MacVillage.net

Its been a few months since I last mentioned the Mozilla project, a powerful undertaking to make the perfect open source web browser. In a short time version 1.0 will be released after years of development, and what seemed like an endless parade of milestone releases. I thought I would spend some time reviewing where Mozilla is right now.

When I first wrote about Mozilla, it was still quite a bit unfinished. Most components were implemented, but it crashed once in a while, and had some trouble rendering pages. Mozilla was slow, and I wasn’t sure if it would ever make it to mainstream use. Then Netscape 6 came along and gave the Gecko engine a really bad reputation due to a very premature release. Netscape marketed 6.0 as a complete product, while it was based on code of a product still well in the works. So now where does it stand.

Right now I have the Nightly Build of 1.0 from April 14, 2002, and in the about page it reads “Mozilla 1.0 Release Candidate 1″ so I thought it was time for me to give it a bit of a review.

Now to be fair, I think I should note that I am a bit Anti Internet Explorer. I have always hated it, and still prefer the ancient Netscape Communicator 4.7 over Internet Explorer 5. So when I heard about Mozilla, I was hoping it would be the perfect alternative.

Mozilla now is actually much more stable than I expected it to ever get. RC1 hasn’t crashed on me yet, and is actually pretty fast. Loading the browser takes about 7 seconds on my B&W G3/400 MHz in Mac OS 9, which isn’t too bad. My only complaint is that creating a new window in Mozilla is slightly slugish, taking about 2 seconds, rather than the .5 it should take, but that can be forgiven, since tabbed browsing makes “Open in New Window” a thing of the past. Tabbed browsing is a very great complement to OS X, and helps maintain that uncluttered feel.

Mozilla’s looks aren’t exactly the best, it not Aqua, but it does seem OK. I am not to fond of Modern, so I tend to keep it on Classic, which besides for the icons, does remind me of Aqua. The interface is comparable to Netscape 4.x as far as features are concerned. There is a lot you can customize, and many features to play with.

Mozilla Mail is absolutely awesome. It’s the best HTML email client I have tried to date. Normally I am not fond of receiving HTML email because it can be slow and awkward, but with Mozilla, I prefer it. My only request is for Import and Export to Netscape 4.x or Outlook 5.x (for compatibility reasons, and so that you know you can switch to something else if needed without losing all your old mail).

Mozilla’s page rendering is by far the fastest I have used. It’s smooth, quick, and correct. What I like is that it renders by the books. It doesn’t try to interpret what the page creator had in mind, it renders the page as the code tells it to. No mistakes, just reliable rendering. If a page doesn’t render right in Mozilla, it is because the page wasn’t coded correctly. And did I mention it is really fast?

Mozilla also has great JavaScript support. Most non IE/Netscape browsers have terrible JavaScript, but Mozilla keeps that Netscape tradition going. JavaScript is quick and compatible.

Mozilla does have a few obstacles in the way of success. First of all, it has to loose the Netscape 6 reputation, which it is starting to do. Secondly, Mozilla needs to refine its user interface a bit to make it less cluttered. And for Mac fans, it should try for a more Aqua look, though someone with some talent could create a skin that would do the job just as well.

From what I have seen, there really are no big problems. It’s secure, renders well, fast, and stable. I personally would say that Mozilla will be around for quite some time. Rumor has it that AOL is preparing to switch its users to Mozilla, replacing Internet Explorer as the build-in browser. That will give Mozilla a big push on it’s own. Mozilla is also the most available browser. It is available for virtually any platform, and it is exactly the same on all platforms, unlike most other software which is written platform specific. No platform is neglected. Overall, Mozilla is here to stay.

A large hard drive is essential with most of the applications and uses for a computer today. With games getting larger and larger, MP3′s and digital video getting more and more popular, people are often running out of disk space. What could be a better solution than to get a second drive.

Buying and installing a second hard drive, or just replacing a drive is not nearly as hard as one would think. And not as expensive as you may think. This is not a specific how to article, but a brief rundown to give you an idea of what to expect if you want to attempt this. Good how to articles are already available from Apple and others, so creating one here would be a real waste of time.

The first thing you must do is decide if you want to add a second drive, or replace the one you have. If you replace your current drive, you will lose all your data (unless you back it up, and restore from disks). The solution to this problem is a second drive. If you have a PowerMac, you can add a second drive as an internal or an external. If you have an iMac, or a G4 cube, you have to get an external drive if you want to have a second drive since there is no room in these computers for a second drive. Some Blue and White G3′s (rev. 1) can’t handle a second drive unless you install an IDE controller card such as the Sonnet Tempo cards (discussed later). They run about $90 and provide excellent compatibility and speed.

