Trying out MarsEdit

I’ve been looking around for an external application that would allow me to post to my blog without having to open a web browser and use WordPress’s WYSIWYG editor. I’ve never been a huge fan of WYSIWYG editors. They always seem to cause a bit of frustration for me.

I did some searching around and found an OS X application called MarsEdit. So far I’m liking it. I’ll have to do some more post to play around with its features. Sadly, MarsEdit isn’t free, but it might be worth purchasing.

Firefox 3 optimized builds for G5 / Intel

Now that Firefox 3 has finally been released, optimized builds are starting to popup. These builds run smoother, and seem to be a lot more stable. There is also a G4 version coming soon.

Firefox 3 optimized builds for G5 / Intel

Firefox 3 Bookmarks and the AwesomeBar

So Firefox 3 is now in beta 5, and it is very impressive. The new version of Firefox includes many improvments, and the addition of some new features.

Bookmarks:

Firefox 3 introduces a new, one-click way to bookmark pages and keep trak of your bookmarks. Check out this article on Dria.org:

Firefox 3 Bookmarks

The AwesomeBar

The new AwesomeBar truly is awesome:

Firefox 3 AwesomeBar

Firefox 3 also has a more Mac-like interface than previous versions of Firefox. I’ve been using the OS X version and I’m very pleased with it.

New App Added To The MacHeist Bundle

Looks like MacHeist has added another program to their 2008 bundle. The new app appears to be a game called Wingnuts 2. This brings the total number of programs up to 12, and one extra app for referring a friend. It’s not a bad deal.

My only problem this year is that none of the applications really appeal to me. I don’t need any of the programs. The only one that really interest me is the Pixelmator program. It’s got a nice Photoshop like feel, and very powerful. It’s normally $59.00, so it does beat Photoshop in the price area.

I still haven’t decided if I want to buy the bundle or not. Still 6 days left to decide!

Leopard And The Missing Hard Drive

I decided to put Leopard on one of my Mac mini computers that I plan to eventually use as a web server, and I ran into the same problem as when I installed Leopard on my MacBook: the internal hard drive wouldn’t show up in the list of places to install Leopard to.

To solve that problem, I kept clicking in the white space because I had read somewhere that by clicking, you refresh the view. There was a lot of clicking, but the hard drive did eventually show up. So, when I went to install Leopard on my Mac mini, I decided to just let it sit there.It took around 20 minutes or so, but the hard drive did eventually show up in the list of places to install to, and I was able to continue the install with no problems.

So, if you’re having the same problem, don’t panic. Just wait and the hard drive will show up. What’s happening is that Leopard is scanning the hard drive to make sure that it can be used. In some ways this is frustrating because you don’t know exactly what’s going on, but on the other hand it’s a good thing because you don’t want to install Leopard and then have problems after you boot into your new system.

So far I’ve been impressed with Leopard. It’s been smoothing sailing so far.

Time Machine

Time Machine is one of several new features that was introduced with Mac OS X Leopard. Time Machine has been talked about a lot as it’s a huge feature to be built into an operating system. Time Machine is a backup program, but it’s not just any old backup program. Time Machine does its job extremely well, and the program itself is very simple to understand, and can literally be setup and working in under a minute. 

Time Machine does require and external ha drive to backup to, but that’s it. When I got Leopard installed, Time Machine was sitting in the dock waiting. When I plugged in my external Maxtor hard drive, it mounted and I was asked if I wanted to use this hard drive with TIme Machine. I hit yes, and everything was setup. No further configuration was needed. 

Time Machine appears to just do a straight copy to the external hard drive, then just update it with what has changed. The first backup took about 10 minutes because 9 GB worth of data was being moved over to the external hard drive. The next backup was much smaller because I hadn’t added any huge files to my computer.

 

Time Machine does hourly backups for the past 24 hours, a daily backup for the past month, and weekly backups until the external hard drive is full. 

I mainly use a laptop, so I was a bit concerned about how TIme Machine would act once the external hard drive was removed. Much to my surprise, nothing happened. TIme Machine saw that the hard drive had been removed, and just stopped doing the backups. Once I attached the hard drive again, TIme Machine switched back on and continued to backup my data.

One thing I have noticed is that TIme Machine will not backup while the computer is running on battery, even if the hard drive is currently attached to the computer. I’m guessing this is to preserve as much power as possible so that the computer can stay on longer while using the battery.

When you wish to retrieve a file, all you have to do is click the TIme Machine icon in the dock. You’ll then be taken to a screen with a Finder window and a time line. You can then look for your missing file. Once you’ve found it, you simply click Restore to restore the file back to your machine. That’s it. Quick and easy data recovery with just one click.  You can also access the files straight from the hard drive if you wish. 

I am completely impressed with TIme Machine. I will still do a backup to DVD every now and then to just be on the safe side, but with this new OS X feature I don’t have to worry about backups nearly as much as I use to. 

Leopard Install

Well, I did finally get Leopard. I was ready for it, so I already had my data and everything backed up to my external Maxtor hard drive. I’m not a big fan of upgrades, so I set out to do a clean install from the start. I made a quick second backup to a DVD just in case. I have to say that the Leopard packaging is very nice. I love the space theme.

