All-New PowerBooks, Web Browser Featured at Macworld

agent identification for Safari by jvmatthe · 2003-01-07 07:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

From my web counter on my site:

Netscape 5.0 Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/48 (like Gecko) Safari/48

Looks strange to me. Is this really the KDE HTML rendering engine or is it Gecko? It certainly identifies itself as Netscape 5...

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Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy

Re:agent identification for Safari by Graymalkin · 2003-01-07 07:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

If it didn't register itself as Netscape 5 or something with a modicum of site compatibility site scripts would redirect it to the retard text only version of a site.

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I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Re:agent identification for Safari by borggraefe · 2003-01-07 07:56 · Score: 2, Informative

I too cant believe they used KHTML. I think they use Gecko. They hired David Hyatt a few months ago. David Hyatt was working at Netscape before and was one of their best developers. He actually had the most bugs assigned in Bugzilla.

Stefan
Re:agent identification for Safari by fliplap · 2003-01-07 08:04 · Score: 4, Informative

From public record:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)

Doesn't look strange to me, everything IDs as Mozila. We'll also note the default Konqueror UA is:

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/2.1.1; X11)

FFR
Re:agent identification for Safari by fault0 · 2003-01-07 08:24 · Score: 2

Suprise, suprise, Konquerror also does.
Re:agent identification for Safari by jvmatthe · 2003-01-07 08:24 · Score: 2

AFAICT, it is not added by the counter. For example, Konqueror is just "Konqueror Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3; Linux)". Then again, maybe it knows enough about Konqueror or they do some funny post-processing as you suggest.

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Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Re:agent identification for Safari by Neon+Spiral+Injector · 2003-01-07 08:26 · Score: 3

Well if they are using Gecko they must have stripped out a lot of the CSS code. I've tried Safari on some of my sites, and it doesn't come close to rendering them as well as Mozilla and brethern.
Re:agent identification for Safari by jvmatthe · 2003-01-07 08:27 · Score: 2

Well, the user agent for Safari includes "Mozilla", "Netscape", and "like Gecko". None of this indicates anything to do with KHTML. I think that's my point...if they're using KHTML then their user agent string seems odd.

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Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Re:agent identification for Safari by Rob+Kaper · 2003-01-07 08:33 · Score: 2

I too cant believe they used KHTML. I think they use Gecko.

nope .
Re:agent identification for Safari by dietlein · 2003-01-07 09:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

Poster: If it didn't register itself as Netscape 5 or something with a modicum of site compatibility site scripts would redirect it to the retard text only version of a site.

Me: If everyone coded according to the standards instead of using browser-specific hacks, its user-agent string wouldn't matter (except for logging, etc.).
Re:agent identification for Safari by Aram+Fingal · 2003-01-07 10:27 · Score: 2, Insightful

It would be better if they allowed you to choose an identification string like iCab and OmniWeb do. Some sites will refuse to serve a particular browser even when it really is compatible.
Re:agent identification for Safari by WatertonMan · 2003-01-07 12:15 · Score: 3, Informative

QT already DOES hook into Carbon. It has for quite some time. That's probably what made the port as easy as it was. Further by using the Konquerer stuff rather than the Gecko stuff they don't run into all those problems with text fields. Those have been the bane of Chimera. So it does make sense.
In regards to the CSS problems - this is a beta. I suspect that as time goes on it will support much more CSS.
Re:agent identification for Safari by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · 2003-01-07 12:27 · Score: 3, Interesting

I've tried Safari on some of my sites, and it doesn't come close to rendering them as well as Mozilla and brethern.
AAARRRRRHHHHHHH!!!
This is exactly what I was afraid of. I didn't mind if they used something other than Gecko, as long as it rendered as well as Gecko.
The last thing we need is another browser with a different level of support of CSS.
Now we have to balance between 4 browsers/rendering engines: IE6, Opera 7, Gecko, and Safari/KHTML.
Hopefully the story will change once it's out of beta.
Re:agent identification for Safari by AKnightCowboy · 2003-01-07 12:51 · Score: 2

The last thing we need is another browser with a different level of support of CSS. Now we have to balance between 4 browsers/rendering engines: IE6, Opera 7, Gecko, and Safari/KHTML. Hopefully the story will change once it's out of beta.
They should've just supported Chimera instead. Gecko rendering engine, aqua interface, tabbed browsing, popup blocking, fast, etc. What more could you want? The only thing it's missing is being able to limit the number of times animated gifs run like Mozilla can.
Re:agent identification for Safari by jonadab · 2003-01-07 13:39 · Score: 2

> The only thing it's missing is being able to
> limit the number of times animated gifs run

That's a very significant thing to be missing.
I've been disabling looping animations ever since
I found a page on the web that described how to do
it with Netscape 4.08, and since that day I WILL
NOT use a browser that loops animations forever.
(With Netscape 4, you had to use a hex editor;
fortunately now that's not necessary.)

--
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Re:agent identification for Safari by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-07 14:23 · Score: 2, Funny

David Hyatt was working at Netscape before and was one of their best developers. He actually had the most bugs assigned in Bugzilla.

Maybe that explains why they didn't use Gecko :)
Re:agent identification for Safari by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-07 16:40 · Score: 2

I would guess that the license came into it at some point as well. KHTML uses the relatively benign LGPL, while Gecko is licensed under the more entangling NPL.

--

I write in my journal
Re:agent identification for Safari by dbrutus · 2003-01-07 17:23 · Score: 2

Since I (and probably a lot of other people) had never even heard of KHTML until Steve Jobs brought it up in his keynote, doesn't the vast amount of free advertising (plus code improvements) constitute something more than stealing?

Free advertising in exchange for free software does not sound like theft to me. And if the developers didn't want commercial entities doing things like Safari, they could have licensed under GPL instead of LGPL. Using LGPL was a conscious choice and they probably have gotten exactly what they wanted.
Re:agent identification for Safari by tj8 · 2003-01-07 17:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

If everyone coded according to the standards [w3.org] instead of using browser-specific hacks, its user-agent string wouldn't matter

Well, if browsers actually implemented the standards, then standards-compliant code would work cross-browser. Alas, it does not, so browser-specific code becomes necessary. However, doing this by detecting the user-agent string is ill-advised. Object detection generally works better.

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Sig this.
Re:agent identification for Safari by marmoset · 2003-01-07 17:37 · Score: 2

I'm glad the KHTML developers are more openminded than you.
The way I see it, apple's simply walked in, ripped off YEARS of work done by the KDE team and gotten it all for free. Isn't there something that can be done about this?

Sure, they could have implemented it as a closed source project. What part of "open" are you not understanding?
Re:agent identification for Safari by Matty_ · 2003-01-07 18:05 · Score: 2, Informative

If you read the e-mail that the project manage with Apple sent to the KHTML developers, you'll see that they started this project a year ago. Chimera wasn't around then -- so how could they have chosen it? Mozilla hadn't even reached 1.0 at that point, either.
Re:agent identification for Safari by gig · 2003-01-08 16:21 · Score: 2

I think the idea is that what Safari renders, it renders just like Gecko, but it doesn't necessarily have the same level of CSS support as Gecko. Maybe that is coming, or maybe they're not worried about that since the browser is very lightweight and very fast and everything looks great in it.
Re:agent identification for Safari by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · 2003-01-08 17:34 · Score: 2

I think the idea is that what Safari renders, it renders just like Gecko...
I hope that's not the idea, because they should be making it render how the standards say, not another browser (with the exception of quirks mode).
Of course, since Gecko supports the standards well, it wouldn't matter too much I spose. But a copy of a copy will always loose something if you know what I mean.
On a different note. The main issue with browsers not supporting CSS or whatever, isn't the fact that they don't support them, but that they don't support them properly. It's OK to not support CSS2, but it's very bad to only support some of it.

Apple surfs Slashdot! by green+pizza · 2003-01-07 07:33 · Score: 5, Interesting

Check out this clip from their new (Konq-based) web browser... they're using Slashdot as an example website!
http://www.apple.com/safari/theater/bookmarks.html

Re:Apple surfs Slashdot! by weave · 2003-01-07 08:15 · Score: 2

Ah, in that example, they made the bookmark bar title slashdot. Everyone knows the bookmark bar should have /. as the title. Much less space on the bar. (unless you use IE that is, then it has to be sd... ;-)
Re:Apple surfs Slashdot! by CaseyB · 2003-01-07 09:24 · Score: 2

I was surprised that the movie was made only yesterday.
And of course, it wouldn't have been a proper slashdot story visit if they hadn't scrolled past a "Steven King is dead" comment.
Re:Apple surfs Slashdot! by antdude · 2003-01-07 10:24 · Score: 2

I thought it was funny to see Safari scroll down and show the low rated replies. I didn't see any first posts or anything bad though. :)

--
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Re:Apple surfs Slashdot! by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-07 11:05 · Score: 2

Rather ironically, this is what Konqueror users see.
And is anybody else seeing extreme slowness on Slashdot since OSDN moved across America?
Re:Apple surfs Slashdot! by mcc · 2003-01-07 12:07 · Score: 5, Interesting

they're using Slashdot as an example website!

Actually, were I wanting to show off a new web browser, I would probably try to hit slashdot before anywhere else. Why?

Ugly table code! Your typical slashdot pageload is a humongous mess of hundreds upon hundreds of random tables nested in odd ways. If you want an example of a truly taxing test to throw at a web page renderer, slashdot's about as heavy as you can do. Since Safari is apparently all about speed, then it makes lots of sense. After all, rendering a single slashdot discussion page is enough to make MSIE on Mac OS 9 choke on my parents' G4 400 just about every single time-- once the page has loaded, the computer freezes up for at least 5 or so seconds even if IE is in the background. (MSIE for OS X does not have these problems) Omniweb loads slashdot fine but tends to act sluggish while scrolling. (Or it did the last time i used it.) This is what Safari is competing with..

Of course, this reasoning is obliterated by the poor framerate on that one quicktime movie, making it impossible to tell how smoothly it's running. but still ^_^

--
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Re:Apple surfs Slashdot! by hondo77 · 2003-01-07 12:12 · Score: 2

MSIE for OS X does not have these problems

./ in IE on OS X doesn't bring the machine to its knees but IE is unusable for a while. The spinning beach ball of death can stay there for quite a while. Safari is not similarly afflicted.

--
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Re:Apple surfs Slashdot! by rattler14 · 2003-01-07 13:13 · Score: 2

Apple... we can karma whore as well!

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my last sig was too controversial... now, a new and improved useless sig!
Re:Apple surfs Slashdot! by kitzilla · 2003-01-07 14:00 · Score: 2

> Actually, were I wanting to show off a new web browser, I would probably try to hit slashdot before anywhere else. Why? Ugly table code!

Safari just loaded this page for me in VERY short order. Slashdot is a nightmare for IE (in oh-so-many-ways, huh?).

--
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Re:Apple surfs Slashdot! by sulli · 2003-01-07 14:37 · Score: 2

Including such gems as the Stephen King Dead At 55 troll, and "OH YEAH SUCK IT jerkstore troll strikes again." All that was missing was a goatse redirect.

--

sulli
RTFJ.

Safari by daemon+lover · 2003-01-07 07:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

good, but no tabbed browsing.

Re:Safari by Clock+Nova · 2003-01-07 07:39 · Score: 3, Interesting

Switching back to a non-tabbed browser is like switching back to a one-button mouse: feels like cutting off an arm.

It may be fast, but I gotta have tabs and a sidebar for my bookmarks. If they ad these two features, I'll use it.

I tried it, and it IS fast. Too bad.

--
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
Re:Safari by EccentricAnomaly · 2003-01-07 07:40 · Score: 5, Informative

Put it does block pop-up ads!

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There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Re:Safari by entrox · 2003-01-07 07:50 · Score: 2

No it's not - the underlying rendering engine is.

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-- The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
Re:Safari by King+Babar · 2003-01-07 08:09 · Score: 3, Interesting

good, but no tabbed browsing.

No tabbed browsing (killer omission) and no type-ahead features, which sucks. It is very fast, however.
One nice feature, though, is emacs-style navigation in type-in forms! Alas, that feature is a bit buggy, but I was very happy to see it.
Worst thing so far is that I couldn't post this from Safari itself since it got confused when I pressed the "Preview" button. OK, so Mozilla was also slow, but I knew something was up due to the, er, "throbber" thingie. No such beast on Safari.

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Babar
Re:Safari by Huge+Pi+Removal · 2003-01-07 08:14 · Score: 2

Yeah, using it now... 2 things:

1. It puts a very subtle grey dotted line round links that you click, rather than a hefty blue one. That's very nice.

2. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to tell you what a link is when you hover over it (e.g. like IE does down the bottom). There must be *some* way of fitting that into the wonderfully clean interface.

--
- Oliver

The right to bear arms is only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears...
Re:Safari by ictatha · 2003-01-07 08:22 · Score: 4, Informative

2. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to tell you what a link is when you hover over it (e.g. like IE does down the bottom). There must be *some* way of fitting that into the wonderfully clean interface.

Look on the "View" menu, check "Status Bar", done.

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"... the advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy" - Janov Pelorat
Re:Safari by Elwood+P+Dowd · 2003-01-07 08:22 · Score: 2

good, but no tabbed browsing

For many people (ok, maybe just for me), tabbed browsing isn't just to solve screen clutter: It's also to solve speed issues with switching windows in browsers. Personally, in IE on windows, clicking "Open in New Window" makes both windows unusable for what feels like ten seconds. If that were solved, I'd have no desire for tabbed browsing. So... if Apple has solved the speed problem...

--

There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Re:Safari by daeley · 2003-01-07 09:10 · Score: 5, Informative

Erm, it does have type ahead -- I just used that feature. And the 'throbbing' is done in the background of the location bar -- watch for the blue progress bar, which you might miss since it's so bloody fast. :)

--
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Re:Safari by dbrutus · 2003-01-07 09:20 · Score: 2

Since it's open source, I suspect that tabs et al will get added in eventually.
Re:Safari by Huge+Pi+Removal · 2003-01-07 09:23 · Score: 2

Yeah, noticed that about 10 seconds after posting.
A slightly more subtle issue is that if you click on a link, but it doesn't load properly and you click "stop", the *link* address stays in the URL bar rather than reverting to the current page's address. I don't think the URL bar should change until it's at least connected to the server...

Right, nit-picking over and on with getting my bookmarks over from Omniweb.

--
- Oliver

The right to bear arms is only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears...
Re:Safari by entrox · 2003-01-07 09:57 · Score: 5, Informative

I'm curious how they're boasting such impressive page load speeds compared to the other browsers

Oh that's easy, considering the amount of code involved. You see, one of the main arguments in favour of KHTML was its small size - like 140.000 lines of code. I'm guessing, but that's probably a fifth of the Gecko codebase. Read it up in this mail to the kfm-devel mailing list.

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-- The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
Re:Safari by jlower · 2003-01-07 10:27 · Score: 2

You can drag and drop right from OmniWeb's bookmarks window to the Safari bookmark bar. It's still a one-at-a-time operation but not bad.
Re:Safari by King+Babar · 2003-01-07 10:41 · Score: 2

Erm, it does have type ahead -- I just used that feature.

I meant "type ahead find" (or highlight links on the page). Mozilla has this, but I cannot find this feature (or help on it) anywhere in Safari. I don't mean type ahead in the location bar.

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Babar
Re:Safari by zephc · 2003-01-07 15:05 · Score: 2

thats because it uses the native OS X text box widget, which has spell checking built-in. Omniweb has this nice feature too. I think I almost like Safari better than OmniWeb now too, especially for speed.

--
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Re:Safari by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-07 16:48 · Score: 2

Note well that only Webcore is open source. Safari, which is the browser application itself, is most definitely not.

--

I write in my journal
Re:Safari by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-07 16:56 · Score: 2

Omniweb has GREAT window handling, superb bookmarks and - apparently - better Slashdot compatibility that Safari...

I've been using Safari on Slashdot all day now. Before this morning, I was using OmniWeb full time. Apart from speed and the fact that "check spelling as you type" is on by default in OmniWeb, I can't tell the difference. What are you referring to?

--

I write in my journal
Re:Safari by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-07 17:00 · Score: 2

I'm pretty sure the charts used in the keynote address included comparisons to OmniWeb as well (Safari was faster). And they didn't include Opera because, well, only about six people use it.

--

I write in my journal
Re:Safari by dbrutus · 2003-01-07 17:37 · Score: 2

I would suspect that the final might come with some nifty applescripts to transfer over your bookmarks. Remember, it's beta.
Re:Safari by dbrutus · 2003-01-07 18:41 · Score: 2

Though, as a cocoa bundle, it is remarkably open to hacking by 3rd parties. Could tabbed browsing be hacked on by modifying the nibs?
Re:Safari by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-07 19:10 · Score: 2

No. NIB files just contain the UI layout and bindings. There's no actual logic in the NIB files. In other words, you might be able to change a NIB to include a tab bar, but you'd be unable to make the tab bar do anything.

Anyway, tabs are bad and wrong.

--

I write in my journal
Re:Safari by salimma · 2003-01-07 20:12 · Score: 2

Then again when using IE I tend to start several independent processes, just in case one fall over and kill all the other windows :p

--
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Re:Safari by dbrutus · 2003-01-09 07:09 · Score: 2

I'm reasonably sure that you could add an executable to a bundle, change a menu to include a command linking to that executable and add features that way. I can see how it might be a difficult hack, but I think it might be possible.

As for the utility of tabs, I find that I like them. They are useful for advanced users

Also, Apple based X11 by Nutcase · 2003-01-07 07:34 · Score: 3, Informative

It seems apple is now pushing it's own X11 implementation at: http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/

Not announced, but still quite interesting. Its X11, but with all the OS X look on the windows (shadows, genie, etc)

Re:Also, Apple based X11 by plastik55 · 2003-01-07 07:46 · Score: 2

from that page: Experts may choose to replace the native Aqua window manager with their own familiar, standard X Window Manager.

Now, if only I could substitute my windowmanager of choice for native apps in addition to X11 apps, then I'll never look back at Linux again...

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I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
Re:Also, Apple based X11 by jc42 · 2003-01-07 09:41 · Score: 2

So can you get it with a 3-button mouse?

I use X's cut-and-paste all the time, and it's really frustrating to use the complex dance that both Macs and Windoze machines make you do to just copy a few bytes from one place to another.

Of course, my SO sneers at 3-button mice. She has worked on several projects where she had a 16-button mouse. Once you get handy with one of those, others seem limited and clumsy.

I've heard any number of comments from the CAD/CAM crowd about how useful it would be if they could carry around a "laptop" with a real mouse like the one on their design station. Field work would be so much easier if you can fill the portable's disk with all the diagrams or maps, and edit them on the scene.

Though myself, what I want is a way to plug 8 or 10 mikes into a PowerBook, so I can do N-track field recordings. I've looked around www.apple.com, but haven't found the part numbers yet.

--
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Re:Also, Apple based X11 by Ponty · 2003-01-08 00:50 · Score: 2

Well, yea, obviously.

Not bad by Lebannen · 2003-01-07 07:36 · Score: 5, Informative

Fascinating.

It's officially the 'year of the notebook' - so that's how Apple is coping with slow processors then!

Very nice new powerbooks though - especially the 17-incher, with glowing keyboards and ambient light detection. It also adjusts the screen brightness, mmmm :)

Safari, the web browser, is actually based of KHTML - KDE's HTML library. Not bad, especially seeing as they're going to give the 'orders of magnitude' speedups back in the way of the source code.

And digs at Quark. And the rumors sites were practically all wrong. Hah. Best keynote in ages.

--
Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" whilst looking for a rock

Re:Not bad by kitzilla · 2003-01-07 08:34 · Score: 5, Informative

Actually, MacRumors.com was quite close last night. They had the 12" and 17" (good Lord!) Powerbooks; the iApp bundle at the correct price; Apple's amazing new Airport; the new Firewire; and the browser. Nobody saw the presentation software coming, but it was the least of Jobs' announcements. Nobody predicted an Apple-branded X11 port.

No video iPods, no all-in-one networking appliance (though the new Airport is certainly a step forward).

--
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Re:Not bad by analog_line · 2003-01-07 12:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

The presentation software was not the "least" of Jobs' annoucnements. Keynote is a clear shot across Microsoft's bow. A direct Powerpoint competitor. That's not a small thing.
Re:Not bad by kitzilla · 2003-01-07 13:52 · Score: 2

Yes, you're right: a shot across the bow of Bill Gates' boat. But I think it was a less significant announcement than Safari, which will surely replace IE as OS X's default browser.

--
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Re:Not bad by jonadab · 2003-01-07 16:18 · Score: 2

> Seriously though, what is up with a 17 inch Powerbook?? Who the
> hell will buy such a huge notebook?

I'm holding out for larger. Yes, really. I've been looking around
at various laptops (e.g., at EmperorLinux), but the _largest_ displays
I can find are 16" viewable, and that's just plain small. I went
out a while back and bought myself a nineteen-inch monitor for a
_reason_. Because I need every last millimeter of that screen space.
A 16-inch display is just _not_ enough space. At that size, by
the time you split your Emacs frame into three windows, you can't
see enough lines in any of them to get context, or else you've
split two of them horizontally and can't see an entire line, which
is usually worse. Or maybe you're not editing text today; maybe
today you're editing graphics instead. Your brushes and layers
dialog and tools and tool options will take up more than half of
that screen -- you won't have hardly any space left for an actual
image. If you need to work on two images side-by-side, heaven
help you. I suppose it would be alright if all you want to do
is browse the web and get email... but I just can't function on
a display that small, not if I have to do anything much.

I saw this 17 inch model, and my first reaction was, "Well, that's
only an inch less than my 18-viewable display..." but then I saw
the aspect ratio, did the calculations, and it turns out that my
18" viewable ("19 inch") CRT has a full 15% more display area than
this PowerBook. (And yes, the resolution is also higher (1600x1200
if I max it out) although they both have a res in line with their
size, so it really is the display area that counts; the pixels can
only get so small and things still be easy to see.)

