Hmm. So I’ve had a bit more time to play with it, and it seems like the backspace/delete thing cleared up on its own after I restarted the computer again. Saft is still NOT showing up in Safari, although the software update says that I have the newest version. Multiclutch commands are still not working with me in Safari, so I’m not sure what’s going on with that program. I know that a new version was included with Snow Leopard, but if this isn’t fixed soon, I am going to downgrade to a previous version and see if that makes a difference.
Update: Yay! I was reading TUAW today, and it seems that the problem may be that Safari 4 is now running in 64 bit mode, and the plugins I was talking about only work in 32 bit. Here’s the post. Whew. I’m not at home, so I have to wait until after work to check, but I really hope this is the solution.
On the plus side, I’ve noticed that my computer seems to charge more quickly.
I upgraded my computer to Snow Leopard over the weekend. I’d read all sorts of favorable reviews (TUAW offers a roundup), and I found them convincing enough to plunk down $30 bucks. On the whole, the changes to OS X are small (at least for my purposes). Aside from manipulating my photos, and sometimes editings mp3s and videos, I don’t do a whole lot of media-related stuff on my computer. I do find a couple of the new features in Snow Leopard to be awesome. I like being able to view pdfs right from the folder without having to open preview and I love that transferring data is appreciably faster. Still, and I don’t know if it’s just my computer, I discovered that a few things are not working the way I’d hoped they would.
Saft doesn’t give me an error about not working with Safari 4, but I don’t see the Saft menu when I go to options.
Function + delete isn’t working as a Wind0ws-style delete for me, and it’s driving me nuts.
Some of the Multiclutch functions that I programmed for Safari 4 in Leopard don’t seem to be working.
I actually only noticed most of these things last night, and I didn’t look into them too much, because I was finishing up a pair of socks (which came out beautifully, I know you were wondering). I’m not going to be home tonight until late, so I probably won’t get to it until tomorrow at the earliest. A quick glance at some Mac blogs showed that while people are definitely having problems related to upgrading , nobody has mentioned the problems that I’m having. Yay for being uniquely troubled!
In case you have already upgraded to Snow Leopard, MacLife offers a list of 100 tips, tricks, and features that are new to this version of OS X.
My Time Machine backup drive died suddenly last week. I don’t know if it was age (two years) or the heat, but it just stopped working in the middle of the day, and wouldn’t come back on. I got a 1.5 TB drive (Newegg’s having a sale on external HDs, if anybody is interested), and made my previous backup drive into my new Time Machine. I was searching online to see what other people do when their time machine goes kaput. The search string “Time Machine failed” wasn’t very promising, so I switched to “Time Machine Died.”
I still haven’t figured out what the deal is with my dead dead HD, but I’ll worry about that later. I’m home sick today, so I think I’m going to take some allergy meds, motrin, and sleep til I know no more.
Oh Apple, why must you break my heart? As anybody who has ever seen me with my laptop knows, I am in lurve with my MacBook. It’s pretty, it’s cool, it’s fast, and it has opened up a different world of computing. My geeky soul finds this deeply satisfying. So why did Apple have to go and release pretty much MY computer with an updated screen, built-in card reader, and lower price? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?
That is so not cool. Right now, I’m weighing my options. Should I make a fuss with Apple? I do enjoy my computer, and I just bought the MacUpdate bundle, so for the last day I’ve been playing around with Parallels 4 and Windows 7. (As an aside, I cannot say enough good things about this bundle. Even if the rest of the apps sucked, which they don’t, Parallels 4 would make the whole thing worthwhile, as it retails for $79.99 and the bundle was only $49.99.) It’s been nice to use my multitouch gestures on the Windows platform, or switch back and forth between Leopard and Windows 7.
But why in the name of all that is holy did Apple have to do this to me? Couldn’t they have waited at least one year? I’m finding it different to read the reactions on Engadget and Gizmodo. The commenters at the former seem more down on Apple, while people more fanboyish seem to frequent the latter.
Really, I was looking forward to today’s announcements because I thought they were going to announce a new iPhone. They did, the iPhone 3GS, and it’s totally underwhelming. It’s faster, but it still lacks a camera, AT&T is being slow to add MMS support, and they’ve said nothing about officially sanctioned tethering, even though other international iPhone carriers are supporting it immediately. Wake me when the HTC Touch Pro 2 is released. Also of interest is the announcement that Snow Leopard will be available starting in September, and that the upgrade will cost only $29.