I have a lot more data on my iMac, so I decided to install it onto my MacBook first. All I needed to backup on it was my pictures and documents, so choosing the MacBook was a quicker process.

I popped the CD in, and rebooted. After a few minutes, Leopard loaded and I started the install. This was attempt number one. I clicked through the agreements and all the other good stuff. Then I came to the screen where you choose which hard drive you want to install to. And guess what, it was blank. Not one drive listed there. The first thing I did was reboot to make sure my drive hadn’t died on me in that shot time span, but Tiger booted up just fine.

I did some research to see if anyone else was having this problem, and it turns out others are as well. I read a few messageboard posts that suggested that I keep clicking in the white space, and another said that I should open the disk utility in the Leopard install and unmount then remount the hard drive. None of these things worked. I finally found a post from someone stating that they just left it alone for about 15 minutes and everything showed up. So, I tried this. I booted back into the install, waited about 20 minutes and sure enough, the hard drive showed up. It turns out that Leopard scans the hard drive before it installs to it. The more you have on the hard drive, the longer it takes to scan.

The rest of the install went perfectly. I chose not to install some of the printer drivers. They just took up too much space, and I really wouldn’t use any of them except for the Cannon and HP drivers. So I left those, and ditched the rest. I also chose not to install any of the language fonts. I don’t know any other languages, so they would have just been dead weight.

The actual install took around 20 minutes, and went smooth. My MacBook rebooted, and started the user setup process. I was off and running in no time.

I restored all my data from my external hard drive this morning, everything went perfecly (I didn’t need that DVD backup…a good thing I think). I was also able to reinstall all of my important programs without any trouble. Everything worked just fine.

I’ve only had the OS for a day, so I’m still exploring it. I have had a chance to use Time Machine, and so far I have to say I’m impressed with it. I’ll be writing about it once I get more familiar with it.

Waiting for Leopard

The day is finally here, and I have to say I’m pretty excited. Leopard will be released in just a few hours. I haven’t purchased my copy yet, I didn’t have time to before I went on vacation. I’ll probably wait a week or two and read some reviews before I order it. That’s the plan anyway. I’ll probably break down and order it after I write this. I have been waiting a while for Leopard.

The thing I am most looking forward to in Leopard is the new version of Mail. I love Mail. It is the best email client I’ve ever used. I’ve tried Thunderbird, Outlook, Eudora, Pegasus, and many others. None have matched Mail.

I look at look at the Leopard guided tour the other day, and I was pleased to see an entire section on Mail. The new version of mail will include some great features including notes, tasks, RSS, and data detect.

The new notes feature in Mail looks amazing. Other email clients have this, but I don’t think I’ve seen any of them do it the same way Mail does it. When you click the Note button in Mail, you get a note pad to begin typing your note on. When you’re done, you simply save the note. What Mail is actually doing is just sending you an email containing your note. Mail then puts the note into a Smart Mailbox that is just for notes. You can then go to this folder to view and edit your note. Wonderful. I’m always sending myself emails as reminders, so this will be perfect for me.

The task feature in Mail works about the same way. You simply hit the Task button, type your task, and Mail saves it into a Smart Mailbox. The task has a red dot next to it, and a check box that you can check once the task is complete. I’ve tried other programs to do this, but none of them have done it as eloquently as Mail.

I’ve been using NewsFire as my RSS reader for a while now. It works great, but being able to access my RSS feeds right alongside my email will be great.

The last feature I want to talk about is data detect. Mail will automatically recognize a task in an email. All you have to do is click it and choose to add it to your task list. Mail can also do this for dates, and add them to iCal for you. If someone sends you an email, and all their information is at the bottom in the signature, Mail will recognize this, and you can them add the person to your address book with one simple click.

It doesn’t get much better than that. I can’t wait to see how well all of this works together.

If you’re interested in some of the other features in Leopard, check out this page: Mac OS X Leopard – Features

Video Programs

I’ve been playing around with converting videos, ripping DVDs, and making backup copies. I’m hopefully going to have a tutorial up soon, but for now here’s the programs I’ve been using. They’re not all free, but they’re not that expesnvie.

Handbrake
MacTheRipper
VisualHub
Toast 8

I’ll go into more detail later.

Old Versions

The other day I needed to find an old version of Mozilla Thunderbird because the new 2.0 version isn’t compatible with my mail server. This is due mainly to the mail server. I’ve been running the same mail server software since November 2006, and there hasn’t been one update released for it. Odd, huh?

So, I had to go looking for the old version of Thunderbird. There may have been a link on the Mozilla web site, but I couldn’t find one. I Googled around a bit, and finally found an older version of Thunderbird.

I thought it was pretty cool that there are web sites that specialize in providing older versions of popular applications. So, I decided to make a short list of some of these sites. Most of these sites have both OS X and Windows apps. They may also have some Linux apps, but just in case they don’t, I threw in one that I use sometimes.

OldVersion.com

OldApps

Old-Versions.net

Real Legacy Software Archive (old versions of RealPlayer)

Rpmfind.net