So if I were to use this PowerBook, I'd have to give up some 13% of
my display area (as _well_ as my Avant keyboard). Nothing Doing.
And that's the _largest_ I've seen. But the larger ones (16" and
up) are starting to come out more and more, so I'm figuring if I
wait long enough, some genious manufacturer will come out with a
laptop that actually fills up my lap and gives me a real actual
honest-to-goodness display area, and hopefully something that
resembles a full-size keyboard too.

Sure, these models won't be popular with the folks who really want
a wristwatch model, but that's a different market segment. Those
people don't actually _use_ their computers, they just want to
have something easy to tote around in a shirt pocket that they
can claim is a computer. Me, what I basically want is a desktop
system with fewer cords, built all in one piece that folds once,
with lower power consumption and a battery built in, so that I can
lug it around if I need to.

I also need a good deal of RAM. (The CPU, however, can be a
pretty much anything that doesn't use much power. Bonus points
if it's x86-compatible, but as long as it runs some form of unix
and XFree and is _reasonably_ common so most apps will compile,
it'll do. I'd definitely consider an Apple system if the more
important things like screen size were what I want.)

The _idea_ of having something portable appeals to me -- as well
as the idea of the battery built in, so that if the power goes out
I don't have problems. (I could get a UPS, but then I've thrown
_all_ pretenses of portability out the window.) But unless some
company comes out with portables with a little more display area,
my next computer will be... another desktop. That's why it's good
to see Apple introducing this seventeen-incher. If it sells well,
I can hope that other manufacturers will follow suit, and that at
some point some genius will step it up a little more...

--
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Re:Not bad by King+Babar · 2003-01-07 16:29 · Score: 2

Yes, you're right: a shot across the bow of Bill Gates' boat. But I think it was a less significant announcement than Safari, which will surely replace IE as OS X's default browser.

I'm not a real PowerPoint weenie, but it was massively unclear whether it could do anything that Keynote couldn't, and Keynote has the crushing advantage of better looks and PDF export.
As far as Safari goes, it has CSS support problems in the beta, no tabs, no "type ahead to links", and no real reason to use it over Mozilla or Chimera other than a small speed boost (at least as far as I can tell so far). It might ship as the default, but that means I'll just have to go around and change that setting...c'est la vie.

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Babar
Re:Not bad by dr00g911 · 2003-01-07 17:15 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's absolutely not the least of the announcements today.

As a person weaned in the service bureaus of the late-80s/early-90s, I can say that every decent presentation app produced in the last 10 years has been EOLed because of Powerpoint's ubiquity.

Aldus/Adobe Persuasion, anyone? That was one hell of an app. And -- get this -- you could have real, multiple master pages in the same presentation. Harvard Graphics had that feature as well.

"What," you say "presentations can have more than one master... in the same file???"

I'm not talking having a slide master, a title master, etc. I'm talking as many different title templates as you'd like in the same file.

Persuasion supported alpha channels too (through Mac PICT format), and a million other things that were never developed into powerpoint because they haven't needed to, and apparently, no one's complained. Yeah, PPT has transparency. Through freakin' GIFs. Hardly a substitute.

Powerpoint is so bad in its handling of master slides and typography, not to mention its abhorrent handling (mangling) of graphic formats other than WMF and BMP that I chose to personally design every presentation I've made since Persuasion was dropped in Macromedia Director. That's a pretty big hammer to solve that particular problem.

The point to this diatribe is, that I damned near cried when I saw Keynote unveiled.

- NICE looking templates
- Uncluttered, friendly interface
- Eye candy galore
- PPT, SWF and Photoshop compatibility out of the box, layers included

I challenge you to find *ANYONE* who enjoys working in Powerpoint. Most users outright loathe it, but there's nothing else on the market now that approaches its (limited) functionality and is compatible with newer PPT file formats.

Powerpoint is a hell of a chink in MS's armor.

This is more than a shot across the bow.
Re:Not bad by kitzilla · 2003-01-07 17:56 · Score: 2

Safari is a very young, but very promising browser. I'll keep Chimera for my default for now. But once we see tabs, better CSS support, and a few other things, we'll just have to see.

Looking forward to Chimera 0.7!

--
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Re:Not bad by kalidasa · 2003-01-08 01:54 · Score: 2

Great posting, but it's obvious that you haven't used Powerpoint XP, which has both multiple masters and rather better handling of EMF files than 2000 had. No, it doesn't meet the rest of your requirements; I imagine it would take MS another decade to get up to that point.
How is the animation in Keynote? Powerpoint's animation is getting to be useful, and I don't want to have to use flash to do some of the stuff I need to do.
Re:Not bad by jafac · 2003-01-08 07:31 · Score: 2

The other thing that people seem to be missing -

If Keynote (and Safari) *IS* a shot across Microsoft's bow, we all know what this will inevitably lead to:
Microsoft shooting back.

How?
Using "Office like a club". Keep watching. You know this to be true.

So what will Apple do in response? Right now, Office X is "good enough". And may be good enough for the next two years or so. But what happens when Microsoft migrates to the next verion of Office? Then Office X will not have file-format compatability, unless Microsoft provides an upgrade.

So either Office X is going to be left in the dust - or Apple might write a plug-in for Office X to make file-format compatability possible.

Or
Look at the file format of the upcoming version of Office for Windows.
Look at the file format of Keynote.

Notice any similarities? Two hints:
It starts with "X"
It ends with "L"

Speculation: Apple must have something in the "works" (pun intended), since presentation software, and file-format compatability are the only things that Apple Works is missing. . .

--

These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.

All this is sweet by sjgman9 · 2003-01-07 07:36 · Score: 2, Interesting

Microsoft is going to have to work harder now to keep up. Apple needs to put the PPC970 from IBM and integrate USB2 pronto. Other than that, this was a marvelous keynote.

Re:All this is sweet by Slur · 2003-01-07 13:25 · Score: 2

You have a point. But then again, McDonalds sells more hamburgers than anyone else. Still, they've got a long way to go before they become a gourmet restaurant.

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-- thinkyhead software and media

Safari rocks! by Knife_Edge · 2003-01-07 07:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

I just wanted to mention that after using Safari for a few minutes now, it appears to be amazing. The browser is so much faster it is like a hardware upgrade. On my 500mhz iBook I have never been able to scroll smoothly through pages on any browser. Now scrolling is almost perfectly smooth! Great job with the browser Apple!

Re:Safari rocks! by Drakonian · 2003-01-07 07:43 · Score: 2

I hear it has popup blocking, which is nice. Does it have any tabs?

--
Random is the New Order.
Re:Safari rocks! by King+Babar · 2003-01-07 08:19 · Score: 2

I hear it has popup blocking, which is nice. Does it have any tabs?

No tabs, no type-ahead. Some cookie control, but not as nice as Mozilla's. These are all fixable things, of course, but I'm worried that somebody will think that tabbed browsing is "not the Apple way". :-(

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Babar
Re:Safari rocks! by artemis67 · 2003-01-07 08:31 · Score: 3, Informative

It has popup blocking, but not tabs. That's surprising, because the tabbed browsing feature is more useful in OS X than in any other OS supported by Mozilla because of OS X's lack of a true taskbar.

Also missing is image management to block banner ads. Understandable, though, that a commercial product by a major tech vendor wouldn't include that feature. They don't want to cleanse the internet of all advertising.

And there's no messagebar at the bottom of the window, so when you mouse over a link, you can't see where it leads to without clicking on it. Very annoying.

All-in-all, not bad for a first beta release, though aside from some cool boomark management features, is missing a lot of features that the rest of us take for granted. Apple has their work cut out for them if they are serious about making this browser a contender.

However, it begs the question of why Apple is spending money on Safari in the first place. It's not like Internet Explorer is the only browser for the Mac; there's a bunch of great stuff out there like OmniWeb, Mozilla, Netscape, Chimera, iCab, Opera, and who knows what else.

Is the long-range plan to integrate Safari as tightly with OS X as IE is with Windows? They've got a LONG long road to cover before THAT happens.

Or maybe it's not that grand; maybe Jobs just wants a browser that has tight integration with the the iApps.

Time will tell.
Re:Safari rocks! by Alex+Thorpe · 2003-01-07 09:09 · Score: 3, Interesting

The message bar for the bottom of the window is off by default, but easily added from the View window.

A few things could be added, though. There's no spell checker, like OmniWeb and Mail use, and it doesn't remember passwords like Chimera and Mozilla do. But it's fast, and it's a Beta. I did have to change back to OmniWeb to post this, as Safari kept timing out when I clicked on anything here, though to be fair, Slashdot seems to be pretty Slashdotted right now, and it took OmniWeb about three minutes to open this window.

I'll play with Safari some more, but I'll stick with OmniWeb for everyday use.

--
"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
Re:Safari rocks! by PsychoSpunk · 2003-01-07 09:14 · Score: 2

Man, you apple whores are unbelieveable!!
Who else would put up with not being able to scroll smoothly through any pages? If it were a PC app there's be a huge uproar about how shite it was.

Man, you pc schmucks are unbelievable!! Who else would think that Apple's at fault for the turtle quality speed that IE puts us through? If you actually used a Mac, you'd know that there is a huge uproar in how shitty the speed of IE is, but it's not like Apple can fix that. Well, except for releasing their own browser independent of Microsoft. Which is a "Great job" that they flipped the bird at BillG and co. at this keynote.

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ALL HAIL BRAK!!!
Re:Safari rocks! by entrox · 2003-01-07 10:09 · Score: 2

There's no spell checker, like OmniWeb and Mail use

That's not an OmniWeb feature - its built into OSX. Ctrl-click on a text field, select spelling and activate "Check Spelling As You Type". It's just not enabled by default. I'll give you the passwords and timeouts (and yes - I'm writing this in OmniWeb right now ;)

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-- The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
Re:Safari rocks! by Alex+Thorpe · 2003-01-07 10:22 · Score: 2

Let's see if... ah! It does work! Spell checking! Delightful. This may become my default browser yet, though it'll take a while to move all my bookmarks over. Thanks for the tip.

--
"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
Re:Safari rocks! by entrox · 2003-01-07 10:36 · Score: 2

No tabs, no type-ahead.

No type-ahead? Let's see.. typing "sl".. ooh.. completes to "slashdot.org". Or isn't that what you mean with type-ahead?

I'm worried that somebody will think that tabbed browsing is "not the Apple way".

Oh, you mean people like me? People who switched because of consistency - people who like the "one document - one window" metaphor as specified in the Apple HIG?
I'm using (used) OmniWeb and don't miss tabs at ALL! Ctrl-click on the browser icon and get a list of windows; cycle only through those windows with ctrl-~ and ctrl-shift-~. Hide the browser with ctrl-h; show the browser and hide all OTHER applications with cmd-opt-click on the icon.
There is absolutely no need for stinking tabs.

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-- The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
Re:Safari rocks! by entrox · 2003-01-07 10:40 · Score: 2

Use the preview button, Luke!

That should be cmd-~, cmd-shift-~ and cmd-h, not ctrl.

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-- The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
Re:Safari rocks! by nellardo · 2003-01-07 12:31 · Score: 2

There's no spell checker, like OmniWeb and Mail use,
What, to spell-check what you put in web forms? To me, that's a relatively minor feature, but then I'm a gud speler :-) You can add that with WordService (lots of text goodies that appear in the Services menu). Should be pretty easy for Apple to turn it on themselves in the Edit menu.
and it doesn't remember passwords like Chimera and Mozilla do.
but I'll bet it will by FCS. Chimera at least does it by putting the passwords in the user's Keychain. Try running /Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access and you'll see all your web passwords there. Since that's also where your iTools password goes and whatnot, I'd expect somewhere Safari already talks to the Keychain.

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Klactovedestene!
Re:Safari rocks! by Dixie_Flatline · 2003-01-07 12:49 · Score: 2

Does it at least have a method to switch windows within the application? When I had an OSX machine (sold, sadly. I miss it) Command-~ would cycle through open windows in most apps. That would take up some of the slack for NOT having tabbed browsing.
Re:Safari rocks! by sg3000 · 2003-01-07 13:22 · Score: 2

> Ctrl-click on a text field, select spelling and
> activate "Check Spelling As You Type"

Cool! Too bad this trick doesn't work in Chimera. That is the only thing that Omniweb has on Chimera. If Safari can add support for tabs and the Mac OS X keychain, then it will be ready for me.

--
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Re:Safari rocks! by macshit · 2003-01-07 15:49 · Score: 2

The screen shots of Safari look very nice, they make every other web browser I've seen look pretty clunky. Apple's always been good that that...

What about the renderer, though? The apple Safari web page claims that it's both much faster and more accurate than any other, but of course they'd say say that; how does it really stack up against gecko, for instance? Should I be using konqueror instead of mozilla?

--
We live, as we dream -- alone....
Re:Safari rocks! by Arandir · 2003-01-07 16:16 · Score: 2

Nope, no tabs. Which means that I won't use it even if it were so advanced it could cook my dinner, then clean the dishes afterwards. There's no way in the world the public is going to accept it without tabs.

--
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Re:Safari rocks! by jonadab · 2003-01-07 16:22 · Score: 2

> No type-ahead? Let's see.. typing "sl".. ooh.. completes to
> "slashdot.org"

You're typing in the location bar. He was talking about type-ahead
find, which is roughly analogous to the incremental search feature
in Emacs (albeit less powerful in several major ways). With your
cursor in the page, you just start typing, and it searches forward
and finds the first occurrance of what you typed -- either in a
link (if you just start typing) or anywhere (if you start with a /
before typing what you want to find). It's fairly useful, although
I must confess that I haven't gotten in the habbit yet of using it
in Mozilla; I still find myself hitting Ctrl-F and Ctrl-G a lot.

--
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Re:Safari rocks! by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-07 17:34 · Score: 2

Command-tilde works in any application that uses AppKit, I believe. I think it's yet another free feature that comes with using the Cocoa API. I'm not sure if Carbon apps get it for free, or if they have to implement it themselves.

To test this, I fired up Project Builder and created a new Cocoa document application. I didn't do anything, I just built and ran the new app. I opened a couple of windows, and command-tilde switched between them. So it's a feature that you get for free when you use Cocoa and AppKit.

--

I write in my journal
Re:Safari rocks! by Bert64 · 2003-01-07 21:30 · Score: 2

Just how new versions of windows repair fundamental flaws in previous versions, and yet people still rave about them. Compare win9x to 2k/xp, the instability of 9x could surely be considered a fundamental flaw, 2k/xp are actually pretty good, not quite upto the standard of most unix systems but orders of magnitude better than their previous effort.

--
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Re:Safari rocks! by mr_exit · 2003-01-07 23:09 · Score: 2

It seems like they have a new mission to make their apps faster, and seriously faster.

one of the reviews of it in this thread said it was like a hardware upgrade. Apple are having such trouble keeping up in the MHz game that they are realising that lean mean code will stop people jumping ship.

good on them too, when the new power4 based chips come out we will then have fast code AND fast machines.

--

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Drink Coffee - Do Stupid Things Faster And With More Energy!
Re:Safari rocks! by King+Babar · 2003-01-08 05:03 · Score: 2

It's fairly useful, although I must confess that I haven't gotten in the habbit yet of using it in Mozilla; I still find myself hitting Ctrl-F and Ctrl-G a lot.

The incremental find text is a bit nicer than ctrl-F since it doesn't drag up a little dialog that (in Mozilla 1.2 under OSX) you can't close without using your mouse.
Incremental highlight link is an absolute miracle; try pulling up yahoo.com; there's no way you want to reach for the mouse to hit one of the hundreds of tiny links. But you can just type "fin" to leap to finance (just hit carriage return) and find out that your stocks have plummeted yet again...
I think type-to-highligh-link (is this a better name?) is extremely useful, inutitive to any Mac user who used to do the same thing in the file selection dialog, and all around worthwhile.

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Babar
Re:Safari rocks! by King+Babar · 2003-01-08 05:18 · Score: 2

I'm using (used) OmniWeb and don't miss tabs at ALL! Ctrl-click on the browser icon and get a list of windows; cycle only through those windows with ctrl-~ and ctrl-shift-~. Hide the browser with ctrl-h; show the browser and hide all OTHER applications with cmd-opt-click on the icon. There is absolutely no need for stinking tabs.

I'm a big fan of cmd-~ myself, and use it a lot in all apps that support it. Hiding is cool, too. BUT! I disagree that tabs are useless. First off, tabs provide visual feedback for what pages are in your "working set" which is very useful if you often have 6 or 8 of them up there. Second, tabs provide a way to organize your browsing hierarchically. When I'm using BLAST at ncbi, I like to keep all of my search/results/whatever pages in one place *in a separate window* from the rest of my life.
I can understand your argument about "one document - one window", but I think there is a stronger principle of "avoid clutter" and "provide visual feedback" which the tab metaphor does a beautiful job of doing. In my opinion. The great thing with tabbed browsing in Mozilla is that you can choose not to use it at all and it doesn't ever get in your way.

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Babar
Re:Safari rocks! by jonadab · 2003-01-09 19:43 · Score: 2

> The incremental find text is a bit nicer than ctrl-F

It is; I just haven't got used to being able to do that in my web
browser yet. I hit Ctrl-F out of habbit. The other thing is, the
incremental search in Mozilla (typeahead find) is lacking some of
the features that would make it really useful. In particular, with
Emacs incremental search you can type the first part of what you're
looking for, hit Ctrl-S a couple of times to move forward through
a couple of instances, type a little more onto your search string,
hit Ctrl-S a couple more times, realise you went past the instance
you were interested in, hit Ctrl-R to go back to it... The feature
in Mozilla is not quite so mature in its implementation.

> since it doesn't drag up a little dialog that (in Mozilla 1.2
> under OSX) you can't close without using your mouse.

That's a Mac thing. You can't do Jack Squat(TM) on a Mac without
using a mouse. In fact, you can generally use a Mac better with
no keyboard than with no mouse. This has been true at _least_
since the days of System 6, and it's only any different with OS X
if you intend to spend most of your time in Terminal.app or using
X11 apps that have been ported over. On any other platform, _all_
dialogs can be closed without using a mouse. (On Win32 or Gnome,
there are no fewer than three distinct ways to close any dialog with
the keyboard.) This is nice; in the summer around here (though not
this last summer; we had a dry year) it often gets sufficiently
humid that the mouse is basically not usable, and I have a tendency
during August to set the mouse on a shelf and use the keyboard
pretty much exclusively until fall comes and dries things up. The _only_ thing I've discovered I can't do effeciently without a mouse
is image editing. (Though optical mice are getting pretty cheap
these days; this year when summer rolls around I might just get
one of those, and then if I need to use Gimp I can...)

--
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.

Disinformation by WatertonMan · 2003-01-07 07:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

Wow. You have to hand it to Steve. Great disinformation to make people expect the worst (paid upgrades) and then doesn't do it. Then the rumors that had been around (Chimera browser) are partially right and we get elements of Konquerer in OSX. Also, contrary to rumors, there were new machines building on where Apple is still as strong, if not stronger, than the PC world: the laptop market.

(Remember that laptop CPUs typically don't run as fast as desktop equivalents - especially when on battery. Most OSX laptops are as fast as PC equivalents. So the CPU gap doesn't apply)

I can't wait to download the new iApps (sorry, iLife) as well.

Re:Disinformation by cuyler · 2003-01-07 08:12 · Score: 2

iLife the new package of iTunes 3, iMovie 3, iDVD 3 and iPhoto sells for $49.95. This could be the upgrade that the rumour was about.
Re:Disinformation by salesgeek · 2003-01-07 09:07 · Score: 2

Also, contrary to rumors, there were new machines building on where Apple is still as strong, if not stronger, than the PC world: the laptop market

Apple's laptops are cool. But there are tier two PC makers that sell more laptops than Apple does. Apple consistently leads most surveys (IDG, PCDATA, etc...) in RETAIL sales, but consistently is in the bottom three of the top ten in total laptop sales. Why? Because corporate PCs are not sold through retail, where labels like IBM and Fujitsu are weak and names like Sony and Apple are hot.
Personally, I'd rather have a mac than a PC, though.

$G

--
-- $G

Favorite Part by Spyky · 2003-01-07 07:37 · Score: 5, Funny

My favorite part of the keynote:

Gigantic screen behind Steve Job reads:
"Open Source
We think it's great"

-Spyky

Re:Favorite Part by sg3000 · 2003-01-07 13:27 · Score: 2

> "Open Source We think it's great"

At some point, didn't he even say that unlike some people, he really likes Open Source?

Couple that with Safari (to knock out Internet Explorer) and Keynote (to give PowerPoint a run for its money), and Apple's making quite a few jabs at Microsoft.

See, competition is a good thing after all!

--
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.

Safari... by hysterion · 2003-01-07 07:37 · Score: 2

So now there is Mail.app, and Safari . (Taking a page from the O'Reilly bookshelf...?)

Both great ideas, but... it's not like we'd lack mailers/browsers anyway, is it? What I'd really like to see them (or someone) do is an integrated mail+news reader. Like (pine, emacs, the good'uns...) but graphical too. ("For my woman" ;-)

So you can keep one library for mail and news articles, and search/move stuff around there to your heart's content.

It only makes sense, since the format is basically the same, and news traffic often intermingles with mail anyway. People sending you private answers, etc.

Right now, Mozilla is the only one that comes close -- afaik, it's the only integrated mail+news reader in Aqua. The bliss of saving a news post onto your imap box, drag & drop.

But why, oh why, does it have to keep also the browser in the same process? This soon gets humongous (nearly 100 Mb at the moment), and why should your mailer crash at the whim of any miscoded javascript site? That doesn't make sense.

So here's to Mail+News.app -- or else, a nice Minotaur/Thunderbird.

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Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes

Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by Bonker · 2003-01-07 07:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

Why KHTML rather than Gecko, I wonder?

Of course if they were both perfectly compliant, it wouldn't matter, but neither one is.

Gecko has a larger install base with existing Netscape, Moz, Chameleon, Galeon, and Phoenix installs, and is more likely, with AOL converts, to have a larger market share and have more 'feature-rich' pages designed to render properly in it. Both are cross-platform.

(BTW, have you used Phoenix .5 yet? Whoowee! 6mb download and faster than IE in every way in Win2000)

The only thing I can figure out here is that Steve really likes KDE or he really doesn't like the MPL. Maybe he's paranoid about helping Steve Case any more than need be by speeding Moz/Netscape acceptance.