Just days after switching to Firefox 3.1 beta 2 and losing the functionality of some of my add-ons, 3.0.7, and official update, was released. Out of curiosity, I switched to it. I think it may be a little slower, but all of my extensions work again. As that chick on the OC said, God doesn’t give with both hands, right?
Safari 4 beta is super fast when compared to Safari 3, but is not appreciably faster than Firefox 3.1 beta 2. I’m glad I upgraded both of them, though. This version of Firefox is able to load sites that I used to have to turn to Safari or Opera to see. I don’t know why. Maybe the problem had to do with my add-ons, as several of those did not make the transition to the newer version. The only one I really miss is Tab Mix Plus. I found it invaluable, and can’t wait until it is updated to work with this beta.
I am updating this post to add that neither the newer of the newer versions of Firefox and Safari could handle searching my hotmail account, and Opera handled it without any problems at all. So I guess I really do still need the three.
I was thinking of Neil LaBute the other day, and then last night I saw a poster for Reasons to be Pretty, his new play. I was like, SCORE! The poster had the following URL on it: http://www.doesthisplaymakemelookfat.com. I went to the web site today using Firefox, which I recently made my default browser. The site opened, but I saw nothing. I tried it in Safari, and behold, the nothingness became stuff. So now I know more about the play, which is something (I guess).
Then I wanted to try out Safari 4 beta, to see whether it can live up to the claims made by Apple. The download page on the Apple web site didn’t work for me in Firefox (0 for 2 today) or Safari (1 for 2), but it did work in Opera 10 alpha, which I think is odd. I just finished the install and am about to restart, and once I’ve messed around with it for a bit, I’ll post my impressions. I guess, actually, that I should go get Firefox 3.1 beta 2 while I’m at it.
I deleted the Windows 7 partition on my Macbook because I found it annoying and almost never actually used it. Plus, it slowed my boot time to an unmanageable minute, from a previous low of about 12-15 seconds. Unacceptable. I thought that it would be kind of a tedious process, but the whole thing took about 10 seconds in Boot Camp. I continue to be astounded by this operating system. I still have Windows 7 on my Gateway, and plan to play around with it some more this weekend, as I have been quite remiss. Even the new, shiny beta operating system doesn’t really make me want to use the older computer that much…
And now that I found boxee, and can watch my Netflix instant access content on the Macbook, the other computer is even less useful to me.
Reading really is fundamental. I saw a post on Lifehacker about Syncplicity finally opening their beta to Mac users, and so, having never heard of this software, I read on. The post mentioned something about file sharing, and I was intrigued. I don’t really do the whole file-sharing thing anymore, and I think a lot of other people have moved away from it, too, so I was interested in what Lifehacker recommended.
I downloaded the program, and was initially confused as to how it worked. Where was the interfact? How could I see what other people were offering? Since it was a private beta, I was willing to be a little more trusting and was hoping that I’d find some good and/or rare music. So I read the guide on how to get started, but still wasn’t seeing anything relevant to file-sharing. I went back to Lifehacker to reread the post, and lo and behold, it’s a file SYNCing program, to sync files and content across two (free) or more (paid subscription) computers.
I’m such a dummy. I can’t believe I misread that so many times. If I’d been thinking, which I clearly wasn’t even the program’s name would have tipped me off.
And, just having checked, it seems that MOST of my multitouch gestures are not working with Opera. The only thing that works right off the bat is navigating up and down a page. Bummer.
The last time I thought that Opera was working with Multi-Touch/Multiclutch gestures, I closed it down completely (carrying over no windows between sessions), only to find that I had been mistaken. Again. I was so disappointed that I didn’t open the program for over a week. I hear that lots of Mac users don’t like Safari, but I’m finding that it suits my needs pretty nicely (although I do still also use Firefox on occasion).
Today, though, I wanted to use a fresh browser to check for airfare, and didn’t feel like going through and deleting all of my travel-related cookies from Safari and Firefox. I opened Opera, and was informed that new build was fixed. I downloaded it, and HUZZAH!! It does work with Multi-touch gestures. Immediately, with no dumb luck involved. Unfortunately, my bookmarks didn’t make it from one version to the next, but that was easy enough to remedy. It seems like such a stupid thing to dump a browser over, but I’m so used to this now, that I hate maneuvering without my gestures, and I think my windows laptop is little more than a lapwarmer.
Speaking of opera, I just realized that I didn’t speak about my trip to see Aida last week. Eyes are floating shut, more on that later.
Computers, Mac OS X, Software, Technology | Nicole | 
September 3, 2009 8:22 am | 
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