The second question is how much disk space you wish to have. In most cases, you will want to get 40 GB or more disk space. There are drives with as much as 120 GB available for purchase these days, but unless you have a need for such vast storage, you are just throwing money away. If you are adding a second drive, remember that you still have your current drive, and its respective storage space.

The third question is what type. Unless you have a SCSI drive or controller already, or know you know you need SCSI for your application already (such as for RAID), you most likely will do best with an EIDE drive. IDE drives despite many fairy tales, are very fast, and run as fast as SCSI in most cases. A few years ago that was a different story. The biggest difference these days is the price. SCSI is extremely expensive, so if you don’t know what it is, you don’t need it. Trust me. Modern IDE drives are fast enough for most users.

There are several variations of IDE drives such as ATA/33, ATA/66, ATA/100, and ATA/133. All are backwards compatible, meaning you can mix and match IDE controllers and drives. For example, I can use an ATA/100 drive with an ATA/33 controller. Something to note is you always get the performance and features of the lowest. In my example, ATA/33. The rule of thumb these days is to stick with ATA/100. The only reason to go with ATA/133 is for really large drives. If you don’t have that large of a drive, again you are wasting money, since there won’t be a real speed improvement.

The next question is which drive to buy. I personally recommend the Seagate Barracuda series. I bought a 7200RPM 40 GB drive for under $100, which is a great deal. It is an ATA/100 drive. As I said before, it will work with any other ATA controller. Other good brands to look at are Maxtor and Western Digital. Stay away from IBM since their drives in recent months have been plagued with problems (I recently had to replace my IBM drive). You can check out MacVillage.net Store for some drives [Link]

Now if you have a Revision 1 B&W G3, you need a controller card. My personal recommendation is the Sonnet Tempo card [Link]. It’s fast, and very compatible. It works in OS 9 and OS X, you can also boot off of a disk connected to it (very important).

A Revision 2 B&W G3, as well as PowerMac G4′s are capable of having 2 drives on the built in controller . The drives go one on top of the other. While the second drive is known as the “slave”, from the users side, there is no difference. They are both just as fast, and can do anything the other can.

A good place for information on installing your new drive would be XLR8YourMac.com [Link].

For external Hard Drives, that is much easier. In many cases, once you buy the drive it is simply plug in, and use it. There are two major types, defined by their interface: Firewire, and USB. Firewire is a faster interface (only good if your computer supports it) than USB, though a newer version of USB, known as USB 2.0 is equally as fast as Firewire, though you will need to add a USB card (with 2.0 support for speed, otherwise it will be much slower. Check the MacVillage.net Store for a selection of drives [Link].

A downside to external drives is that they are significantly more expensive, and take up desk space.

I hope this article introduced you to the idea of adding a second hard drive. This article wasn’t meant to guide you through the process of putting the drive in, but was to help navigate your thought process as you decide upon the right drive, and to help you make an educated choice about your options.

You can use the following forum thread to share information about new drives (both internal and external):

[Link]

Recently I discussed the release of Palm Desktop 4 [Link], and mentioned an error in which some users were unable to sync their Palm devices with Mac OS 9 due to an error “#1852402768″. There has been a fix found on Macintouch.com and Brighthand’s Discussions Forum.

Using the information available I was able to devise a simple fix for those effected by this error.

The program available below will perform the fix. It must be run prior to performing a sync. Palm should be fixing this bug soon. Note that if you restart, the program must be run once again prior to it syncing.

[Download]

Cost: Free, but a thank you to those at the Brighthand Forums, Macintouch.com would be a good jesture!

No this isn’t an April Fools gag. Apple today released its Bluetooth technology preview. This new driver only for Mac OS X will allow users with Bluetooth adapters to connect to compatible devices without wires.

Unfortunately I don’t have a Bluetooth adapter on hand, or even another Bluetooth device, but it is still an exciting release. Apple promised a release in April and it has kept this promise, and was very prompt with the release.

There has been some criticism regarding Bluetooth conflicting with Airport due to them both sharing the 2.4GHz frequency. I have been unable to confirm this. Apple promotes Bluetooth as being Airport for peripherals thus it seems that Apple doesn’t expect any problems. If anyone can shed some light on this situation, please send an email so that I can pass it on to other readers.

No this isn’t an April Fools gag. Apple today released its Bluetooth technology preview. This new driver only for Mac OS X will allow users with Bluetooth adapters to connect to compatible devices without wires.

Unfortunately I don’t have a Bluetooth adapter on hand, or even another Bluetooth device, but it is still an exciting release. Apple promised a release in April and it has kept this promise, and was very prompt with the release.

There has been some criticism regarding Bluetooth conflicting with Airport due to them both sharing the 2.4GHz frequency. I have been unable to confirm this. Apple promotes Bluetooth as being Airport for peripherals thus it seems that Apple doesn’t expect any problems. If anyone can shed some light on this situation, please send an email so that I can pass it on to other readers.