--
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!

Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by owenc · 2003-01-07 07:43 · Score: 5, Informative

I think since QT was ported to OS X, it's easier to use native widgets with KHTML rather than gecko. Chimera for instance does not use real aqua text entry and widgets within the web page, but a theme that looks like they are.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by WatertonMan · 2003-01-07 07:48 · Score: 2

I was thinking about it, and it may be that we can expect more KDE elements to make its way to OSX. With the excellent X11 for OSX and the failure of the "Switch" campaign, it may be that Apple thinks getting Linux users to switch might be wise. He can't compete in price/performance at the moment for desktop. However he can't help but notice the raving for OSX at O'Reilly and here at Slashdot of late. Further the laptops are selling quite well amongst Unix users. (A place where Apple can compete better)
Anyway, if I were to make a prediction it is that there will be more cross-pollination between KDE and Apple. (There are several elements in Konquerer and other KDE features that I'd like to see in the Finder)
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by DrXym · 2003-01-07 08:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

This choice sounds utterly insane to me. With the greatest respect, khtml is nowhere near as good as Gecko in terms of it standards support or behaviour or stability especially when dealing with some of the crap sites out there in the world. Run it through a few random sites involving nested tables, CSS or frames and it quickly screws up rendering.

What the hell were they thinking? Perhaps it's a little faster or smaller, but that sounds like a small payoff when you end up with a browser that is broken and doesn't work properly on a large number of sites. Chimera shows that Gecko can make an amazing browser on OS X so why they've jumped over is mind boggling.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by WatertonMan · 2003-01-07 08:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

Just to go along with my other comments, the GT tookit (heavily used by KDE apps) makes porting KDE style software to full Aqua apps very easy. As I said, I expect a lot more of that to happen.
Everyone who expects OpenOffice to make its way to full Aqua interface really ought to wonder whether KOffice won't make it first. Porting KOffice would likely be much easier than porting OpenOffice. (Not that I'm saying it will happen, mind you)
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by fritter · 2003-01-07 08:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

I consider this a pretty Good Thing overall though, especially if AOL adopts Gecko. With decently large groups of people using a range of different rendering engines, designers will have no choice but to stick to open standards instead of writing to one specific browser.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by tempest303 · 2003-01-07 08:27 · Score: 2

My thoughts exactly.

May the moderators see thy wisdom, too, and act accordingly. *hint*hint*

--
The Free desktop that Just Works
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by Rob+Kaper · 2003-01-07 08:27 · Score: 2, Interesting

As a matter of fact, Gecko is more strict in its parsing than KHTML, which supports a number of IE extensions for real world sites.

So while technically Gecko might be more noble and "better", in real life Konqueror might very well work on more sites. From my experience, it ends up 50-50 anyway. On some sites Konq is faster or more accurate, on others Gecko wins, on most I couldn't tell.

Using Qt's native Aqua widgets might have been a huge factor too, instead of faking that look with XUL.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by fault0 · 2003-01-07 08:39 · Score: 2

It's pretty simple really. khtml is far smaller and lighter than gecko is. Thus, it's quite a bit easier to achieve large levels of integration with the underlying OS with khtml than with gecko.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by Rob+Kaper · 2003-01-07 08:39 · Score: 5, Informative

Here's why.

Quote:
"When we were evaluating technologies over a year
ago, KHTML and KJS stood out. Not only were they the basis of an
excellent modern and standards compliant web browser, they were also
less than 140,000 lines of code. The size of your code and ease of
development within that code made it a better choice for us than other
open source projects. Your clean design was also a plus."
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by BandwidthHog · 2003-01-07 08:45 · Score: 2

Bullshit. At least as regards the widgets. I've got Jaguar skinned like Platinum: boxy and with no menu alpha.

Even Java based apps such as LimeWire and FurthurNet use the skinned widgets, although I think I noticed FurthurNet using alpha blending with my platinum menus. I have yet to see any app show me canned Aqua graphics, unless you count the window widgets in QuickTime Player.

The text entry part I can't say for sure either way, but I don't 'feel' a difference. I've been noticing lately how universal option-arrow key support in text editing has become, and I guess Chimera mimics that perfectly as well.

--

Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by GiMP · 2003-01-07 08:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

It is genius.

Mozilla may not have the greatest share of the market, but it may be the best browser available. This is why Apple DOES NOT want Mozilla. Sounds crazy? Not really.

Jobs realizes that competition will create better software. It would certainly be possible for Mozilla to become so popular and 'standardized' on the Unix and MacOS operating systems that development of KHTML would slow down and eventually die. If you have a company behind KHTML like Apple while AOL is behind Mozilla, you can expect a war to brew.

Mozilla is a great browser, KHTML is not bad.. but unless they become more popular and gain more press, Microsoft won't bother to compete.. they won't have to.

If KHTML and Mozilla begin a new browser war, first.. new OSX users will be using KHTML, Linux/Unix geeks will be using either Mozilla or KHTML. Apple still does have a large userbase, using KHTML could really put a dent in Microsoft. KHTML's competition would make Mozilla better and more popular, even in Microsoft Windows.

Apple may have just sparked not only a browser war, but a rejuvination of computing without Microsoft. I won't be surprised to see 30-40% of the web using non-IE browsers within a year.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by King+Babar · 2003-01-07 08:52 · Score: 5, Informative

This choice sounds utterly insane to me. With the greatest respect, khtml is nowhere near as good as Gecko in terms of it standards support or behaviour or stability especially when dealing with some of the crap sites out there in the world. Run it through a few random sites involving nested tables, CSS or frames and it quickly screws up rendering.

Well, I'd noticed it seemed to be doing okay on most CSS pages I'd tried, so I was *going* to say, "nyah, nyah", but then I figured I go to the ever-useful CSS1 test suite pages.
Oops...on the very first test, it fails to display even the test page correctly and the dialog tells me it's choking on the illegal mimetype text/html. Very ungood.
Well, it's beta, and Apple has never seen a wheel it didn't want to re-invent at some point...

--
Babar
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by mcamen · 2003-01-07 08:53 · Score: 2, Informative

Quoted from an email of Don Melton (Apple) to Dirk Müller (KDE) (http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=1041970923186 39&w=2)

"The number one goal for developing Safari was to create the fastest web browser on Mac OS X. When we were evaluating technologies over a year ago, KHTML and KJS stood out. Not only were they the basis of an excellent modern and standards compliant web browser, they were also less than 140,000 lines of code. The size of your code and ease of development within that code made it a better choice for us than other open source projects. Your clean design was also a plus. And the small size of your code is a significant reason for our winning startup performance as you can see reflected in the data at http://www.apple.com/safari/ ."
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by DrXym · 2003-01-07 09:12 · Score: 2

Gecko doesn't fake the look of Aqua, it uses the Apple's own rendering engine to draw the buttons exactly as they should look. So if a page contains a checkbox field, Gecko will tell Aqua to render the checkbox at x, y, width, height with the style appropriate for its checked / unchecked / depressed / enabled / disable state and so on. I haven't looked at QT but I would not be surprised if did exactly the same. If it's not doing exactly the same, then Safari is going to have all sorts of fun ordering issues when it encounters forms in DIV elements and so forth. Since Chimera has a native UI, both browsers are the same with regards to the trimmings around the engine.

CSS also allows form elements to be stylized. Using native widgets makes that nigh on impossible to support.

In terms of performance, my experience is that a good browser is one which handles the best and the worst of the web equally well. Konq / KHTML always struck me as one that coped well with the middle content but took a nosedive with anything else. I've downloaded Safari now to play with so I might revise my opinion with more exposure.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by IdahoEv · 2003-01-07 09:49 · Score: 5, Funny

Designers will have no choice but to stick to open standards instead of writing to one specific browser.

Yeah, whatever. Designers have clients. Clients make demands. You see:

Client: I think our front page should have flashing news scroller, a slide show, and dancing girls that follow the mouse!

Me: Trust me, you really don't want that. It will make your page slow to load, and incompatible with numerous browsers. I could do it in Flash, but that would cost a lot.

Client: But the dancing girls are so cute! We'd sell more widgets! Don't use flash; I hate downloading plugins.

Me: I feel a great need to pop a clue in your a**, but I really need the money.

Client: Don't forget to make it play "Achy Breaky Heart"!

Me: Grr!

--
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by Phroggy · 2003-01-07 10:23 · Score: 2

I think since QT was ported to OS X, it's easier to use native widgets with KHTML rather than gecko. Chimera for instance does not use real aqua text entry and widgets within the web page, but a theme that looks like they are.

Just because Qt was ported to OSX doesn't mean Safari is using it.

--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by King+Babar · 2003-01-07 10:25 · Score: 2

Actually, can you append the konqueror version you are using?

I'm not; I'm using the safari public beta based on khtml. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

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Babar
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by Arandir · 2003-01-07 10:25 · Score: 2

Gecko has a larger install base with existing Netscape, Moz, Chameleon, Galeon, and Phoenix installs, and is more likely, with AOL converts, to have a larger market share and have more 'feature-rich' pages designed to render properly in it. Both are cross-platform.

Hmmm, good arguments for keeping Internet Exploder! Larger installed based, larger market share, more 'feature-rich' pages, and cross-platform.

--
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-07 10:26 · Score: 3, Insightful

No!

Hold back your feelings. This is good. Yes, Gecko may be the superior engine. But diversity and choice are superiorer. Think about it: with Apple supporting KHTML and AOL supporting Gecko, there are two alternatives that enjoy major support.

This means that Microsoft, and more importantly, the mono- or duopoly web development mindset lose some of their strangehold on the market. And ultimately this keeps the web's promise alive better than just using a more compliant engine.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by entrox · 2003-01-07 10:48 · Score: 2

Safari doesn't use QT - they made a wrapper around the KHTML parts, which need parts of KDE or QT called KWQ (pronounced "quack") so they're not using QT at all, but instead using OSX directly. And yes, that wrapper will also be made open-source and released as part of WebCore soon.

--
-- The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by dmaxwell · 2003-01-07 12:26 · Score: 2

That won't work for any application that uses self generated SSL certificates. IE on the Mac can only use certificates that have been hard baked into the app itself. It does not offer a user a dialog to accept an arbitrary certificate. We use such an app internally in our district and I have to have a non-IE browser on the Macs to use it.

This IMHO is a severe shortcoming of IE for Macintosh.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by hondo77 · 2003-01-07 12:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

Translation: we realised that we had no chance of building our own layout engine or javascript engine, so we had to choose between Gecko/Spidermonkey and KHTML/KJS.

Why not use existing tools if they are good enough?

The Mozilla technologies were better, but we could understand the KDE ones.

Who wants to work with software you can't understand? 140,000 lines of code vs. bigger? I'd take 140,000 if I could, too.

In particular, Mozilla is full of cross platform code that makes it harder to adapt and integrate into our OS, and it relies upon its own portable runtime and rendering layers.

Who's fault is that? Certainly not Apple's.

When we started this project, Chimera didn't exist.

Who cares? Safari rocks. A big, bad commercial softwarre developer uses an open-source project and gives back to that community and there are still people who whine. It boggles the mind.

--
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · 2003-01-07 12:54 · Score: 2

designers will have no choice but to stick to open standards instead of writing to one specific browser.
Wrong. Now instead of writing to the standards, which Gecko supports very well, they'll have to go back to browser sniffing and serving up something that the KHTML engine can render.
It sucks, it's a pain in the ass, it won't help designers make standards complient sites. It will create more hacks if anything.
AFAIK, Gecko doesn't have any non-standards components anyway. If you were talking about IE's rendering engine, then you would have a valid point.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by grammar+nazi · 2003-01-07 13:36 · Score: 4, Insightful

GiMP (10923),

Please don't take offense to the following:
I just love it when people who have no business concepts come up with crackpot reasons for why corporations do what they do. A lot of times these people make me laugh with their logic.
First of all, Jobs doesn't want competition. He's the CEO of a multibillion dollar company. Do you honestly think he believes in a competitive, efficient market? Sure, he'll say and do whatever he can as long as MS is where it's at, but only as long as he's in second place.
Remember, the Macintosh computer is a franchise market (read: Harley Davidson) with Apple at the helm. Companies with a monopoly over a franchise market (which Apple has) have little that will erode their marketshare. The Harley Davidson example is the textbook case. Basically, Harley Davidson has 0 competition from Honda, Yamaha, whoever in their main market. Harley's main market happens to be "Harley Davidson Motorcycles". Similarly, Apple has 0 competition from other computer makers in the Macintosh market. Everytime somebody tries to release something that emulates a Mac, they get crushed by Apple's litigation thugs. Send an email to themes.org if you disagree.
Now if we can rule out betterment of society from CEO Jobs' goals, we should be able to assume that profit is his ultimate goal. All of his plans revolve around those little 3 step underpants gnomes plans. in this particular case, we have:
1. Use KHTML
2. ????
3. Profit!!
Now we just have to find the elusive step 2. from the 3 step plan. You, GiMP suggest that he wants a competitive browser market to create a better browser that will drive people to the Macintosh platform, thus, creating profit. Hmmm. I don't think that having the best browser will generate any profit. How much profit has MS made from IE (if we haphazardly assume it's the best browser)? None. Has dominance with IE led to profit with IIS? IIS has yet to generate profits for MS, so again, No.
Here's my idea of why Apple chose KHTML, and although it may be just as crackpot as yours, at least it's business based crack (the expensive stuff that Wall St Tycoons snort) as opposed to opensource hippie crack. I think that Apple sees a switch campaign as a good way to increase revenues so he needs to get more people to "switch". One main reason that people don't feel comfortable with OS X is because all of the browsers suck. I use OS X and I'm justified in saying that ALL CURRENT OS X Browsers suck. I currently use a collection IE, Navigator (chimera?), Mozilla, and OmniWeb. Every one of them sucks differently and together, there's usually one that's right for each job, but I can't use one for everything. Steve Jobs knows this and says, "Holy shit! How can convince people that OS X is the best platform when people can't even browse the fscking web?" CEO Steve is smart though. He realizes that the slow web browsers in OS X (IE and Mozilla) don't suck as much as the fast web browsers (Navigator and Omniweb). He decides that Apple's going to do it's typical amazing thing and surprise everybody with a fast webbrowser for OS X that doesn't suck! Has Steve succeeded? From other comments on this page I'd say not yet, but it's a beta version and CEO Steve put a serious team of hackers behind his browser.
Why did he choose KHTML? Probably because it was the easiest *fast* html renderer to modify and create a new web browser with. CEO Steve knows that reinventing the wheel costs too much in today's economy.
PS. I'm very happy that Apple chose an open source browser and is giving back to the community the way that they are. I'm happy for the KDE people (all of them) for creating a browser and desktop environment that was capable for a company like Apple to use the code base.

--

Keeping /. free of grammatical errors for ~5 years.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by astrosmash · 2003-01-07 15:51 · Score: 2

I think since QT was ported to OS X, it's easier to use native widgets with KHTML rather than gecko. Chimera for instance does not use real aqua text entry and widgets within the web page, but a theme that looks like they are.
KHTML doesn't use native widgets. Neither does IE, or Mozilla. And now that Opera 6 is obsolete, no modern rendering engine uses native widgets (with the exception of some list boxes in IE -- but that's IE's problem).
In order to support all of the wacky things one can do to with CSS, web browsers must render widgets on their own, just like all other HTML elements.

--
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by Arandir · 2003-01-07 16:06 · Score: 2

Wow! You just blew right over my sarcasm. I keep forgetting that Slashdot readers are humour impaired, and are incapable of recognizing it without several dozen emoticons.

--
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by ealar+dlanvuli · 2003-01-07 16:25 · Score: 2

If you listened carefully during the Keynote, apple has been working on Safari since before Gecko and KHtml were really different at all. Mozilla was around 0.9 when they started so it would have been a close call.

I personally think they should probably try switching to Gecko sometime if the gap keeps growing, but then again the improvments they sent today really helped make khtml a solid browser alternative. Having 3 solid browsers never hurt anyone

--
I live in a giant bucket.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by ealar+dlanvuli · 2003-01-07 16:36 · Score: 2

You know.. now that you said that.. I would buy a K-Office box for like $40. *ponders that thought*.

--
I live in a giant bucket.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by egghat · 2003-01-07 23:05 · Score: 2

>Apple may have just sparked not only a browser war,
>but a rejuvination of computing without Microsoft.
>I won't be surprised to see 30-40% of the web using
>non-IE browsers within a year.

I would.

Apple has kind of 5 % market share, other OSes sth. like 2 % (of course it's even lower ...).

So these 2% have to use a non-IE-browser, simply because that's not available.

And these 5% Apple users won't switch, as Safari is still beta and IE for the time being is better (KHTML still needs a lot of work to become a good as Gecko now is). So don't expect Safari to be the standard browser on OSX sooner than 9 to 12 months.

Netscape/Mozillas market share on Windows is below 10%. While I love Mozilla/Phoenix I don't think there will be too many people swhitching from IE because the reasons to switch aren't big enough. IE works on all of the pages OK. That's Good Enough (tm).

If we can get near 30% market share the big move has to be AOL switching to Gecko.

Most other browser will stay below 1% Market share. Don't get me wrong, but I think that Netscape 7.0 is installed on more computers than Mozilla. There's (of course) not a single (technical) reason for this, but, hey, what technical knowledge do you expect from a normal computer user?

Bye egghat.

--
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by Rob+Kaper · 2003-01-07 23:49 · Score: 2

Most other browser will stay below 1% Market share. Don't get me wrong, but I think that Netscape 7.0 is installed on more computers than Mozilla. There's (of course) not a single (technical) reason for this, but, hey, what technical knowledge do you expect from a normal computer user?

I installed NS7 and not Mozilla on my Linux box for the simple reason it simply works, and Moz did not, when it comes to Java and Flash. NS6 was crap, but NS7 really had some QA behind it. So I downloaded both, tried both for a short while, and kept the one that worked best for me.

No doubt that Moz has since improved though, so I'll have to check it out again (I use it when I am making a complete clean KDE build and am left without Konq for an hr).
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by Fugly · 2003-01-08 02:49 · Score: 2

Part of being a good consultant or designer is managing your customer's expectations and steering them in the right direction. They've hired you because they know they aren't capable of doing what you do. You will always have to make some little concessions but if you pick your battles and present sensable arguments, you'll make very few.

If somebody really earnestly demands that you create a piece of shit site, the contract probably isn't worth it anyhow. What's more valuable, a week's pay or your reputation?
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by Smitty825 · 2003-01-08 04:06 · Score: 2

Interesting points about why Apple created their new Browser. However, I think that the primary reason that Apple began creating their own browser was because Apple is realizing that they need to seperate themselves from Microsoft.

When they started this project, the only browser choices for OS X were Mozilla. OmniWeb and IE (Chimera may have just been starting up) --Note, IE OS X wasn't very good, Mozilla was still slow and Omni wasn't very compliant.

Apple also released their own version of "PowerPoint", and I would expect them to release their own version of office (Maybe KOffice?).

Last summer, Apple & Microsoft's 5 year agreement for MS to develop software for the Macintosh had expired. "Analysists" have now said that Apple has around 3% market share, and that MS wouldn't lose much money if they were to stop supporting the Macintosh platform.

I honestly think that Apple is just creating a "plan B"!

--

Doh!
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by King+Babar · 2003-01-08 04:55 · Score: 3, Informative

I took a look at the source to that test page. Its not the CSS that is messing it up, its the tag that they are using to load the test html.
...
Seems a strange way of loading what is essentially a floating frame. If you manually change the address of the current page to the page shown in the data attribute "http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Test/CSS1/current/tes t11.htm", it renders fine.

I didn't think it was the CSS per se (since it was whining about mime types), but I didn't see how this html could be that objectionable compared to some you see on, well, slashdot. I just checked at w3c.org, and OBJECT is certainly an element that should be handled correctly under HTML 4.01. As far as doing this rather than a frame, I'll confess that I didn't know that OBJECT could be so handy; frames stink in my opinion, and this is a cute (and presumably blessed) device for exactly this kind of thing.
Given that konq apparently renders this correctly, I'm presuming this was a bug in khtml that got fixed after Apple secretly started banging on the code, so it should be easy to fix.
Thanks again for the nice detective work.

--
Babar
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by hondo77 · 2003-01-08 05:41 · Score: 2

Yet KHTML and KJS are under the LGPL, so they had to do that anyway as a legal obligation. Why are people surprised by this?

It's not that they're giving back the source, which they, obviously, had to do anyway. It's that now that the project is out they are determined to work with the KHTML community instead of just forking and going off on their own merry way. Apple doesn't have to be a good citizen but they know that it is to their advantage to do so. Good for them.

--
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Re:Why KHTML rather than Gecko? by rthille · 2003-01-08 08:07 · Score: 2

Why did he [Steve Jobs] choose KHTML? Probably because it was the easiest *fast* html renderer to modify and create a new web browser with. CEO Steve knows that reinventing the wheel costs too much in today's economy.

God Forbid that Steve was the one picking KHTML. I hope that some at least 3 levels down, who still knows how to read code picked KHTML, not Steve, who reads balance sheets and market trends.

--
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/

How about quid pro quo? (QT player for Linux) by jvmatthe · 2003-01-07 07:39 · Score: 2

Sure, they're giving back source improvements for things they're getting from the free software world, but how about giving something we've been asking for nicely for years...a native Linux QuickTime player and plugin? I don't really think most people will care that it's not free; I'm fairly hardcore about free software, but will admit right here for all to see that I'd use a non-free, Linux native QuickTime player/plugin from Apple.

Yes, I know about CrossOver. Thanks anyway.

--
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy

Re:How about quid pro quo? (QT player for Linux) by Fnord · 2003-01-07 08:55 · Score: 2

Have you seen the quicktime support in mplayer?

Innovation... by Eric_Cartman_South_P · 2003-01-07 07:39 · Score: 3, Interesting

...without any monkey-boy dancing on stage. I've never been blown away (easy there, wise-guy) before by a presentation like the one Apple just had. The 17 inch PowerBook is my next computer. And my desktop and laptop will appear on www.ebay.com very soon. Such an amazing computer running BSD (right?) at the core, with software that just works, and most importantly to me, a great GUI with respect for design huristics and usability.

