's an addon problem, though I haven't encountered any such problem on the PC version of Firefox.

I've come to realize that it's the Mac Way or the Highway. Safari for browsing and Firefox for online services. If only Safari was supported more by business websites. It is so elegant with some nice cosmetic touches.

Apple Mac - Automator

After spending some time recently with an Apple Macbook, I discovered that some web pages saved through the internet browser didn't save with a html extension. No problem, I'll just open the Finder and rename them. The problem was, there were over twenty files.

I discovered that the only way to rename all the files with the necessary html extension was to look for an installed program called automator. This was found either by right clicking, 'don't get me started', or through spotlight.

Using the said program, I had to create something called a work flow, sounds painful. I had to hunt for the section where the rename file utility was, drag it on to a window pane, figure out what to do with it and then boom! It renamed all the files extension with html. What a nightmare!

Still, at least I have discovered this Automator program. It seems to have lots of useful functions, which to be honest, should really have been available in the first place.

OpenOffice 3 for the Mac

At the termp place where I work, the program that runs supreme is the Microsoft Office suite. It gets the job done and is second nature. Then last week I had to use a macbook with no MS office, but instead came with Openoffice version 2x. It was a horrible experience. Made me hammer nails after nails into the coffin of 'get a Mac'.

Then I installed an office suite was called NeoOffice. It did a much better job but it was as if someone took a pc version of Openoffice, stuck a mac theme on it, and plonked it on a mac. It was like Frankenstein, forced to wear a non branded turtle neck sweater. Hammer, hammer, hammer!

Then quite recently OpenOffice 3 for the mac was released. Once I had installed it, I was pleased with the somewhat polished interface compared with the other apps I had previously mentioned. It felt great. Now here was an office suite I thought was going to do very nicely. That was until I started to do some printing. Sometimes words were missing, sometimes frames or borders were missing and at times it crashed. Hammer, hammer, hammer!

I have always admired opensource apps on the PC. Opensource apps on the macs are a nightmare. Most, if not all, require some heathen 3rd party X app to run or they have to be compiled. I don't mind learning how to compile them, if they come with the necessary instructions. But having to wait hours for them to compile is just trying.

Still, I'm sure OpenOffice 3 for the Mac's next update will iron out all the said bugs. Just to end on a positive note.

Going Back to Paper.

The paperless experience has come to a disastrous end. It has made me realize that I am not technologically savvy. I ended up using 2 or 3 PDAs. One had better scheduling entry, the other had had a instant access to notes and the other one was just senselessly pretty. I ended up having so much different information on each one. The problem wasn't even that. The problem was charging, backing up and syncing.

I have now ended up using small sized, colored, pocketable paper notebooks. I just write, date and forget. No backing up. No syncing. No charging.

If only there was a PDA that had an instantaneous , functional interface, keyboard entry input, great syncing.... wait, I remember those old Casio Organizers. No! It can't be.

.TXT Files - Great! Oh, wait, no alarms.

Having recently been relying on technology for most things, I find myself not adjusting to it in a savvy way. I  use a desktop, pda  and now finally a netbook. There lies the problem. Syncing all the machines. They all use different operating systems. 

Since, I don't really have time or want to spend the time at the moment to search for the apps that can do it, although it can be fun, I have resorted to text files that contains todo lists, notes, and a planner with templates for quick entry. It was great until I started to rely on alarms. 

I realized I needed to sync all the alarms on all three platforms. You may wonder why I don't just choose the PDA as the main platform for alarms since it is the most convenient. Unfortunately, the only convenient thing about it is the size. Compared to the desktop, entry is slow and laborious. Adding notes on the small tiny keys are just tiresome. Viewing all the entries often involve a lot of scrolling, and the amount of information is limited on the small screen. 

Some days, my schedules have to overhauled and on a PDA this is painful. There are also other days when I have to change the schedule on the desktop, sync with the PDA, only to find out I have to overhaul the schedule when I'm out with my netbook. 

