tomsepper.net

From an earlier blog entry, I’ve already explained my personal browser war. I have finally made a choice after a few software updates as well as finding some very helpful plugins.

My browser of choice is now Safari 3.1. 

First off, to address Safari’s inadequacies I outlined in my previous post:

• WordPress released version 2.5 which fixes the TinyMCE issue.
• I realized that I didn’t have that many Firefox extensions installed; and those that I did I found suitable Safari replacements.
• Having to export and import my bookmarks when they change in order to keep my iPhone up-to-date was a major pain. Using Safari obviously fixes that natively.
• I no longer use Outlook Web Access, so this is a moot point.

• GreaseKit — the Safari port of the Greasemonkey extension.
• SafariStand — various enhancements including color coded source viewing.

The two plugins require the SIMBL application to be installed.

I have two Greasemonkey scripts installed: Show Password onMouseOver and Spelling Cow all text fields.

My question to those reading this — which Greasemonkey scripts do you find indispensable?

Everyone has their list; here’s mine:

• Multi-protocol Chat Client. Hell, if I had my way, Adium would be ported ASAP!
• SSH terminal with bookmark support.
• Real Address Book – not a section of the phone.

I guess my earlier suggestions and wish list still apply as well, but those need to come from Apple.

Twitter seems to be all-the-rage in the tech circles these days. When I was trying to find an easy way for Monica and me to update Katie Lynn’s website, I decided to give Twitter a try. It worked well usually, but I noticed the external javascript calls slowed down page load time dramatically. Additionally, customization ability is lacking. I loved being able to send a text message to update the site, but I wanted the ability to email updates as well.

So I set out to find a replacement. I thought that would be simple.

Boy was I wrong.

I searched for a long time and finally found some very basic framework. Luckily, I’m not too shabby with PHP and was able to write everything I wanted:

• Accept text messages, emails, and web submissions.
• Parse the text message/email into variables.
• Insert the variables into a MySQL database.
• Display records any way I want.
• Allow people to subscribe to receive an email upon a new update.
• Load fast!

I then wrote an extremely easy admin interface to be able to edit the entries.

There are five main files to the application:

• Parser – as the name indicates, it parses the text and email submissions.
• Admin – all admin functions including posting via web.
• Notifier – emails subscribers upon all new updates.
• Subscribe – as indicated, performs the subscription action as requested by the visitor.
• Unsubscribe – as indicated, unsubscribes a subscriber upon their request.

The beauty of my system is that it does not need a cronjob. Instead, I simply piped an email address to the parser script’s full path.

And voilà!

I have a nice, simple Twitter replacement.

I recently contacted Google for assistance with a problem on Google Apps. I received the following email this evening:

How did you do? Fairly well on the support, but horrible on the follow-up email!

Apple lowered the price of the 8GB iPhone to $399 today. And early adopters are mad to say the least.

As a relatively early adopter myself, I thought long and hard about it. Am I mad? Not really.

Why?

• My iPhone was worth the $599 then; it’s worth the $599 now.
• I have used my iPhone a lot over the past two months; more than I ever used my previous phone.

That being said, I think Apple made a rather large mistake by lowering the price. In addition to lowering the price of the 8GB model, Apple also discontinued the 4GB model. I feel this was a poor business decision because:

• Apple just upset many (most?) early adopters of the iPhone. And who are the majority of the early adopters? Your typical Apple supporters and “fan boys”.
• Apple just upset the 4GB iPhone owners. With the new 8GB model price, they could have spent less money and gotten more storage.

Although $200 is $200, I’m still extremely pleased with my iPhone and not really upset about the price drop.

New Leopard screenshots have been posted by ThinkSecret. I can’t wait until its release in October.

In my earlier entry concerning my switch to Apple Mail, I stated that Apple Mail had sub-par IMAP support. When I wrote this, I was under the impression that it was not possible to have separate Sent/Drafts/Junk/Trash folders (mailboxes as Apple Mail calls them) for your different IMAP accounts.

I was wrong!

Apple Mail and the IMAP accounts simply have to be configured for it.

• Make sure all IMAP accounts are configured to store the messages on the server.
• In the correct folder tree for each IMAP account, select the folder you wish to use for Sent email and go to the Mailbox menu >> Use This Mailbox For >> Sent. Do this for Drafts, Junk, and Trash for each IMAP account.

And voilà! You now have separate special folders for each IMAP account.

Apple Mail has the ‘combined’ mailbox interface, and it does take some getting used to. But so far, I don’t have a complaint about it.

My name is Tom and I have a problem.

No, this isn’t an AA meeting. My problem is deciding what browser to use on my PowerBook. My choices:

• Safari
• Firefox
• Camino
• Flock

Each have their advantages and disadvantages. Here are my opinions/observations:

• Firefox is slow compared to Safari and Camino. Additionally, it’s painfully slow compared to the Windows version of Firefox.
• Camino has the Mac feel to it but doesn’t support Firefox extensions.
• Safari has the Apple name and Mac feel to it but doesn’t support Firefox extensions naturally.
• Safari and Camino are both very fast.
• WordPress’s visual text editor (TinyMCE) doesn’t work in Safari. I use WordPress on many sites, so this is a huge loss.
• Flock is rather new on the scene and built off of the Gecko rendering engine (Firefox) but doesn’t fully support all Firefox extensions.
• Flock still seems bloated and very beta.
• Safari’s bookmarks sync with my iPhone.
• Safari has a weird cookie issue with Microsoft Outlook Web Access that’s quite annoying.

So my question to my three readers: What browser would you suggest I use?