Oh, my spalling does suck, but nevermind about that :)

The keyboard design is brilliant (there's a pun there, I think). The only thing missing is a little camera somewhere to enable Video Conferencing (which I use a lot with all my friends and some of my clients). But no complaints.

I probrably don't have anything smart to say right now... too busy drooling after having watched the entire live stream of the keynote. But if anyone wants to throw links to great places new Mac ownsers can go to (such as http://fink.sourceforge.net/ ) I'd LOVE to see your thoughts, links, suggestions, etc.

backlit keyboard?? f'n cool by SirSlud · 2003-01-07 07:40 · Score: 4, Informative

Okay, I'm sure some poster will happily link to prior art, but that keyboard is fucking cool.

Automagically adjusting itself depending on the ambient light ... fibre optic light strips ... the Christians are going to have a whole other sexuality to denounce this year, cause between the aluminum casing, the 1440x990 screen, this just might be the year where people are finally caught literally humping their powerbooks. Look at those pics, I know I would!

--
"Old man yells at systemd"

Re:backlit keyboard?? f'n cool by jc42 · 2003-01-07 11:09 · Score: 2

Backlit looks cool, but is purely cosmetic. What would be just as cool, and actually useful, would be for the symbols on the keys to light up. Then you could use it in the dark without problems when you forget where the ~ or | key is on this @#$@&% keyboard. This isn't a trivial concern when you routinely work with several different machines, all with different keyboard placement of some chars.

--
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Re:backlit keyboard?? f'n cool by 2nd+Post! · 2003-01-07 11:46 · Score: 2

Um, how is a backlit keyboard different, exactly, than your proposal for lighted symbols?

--

GPL Deconstructed
Re:backlit keyboard?? f'n cool by Bishop923 · 2003-01-07 18:06 · Score: 2

Check out some of the vids on the Apple site, the symbols on the keys DO light up.

Wow by bogie · 2003-01-07 07:41 · Score: 4, Interesting

"Jobs also introduced Safari, a new Mac OS X browser based on the KHTML rendering engine from KDE "

I can't believe they would not adopt Chimera, especially with David Hyatt now working at Apple. No offense to KDE which I hold oh so dear over any other WM system, but Gecko is just a better engine. Its truly cross platform, has a huge amount of momentum behind it, and AOL would essentially be doing R&D for free for Apple. Not to even mention the fact the Netscape/Moz has much much better industry suport,a ton of addons and a much larger user base. If this is true I'd just call the move foolish.

--
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch

Re:Wow by axxackall · 2003-01-07 07:56 · Score: 2

but Gecko is just a better engine. Its truly cross platform
I don't think Steve Jobs loves any cross-platform engines. Everything that works on x86 is a poison for Apple.
As for BSD fragments in OSX... BSD was dying anyway. Now BSD is dying on x86 even faster than before as BSD users would love to be addicted to candies of OSX and to switch from x86 to PPC for that.

--

Less is more !
Re:Wow by Drakonian · 2003-01-07 07:59 · Score: 2

Well "better engine" may be a bit of a subjective term. It looks like they put a lot of effort into upgrading the KHTML engine. If their cooked benchmarks are anything to go by, it is faster than Chimera. Interesting choice though.

--
Random is the New Order.
Re:Wow by ender81b · 2003-01-07 07:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

Most likely they used KHTML because it *wasn't* tied in any way, shape, or form to a major corporation. At least that would be my guess. Maybe, also, they thought KHTML rendering engine was better than mozilla's, who knows. But I would place money on the reason behind choosing KHTML over Gecko being the fact that KHTML isn't backed by some major corporation whose interests might run contrary to apple's.
Re:Wow by protohiro1 · 2003-01-07 08:26 · Score: 2

They're not. Its faster than IE...and its pretty nice, but I think I'm going to stick with chimera for the time being...tabs and a little better speed.

--
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
Re:Wow by tupps · 2003-01-07 09:37 · Score: 2

Have a good look at the bar graph on this page:
http://www.apple.com/safari/
I see a comparison with IE, Netscape 7.01 and Chimera 0.6.0
Hopefully this sort of thing will only increase the competition in the browser space on all platforms. We haven't see anything really new out of MS with IE for a couple of years. However Mozilla, Opera and other buddies have been bring out some good new stuff. Have to say tabbed browsing does rock and everyone who uses it falls in love pretty quick.

--
Go out and get sailing!
Re:Wow by bmetzler · 2003-01-07 10:07 · Score: 2

I can't believe they would not adopt Chimera, especially with David Hyatt now working at Apple.
Presumably they would use khtml because it was already ported to QT. QT is well supported while gtk is not very well supported yet. That means that Mozilla would take much more work to integrate.
Its truly cross platform, has a huge amount of momentum behind it, and AOL would essentially be doing R&D for free for Apple.
OS X really isn't cross-platform. It's not like Safari is ever going to run on anything else other then OS X. Also, AOL isn't providing any more R&D then Apple is receiving with khtml. Apple has to do the work to integrate whatever they chose with OS X anyways.
-Brent
Re:Wow by Arandir · 2003-01-07 16:37 · Score: 2

I can't believe they would not adopt Chimera

I can't believe people are actually whining over this. If you don't want to use Safari then use Chimera! Geez...

--
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Re:Wow by ealar+dlanvuli · 2003-01-07 16:44 · Score: 2

It is far faster than chimera, especially at displaying cached pages. It beats chimera almost 20% at rendering hall of fame slashdot articles for greatest size.

It's significantly faster than IE.

--
I live in a giant bucket.

posting this from safari by elliotj · 2003-01-07 07:41 · Score: 3, Informative

first impressions:

* no tabbed browsing - wtf?
* no way to import bookmarks - got a hundred in chimera, time to poke around and see if I can figure a way to do it
* nice default fonts
* respects internet preferences like homepage
* nice brused look
* looks clean

17" AlBook:
* what's up with the keyboard. they're using the same sized keyboard for the 12" and 17" models. wtf? the 17" has so much more space, and a bigger keyboard would be a great feature .... much better than backlighting!

Re:posting this from safari by tassii · 2003-01-07 08:00 · Score: 4, Informative

no way to import bookmarks - got a hundred in chimera, time to poke around and see if I can figure a way to do it

Drag and drop. Open Chimera's bookmark list and drag it to Safari's bookmark list. Done. Very sweet.

--
"I drank what?" - Socrates
Re:posting this from safari by Mars+Saxman · 2003-01-07 08:42 · Score: 2

I'm asking you, since you seem to care about it, but it's not the first time I've wondered. Why is "tabbed browsing" considered a standard feature all of a sudden? I tried it when I first downloaded Mozilla, but didn't see the point. Is it really that big a deal to replace a stack of windows with a stack of tabs?

-Mars
Re:posting this from safari by kitzilla · 2003-01-07 09:01 · Score: 2

Chimera bookmarks are XML, right? Perhaps you could open the bookmark file in something, then saving as HTML. If there's anything left, you could import from there.

I'll be playing with this tonight, also. But I doubt I'll abandon Chimera.

--
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Re:posting this from safari by raju1kabir · 2003-01-07 11:35 · Score: 3, Insightful
I don't get tabbed browsing. I can only pay attention to one page at a time, why would I want to have multiple pages open but only be able to look at one?

For so many reasons.
- For instance, when I read your posting and decided to reply to it, I center-clicked the "Reply" link and then kept reading what I was doing while Slashdot's "Post Comment" page loaded. Once the tab color changed to indicate it was done loading, I clicked over to write this. Not only did I not have to wait for the reply page to appear, but when I was done, I didn't have to wait for the original page to reload before I could keep reading.
- Any time I'm reading a page with a bunch of interesting links (maybe a news article or something), I'll center-click them all and then, once I've finished the original article (thus preserving my train of thought) I can read through 'em, one by one, and they're all pre-loaded and ready to go.
- When I want to compare a bunch of pages (maybe pulling up 7 or 8 country profiles from the World Factbook or something) I can center-click all the links in rapid succession and then flip back and forth between them with ease.
It saves me an incredible amount of time and enables me to manage viewing a substantially larger number of web pages. It's the only browser innovation in years that's excited me at all.
--
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Re:posting this from safari by kitzilla · 2003-01-07 13:56 · Score: 2

Regarding the importation of bookmarks, I found this tip on the Chimera board. Haven't tried it yet, but it beats drag-and-drop:

---

For importing Chimera bookmarks, its a little tricky, but only takes a minute:

1) Export bookmarks in Chimera (Manage Bookmarks menu item)

2) rename the file 'Favourites.html'

3) Trash: Users:(Yourname):Library:Safari (folder)

4) Trash: Users:(Yourname):Library:preferences:com.apple.saf ari.plist

5)Replace the file favourites.html in Users:(Yourname):Library:Preferences:Explorer with your exported file.

6) Launch Safari

--
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Re:posting this from safari by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-07 18:13 · Score: 2

I do all this anyway, but just use command-click to pop multiple windows on IE and now Safari.

You can also use cmd-shift-click to pop windows into the background. Command-click opens new windows in the foreground, which isn't always exactly what you want.

--

I write in my journal
Re:posting this from safari by anarkhos · 2003-01-07 19:25 · Score: 2

Bookmarks can be imported from using the "Show All Bookmarks" command in the Bookmarks menu. Look at the left column.

I'm still waiting for Apple to provide a panel in System preferences for file type mappings. Grr.

--
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
Re:posting this from safari by Have+Blue · 2003-01-07 20:06 · Score: 2

You haven't listed anything I can't do by command-clicking in Safari (open link in new window). Or command-shift-click to open a new window BEHIND the current window (discovered that just this moment while trying to come up with an argument for this post :P ).
Re:posting this from safari by ottffssent · 2003-01-08 00:22 · Score: 2

Since for once I don't have mod points to give away, I thought I'd comment instead.

As someone with a 10.5" hand spread (about the 98 or 99th percentile, for those who're counting), I definately echo your "what the hell?!?" upon seeing that dinky keyboard floating in an ocean of wasted space. I'll grant that the backlit keyboard looks awesome, but for Apple to spend their engineering talent making a pretty keyboard over a functional one is both in character and unforgivable. I'm not asking for a separate number keypad and pgup/pgdn/home/end/ins/del block, but a full-sized set of function keys, arrow keys, and the like is an absolute must. There was enough room for both on the old powerbooks, and there's even more space on the 17" behemoth.

--
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)

beta by simpl3x · 2003-01-07 07:41 · Score: 2

it's a beta! and, it is quite nice. i just downloaded it, and it is realtively speedy, but the google bar makes the difference. i missed that moving from a windows machine. ui is clean also, and i expect that it will improve markedly by release! very cool... as is the x11! quite nice!

Posting this from Safari. by Erik+K.+Veland · 2003-01-07 07:41 · Score: 2, Informative

While I'm definitly going to sell both my current macs and buy the new 17" lust-object, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the public beta of Safari is one hell of a pre-released alpha.

The interface is super-nice, and the features outstanding. But the browser rendering? Well it sucks donkey-bottom. I've sent in no less than six bug-reports in the first three minutes I used it. It didn't load my css on my home page at all, macnn.com is missing tables. A surprise that they even found ten good sites to show in the keynote. I'm really looking forward to this browser maturing, but for now Chimera 0.6.0 is the way to go.

Too bad though, Safari is - like I said - real sleek in the interface way. And fast too. But heck, I've waited this long for Chimera to mature, so why not wait a little more. It's heck of a lot more promising than just a few screenshots of a future Apple-browser.

--
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java

Re:Open Source by dennism · 2003-01-07 07:42 · Score: 3, Informative

The writeup forgot to mention that both Safari and Keynote are open source.

The HTML rendering portion of Safari is open source. Keynote is not -- it's a commercial product like DVD Studio, Final Cut Pro, MacOS X, and just about everything else Apple does.

--
dennis

12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... by SlashChick · 2003-01-07 07:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

I watched the Quicktime keynote with great interst, hoping that Jobs would finally introduce a 4-pound notebook. I've been waiting for one for a while, so I'm really excited that Apple finally introduced one!

Unfortunately, however, the notebook doesn't include DVI-out support, so my monitor would fall back to VGA mode if I tried to use the notebook with it. Does anyone know if Apple or a third party plans to offer a PC Card with DVI support? Margi had one, but it's only 4MB... not quite enough for this particular monitor.

Also, one thing Apple keeps failing to address is the #1 reason I haven't switched to a Mac. Steve, where are the software trade-in incentives? I own Photoshop 6 and 7, Dreamweaver MX, and Microsoft Office XP for the PC. What on Earth is keeping Apple and/or other vendors from offering trade-in incentives? Why can I not trade in my two boxed Photoshop-for-PC copies and receive Photoshop 7 for Mac OS X? The same goes for Dreamweaver MX. The cost to move to a Mac is almost doubled by the $1500 worth of software that I already have for my PC.

Here's hoping Apple will start to address this issue, especially since the platform is geared toward video developers and graphic designers -- two markets whose people invest heavily in expensive software.

--
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!

Re:12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... by SilverLuz · 2003-01-07 08:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

While I don't know of anyone offering software trade-in, many vendors (notably Adobe, off the top of my head) do offer cross-platform upgrades. From Photoshop 6, you could upgrade to 7 PC or Mac for the same price. Which is why I'm trying to hold off purchasing new versions of my major apps until I get my new Mac.

17" Powerbook... drool.
Re:12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... by LookSharp · 2003-01-07 08:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

Steve, where are the software trade-in incentives? I own Photoshop 6 and 7, Dreamweaver MX, and Microsoft Office XP for the PC. [...] Why can I not trade in my two boxed Photoshop-for-PC copies and receive Photoshop 7 for Mac OS. The cost to move to a Mac is almost doubled by the $1500 worth of software that I already have for my PC.

Why would you ask Apple to take in software from some vendor, presumably just to throw it out, and GIVE you $1500 worth of some other company's software? Would you walk into Campell's headquaters, drop a case of opened cans of soup on their desk, and demand Progresso instead because you don't like the kind of bowls you bought to eat your soup in?

How about either 1) Ask the software vendors in question about a trade-up deal, or 2) Buy new software for Mac in the first place?

That's part of the TCO for owning a Mac, and one of the two big reasons (software availabity, especially games; plus hardware cost) that I finally abandoned Apple after 19 years of loyalty.
Re:12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... by poot_rootbeer · 2003-01-07 08:43 · Score: 2

Why can I not trade in my two boxed Photoshop-for-PC copies and receive Photoshop 7 for Mac OS X?

I dunno, ask Adobe.

I can't understand why you seem to be upset with Apple (and Steve Jobs personally) for not offering this incentive when it's not even theirs to offer in the first place...
Re:12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... by magnamous · 2003-01-07 09:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

Buy Virtual PC 6 for $200, and you can run all of those on your brand-new Mac. I agree with you that cross-upgrades would be very good, but until then, VP6 would be my recommendation. It's not a perfect solution, but if that's the number one reason that you haven't bought a Mac yet (and based on what you said, if I had to guess, the largest reason by a long shot), I'd say just fork over the $200 and be done with it. There are lots of incentives to getting a Mac that you would understand once you got one, despite the circumstances of your particular situation.
Re:12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... by MissMyNewton · 2003-01-07 10:41 · Score: 2

Unfortunately, however, the notebook doesn't include DVI-out support, so my monitor [sgi.com] would fall back to VGA mode if I tried to use the notebook with it.
No loss!
I have one of those too -- works just as well on VGA as the DVI port (or DVI works just as "badly" as the VGA - take your pick).
That particular issue shouldn't be a show stopper for you...

--

---
Information wants...you to shut your pie hole.
Re:12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... by WittCycleGuy · 2003-01-07 12:15 · Score: 2, Informative

That would work...except Photoshop 7 for os X and some of the other software you metioned is specifically optimized for the native OS. If you run it through Virutal PC you're not going to get the benefits of these amazing applications.
Re:12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... by Sentry21 · 2003-01-07 16:15 · Score: 3, Interesting

Steve, where are the software trade-in incentives?

I was informed a while ago, though I'm not sure if it's still true, that Adobe will gladly exchange your Windows license for Photoshop 7 for an OS X license for Photoshop 7, straight trade. I would suggest calling Adobe to find out if this is the case, as I would with Macromedia. It doesn't cost them anything, and it promotes good customer relations, so I don't see why not.

--Dan
Re:12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... by KFury · 2003-01-07 18:16 · Score: 2

Does anyone know if Apple or a third party plans to offer a PC Card with DVI support?

Irrelevant. The 12" TiBook doesn't have a PC card slot either.

--

Kevin Fox
Re:12" Powerbook Very Cool! But... by DaytonCIM · 2003-01-08 05:53 · Score: 2

Why can I not trade in my two boxed Photoshop-for-PC copies and receive Photoshop 7 for Mac OS X?

I called Adobe and they said no problem with "exchanging" Photoshop 6. Only catch is the Mac version is currently 7, so what you must do is a Cross Platform Upgrade. So, you would be charged the upgrade cost, but you're not charge the full commercial license fee. Save you a few bucks, but you'll have to shell out a bit to convert.

I talked to Macromedia and they're pretty much the same.

Not sure about Microsoft. I don't enjoy sitting on hold waiting for their pre-sales folks to get on the phone and try and sell me everything. :)

Hope this helps.

safari by Triv · 2003-01-07 07:42 · Score: 2

Just DLed safari. Works well, (and blocks pop-ups! and integrates google search! And cleanly handles ad cookies!) except:

1. NO TABS. Tabs are the greatest thing about chimera and I've gotten quite used to them. I like only having one open window. 2. the brushed metal theme only encompasses the menubar area with no frame at all around the rest. It looks...odd - none of the windows have real borders which works well for the finder but looks off for a web-browser.

it IS still in beta, of course, and I'm truly torn between this and Chimera. Let's see what happens. :)

Triv

I LOVE Safari by TomHandy · 2003-01-07 07:43 · Score: 2, Informative

First off, I'm glad to see that Apple did not start charging for the main iApps (only iDVD, which makes sense). The software demonstrations were actually really impressive, as I'm normally bored by the software demonstrations. The new PowerBooks are also nifty, but I'm probably not going to buy one any time soon, since I already have a 12 inch iBook.

But of all of this, Safari is the coolest. I know "a new web browser" isn't exactly earth shattering news, but this is really nice to have. I am running Safari now, and I love the little UI touches, and the speed of it is great.....it has replaced Chimera for me. So far I've encountered only one site which didn't display properly (on gamespot.com, the login fields distorted the grey graphic they were on), so I clicked the little Bug reporting button and submitted it......quick and painless.

So far I'm really impressed though. A new web browser may not be exciting, but since this is one of the main apps I use, having something that is really fast and slick is very nice.

Thumbs up!

-Tom

Re:I LOVE Safari by Snocone · 2003-01-07 08:25 · Score: 2

(only iDVD, which makes sense)

Actually, it doesn't, and Steve etc. want it to be free, really. It's the DVD encoder royalties that make it impracticable to make it freely downloadable like other iApps, nothing diabolical on Apple's part.

and X11 for osX by eshefer · 2003-01-07 07:43 · Score: 2

what's the really interesting announcement for unix geeks..

not mentuned at the keynote at all, but a press release is out:http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030107/sftu107_1.h tml

"allows X11-based applications to run side-by-side with native Mac OS X applications on the same desktop and makes it even simpler to port X11-based applications to the Mac®. Apple's implementation of X11, the common windowing environment for UNIX operating systems, is easy to install and is optimized to take full advantage of Apple's innovative Quartz(TM) graphics system to deliver hardware-accelerated 2D and 3D graphics for fast text scrolling, dynamic dragging and resizing of windows, and stunning 3D animation through OpenGL Direct Rendering"

"beta tested at every Macworld keynote in 2002" by artemis67 · 2003-01-07 07:43 · Score: 3, Funny

Uhh... by my count, there were only 3 Macworld keynotes in 2002.

And here I thought only Microsoft tested their products three times before they shipped.

Re:Other stories by csnydermvpsoft · 2003-01-07 07:43 · Score: 2

though it has never worked quite as well on the Mac as it has on the PC

Are you kidding? I've used IE on both Mac and Windows, and have to say that the Mac version is much better (though still worse than Chimera). Ditto for MS Office. It seems that when MS formed their Mac division, all of the good programmers flocked to it...

AlBook by SuperKendall · 2003-01-07 07:43 · Score: 2

"AlBook" doesn't have the same ring to it though

I think this man would disagree with you!

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Why the 440 Go!? by slithytove · 2003-01-07 07:44 · Score: 2

I've been excited to get a powerbook for as long as the titanium ones have been around. A few months ago I got even more excited about the presence of vertex units in the radeon9000 which is in the last round of tibooks. Today, finding out about the 17" PB nearly made me cream my pants, then I find out its a 440 go (no vertex units) and I'm suddenly conflicted about screen-size vs vertex units:( I mean, which one is the ultimate DooM III notebook? ;)

Re:Why the 440 Go!? by Stormie · 2003-01-07 11:48 · Score: 2

I agree, what a bizarre decision. This article I found has the Mobility Radeon 9000 spanking the GeForce4 440 Go handily in every single benchmark, on top of having the programmable vertex & pixel shaders, unlike the GeForce. Why on earth would Apple offer a "top of the range" Powerbook with graphics that were inferior in every way to those of it's "mid-range" model??

(p.s. the ultimate Doom 3 notebook is surely a PC with a GeForce4 4200 Go!)

Re:Anatomy sized notebook by Graymalkin · 2003-01-07 07:44 · Score: 2

Well since the Powerbook starts at the price point the iBook ends at it can't really cannabalize sales. With the new low end Powerbook you end up with a G4, faster memory, a better video card, built-in Bluetooth, and an optional Superdrive. I don't really see how that compares to an iBook that is three hundred dollars cheaper in terms of market overlap.

--
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.

On the name of that browser... by thatguywhoiam · 2003-01-07 07:45 · Score: 2

Since I haven't seen it mentioned, and all the obvious SteveNote bits will soon be pounded into oblivion...

I think the Safari name is very clever, considering the fact that 'to browse' originally is a term applied to animals foraging for sustenance. Safari indeed.