Then there is the interface. Don't you hate going from touch screen (pda) to mouse (desktop) to trackpad (netbook)?

What I really need is a really small clamshell PDA that runs the same operating system as the desktop, fits in the pocket and can instantly resume and have at least two working days of battery life, in case I forget to charge daily. Unfortunately, companies nowadays seems to purposely provide only four out of the five things I need.

Netbooks - Too big for comfort.

When the first netbook came out, the price was a big factor. It was so cheap that we could forgive the small keyboard, the small screen screen and the paltry battery life.

Now the netbooks are getting better battery life, bigger keyboards and screens. The latter had to be forthcoming, but the bigger keyboards has also made the overall size of the netbook large enough to think, why shouldn't I just get a notebook computer.

The price of the netbooks are also getting close to the notebook range. The notebooks have bigger screens which, after prolonged use, it is hard to adjust to the 8.9 to 10 inch screens and the economized trackpads.

Netbooks used to be cheap and fun. Now, it's just feels slightly smaller than a notebook, with less performance and slightly less in price.

Fujitsu LifeBook N7010 - Nice touch.

Whether it is changing the wallpaper, using themes or using fancy looking launchers, I heart gimmicks.

The 4 inch touch screen is an nice one! Videos in the background, launch programs, webcam and other programs can be dragged into that small touchscreen.

It also has a removable dust filter and I hate dust.



Things I want to do on the 4 inch touch screen.

• Play trailers in the background.
• Webcam.
• Instant Messaging.
• Email Alerts
• Feeds
• Music.

Things I won't use much.

• Surprisingly, the touch screen application launcher.

Multitasking

I never really gave much thought about the specs on the computers. If they can load the office suite and access the internet, then it's sufficient. However, there are days when I want / need to do 10 things at the same time under a deadline and I wished I had a computer/os that worked.

Here are the things that I needed to do in 20 minutes.

1. Burn a catalogue on cd.
2. Confirmation emails.
3. Final checks on documents.
4. Print documents.
5. Internet for sending packages.
6. Back up information before powering down for the day.
7. Photo upload from camera
8. Touching up / processing photos / while being uploaded from camera.
9. Final adjustments on website using a lightweight application
10. Update information on a database.

I completed 9 of the above tasks.

It wasn't the CD burning that let me down, it was printing the documents which seemed to take forever, when under normal circumstances, there was no problem whatsoever.

I don't mind the disk activity, or the pauses between the application, or the crammed look on my desktop, I just want something that works.

Things I have pondered.

• Switch to a mac - Not possible. since some of the applications / net services require a pc / iexplorer.
  
• Bootcamp - Not possible, since I would be running into the same problems.
• Parallels - Cutting and pasting between the two os? Sharing data?
  
• RAM/CPU. Started with 512mb, then 1gb and now 2gb - dual core. I refuse to believe I need 4gb of ram for general office duties!
• Have a second PC / Laptop - Do I have to fire up 2 computers just to do my general office duties?
• Linux - See switch to a mac. Oh and which version or flavor! The manuals gave me a headache.
  

Libretto - Size matters. Not what you can do with it.

Toshiba has recently launched their new netbook. As usual, it looks quite similar to other netbooks and being Toshiba, it's a little bit more expensive.

I appreciate the fact that the standard size of netbooks seems to accommodate a usable keyboard, but I prefer the ones that are really small.

More than ten years ago, Toshiba released this fantastic Libretto 50, a small mini notebook. The keyboard was too small to touch type and the screen is very small.

If it was released today, with specs updated to run XP and priced in the same range as the Asus, I would buy it within a heart beat.

Specs to ponder.

• Pentium 75 Mhz
• 16MB Ram
• 6.1" screen
• 810MB HDD

Sharp PC6200 - Netbook?

The netbooks remind me of similar sized notebook that Sharp came out with a long time ago. My mother used to upload her blogs to a local BBS.

Specs to ponder over.

• MS DOS
• Intel 80286
• 12MHz
• 1 MB RAM
• 20MB Hard disk
• VGA Graphics - Mono