--
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.

Re:On the name of that browser... by Ryano · 2003-01-07 09:02 · Score: 2

Personally, I assumed it was some sort of reference to the old Beach Boys song "Surfin' Safari". You know, web surfing -> Surfin' Safari ->Safari.

We're probably both right.
Re:On the name of that browser... by Arkham · 2003-01-07 10:14 · Score: 2

I assumed it was a reference to Apple's other code names -- Puma (10.1), Jaguar (10.2), etc. All animals you'd see on a safari.

--
- Vincit qui patitur.

Re:Anatomy sized notebook by grue23 · 2003-01-07 07:46 · Score: 2

the 12" powerbook is shiny and ibooks are plastic. apple consumers shouldn't be confused.

the market is for people who want a more powerful machine in a small package, which is a market that does exist.

Someone call a priest! by sporty · 2003-01-07 07:46 · Score: 2

There's nothing especially great about it -- it's a web browser -- except that, unlike most other browsers, it is expected to be fast and work properly, as well as be fully integrated into Mac OS X.

"I'm sorry, my browswer isn't broken, it just don't 'work' like konq does. For some odd reason makes fun of me and keeps spinning it's head around. Worst part of it is, it wants me to read all my pages in latin!" :D

Sorry, I'm a mozilla fan and thought how funny and strange that konqueror is so perfect :)

--

-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only

Why kHTML? by mcc · 2003-01-07 07:46 · Score: 2

My first reaction is.. wow.. that's a lot of.. stuff. I was expecting this keynote to be just hot air. This definitely eases the pain of Nintendo's "megaton" announcement having nothing to do with Gamecube games ^_^ But, onto my question for all you linux-at-home users out there:

Has anyone know why they chose to make Safari based on kHTML instead of Gecko? What is the reasoning here? I think i kind of just wish they'd commandeered Chimera instead, and added all those browser-ish features it was missing. If it's still missing them. I guess I'll download that again and check. Um, ANYWAY..

Why kHTML? Is it faster than Gecko, or easier to hook into, or something? I cannot really comment on this, as I'm not a big KDE fan and so haven't been following Konqueror, and I can't really comment on the speed of Gecko sans Mozilla since i haven't checked out Chimera since v0.1, and can't get Galeon to work*. What's up with this? It seems it would make more sense for Apple to throw their weight into Mozilla, but i can't really come up with any good justification why I'm saying that.

Whatever. Might as well check this Safari thing out and see if it's any more fully-featured than Chimera and any better at rendering standard webpages than Omniweb, or if i'll still be using MSIE tomorrow..

* P.S., if anyone out there can give me any tips as to how the heck to get Galeon up and running under Solaris when one is not Root, let me know. Last time i attempted i got as far as GDK/GTK+ all working and installed in my home directory and stuff, and never quite managed to get the GNOME libraries set up. Eh.. ^_^

--
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts

Re:Why kHTML? by bnenning · 2003-01-07 10:05 · Score: 2

I think i kind of just wish they'd commandeered Chimera

That was my first reaction too, but thinking about it I'm glad they didn't. This way Chimera remains independent of Apple and we'll have good competition both between Gecko and KHTML and between the Chimera and Safari UIs. Safari looks decent, but without tabs I won't be switching from Chimera. Definitely worth keeping as a secondary browser though (thereby demoting IE to tertiary).

if it's any more fully-featured than Chimera

If you haven't used Chimera since 0.1, you're missing a lot.

--
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Re:Why kHTML? by fault0 · 2003-01-07 13:05 · Score: 2

> Why kHTML? Is it faster than Gecko, or easier to hook into, or something?

Yes, and Yes, and also the fact that it's one-tenth the size of Gecko (and even more if you consider other Moz-related APIs such as xul.)

Keep in mind that the Apple engineers who made Safari are no stranger to Gecko; the Safari team includes the author of Chimera and XBL (David
Hyatt), and one of the guys who originally took Mozilla open sourced (Don Melton). Gecko just didn't fit into what they wanted. In terms of other (non-Gecko) open sourced engines, there really isn't any better one besides khtml.

I love their new payment option! by Jonny+Ringo · 2003-01-07 07:46 · Score: 2

which is the ability to exchange 1 kidney for a customized powerbook!

Re:Anatomy sized notebook by bwalling · 2003-01-07 07:47 · Score: 2

Call me shortsighted, but I don't see the market for the 12" Powerbook. I think they'll merely be cannibalizing the sales of the existing iBook models. Consumers will be confused, product lines blurred.

The 12" PowerBook won't sell at all. Why pay $500 more for +67MHz and a G4? Screw that. Just buy an iBook. The only people that will buy that thing are people that want the cheapest possible way to get the SuperDrive notebook.

Re:Anatomy sized notebook by rattler14 · 2003-01-07 07:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

Actually, it bridges the gap between the iBook quite nicely. I've talked to a couple people about this before, that would really like the features of the powerbook, but couldn't spend $2400+ on one, but the iBook didn't have enough horsepower for their liking... sometimes size is a considerations as well. all and all, the market for it may not be huge, but it definitely helps the people caught in between the old iBook/Powerbook lineups

--
my last sig was too controversial... now, a new and improved useless sig!

User Quartz by d3xt3r · 2003-01-07 07:47 · Score: 2

Also nice; it uses the Quartz rendering engine, so X11 is 3D pipelined. Sweet

They're probably reading this right now... by aftk2 · 2003-01-07 07:47 · Score: 2

...because some of Apple's web developers read Slashdot. How am I so certain? Check out their demo of Safari's bookmarks. (Quicktime required).

"Still Hope for Farscape" ?! Damn, they must have just got those pages done. Smart though - if you're going to release a buggy beta of your new web browser software, it can break on 98% of the web...but don't you dare let it break on Slashdot!

--
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.

Re:They're probably reading this right now... by anarkhos · 2003-01-07 19:31 · Score: 2

Then I hope they note all the criticisms for using "textured" windows and the lack of a file type mapping panel in System Preferences.

--
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life

Update from Jamie by Drakonian · 2003-01-07 07:47 · Score: 2

"Great to see this, an Apple-supported X is greatly needed"

Why is that? I'm a big Quartz/Aqua fan personally.

--
Random is the New Order.

Re:Update from Jamie by Cujo · 2003-01-07 09:37 · Score: 2

There are lots of useful X apps that will never make the trip to Cocoa, but many of us would still like to run on OS X. See Fink for a long list.

Aqua is just the look and feel of OS X. Quartz is the graphics engine, which I believe the X11 port makes use of.

--
Helium balloons want to be free.
Re:Update from Jamie by CrazyJoel · 2003-01-07 10:25 · Score: 2

I was kinda hoping that someday I could ssh into my home computer from work and run something other than oclock and xterm.

--

Such is the infinite Grace of Popeye.

Bug Button by neuromantic · 2003-01-07 07:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

Use the "Bug" button! Go to the Safari page, and submit a bug, saying you want tabs. Make it known to Apple that this is something people REALLY want.

Re:Bug Button by bsharitt · 2003-01-07 10:03 · Score: 4, Interesting

I just submitted that "bug." Maybe if enough people do they will add it for the final release.

While I'm posting, let me just say that besides the missing tabs, it is a great web browser. Before today, I was a Chimera user. I used CHimera because it was fast, lightweight, and looked good in OS X, but it had a few stability problems, mostly dealing with downloads and plugins, so I had to keep Mozilla and IE on stand by for each of those respective problems. Now I can finally use one web browser. It's about time.

Also, it's good to hear about the iApps price.
Re:Bug Button by wirelessbuzzers · 2003-01-07 14:06 · Score: 2

...but it had a few stability problems, mostly dealing with downloads and plugins... ...which is why you're switching to a beta release of a browser that doesn't support plugins.

Also, I'm not sure how much of an impact bugging them for tabs will have... maybe wait until they have a feedback thing on their website?

--
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.

My takes by binaryDigit · 2003-01-07 07:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

"Year of the notebook"

Addresses two key issues with Apple. First is slow cpu's. cpu speed isn't as big of a deal with laptop users, so the ghz gap isn't as pronounced here. Second, and most important, laptops have much higher margins than desktops. Apple already sells a higher percentage of laptops, this does nothing but help the bottom line and if they continue, the bottom line will still look good (even if market share drops).

Most dissapointing

No advancment on the ghz front. I just said that it doesn't matter _as_much_, but it's still dissapointing that Apple continues to lag here.

New FireWire connector. I know that this might not be Apples fault, but yet another connector type for 800Gb FireWire, ugh. Yeah yeah, an adapters available, but couldn't IEEE figure out a way to make the two compatable?

Most "interesting"

Safari. How does this fit into the big picture. Does Safari really make the Mac a sweeter deal for those who were fence sitting (or firmly on the other side)? Does what Apple gets from it outweigh the development costs of it? Is this another sign that Apple is distancing themselves from Microsoft? Now with Safari, Office is the only thing left that Apple has a dependency on M$.

Most likely to go "cube"

The 12" PowerBook. Yes portability is good, but does it sell in enough numbers to keep it alive. Will people want a G4 bad enough to pay the extra for the 12" PB vs the iBook? Subnotes/small notes are notoriously hard to sell, but I guess it does plug a hole in the Apple notebook strategy.

Re:My takes by sweetooth · 2003-01-07 09:21 · Score: 3, Interesting

Hell, I would have bought a 12" PowerBook 6 months ago, and still might. I got my wife a laptop for use with school. It is faster than the pc she was using, and once it showed up she decided that she liked the OS better. The only real requirment she put on me when purchasing her laptop was that it had to be small. When I showed her the small sony's they were out because of the lack of a cdrom drive. This left the iBooks. She loves her iBook, and the only thing I don't like about it is the speed.

I'd pay the differance in price just for the faster processor, and the advantages of the G4 over the G3. The SuperDrive option is also really cool, and I'm sure if we get her the powerbook we'll get that too.

This may not sell a huge amount, but it will certainly be a nice upgrade for those that like the iBooks small size, but want a little more punch.

Or maybe it's just me ;)
Re:My takes by salimma · 2003-01-07 09:40 · Score: 2

The 12" PowerBook. Yes portability is good, but does it sell in enough numbers to keep it alive. Will people want a G4 bad enough to pay the extra for the 12" PB vs the iBook? Subnotes/small notes are notoriously hard to sell, but I guess it does plug a hole in the Apple notebook strategy.

You are joking? I just ordered mine. Had an iBook last year but could not stand the lack of AltiVec - video encoding is *slow*

Plus the ice-plastic cover is nice, yes, but nothing like a cool metal sheen. Subnotebook is a new trendsetter and Apple lacked an entry until now.

Good thing my order for that Dell notebook has not been fully processed yet :p

--
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Re:My takes by Garin · 2003-01-07 10:26 · Score: 2

Nah, the 12" pb is SUPER. I'm not sure why people think of the 12" computers as a "sub" notebook. It's not really that small, especially compared to the smallest eg. Vaio computers. The new pb won't be significantly smaller than the 12" iBook, which is what I have right now. It's the perfect size, I think. The keyboard is full size, the screen runs at 1024x768, the cdrom is built in.

I personally think the 17" pb will be the one to go "cube". It's just too big! That'll be like carrying around a pizza box! I guess it works as a semi-mobile desktop though.

--
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it. -John Archibald Wheeler
Re:My takes by anti-drew · 2003-01-07 11:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

New FireWire connector. I know that this might not be Apples fault, but yet another connector type for 800Gb FireWire, ugh. Yeah yeah, an adapters available, but couldn't IEEE figure out a way to make the two compatable?
From what I understand (and what I heard from some of the folks who work on FireWire at Apple), the implementation of 1394b changed a lot, due to issues they found with 1394a. The biggest change is that they wanted the connections to work over long distances, and part of that involved adding 2 pins for "signal integrity". A third pin was also added for future expansion.

Here are some more details...
What's new about 1394b? [PDF]
What's new about 1394b? [HTML from Google]

I think the distance was the biggest factor. 1394b is designed to last and be functional as a local backbone. B is supposed to be capable of 2Gbps speeds over a 100m hop without a repeater. A could only get 400Mbps through at most a 5m hop (a 20m hop if you drop to 100Mbps). To get the extra signal fidelity and really open it up for fiber media, they needed to add a few pins. Here's another article about that.

Yes, I definitely agree it sucks, but sometimes you've just got to bend over and take it... standards are made by committees, so I guess it's not suprising they don't always get everything right the first time. :-)
Re:My takes by sg3000 · 2003-01-07 13:54 · Score: 2

> Subnotes/small notes are notoriously hard to sell,
> but I guess it does plug a hole in the Apple
> notebook strategy.

Good point, but I have a one word answer for you: "Japan".

In Japan, they're willing to pay a premium for subnotebooks, and I suspect that's where the majority of Apple's sales will be for this product. Apple used to have a PowerBook 2400, which was perfect for that market. However, during the winnowing after Jobs's return, they got rid of it, along with a lot of other products since back then they all used separate motherboards and were very expensive to develop. Now, it looks like they've got an iBook motherboard and a PowerBook motherboard, so the development of a subnotebook should more tolerable.

For the people I know in Japan, they loved my PowerBook, but they were more interested in subnotebooks, so they'd go with Windows. With the new 12" PowerBook G4 they can get a subnotebook with Mac OS X, a DVD burner, and a G4 processor. They're going to love it.

--
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Re:My takes by King+Babar · 2003-01-07 17:07 · Score: 2

I personally think the 17" pb will be the one to go "cube". It's just too big! That'll be like carrying around a pizza box! I guess it works as a semi-mobile desktop though.

A-yup! It's really a desktop that you can take on the road with you. I can predict that a lot of these will be use by people with second LCD monitors in the office with bluetooth keyboards and mice, and then just picked up and taken onto the plane...although you will definitely need a first class seat to whip one out at 30,000 feet. :-)
The notebook I think is closet to "going cube" is the 14 inch iBook. I still don't understand that one at all. Bigger than a regular iBook, and portability is a nice feature, but lacking the features of a Powerbook. Oh well...

--
Babar
Re:My takes by UniverseIsADoughnut · 2003-01-07 18:08 · Score: 2

I guess you eat small pizzas

I love it, wish i had lots of money for it though. I've been waiting for a laptop with a big screen, now there is one. I can't stand small laptops. That was my beef with the ibooks, they are so freaking small, and white. Big screen does not make it any less portable, just makes it more usable.
Re:My takes by punkass · 2003-01-08 01:43 · Score: 2

I beg to differ on the expandability point: the cube had a PCI slot, while the 12" Powerbook doesn't even have a PC Card slot. Memory and harddrive options are both upgradeable, but only the cube has (albeit 3rd party) CPU upgrade options. Agree with you on the price, though...

--
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
Re:My takes by analog_line · 2003-01-08 03:17 · Score: 2

Will people want a G4 bad enough to pay the extra for the 12" PB vs the iBook?

*raises hand*

I was going to invest in one of the top-end iBooks, but I'm going for the 12" PowerBook instead, now that it's been announced. The G4 makes a difference. My laptop is a G3 iBook 500mhz. I have a G4 Cube here, which is 400mhz. The Cube is MUCH faster in just about every respect.

Re:Safari rocks! and its GPL by goombah99 · 2003-01-07 07:48 · Score: 3, Informative

mee too! on a power book. pages just explode onto the screen. No borders on the window and a very svelt tool bar mean maximum screen real estate for windows. Also a nice snap-back tool for going back ward to a marked point at a deep web site. sort of like a temporary bookmark.

its released under GPL not the apple open source lic.

It seems to be missing some sort of activity indicator (like the flashing N in netscape or the flashing lizard or the flashing E. This is a bit annoying since you dont know if you should click again or not when a link is sluggish

privacy freeks may note one missing cookie setting. it has
Always/Never/ and ONLY FROM SITES I NAVIGATE TOO (NO AD COOKIES). But it is missing an "always ask" setting. Not that I will miss it, but the paranoid may care.

--
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.

Re:Anatomy sized notebook by geniusj · 2003-01-07 07:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

They've needed this -- a small G4 based notebook.. They couldn't do it with iBook because they want to keep the iBook at that price point.

-JD-

Safari Blocks Popups by d3xt3r · 2003-01-07 07:49 · Score: 4, Informative

Another great feature.... Safari blocks popups just as easily as Mozilla. Just click Safari->Block pop-up Windows !!! Nice feature. This was a great Mac World!

Re:Safari Blocks Popups by fritter · 2003-01-07 08:25 · Score: 2

Not to mention it has a keyboard shortcut to instantly erase the cache. WHERE was this feature when I lived at home?!?!?

Nothing? by supabeast! · 2003-01-07 07:51 · Score: 2

"There's nothing especially great about it -- it's a web browser..."

How about it not being Internet Explorer? Apple is slowing breaking their ties to Microsoft, and if they can get a fully OS X compatible Appleworks out there (The current Appleworks requires OS X to install.) and have a non-IE browser as the default, the Mac community can go back to thumbing their noses at Bill Gates and Fester Ballmer.

Nice new small Powerbook by Jay+Maynard · 2003-01-07 07:52 · Score: 2

Right now, my road machine is a Compaq Armada M300. Its big feature is its size, 10.5x9x1 closed. This lets it fit into a standard Zero Halliburton Z5 laptop briefcase as though it's made for it, with lots of room left over.

I'd decided to get an Apple laptop the next time around, but until now, the choice was between a somewhat underpowered iBook with a scratch-prone plastic case, or a Titanium Powerbook that is a lot bigger than the Armada. The new 12-inch Powerbook is only a tiny bit larger than the Armada, and will fit the bill perfectly. I plan to order one, fully loaded, when my tax refund comes through.

--
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!

Re:Anatomy sized notebook by Blaise · 2003-01-07 07:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

Well, there's still a 550 $CDN difference between equivalently spec'ed iBooks and TiBook 12". Personnally, the 550$ for a CPU, GPU VRAM and Airport port is worth it, but i don't necessarily think many people will agree with me. I personnally see them as responding to two different markets: iBook want basic laptop (e.g. students, non-computer users) where as the TiBook is for Powerusers who want portability and don't like the sticker price of it's big brothers.

I for one will be picking up a TiBook 12" RSN...

The form factor of the iBooks appealed to me, but the lack of power put me off.

the TiBook is exactly what i was looking for.

Safari Acknowledgements by Espen · 2003-01-07 08:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

Acknowledgments
Portions of this Apple Software may utilize the following copyrighted material, the use of which is hereby acknowledged.

Lars Knoll, et al. ( khtml ) [snip]

Lucent Technologies ( dtoa.cpp ) [snip]

Netscape Communications Corporation ( arena files ) [snip]

Harri Porten, et al. ( kjs - JavaScriptCore based on kjs ) [snip]

University of Cambridge ( PCRE ) [snip]

What happened to Xserve 14 drive RAID box? by Deton8 · 2003-01-07 08:02 · Score: 2

Whatever happened to the Xserve RAID box which was supposed to be shipping by the end of last year? This is the one with 14 ATA disks and dual Fibre Channel host ports...

Great Keynote! by Arcturax · 2003-01-07 08:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

(Copy of my post to Macslash.org, where I post as MadMac)

This was one of the most entertaining keynotes I've seen in a long time out of Apple. This is also the first one (for me anyway) which wasn't clogged to death when you tried to watch it via live QT stream.

Like the new Notebook, though its pricy. But it also doubles as a surfboard in a pinch!

Now the big big big thing was Steve Jobs standing behind the huge words "Open Source is Good" or something like that. That Apple is releasing the browser code improvements (a years effort) back into the open source community and announcing that Open Source is good is just amazing! It is such a wonderful difference from Microsoft's constant "Open source is the tool of the devil" rants. I think this will help attract more geeks to Apple as well as make open source developers more open to writing software for the Macintosh.

Another thing that was neat was that Keynote uses open standards and that Jobs even verbally invited 3rd party developers to take advantage of that. In a way, I actually wonder if Apple is developing a radical corporate strategy which involves a sense of responsibility to the computer industry as a whole. By releaseing open source changes back into the world as well as using open standards in their document formats, Apple opens the door for other companies to create new tools and new markets alongside Apple. In this way, Apple is *helping* the economy and the computer industry as a whole by creating both new products as well as opportunities for others to share in the wealth of the market those new products exist in. It will be very interesting to see if Apple works on spreadsheets or word processing next. A beefed up Appleworks or Claris works would be nice!

Gripes:
Having to pay $49 to get iDVD3 (even though other iApps come along they are also freely available) is rediculous.
Keynote is expensive, nice, but still expensive and on par with Microsoft's rediculous prices for their own office apps.
Apple should have offered the iApps along with Keynote for like $79 or the iApps by themselves for $29. That would have made it worth the money to get the iApps. Jobs even said the only reason they don't offer iDVD for free is that it is so huge in size. Given that admission, I will feel no guilt at all when I download it from elsewhere or get it from a friend's new Mac.

But that is the only real gripe I had, so over all a very favorable keynote!

--

--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs

Re:Great Keynote! by iso · 2003-01-07 08:23 · Score: 2

Having to pay $49 to get iDVD3 (even though other iApps come along they are also freely available) is rediculous.

I'm not really sure how you think this is "ridiculous." iDVD was always a for-pay program. From my understanding this is because Apple uses 3rd-party code and technology, and therefor needs to pay a licensing fee for every copy of iDVD that is shipped.

Even if this isn't true, $49 is nothing for a program with the power of iDVD. iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes, iCal and iSync are all free. How can you seriously complain about this?

- j
Re:Great Keynote! by Arcturax · 2003-01-07 09:55 · Score: 2

Well the way I see it, Apple sold iDVD for, what was it, about $20-30 before? Now either they raised the price quite a bit, or they are chargeing for the other iApps on CD as well, iApps given freely to those with bandwidth. Of course I have the bandwidth to get the freely released ones, but I know a lot of people who don't and it seems unfair to them to have to buy iDVD (especially if their macs have no DVD writer!) just to get these Apps.

But as I said, it was a minor complaint and my opinion, no need to get all up in arms at me about it.

--

--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Re:Great Keynote! by sg3000 · 2003-01-07 14:16 · Score: 5, Interesting

> I actually wonder if Apple is developing a radical
> corporate strategy which involves a sense of
> responsibility to the computer industry as a whole

What an interesting idea. The big advantage software companies have on hardware companies is the incredible margins: the cost of goods sold for software is basically nil (the price of the CDs), while for hardware, you have all the costs of buying the parts to make your hardware. Keep in mind, R&D is handled as a capitalized expense and isn't amortized over the cost of each unit sold.

So software companies could enjoy huge margins, while hardware companies had to be happy with less than 25%.

Microsoft benefited from this, but they also increased the barrier of entry for competitors by illegally abusing their monopoly. So it wasn't enough to build a better Word processor; you had to be able to make it much better and cheaper than Word (since Word was generally bundled in price with the rest of MS Office), and be completely compatible with Word's file format (because of the network effect).

What's interesting is that open file formats (and Open Source in general) lowers these barriers of entries. For example, if all software applications use the same file format, then the software packages have to compete on their own merits since the network effect related to file compatibility is eliminated.

With Apple embracing open source and open file formats, they're essentially leveling the playing field between software vendors and hardware vendors. If they can get software vendors to adopt open formats, the cost of switching between software vendors will reduce for the users, and it will be easier for new entrants to build competing software programs. In that case, Apple will succeed as well, because they're building some of the best hardware (the new 17" PowerBook G4 is Exhibit A). If their plan works, competition will increase in the computer industry, benefiting all.

--
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.

slashdot gets /.ed by humina · 2003-01-07 08:04 · Score: 2, Funny

It took me 5 clicks to actually get to this page. /. finally got a taste of it's own medicine after the macworld kenote. Anyone want to repost the story in the comments please...

--
check out the best blog ever:
http://oehlberg.com

How's Safari news? by cbv · 2003-01-07 08:09 · Score: 2

Safari's been around since at least 1995 - see here

SCNR...

IE & Powerpoint replacements - is Microsoft go by mactari · 2003-01-07 08:09 · Score: 5, Interesting

In the software section of the website detailing the new, tiny Powerbook, IE is off of OS X's Dock and Safari is on. Keynote is a PowerPoint replacement made by Apple.

What you should be wondering is not just whether Apple is trying to compete with Microsoft (and to end its dependence on MS for such a key piece of its OS as the browser) but if Microsoft has started warning Apple that it's going to leave. IE is still listed on the same software page, which doesn't mention Safari by name. There's some posturing going on here, and I'm not real sure what the motives are.

Fwiw, been testing Safari. Super-fast with a clean interface, but doesn't do nearly as good/mature a job displaying hard core dhtml as Mozilla, and therefore Chimera. Good freshman effort, but Apple better not stop at version 1.0.

--

It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.

The new X11 from Apple by MalleusEBHC · 2003-01-07 08:10 · Score: 2

Does anyone know how this will work for Fink users? Fink depends on most everything being in /sw, and tons of packages depend on X11. I just hope these will work well together because an Apple version of X11 with a nice window manager would be heaven at times.

Re:The new X11 from Apple by bnenning · 2003-01-07 09:31 · Score: 5, Informative

Abandoning all common sense, I just installed Apple's X11 over the top of fink. Both want to dump stuff in /usr/X11R6, but since fink uses /sw for almost everything else I figured it would be ok, which it is so far. Upon firing up X11.app, it tried to read my .xinitrc file, which I have set up in fink to start Gnome with the sawfish window manager. It came up fine, but I wanted to use Apple's window manager that's integrated with the Dock, so I commented out my .xinitrc and restarted X11. This gave me an xterm window with no WM, oops. Fortunately I found "quartz-wm" installed in /usr/X11R6/bin and running that gave me a window manager with Aqua titlebars and buttons, and it even minimizes to the dock exactly like native OS X apps. I then renamed ~/.xinitrc so it wouldn't be found at all, and now when I start X11.app I get an xterm with quartz-wm already running, which is what I want. I've only tried a couple of X (er, X11) apps from my fink installation, but so far they've all worked flawlessly.

--
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Re:The new X11 from Apple by Dominic_Mazzoni · 2003-01-07 20:51 · Score: 2

Anyone figure out how to get OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 to run? It keeps trying to start up XDarwin...

12" Powerbook by imadork · 2003-01-07 08:17 · Score: 5, Interesting

Has it occured to anyone else that the new 12" Powerbook is, for all practical purposes, a G4 iBook? What does this say about the future of the iBook? Will Apple continue having two different laptop form factors in the future? While it certainly helps Apple to have a entry-level $999 iBook, especially for the education market, I wouldn't be suprised if by next year there's only one Apple laptop "style", with all price ranges contained within it.

Re:12" Powerbook by Drakonian · 2003-01-07 12:36 · Score: 2

It's a good point. That said, I'm not sure why anyone would pay $1799 for a 12" PowerBook when you could get a 14.1" iBook for $1749. I don't think the slight difference in speed and G4 vs G3 is worth it, unless you are a AltiVec nut or need the AlBook ports.

--
Random is the New Order.
Re:12" Powerbook by Drakonian · 2003-01-07 12:38 · Score: 2

I should also note that cheaper iBook has 384 MB more RAM and better battery life. (I assume.) And a somewhat inferior video card.

--
Random is the New Order.
Re:12" Powerbook by imadork · 2003-01-07 13:06 · Score: 2

I just noticed that both new Powerbooks have DDR RAM and a new NVidia graphics card. Does that make it worth it?
Re:12" Powerbook by extra88 · 2003-01-07 14:32 · Score: 2

Because the PowerBook is smaller and weighs less? The G4 is NOT a small difference in speed, it makes a real difference in OS X Finder performance alone. The 14.1" iBook only exists because 1024x768 is too small for some people on a 12" screen. Each iBook and PowerBook still has a niche but the question is whether each niche is big enough to justify keeping its model.

12" iBook:poor people
14" iBook:old people
12" PowerBook:G4 & SuperDrive people
15" PowerBook:PC card people
17" PowerBook:FireWire 800 & strong-wristed people
Re:12" Powerbook by kalidasa · 2003-01-07 14:47 · Score: 2

Frankly, I'd rather have a 12 in. Powerbook with the iBook case (tougher). I like the form factor.
Re:12" Powerbook by Elwood+P+Dowd · 2003-01-08 05:06 · Score: 2

Frankly, I'd rather have a 12 in. Powerbook with the iBook case (tougher). I like the form factor.

Yeah. All these complainers don't seem to understand the virtues of the different products. I think the niches are completely well defined. I chose the 12" ibook a year ago, even though I could have spent the money on the tibook or the 14". I wanted something that was very portable. I'm very happy with my choice.

Given infinite resources now, I would choose the 12" powerbook. The 15" powerbook is just slightly too unweildy for my portable use, and the 12" can drive my desktop monitor, unlike the ibook (it better, that is). I carry my laptop *everywhere*. The 12" ibook is still a great option for folks that want to save $800 or so.

--

There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Re:12" Powerbook by Elwood+P+Dowd · 2003-01-08 05:10 · Score: 2

Well, the graphics card gives Quartz Extreme and some gaming.

The current crop of iBooks have Quartz Extreme capable graphics cards too. They're just not great for anything else. Modern games can run with acceptable frame rates, so long as all the eye candy is off.

--

There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Re:12" Powerbook by kalidasa · 2003-01-08 06:49 · Score: 2

The 12" ibook is still a great option for folks that want to save $800 or so.

Or can't guarantee that their laptop won't be bumped around quite a bit (I'm clumsy as all hell myself).
Re:12" Powerbook by NeuroKoan · 2003-01-08 08:14 · Score: 2

Personally I think 12" is the perfect laptop-for-a-laptop (read: not a desktop replacement) size.The 12" iBook is more portable and fits in more of my bags then the 14" iBook.

Maybe if I knew about the 12" PowerBook 6 months ago.....

--

"However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."

TiVo via Rendezvous? by dr00g911 · 2003-01-07 08:18 · Score: 5, Interesting

I've been playing around with Safari -- super fast, very clean on most sites. A little flaky with header redirects, but hey -- it's a beta.

After poking around in the preferences, I noticed you can turn Rendzevous bookmarks on -- meaning you'll automatically discover web services running on your LAN. And bookmark 'em. Cool enough by itself.

I then clicked on the "About Rendezvous" button underneath, and found the page has been updated with a tantalizing little treat (in addition to pledges of support from game and printer developers):

TiVo

"TiVo's upcoming premium service package will use Rendezvous technology to automatically discover Macintosh computers within the home network and determine which services they provide, allowing customers to listen to their shared music or view their shared photos on their TV," said Jim Barton, Co-founder and CTO for TiVo. "We are excited about working with Apple on other ways Rendezvous can help TiVo Series2 DVRs connect to a Mac to deliver future services."

Yep. You'll be able to serve your iTunes collection to your TiVo. I'm assuming with playlists and all.

Happy speculating...

KHTML vs. Mozilla by bahwi · 2003-01-07 08:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think it's great that he's chosen to go with KHTML instead of Gecko? (For reference, I use Moz, installing Phoenix right now, and I use WindowMaker, not KDE). If they went with Gecko, it would go against everything the Mozilla Project stands for.

Mozilla is created as an alternative. It was not created to be the ONLY alternative. And assuming the world domination thing happens, IE dies off, we would have the same thing, but called Mozilla and hidden behind different 'skins' (front-end like Phoenix, Galeon, Chimera, Etc). I think those projects are great, but choice is what the entire Free Software movement is about.

I choose to run WindowMaker. I choose to use FreeBSD. I can choose to release my projects as either GPL or BSD, or even LGPL, or any of the other licenses. I choose to use an x86 based platform.

Why not let Apple choose KHTML? If we wake up one day and find that only Gecko is out there, IE died and Konqueror is "that other browser" (Like Opera and Mozilla are considered today, in the mainstream, although both are gaining considerable acceptance), where would we have gotten? Except for the fact it's open source, it'll be no different than IE.

Just my 2c.

Re:KHTML vs. Mozilla by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-07 10:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

Hmm, nice rhetoric :) The issue isn't that Apple can choose KHTML, it's more a case of why.
And assuming the world domination thing happens, IE dies off, we would have the same thing, but called Mozilla
Uh.... the same thing being a popular web browser? :)
I think those projects are great, but choice is what the entire Free Software movement is about.
Actually it's about freedom. The fact that choice/duplication of effort is often a side effect of freedom isn't really what it's about, it's just a sometimes pleasant consequence of the way the free software movement works.
Why not let Apple choose KHTML? If we wake up one day and find that only Gecko is out there, IE died and Konqueror is "that other browser" (Like Opera and Mozilla are considered today, in the mainstream, although both are gaining considerable acceptance), where would we have gotten? Except for the fact it's open source, it'll be no different than IE.
Well, uh, yeah, except that it's open source! That's the big difference. Nobody controls Mozilla, yes Netscape/AOL have a big influence on the project but you can always fork it. You can't fork IE. The fact that it's open source IS the big deal. A monopoly of Mozilla wouldn't be bad at all - there's nothing wrong with huge market shares if it happens to be the best product and the makers of said product are not trying to prevent competition.
I think you need to think about that one a bit harder. Choice is fine, but it's a means to an end, not an end in itself, and sometimes restricting it (ie technical standards) is a good thing.
Re:KHTML vs. Mozilla by Nailer · 2003-01-07 12:24 · Score: 2

I'm having trouble resolving the last part of your post with your sig. Don't we already have a technical standard for Linux packaging?
Re:KHTML vs. Mozilla by grahamtriggs · 2003-01-07 13:25 · Score: 2

Mozilla was created as an alternative? Do you really think they would mind being the only alternative?

Besides which, the browser is so much more than the page layout engine... IMHO, it would be *good* to have a single layout engine - one place to focus all the development work, everyone keeps up to date with the standards, and - most importantly - only one engine with which to be compatible...

One layout engine (eg. Gecko) does not mean one browser - there is a lot of room for value-adding, and blending the right level of features vs. bloat... as can be witnessed by there being at least four different browsers based on the Gecko engine on Windows alone...
Re:KHTML vs. Mozilla by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · 2003-01-07 13:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

Why not let Apple choose KHTML? If we wake up one day and find that only Gecko is out there, IE died and Konqueror is "that other browser" (Like Opera and Mozilla are considered today, in the mainstream, although both are gaining considerable acceptance), where would we have gotten? Except for the fact it's open source, it'll be no different than IE.
Your agrument is flawed in the fact that Mozilla and other browsers don't have a whole lot of non-standards features built into them.
Who cares if a few other HTML engines die off and only Gecko based browsers are around. As long as they're standards complient, it doesn't matter. It would be completly different from the current situation with IE.
The only reason IE is pain in terms of people writing only for IE, is because IE dosn't support the standards as well as Mozilla, and it has it own little extentions the exclude other browsers.
A better question would be: Why re-invent the wheel? What is it that progammers say? Never write the same code twice?
I think Apple would have been better off working with the Gecko engine and making improvments to that. After all, it is generally accepted that it's a better engine in terms of supporting the standards compared to KHTML.
Re:KHTML vs. Mozilla by nathanh · 2003-01-07 14:06 · Score: 2

I think those projects are great, but choice is what the entire Free Software movement is about.

Free Software is what the entire Free Software movement is about. Choice is an irrelevant (though nice to have) side issue.
Re:KHTML vs. Mozilla by Arandir · 2003-01-07 16:27 · Score: 2

Actually it's about freedom. The fact that choice/duplication of effort is often a side effect of freedom isn't really what it's about

Freedom is choice. If I am unable to choose then I have no freedom. They are two sides of the same coin. Anyone who limits my choice also limits my freedom. Freedom is about me making my own choices, and not about you making choices for me.

The only way you can make eliminate my choice of browser is by eliminating Free Software.

--
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Re:KHTML vs. Mozilla by manyoso · 2003-01-07 17:20 · Score: 3, Funny

<sarcasm> Hey sounds good. So, I'll set up this 'ONE' layout engine and everyone can just code to that, ok? I am kinda busy right now, but I'll post here when it is up. I'm thinking sourceforge for the hosting and I'll be sure to check in KHTML as soon as it is registered. You can let the Gecko folks know that we've all agreed to focus on KHTML from now on and I'll notify the KDE/Apple developers ... Mmmm k? </sarcasm>
Re:KHTML vs. Mozilla by IamTheRealMike · 2003-01-07 21:21 · Score: 2

No - if you're thinking of the LSB then that's not quite the same. RPM is severely deficient as a packaging format, we're trying to make something better. Also of course, due to those deficiencies, it's not anywhere near de facto.
Re:KHTML vs. Mozilla by 10Ghz · 2003-01-07 23:31 · Score: 2

Hmm, nice rhetoric :) The issue isn't that Apple can choose KHTML, it's more a case of why.

it is? How can it be when the Safari-developers clearly stated that the reason they chose KHTML is because (and I quote):

The number one goal for developing Safari was to create the fastest web browser on Mac OS X. When we were evaluating technologies over a year ago, KHTML and KJS stood out. Not only were they the basis of an excellent modern and standards compliant web browser, they were also less than 140,000 lines of code. The size of your code and ease of development within that code made it a better choice for us than other open source projects. Your clean design was also a plus. And the small size of your code is a significant reason for our winning startup performance as you can see reflected in the data at http://www.apple.com/safari/.

So there really is no question of "why?", since the answer is right in front of your eyes (that is, if you bothered to look)!

--
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Re:KHTML vs. Mozilla by josephgrossberg · 2003-01-08 04:26 · Score: 2

The question remains though: why KHTML and not Gecko?

More precisely, why does Apple think using KHTML instead of Gecko is in their own interests?

Pardon my cynicism, but I doubt they did it out of the public interest or open-source philosophy.

Is Mozilla/Gecko that hard to work with? Have there been frustrations with Chimera? Licensing issues with including Mozilla or Chimera with the system, but not Safari?

--

Joe
http://www.joegrossberg.com
Re:KHTML vs. Mozilla by Nailer · 2003-01-09 09:04 · Score: 2

It is, however, a standard and I think its also a defacto one (in that most Linux systems use it, and the market share of those that don't is fairly small no matter who you talk to - eg, Netcraft or IDC). Many of the freatures on the autopackage homepage already exist in RPM. Surely you'd be better off adding whatever features you find lacking in RPM (such as suggested / recommended dependencies) to the format rather than trying to uproot the existing standard packaging system (a very ambitious goal)?

DAMN YOU JOBS!!!!! by cuyler · 2003-01-07 08:20 · Score: 2

ARGH!

I bought an 867 mhz Powerbook 9 days ago! I thought that since the new Powerbook line just came out there would be no cool new toys announced at MW. Also, weren't they supposed to stop doing this - annoucning all the cool things at MW?

Damn you. I can't afford to keep up with Apple.

17 inches....*sob*

(Sorry if there is poor spelling....hard to type and weep at the same time).

Re:DAMN YOU JOBS!!!!! by hondo77 · 2003-01-07 13:14 · Score: 2

You bought Apple hardware 9 days before Jobs' keynote at Macworld? Methinks you're damning the wrong person ;-).

--
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Re:DAMN YOU JOBS!!!!! by cuyler · 2003-01-07 14:10 · Score: 2

True - it's my fault but I didn't think that they'd update the PowerBook line so quickly after updating the line just a couple months ago.
Re:DAMN YOU JOBS!!!!! by sg3000 · 2003-01-07 14:20 · Score: 2

> *sob*

17" screen isn't that big of a deal.

Of course 17" screen, autosensing backlit keyboard, 54 Gbps AirPort, and integrated Bluetooth. Now that's a big deal! :-)

--
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.

Re:I know they are slow... by bmetzler · 2003-01-07 08:22 · Score: 2

They are slow???

-Brent

Like it, though is Apple killing cash cows? by connorbd · 2003-01-07 08:26 · Score: 2

Finally, an Apple-supported X. The big question is where it was before now. BUT -- surely someone will attempt to port Cinelerra over now? And forget Photoshop Elements -- while the GIMP will never knock off Photoshop, its little brother will be toast in short order.

Aw, hell. It's about time, and it's nice that all the cool iApps will be free-as-in-beer now. /Brian

Re:Like it, though is Apple killing cash cows? by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · 2003-01-07 09:41 · Score: 2

And forget Photoshop Elements -- while the GIMP will never knock off Photoshop, its little brother will be toast in short order.
Only if you're a Linux/UNIX nut. Your average user, or even experience graphics designer or photographer is going to find GIMP hard to use.
Sorry, but it's the truth, the GIMP GUI needs some serious work if it's to compete with Photoshop and the likes. It's not just a case of learning the GIMP properly because it does things differently.

Interesting wrap to rumors. by TellarHK · 2003-01-07 08:29 · Score: 5, Interesting

Quite some while ago, I remember a little amusement about the idea of Apple registering a trademark for the word "Keynote". Interesting to see how that played out. The (I thought) highly credible vPod rumors turned out to be bogus, and the Powerbook line got one of the most surprising revampings imaginable. Not one but two new models, and no displacement of the current line. And not a desktop enhancement to be found. Could this be a transition point for Apple to move into a more portable-based business model in years to come?

What really struck me as interesting, particularly with the quiet reaction to it, is that Apple seems to have declared war on Microsoft. They praised MS Office with one breath, then bitchslapped Gates and his cronies with a double whammy of a new browser and a competitor to Powerpoint. I'm predicting now, a monster update to AppleWorks within the next two Macworlds.

The one thing that really dissappoints me is the incompatibility of Airport Extreme with the current 15" Powerbooks. I hadn't expected they'd deliver a blow like this to Powerbook owners so soon after a revision (867/1Ghz models), and was hopeful for an 802.11g transition that I could replace my standard Airport card with.

--
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page

New screen by SmittyTheBold · 2003-01-07 08:32 · Score: 2

The 17" model is 1440x900 resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio

I dunno, I've always thought of it as more of an 8:5 ratio.

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± 29 dB

...has fiber-optic *lightning* for the keyboard... by gatekeep · 2003-01-07 08:34 · Score: 5, Funny

Wow, fiber optic lightning?

1.21 giggawatts!!

Re:more apple contempt for its customer base by Halo1 · 2003-01-07 08:34 · Score: 4, Informative

Instead of upgrading the iBook line they introduce a new machine which features a processor that, according to my damaged memory, was introduced at least a year ago for $500 more than the iBook it should have gone in to.

You should try using your damaged memory a little more, then you'd notice that the price of the iBooks has dropped by $100-$200!

Also, pay no mind to the fact that the iBook they'd like you to buy has a graphics card that doesn't take advantage of the finder-level hardware graphics acceleration they built into sytem 10.2

There is no "finder-level hardware graphics acceleration". You're probably thinking about Quartz Extreme, which is window compositing-level hardware graphics acceleration. And guess what: the Radeon 7500 (either with 16MB or 32MB) in the iBooks supports the required features just fine.

--
Donate free food here

Re:Anatomy sized notebook by GiMP · 2003-01-07 08:35 · Score: 2

Some people like the look of the TiBooks, some WANT the small form-factor, others just hate the cheaply made keyboards on the iBooks.

The iBooks, although a bit nicer looking since the clamshell design, feel like toys made of cheap plastic.

I'd rather have my G3 Powerbook with firewire (pismo) than a new iBook.

Re:Anatomy sized notebook by King+Babar · 2003-01-07 08:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

Call me shortsighted, but I don't see the market for the 12" Powerbook. I think they'll merely be cannibalizing the sales of the existing iBook models. Consumers will be confused, product lines blurred.

The 12" PowerBook won't sell at all. Why pay $500 more for +67MHz and a G4? Screw that. Just buy an iBook. The only people that will buy that thing are people that want the cheapest possible way to get the SuperDrive notebook.

Well, time will tell, but I think the new 12" PowerBook will do fabulously well. In addition to the faster G4, you get 802.11g vs 802.11b, bluetooth, S-video and VGA out, a bigger hard disk that's ATA/100, more memory, faster graphics, a lighter notebook, and QuickBooks bundled. Oddly, you don't get Firewire800. In my world, the total speed bump (which I'm guessing is substantial) is worth $300, 802.11g is worth $50, the bigger faster disk is $50 (it's a PAIN to swap an iBook disk), the memory is worth $30, and the S-video/VGA out (with true dual display) is worth $100. I personally don't care about QuickBooks. So, I think this will definitely be worth it to some people even before you get to better looks and snob appeal, although the 12 inch iBook is a beautiful product in its own right (I own one :-)). The odd computers out in this case are, I think, the 14.1" iBooks.

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Babar

AAAAARRRRGGHH! by myov · 2003-01-07 08:37 · Score: 2

I finally broke down and bought a Powerbook last summer. Then the DVD writer was added (one feature I would have waited for). Now, it's a 17" screen, bluetooth, faster Airport, better Airport antennas... I want this machine!

At least I can still boot into MacOS 9. Which I still need to do every so often since Umax *still* hasn't heard of MacOS X, and won't support my scanner.

--
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!

Re:AAAAARRRRGGHH! by Onan · 2003-01-07 11:38 · Score: 2

You may want to look into vuescan, third-party driver for a huge variety of scanners. Yes, it costs something like $40, which is admittedly about the price of a cheap new scanner. But that sounds better to me than rebooting.
Re:AAAAARRRRGGHH! by myov · 2003-01-07 13:15 · Score: 2

I've already looked into VueScan. It only supports the higher end umax scanners - my Astra 2200 is unsupported.

--
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!

Re:Mac guys by captainbajoo · 2003-01-07 08:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

An 8600? That would be running what OS? Certainly not OS X, I'd wager. Probably more like OS 8, which barely supports multithreading, or even OS 7, which has even less. Even OS 9 still locks most threads (including sockets) when you drop down a menu. In other words, your comparisons are faulty: NT 4 has robust multithreading, so it wouldn't display the lockdown that you see on Mac OS 8 or earlier.

As for your 486 running faster than an 8600, do you mean for general OS performance, or for actual comparable applications? My 486 would barely run a graphics program, which the 8600s I've used handle passably (not wonderfully, but better). So at that point, it's subjective word-against-word.

In any case, that's all old news. The reason today's Macs excite us (or me, anyway) is that they offer very spiffy design on very solid, quick performance. You say Macs are not "faster, cheaper, more stable systems." If, for such systems, you mean Linux, I can't argue with you. I would claim, though, that the newest Macs match or best top-flight Windows systems for performance (thanks to G4/Velocity) and stability (thanks to OS X's BSD core). Then, what you get for the extra "expense" is a tastefully designed, fully integrated yet completely flexible computer and GUI. To re-iterate, over Windows, you gain even more stability, possibly some speed, and a full set of command line tools. Over Linux/other *NIXes, you get a snappy, consistent GUI and access to more applications.

Personally, I use all three, depending on the task. I mostly just find Macs a nicer environment to work in.

No Quicktime 6.1 by Drishmung · 2003-01-07 08:38 · Score: 2

The most surprising omission seems to have been Quicktime 6.1.

Apple promised an update to QT 6.0 before the end of 2002, which did not happen (the update that is, I do seem to recall the end of 2002).

--
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.

Re:No Quicktime 6.1 by WebMasterJoe · 2003-01-07 09:37 · Score: 3, Funny

I do seem to recall the end of 2002

Really? Then you didn't drink enough.

--
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.

A 'thong' of adoring fans? by core+plexus · 2003-01-07 08:41 · Score: 3, Funny

I thought it read a thong of adoring fans. Phew! I need coffee!

How many mice does it take to make 12 pounds of mouse nuts? And why are people eating them?

Re:A 'thong' of adoring fans? by Slur · 2003-01-08 08:47 · Score: 2

That would be the world's stickiest thong!

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-- thinkyhead software and media

Re:New screen (OT: Marching Band) by Etcetera · 2003-01-07 08:44 · Score: 2

I dunno, I've always thought of it as more of an 8:5 ratio.

Arrgh... I *know* I'm not the only person here who had "band camp" pop into their head when they read that! =)

-jc

--
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,

No!!! DON'T DO IT! by Idou · 2003-01-07 08:46 · Score: 5, Funny

It is a trick to get slashdot to slashdot itself!!!

--
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!

Buit-In Bluetooth by Cuprous · 2003-01-07 09:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

Not mentioned above, but the most exciting announcement for me is built-in bluetooth. No more dongles!

Wunderkind by Graymalkin · 2003-01-07 09:03 · Score: 5, Interesting

I really hope there are some happy Mac users out right now. This MacWorld has been a really awesome one and I hope the trend continues with the third party developers going buck wild with some new OSX apps.

Safari is a neat browser and of the stuff released today was one thing that really suprised me. I didn't figure Apple would want to enter the browser "war" so I sort of wrote off them ever making a browser. It made no sense to go after that essentially profitless market when there are so many alternatives already entrenched. After using Safari a bit I realized Apple didn't enter the browser war, they just built a system on the fallout ridden wastes of the browser war. The gadgetry MS has been trying to add to IE in the form of auction watches and whatnot are handled by Sherlock 3, Safari doesn't need them. It also doesn't need some entirely new plugin architecture because Quicktime supports a huge swath of file formats and media types that are readily found on the web. All Apple really had to do was build an interface for a third party's HTML renderer which I think they've done pretty well. As an added bonus it also lets Apple ship consumer systems with entirely first party software and still have it be functional for the typical Mac neophyte. It's also really sweet seeing the GPL is a product like Safari.

I've been waiting for Apple to move to 802.11g for a while now, I figured they would have done so way earlier than now. Had they done this they might have ended up screwed over by a standards committee had anything changed in the spec between when they released it and the still pending ratification date. Keeping that in mind waiting until the spec's finality was imminent makes a lot of sense. It might take me a while to move up to Airport Extreme (as I just bought 802.11.b equipment) but when I end up with a new Powerbook it will be awesome that it is there.

The Powerbooks facinated me, I'm really glad I've held off buying a new laptop. I had figured the Powerbooks would be the next candidates for an upgrade but never did I think the upgrades would look like they do. I think the 12" Powerbook is an excellent idea and I hope to have one ASAP. While the iBook is a nice system it falls short for anyone wanting a good dose of processing power (read gaming performance) in a portable system. Adding Radeons to the iBooks helped a bit but a "scorching" 49fps in Quake 3 is a yawner (though Apple needs to learn if you want better frame rates you can down the resolution or drop the color depth for some pretty decent playability). I think for most things the 12" Powerbook is going to end up making x86 laptops look pretty crappy, especially subnotebooks. Most of the smaller systems you can find run on hobbled Celerons or Crusoes and cost as much if not more as the new PB. Maybe Apple will get more of a leg up in the portable market.

Between an iCal release that works, a new browser, and an official X11 system that works with Quartz, I have a lot to do on my Powerbook. Maybe one of the first things will be to order a new one.

--
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.

Tivo and Rendezvous! by Johnny+Mnemonic · 2003-01-07 09:08 · Score: 2

From an Apple Press Release (thanks to MacMinute!):

"TiVo's upcoming premium service package will use Rendezvous technology to automatically discover Macs within the home network and determine which services they provide, allowing customers to listen to their shared music or view their shared photos on their TV," said Jim Barton, co-founder and CTO for TiVo. "We are excited about working with Apple on other ways Rendezvous can help TiVo Series2 DVRs connect to a Mac to deliver future services."

--

--
$tar -xvf .sig.tar

Re:TiVo via Rendezvous? Yuck, improve Tivo 1st! by swb · 2003-01-07 09:11 · Score: 2

As much as this sounds like a cool feature on the surface, it kind of disappoints me. There's a lot of obvious (and non-obvious unless you own one) features that are missing from Tivo. Playing MP3s and displaying digital photos are NOT one of them.

I'm not sure if its a sign of smart or desperate marketing to try to expand Tivo beyond its core competency. My gut reaction is that its dumb/desperate, and the idea that they will try to extend a dodgy pricing model even further by charging more for these rather pedestrian features makes it even seem more so.

I love my Tivo and want to see the TV-watching aspect improved, not a bunch of junk consumer electronics non-features added, especially not at an even higher price.

FireWire Encrypt at WiebeTech Booth 1651 by MichaelCrawford · 2003-01-07 09:13 · Score: 2

My client WiebeTech LLC is demonstrating FireWire Encrypt at booth #1651 at the show.

It is a sector-level hard drive encryptor that aims to be very easy to use as well as portable. It uses the Advanced Encryption Standard's Rijndael Algorithm.

It is easy to use because the only software the user needs to install is a simple applet that allows entry of the passphrase. There is no complicated operating system-level software to install or configure.

The encryption implementation itself is entirely contained within a FireWire to IDE bridge.

The FireWire connection also makes the product portable, because FireWire is an external hot-pluggable serial bus.

MacCentral covers the FireWire encrypt here. You can read WiebeTech's press release about it in Microsoft Word format here.

I issued a press release (my first ever!) to annouced that I developed the software for WiebeTech. I posted the press release at http://www.wiebetech.com/press/. Sorry I just have Word format available at the moment, but I will post it in HTML in a little while. I'm tired!

I have more technical details on the product in my Kuro5hin diary.

WiebeTech is demonstrating FireWire Encrypt working with Mac OS X at the show, but we plan to support the product on Windows, Linux and classic Mac OS by the time the product is released to the public. (I personally run Slackware on my x86 box and Debian on my PowerPC Macintosh 8500).

Thank you for your attention.

--
Request your free CD of my piano music.

Light sensor. by alexandre · 2003-01-07 09:14 · Score: 2

A light sensor would be a cool thing to have on a laptop (light on the keyboard is useless, but then it's controlled by software!) ... you could program your laptop to, let say, start an mp3 at the rising sun :-)

Re:Safari rocks! and its GPL by Alex+Thorpe · 2003-01-07 09:14 · Score: 2

There IS an activity indicator. It's a colored moving bar behind the URL. Sort of an odd place for it, but it saves space.

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"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown

Importance of a great browser by X_Caffeine · 2003-01-07 09:15 · Score: 2

The Register wrote a great editorial on the importance of having a truly great web browser on the OS X platform. The short of it is, people are out there buying $2000+ iMacs and finding that they don't surf as well as $400 Walmart PCs. That makes getting a good browser on OS X damned important.

I'd have preferred they went with Gecco, but... whatever. So far, Safari seems nice. MUCH faster than Chimera, but the CSS isn't as good.

--
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.

Safari is NOT Gecko by X_Caffeine · 2003-01-07 09:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

A cursory look at a few of my web pages confirmed that Safari is not a Gecko browser. It does not support negative margin-top CSS values, and does not recognize DIV {overflow:auto;}. Chimera (and all Gecko browsers) handle all of these correctly.

The choice of this K stuff over Chimera/Gecko is puzzling, but the performance is there.

--
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.

Airport Extreme by rworne · 2003-01-07 09:20 · Score: 2

Airport extreme is quite nice. Too bad no one can use it now.

I was drooling over the aspect of upgrading the wireless networking in my home, but it will have to wait. While existing airport cards will work with extreme at 10Mbps, the new AP extreme cards will not work on any currently shipping Mac. The older Airport cards have a connector the same as a PCMCIA card, the new AP extreme is Mini-PCI format.

That's right, if you want 54Mbps, you gotta buy one of the new Powerbooks and the new Access Point.

I suppose it's a matter of time before someone comes up with a Mini-PCI to PCI adapter card for the PowerMacs and a PC Card version for the older Powerbooks. iMac and iBook users are left out of the fun.

--
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit

Re:Airport Extreme by rworne · 2003-01-07 17:10 · Score: 2

That may be so, but the requirements listed at the Apple site says:

* Requires AirPort Extreme ready system. AirPort Extreme ready systems are those with mini-PCI support form factor. AirPort Extreme cards cannot be used in older AirPort card bays (PCMCIA form factor slot).

--
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit

Re:Mac guys by IvanXQZ · 2003-01-07 09:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

Um, I know this argument can be argued from a thousand sides, but I'll try to offer something "intelligent". Your example isn't really a fair comparison. You're talking about computers which are several years old as a parallel for what's available today. The Mac you are using is running Mac OS 9 or earlier, which even Mac fans admit is an antiquated, inefficient operating system on a par with Windows 98, which is the only OS it can be reasonably compared to. Your PC is running Windows NT, which is a modern operating system. On the other hand, NT 4.0 used to cost $$ and couldn't run many consumer applications of the time, so Microsoft sold a billion copies of 95 and 98, which were much slower and more unstable, but more compatible and more consumer-friendly. So you could as easily ask why anyone would buy a PC with 98 when they could use NT instead. So if your question is "Why use Mac OS 9 instead of Windows NT," the answer might be "no good reason," or the answer might also be "to use a well-supported, consumer-oriented operating system which runs almost every title ever written for the platform." If you want to ask why use Mac OS 9 over Windows 98, it's an easier question to answer: Windows 98, is in my experience, equivalently unstable, unreliable, slow, and bad at multitasking. Furthermore, it's harder to configure in many cases, especially when it comes to hardware matters. You just don't have hardware conflicts in the same way on a Mac. Some of the error messages are utterly incomprehensible. Some simple things (dial-up networking, for example) are needlessly cumbersome to configure. etc. The Mac experience is both smoother and more attractive, in my opinion. If you want to compare current day Macs to current day PC's, meaning, why use Mac OS X versus Windows XP, it can be argued either way. It's close. They're both modern, stable, operating systems. (Mac OS X has as much in common with OS 9 as Windows XP does with Windows 3.1). There's more software and more support for XP. But Mac OS X appeals to people for whom aesthetics matter more. The whole experience is more geared around the pleasure of using it. The hardware looks good. The software looks good. I realize these are frivolities in the eyes of many, but to me it's like "Why drive an ugly car if I really enjoy driving a nice one." "Why work in an ugly office if I can work in a nice one." For programmers and techies, Mac OS X is all Unix, all the time, so there's really no end of low-level fun that can be had in Mac OS X, and Mac users are no longer on a software island, as the wealth of existing Unix software runs on OS X. Also, the hardware is cool. Apple was the first to introduce consumer wireless networking, and were by far the price and performance leader there for at least a year. They were the first to popularize USB, despite its being available on PC motherboards for a long time. The Ethernet ports on new Macs autosense, eliminating the need for a crossover cable. They have Gigabit ethernet in their laptops. Their wireless base station, which has a modem in it, can be a standalone PPP server. Their BIOS is an entire Forth programming environment (so that you can write preloaded drivers for your cards) in which you can perform two-machine debugging via Telnet. I can't even remember half the stuff they were first to market with in their machines. Even now, how many PC laptops integrate both Wireless antennas and bluetooth? Have you ever seen the quality of an Apple LCD display, such as those built into the new iMacs? For consumers and creative people, the Mac has tools that are simply without parallel on the Windows side, such as the iApps, which are included with the OS. As far as performance goes, I think XP probably has the edge, but not by much, and there's more to computing than performance alone. It's how well the computer works with you. It's seamlessly connecting and disconnecting from wired and wireless networks without you even knowing about it. (Getting wireless cards to work on a PC can be horrible.) It's little touches, details in the OS, that demonstrate that someone was really thinking about how people use a computer, both newbies and geeks. For YEARS now, from like Mac OS 7.5 days, you've been able to make a disc image of any volume, hard drive, floppy, CD, whatever, and then "mount" it as though it were actually inserted. You know how much more pleasant this makes multidisc CD-ROM games? Or to prepare a CD for mastering? Does it really make sense to have every volume married to a letter, as opposed to having a proper name of its own? Anyway, I'm not trying to start a war either, but I'm trying to say that I think there are good reasons for choosing a Windows machine or choosing a Mac, depending on what's important to you. Neither is inherently the right computer to buy. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I think that Windows just simply doesn't make as much sense to me, and I spend more time having to figure things out. The fact that in 2003 the whole file system is filled with nonsensical 8.3 filenames seems insane to me. I find messages during software installation like "such and such component is older than the one you have installed on your system. Do you want to replace it?" to be entirely useless, since either answer could have serious consequences. But at a minimum, I'd say you owe it to yourself to look at the latest versions of Windows and Mac OS on new hardware if you're going to challenge why it would be that someone would choose one over the other. A lot of these things I mention apply to Mac OS 9 as readily as Mac OS X -- you just have to deal with the instability headaches that are now thankfully gone. But the point is that there have STILL always been advantages to using a Mac, even if it meant sacrifices in other ways. Ivan.

Re:Safari is the fastest Mac browser by fault0 · 2003-01-07 09:24 · Score: 2

you can drag and drop them.

Re:Safari rocks! and its GPL by StephenLegge · 2003-01-07 09:26 · Score: 3, Informative

It seems to be missing some sort of activity indicator (like the flashing N in netscape or the flashing lizard or the flashing E. This is a bit annoying since you dont know if you should click again or not when a link is sluggish

Actually, the address bar seems to act as an activity indicator. The text in the address bar gets blocked (as though selected) from left to right like a progress bar as the page loads. The progress starts with "http://" section turning blue (progress can stall here for some time, however.

Using the app's compass icon and spinning the needles around might be a appropriate image, though.

One thing... by sootman · 2003-01-07 09:31 · Score: 2

The new 17" TiBook screen is exactly 100 DPI--14.4" wide and 9" high. Nice--you can work at 300 DPI in Photoshop, zoom out to 33%, and your work is shown life-size.

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Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.

KHTML changelog by Looke · 2003-01-07 09:32 · Score: 2, Informative

A log of the changes Apple has made to KHTML was just posted to a KDE mailing list: http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=10419691231632 6&w=2

Proof it is KHTML, look at the bug fix list! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-07 09:36 · Score: 2, Informative

http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=10419691231632 6&w=2

No joke, the list is HUGE.. Good job apple!

Why KHTML (from the KDE mailing list) by hysterion · 2003-01-07 09:38 · Score: 5, Informative

----- Forwarded message from Don Melton @apple.com -----

From: Don Melton @apple.com Subject: Greetings from the Safari team at Apple Computer Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:31:10 -0800 Hi, I'm the engineering manager of Safari, Apple Computer's new web browser built upon KHTML and KJS. I'm sending you this email to thank you for making such a great open source project and introduce myself and my development team. I also wish to explain why and how we've used your excellent technology. It's important that you know we're committed to open source and contributing our changes, now and in the future, back to you, the original developers. Hopefully this will begin a dialogue among ourselves for the benefit of both of our projects. I've "cc"-ed my team on this email so you know their names and contact information. Perhaps you already recognize some of those names. Back in '98 I was one of the people who took Mozilla open source. David Hyatt is not only the originator of the Chimera web browser project but also the inventor of XBL. Darin Adler is the former lead of the Nautilus file manager. Darin, Maciej Stachowiak, John Sullivan, Ken Kocienda, and I are all Eazel veterans. The number one goal for developing Safari was to create the fastest web browser on Mac OS X. When we were evaluating technologies over a year ago, KHTML and KJS stood out. Not only were they the basis of an excellent modern and standards compliant web browser, they were also less than 140,000 lines of code. The size of your code and ease of development within that code made it a better choice for us than other open source projects. Your clean design was also a plus. And the small size of your code is a significant reason for our winning startup performance as you can see reflected in the data at http://www.apple.com/safari/ . How did we do it? As you know, KJS is very portable and independent. The Sherlock team is already using it on Mac OS X in the framework my team prepared called JavaScriptCore. But because KHTML requires other components from KDE and Qt, we wrote our own adapter library called KWQ (and pronounced "quack") that replaces these other components. KHTML and KWQ have been encapsulated in a framework called WebCore. We've also made significant enhancements, bug fixes, and performance improvements to KHTML and KJS. Both WebCore and JavaScriptCore, which account for a little over half the code in Safari, are being released as open source today. They should be available at http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/webcore / very soon. Also, we'll be sending you another email soon which details our changes and additions to KHTML and KJS. I hope the detailed list in that email will help you understand what we've done a little better. We'd also like to send this information to the appropriate KDE mailing list. Please advise us on which one to use. We look forward to your comments. We'd also like to speak to you and we'd be happy to set up a conference call at our expense for this purpose. Thank you again for making KHTML and KJS. Please forward this email to any contributor whom I may have missed. -- Don Melton Safari Engineering Manager Apple Computer

----- Forwarded message from Dirk Mueller @kde.org -----

From: Dirk Mueller @kde.org Subject: Re: Greetings from the Safari team at Apple Computer To: Don Melton @apple.com [......] Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 21:18:19 +0100 On Die, 07 Jan 2003, Don Melton wrote: > I'm the engineering manager of Safari, Apple Computer's new web browser > built upon KHTML and KJS. I'm sending you this email to thank you for > making such a great open source project and introduce myself and my > development team. I also wish to explain why and how we've used your > excellent technology. It's important that you know we're committed to > open source and contributing our changes, now and in the future, back > to you, the original developers. Hopefully this will begin a dialogue > among ourselves for the benefit of both of our projects. I hope so too. I'm deeply impressed by your detailed changelog and by the changes. A few of the changes have already happened in "our" developing version and many of them were on our TODOs. For example just about this weekend I was working on improving the kjs garbage collector and now I read that you apparently already fixed the issues I had with it. Seems to me like a huge christmas gift. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Especially I'd like to hope that we could set up a mailing list where we could exchange ideas, patches and bug reports. Also a common testsuite for regressions would be nice and probably help us a lot in developing KHTML and KJS further. Ideally the plan should be, and I hope you agree, to use a common codebase for the backend. > Please forward this email to any contributor whom I may have missed. We've forwarded it to kfm-devel @kde.org.

--
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes

Check out the new Airport Base Station by DrJay · 2003-01-07 09:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

The 802.11g base station was mentioned as a bit of an afterthought, but there's two really cool features in it:

It's a print server for a USB printer. It's got a USB port - plug something in, and it shows up on your network.

It's a PPP server. You can apparently set your modem to answer calls. This will give you access not only to your local network (printing, file sharing), but if the airport is routing a DSL/Cable connection, you get full dial up internet access.

Kinda kills the answering machine, but what the hell !

JT

--
______ This mind intentionally left blank.

Konqueror Surfs Apple! by flux4 · 2003-01-07 09:39 · Score: 2

On an vaguely related note, here's a suspicious screensnap from Konqueror's website. Note the Aqua, fellers... that's where the trouble begins!

Self-signed certificates by ChrisDolan · 2003-01-07 09:42 · Score: 3, Informative

Safari apparently does not support self-signed certs. Mozilla and IE show a dialog offering to use or reject the cert, but Safari just bails. Try https://www.codefuries.com/

I guess this must be Apple's fault, not KHTML's. I known Konq works on the above url.

Re:Self-signed certificates by ChrisDolan · 2003-01-07 21:07 · Score: 2

Thank you for the reminder, but I've already done that. :-) I just thought others might like to know. Konqueror seems to do self-signed certs fine (although that's second hand knowledge), so it looks like this bug is indeed Apple's fault.

Why KHTML instead of Gecko ... by Gerein · 2003-01-07 09:46 · Score: 2

... is explained here.

Looks like they even got some former Mozilla people working on it... :-)

Re:How Come? by DuBois · 2003-01-07 09:46 · Score: 2

...please watch out how you think something is ok just because it's based on open source code. Shipping and integrating an open source product is still just as bad, it's still anti-competitive.

Anti-competitive with what? Mozilla is free. IE Mac 5 is free. What's there to complain about? They're all free. Chimera is free. So who's being anti-competitive? I don't get the complaint.

If someone were still making a profit from browsers (iCab?) then maybe there'd be a point to this.

But anyway, the DOJ's complaint about MSIE was old before it was even presented before a judge. MS will kill itself with screwball "activation" and licensing, and doesn't need the DOJ to help it out.

--
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.

Apple X11 for Fink users by ChrisDolan · 2003-01-07 09:50 · Score: 5, Informative

If you use X11 under Fink, you can do this:

dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-base
dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-base-shlibs
[install the SDK from apple - http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/ ]
[install the user install from apple - http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/download/ ]
fink install system-xfree86

(courtesy of Ben Hines on the fink-devel list)

You may have to manually edit your $HOME/.xinitrc file to add the "exec quartz-wm" line in place of any other "exec" lines.

Other than that, it works great for me. The new Quartz WM is good.

Re:Apple X11 for Fink users by King+Babar · 2003-01-07 17:26 · Score: 2

If you use X11 under Fink, you can do this:

A bazillion thanks! So why hasn't the parent been modded up to 6? :-)
Seriously, the Apple X11 release looked really very impressive on paper, but I lived in mortal fear of messing with what worked well enough with fink...

--
Babar

Re:I know they are slow... by NDPTAL85 · 2003-01-07 09:53 · Score: 2

Not only am I a Mac user, but I play one on TV. (Actually I don't but I really do have a Mac) So trust me when I confirm that they are infact slower in comparison to Windows running PC's.

--
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.

Way to reinvent the wheel by I+Am+The+Owl · 2003-01-07 09:59 · Score: 2

Why didn't Apple just take an existing, proven browser like Chimera and improve upon it? It's not as if we need everyone and their grandma writing their own HTML rendering engine, we have enough problems with standards compliance with just 2 competing ones (though to credit Mozilla, they're not the ones with standards troubles).

--

--sdem

Re:Way to reinvent the wheel by Onan · 2003-01-07 11:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

You seem to hold Apple's developers in very high regard, if you feel that they've whipped this up in the past week or so.

Safari has been in development for around a year. This is notably longer than Chimera has existed.

There are several other links in this discussion to Apple's stated reasoning for choosing khtml. Those reasons pretty much all come to simplicity: it's about a tenth the code of even just gecko.

That smaller code size tends to make the finished product a bit zippier, but even more important is that it greatly increases the speed and flexibility with which they can improve upon it.

And standards compliance will only become _better_ with more commonly-used renderers. The harder it is for designers to write only for their favorite browser, instead of for the standard, the better.

IE for OS X by kruczkowski · 2003-01-07 10:00 · Score: 2

Do you think that once this web browser goes gold, that Apple will dump IE on the default OS X installs? That will be a brave move on there part.

What do you guys think?

--
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5

Re:Safari rocks! and its GPL by scrod · 2003-01-07 10:00 · Score: 2, Informative

You can also turn on a status bar from the View menu (or command - \ ).

and you were expecting what? by Doktor+Memory · 2003-01-07 10:02 · Score: 2

No advancment on the ghz front. I just said that it doesn't matter _as_much_, but it's still dissapointing that Apple continues to lag here.

Uh, this may come as a surprise to you, but Apple doesn't make the CPUs in the PowerMacs. They're made by Motorola and (sometimes) IBM, both of whom have been quite public about their roadmaps for newer and faster CPUs over the next two years. If the lack of news there came as a surprise to you, I can guarantee that you were pretty much the only person surprised.

(If you think for a second that Apple would launch a "surprise" announcement of x86 or hammer-based macs, I have a bridge in New York City that I'd like to sell you: Apple pre-announced the 68k to PowerPC move by over a year, and still almost lost half of their developers. They will never do such a thing without plenty of advance notice.)

Expect PPC970-based powermacs late in 2003. Don't hold your breath for anything better than a minor speedbump in the interim. That's the hand Apple has to play, and they're making the best of it.

--

News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.

Re:and you were expecting what? by binaryDigit · 2003-01-07 10:58 · Score: 2

Uh, this may come as a surprise to you, but Apple doesn't make the CPUs in the PowerMac

Nope, well aware. But from a corporate standpoint, it doesn't matter who makes the cpu, Apple gets hurt in the end. If superdrives start failing all over the place, can Apple say, "hey don't blame us, Panasonic made the drives". Sure they can say it, but Apple suffers most since people will say "My stupid Mac doesn't work".

If the lack of news there came as a surprise to you

Never said surprised, I said disappointed. After all, Apple does have a faster processor at their disposal. I don't know if the 1.25GHz part is significantly different than the 1Ghz, but if it's not, then why not provide a 1.25Ghz model as well for those who want the ponies and can live with a 10% reduction in battery time?

That's the hand Apple has to play, and they're making the best of it

But that doesn't mean that as a Mac user that I can't be dissapointed that this is the situation right? I didn't say that Apple are retards for not announcing a 3Ghz PowerMac when they had the chance. I think pretty much EVERY somewhat knowledgeable Mac user knows full well what the cpu/Mot situation is.

IRT switching to x86, I too once thought that this would be the biggest mistake ever, now I'm not totally convinced. Well, I still think so, but I do see the following occuring. As Apple continues to innovate with their software, the hardware, while cool, becomes less relevant. Now I think it is critically important to differentiate between Apple simply swapping cpus and Apple selling beige boxes, two completely different issues. It is the former that I'm referring to. After all, other than nerds, who amongst Apples core customers really cares what type of cpu (other than for performance reasons) that is inside their box?

MS Pissed? by stu_coates · 2003-01-07 10:12 · Score: 2

So is Microsoft pissed that Apple have release Safari?

Well, if seems strange that HotMail doesn't work with it... I would have thought that the Apple testers would have tested against that before releasing... or maybe they did and something has changed </conspiracy>

Impressions of Apple's X11 by mfago · 2003-01-07 10:23 · Score: 2

Works great so far!

Caveats:
1) Installer doesn't deal with ~/.xinitrc, so remove this or you'll get your old window manager.

2) Window minimize button doesn't work, but CMD-M "properly" minimizes windows in Dock.

XHTML support by JimDabell · 2003-01-07 10:24 · Score: 2

I notice that on the Safari page, Apple are claiming it supports XHTML. khtml does not support xhtml properly - does anybody know if this is an addition by Apple, or merely a mistake (XHTML support involves more than simply chucking it through a tag soup parser)?

Specifically, does it throw a fatal error on this testcase (it should if it supports XHTML)?

Re:XHTML support by Maserati · 2003-01-07 12:25 · Score: 2

The browser doesn't freak out, it downloads "attachment.cgi:, which reads as follows:

Konqueror Bug #52665 Testcase

This document is malformed XML, and should therefore not be rendered completely when served as application/xhtml+xml

This second paragraph should not appear.

--
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951

Re:According to stevie boy... by Toraz+Chryx · 2003-01-07 10:30 · Score: 2

Thing is, the 12" Powerbook is quite clearly using a variation of the 12" iBook case design....

eBay is your friend by edLin · 2003-01-07 10:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

Sell your used software on eBay.

Why the release of OSX X11 is important by code+shady · 2003-01-07 10:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

With the release of Safari and Keynote, apple has fired a salvo across MS's bow. These two apps help to decrease Apple's dependence on MS for the Browser (a key component) and to a lesser extent, on powerpoint. This is, imo, a goo thing. However, every mac user still has to pay a tribute to MS in the form of Office.

OpenOffice isnt seen as a viable replacement among mac users because it uses X11, and looks decidedly un-maclike. With this new release of X11, thats fixed. Apple can now bundle open office with OS X, and they won't need to spend hundreds of man hours porting it to run under Aqua.

The combination of OpenOffice running under apples X11 implementation, Safari, and Keynote could be just the thing that apple uses to decrease (and perhaps ultimatley do away with altogether) its dependence on MS. And that, I think, is a Good Thing.
---

--
Look out honey cause I'm usin' technology
Ain't got time to make no apologies

Re:Why the release of OSX X11 is important by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-07 12:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yeah, like OpenOffice under X11 has any chance of remotely looking like an OS X App, whatever the windows manager :-)
The effort of developing an Aqua interface for OpenOffice WILL have to be spent if there's any chance that any number of Mac user actually use it one day. Whether Apple will do it or the rest of the OpenSource community will remains to be seen....

Re:Brushed Metal Look by shendart · 2003-01-07 11:05 · Score: 2, Informative

As with all applications written using Interface Builder and .nib files, you can change this as you see fit. If you installed the Apple Developer Tools (available freely on their website), you can open Browser.nib under your localized folder in the Safari App (/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Resources/Engli sh.lproj/Browser.nib, most likely). From there, simply uncheck the Textured Window attribute on the main window. Tabless Browsing is a definite hindrance, though...

yes, but... by SHEENmaster · 2003-01-07 12:04 · Score: 2

Galeon has blocked them better for a long time. Mozilla followed soon after, and I think that Galeon now uses it. Hell, even MSN's browser *chough*probably VB*cough*.does it!

Try mozilla, ghostzilla(winshit), or Galeon today.

--
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.

Re:yes, but... by dimator · 2003-01-07 14:07 · Score: 2

Come on, now. Can we all agree that all browsers pretty much copy every other browser? There are features that appear in one browser, and are quickly "copied" by every other browser. It's not like new browsers are created in a clean-room with no influence from other projects.

Besides, everybody "copied" mosaic in the first place. :)

--
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"

Re:Safari like IE? by zephc · 2003-01-07 12:09 · Score: 2

except it's not integrated into OS X. It uses a lot of the cool features available in the OS X frameworks, but that's like calling iTunes integrated because it uses cool OS X APIs to do cool stuff

--
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.

Speed boost by skeedlelee · 2003-01-07 12:11 · Score: 2

There seem to be a lot of complaints on the minimal speed boost for the iBook -> 12" PowerBook jump in cost.

Anyone actually look at the difference in the RAM the two products use? This is probably where the cost difference comes from, not the materials its made of.

iBooks seem to use 100 MHz SDRAM, 12" PowerBook uses 266MHz DDR and the 17" uses 333MHz DDR. This should have a pretty big performance boost, at least as much as the processor boost, probably a whole lot more. Apple never seem cutting edge on memory tech but at least they're now giving you something respectable with the high end powerbook. That was actually one of the things that kept me away from Mac before (not a gamer, all my critical software was availible on both). That and the still high price.

The 15" PowerBook is still using SDRAM though.

Re:Speed boost by squarefish · 2003-01-07 12:29 · Score: 2

There seem to be a lot of complaints on the minimal speed boost for the iBook -> 12" PowerBook jump in cost.

minimal if you compare 800mhz to 867mhz, but also that it's an upgrade from a G3 to G4. Also adds 802.11G and bluetooth capabilities. It's also smaller in all deminsions including weight and has a slot drive and comes with the combo drive by default- the ibook doesn't.

Anyone actually look at the difference in the RAM the two products use? This is probably where the cost difference comes from, not the materials its made of. iBooks seem to use 100 MHz SDRAM, 12" PowerBook uses 266MHz DDR and the 17" uses 333MHz DDR. This should have a pretty big performance boost, at least as much as the processor boost, probably a whole lot more. Apple never seem cutting edge on memory tech but at least they're now giving you something respectable with the high end powerbook. That was actually one of the things that kept me away from Mac before (not a gamer, all my critical software was availible on both). That and the still high price. The 15" PowerBook is still using SDRAM though.

I think Apples are well worth the cost. I just bought an ibook a few weeks ago and I love it. I maxed everything out other than the screen because I wanted the small size... I should have waited. for a laptop the prices are still very competitive- you can't brew your own for less.

--
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.

Re:Open Source by NSObject · 2003-01-07 12:18 · Score: 2, Informative

What was said is that Keynote's file format is open (and XML based) to encourage third party tie ins with databases and the like.

No, they aren't. Maybe you are though. by Cadre · 2003-01-07 12:21 · Score: 2

*waits for the automatic down-modding due to negative Apple comments*

No, you're just not used a laptop or haven't thought through why they did this.

On the PowerBook section of the Apple site, it says that their 17" LCD has the same viewing area as a 19" CRT. Umm, that LCD has a max resolution of 1440x900 (with a bizarre aspect ratio of 16x10- why didn't they try to conform to HDTV with 16x9?), which is about HALF the area of the max resolution of a decent 19" monitor (say, a Viewsonic P95 w/ 1920x1440).

Umm, okay, their website said viewing area not max resolution so why don't you tone it back a little? Also, the reason they chose the 16x10 is because the resolution is 1440x900. 1440 / 16 = 90 and 900 / 10 = 90. The reason for the extra height is so you can have 16x9 material on the screen and still have room for a menubar and windowframe.

And the lighted keyboard- I think most people will recognize this as a gimmick at best. Who needs to see the keyboard to type?

No, it's quite useful. It's why those USB gooseneck lights can't stay on the shelves. First, not everyone types as well as you do, secondly, when it's dark, you can't see the keyboard to place your hands (and it's easier to glance down rather than try to feel for the dimples on the f and j keys).

--
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.

Re:No, they aren't. Maybe you are though. by JavaJoint · 2003-01-07 15:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

Know why a lighted keyboard makes sense?

Husband/Wife, one wants sleep. One wants to surf.
One wants the ALL of the lights off, right now, or there will
be hell to pay.

That's why :-)
Re:No, they aren't. Maybe you are though. by Cadre · 2003-01-10 14:16 · Score: 2

Use brainpower, if you have a screen in front of you, it should shed enough light by itself onto the keyboard...

Actually, no. Your eyes dialate from looking at such a bright screen (even with the new autodimming of the new Powerbook it's still bright) so unless you have your the angle of your screen at an acute angle (to light the keys directly), it's much easier to see the keys if they're lighted.

--
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.

They should post a warning by shatfield · 2003-01-07 12:26 · Score: 2

Where the new 17" powerbook is concerned:

"Clicking on this link may induce spontaneous splooging.. proceed at your own risk!"

Good LORD is that nice! Now if only I didn't have to rob a bank to buy one :-/

Someone got a marker and a phony mustache? I'll be right back ;-)

--
"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic." Cicero

Why? Easy Cocoa embedding, of course. by davebo · 2003-01-07 12:28 · Score: 2

Apple wants to make a high-quality HTML rendering component for use in Cocoa apps, a-la Microsoft's HTML COM object (MSHTML? I don't know what it's called). Think of Safari as an example application which uses that plug-in component.

This way, I can make a Cocoa app which for some reason needs to render HTML and use the NSWebCoreHTML class (or whatever they end up calling it) to do all the dirty work for me.

The problem with using Gecko, I imagine, is that it depends on Necko and the netscape portable runtime library (which re-implements strings, and threads, and whatnot). They don't want something that platform-independent - they want something that screams on OS X, so they'd want to rip out as much as possible between the rendering library and the native cocoa classes (ie NSString, NSURL, etc). It seems as if it was easier to do that with KHTML than Gecko.

Re:TiVo via Rendezvous? Yuck, improve Tivo 1st! by WatertonMan · 2003-01-07 12:33 · Score: 2

What it would let you do is play your MP-3's in your stereo system without setting up a full computer in your living room. I halfway wonder if it will let you play your recorded videos on you Mac.

Re:Anatomy sized notebook by skeedlelee · 2003-01-07 12:34 · Score: 2

I make this comment way, way down below so it will probably be missed.

You missed one of the biggest speed improvements.

The RAM is much, much faster in the new PowerBook vs. the iBook. The 12" PowerBook is using 266MHz DDR, the iBook 100MHz SDRAM. I'd pay about $100 for that difference on its own (at least). >2.5-fold increase in RAM speed will make a huge difference in performance, probably about as much as the G3->G4 change.

We're talking Mac's here, I would have thought someone would've mentioned that its not just MHz that matters by now:)

Mozilla ain't all that by marm · 2003-01-07 12:41 · Score: 3, Flamebait

The issue isn't that Apple can choose KHTML, it's more a case of why.

Other people have pointed out the corporate aspects, that Apple might not like the fact that AOL has tight control over the direction that Mozilla is headed simply by sheer weight of numbers of developers. I'd like to bring up a different reason: have you actually had a look at the Gecko source recently? It has turned into a bloated, crufty mess with many peculiar hacks to satisfy Mozilla's cross-platform nature (it seems NSPR/XPCOM is not quite abstracted enough as portability code has crept in elsewhere) and to work around deficiencies in the W3C specifications. For a browser that was started again from scratch because it was felt the previous version (remember the Netscape 5.0 code dump? ugh) was way too bloated and crufty to continue work on it, that's very sad.

In contrast, KHTML has stayed pretty lean, partly because I think Qt is a better GUI platform abstraction than NSPR/XPCOM, and partly because it has had to due to the tiny size of the development team: with only a handful of people contributing code, the code needs to be as clean and obvious as is humanly possible simply for the project to survive. It will be interesting to see whether KHTML can continue to be so lean with the addition of a bunch of full-time Apple developers onto the team.

For all the bitching about KHTML's CSS compliance, I probably ought to point out that whilst it's not necessarily quite as good as Gecko (although I have a nice testcase using floats that Gecko has never got right but KHTML aces) it's (in my tests) better at CSS than any version of IE or Opera so far.

It's been fashionable to diss anything other than Gecko since Mozilla hit 1.0. I think that needs to stop: not everyone likes Gecko, both users and developers, and it certainly is not inherently superior, despite its current marginal lead in standards compliance (and lets not forget how it now trails in performance). Open Source does not need to get behind one browser, in exactly the same way that it doesn't need to get behind one desktop either, or one word processor or one toolkit. Choice is good, and rabid Mozilla fans should be especially conscious of this, because Moz would be toast otherwise thanks to IE.

It's also tragic that I only feel confident enough to say this without getting modded down into oblivion in an article that is so obviously a loss for Gecko/Mozilla, but hey, that's Slashdot for you.

Happy Konqueror user since 2000 - yes, I remember when it could barely render Slashdot correctly - and chuffed to bits that Apple agrees with his choice. Nice to be vindicated sometimes.

Conspiracy therory: by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · 2003-01-07 12:45 · Score: 2

Apple know that browsing speeds on OS X are much slower in general than Win at the moment. There have even been articals on the issue.

Maybe they're getting a browser that is fast out the door while they're working on a better Gecko based browser? After all, that did hire that guy who worked on Chimera and Mozilla (one or the either, or both).

Re:Conspiracy therory: by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · 2003-01-07 22:48 · Score: 2

LOL do these articles take into account the IE/IIS "secret love handshake(tm)"? There are lies then there is microsoft. p.s. I am using mozilla build id: 2002121216 on my 1ghz TiBook and this browser absolutely smokes. I would really like to know how "fast" is measured in a browser to see how this stacks up.
That's a different issue. All the browsers I use in my PC feel much faster than any on my Mac. Maybe if you own a TiBook you won't notice it, but get you hands on someones iBook and the difference will be noticable. Infact, I'm posting this right now from Safari, and it's still slow. Maybe slightly faster than Chimera, but still slow over all compared to my PC or when I'm in OS 9.

Re:TiVo via Rendezvous? Yuck, improve Tivo 1st! by hondo77 · 2003-01-07 12:47 · Score: 2

Long-term storage of programs recorded by Tivo onto somebody's Mac. A TV server that a family might have, like an MP3 server.

Use iCal and .mac to program your Tivo from anywhere on the web.

Watch porn you've downloaded onto your Mac on the TV via Tivo.

Preview iMovie-created movies on your TV via Tivo.

Just some thoughts.

--
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.

Konqaqua! by PCM2 · 2003-01-07 12:52 · Score: 2

t's the rendering engine and JavaScript support that's open source...you get can the source at anoncvs.kde.org

Right on! Here's hoping somebody can grab it and do a "normal" Aqua interface (i.e. no brushed aluminum), complete with tabbed browsing and an indicator of what URL you'll be going to before you click on it. Safari is ripe for a Chimera job.

--
Breakfast served all day!

Re:Konqaqua! by e1en0r · 2003-01-07 13:29 · Score: 2

this "haxie" (lame name, i know) might be able to get rid of the brushed aluminum, assuming it's a cocoa app. i haven't tried it yet as i'm at work and they won't let me hook up my iBook to the network, but it's worth a shot. it unmetallifized iChat just fine for me. plus it's free. their windowshade haxie is also a nice addition, although that one will cost you $7. and no, i don't work for them, i just happened to stumble across their site and really like their stuff.
Re:Konqaqua! by SteveM · 2003-01-07 13:37 · Score: 2

...and an indicator of what URL you'll be going to before you click on it.
Go to the View menu and select Status Bar (or command - \).
Steve M
Re:Konqaqua! by ealar+dlanvuli · 2003-01-07 16:12 · Score: 2

You can change any nib you want either way by a simple load into Interface Builder and clicking one checkbox. Thats all thats required.

I currently have my entire desktop set to brushed metal (including finder) and it really does work quite nice (you have to have everything one way or the other for it to work though).

--
I live in a giant bucket.
Re:Konqaqua! by bnenning · 2003-01-07 19:12 · Score: 2

If you have the Dev tools installed, just open up the various nib files and uncheck the 'Textured' attribute for each window. Works like a charm.

Just quoting this at +2 and confirming that it works.

--
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.

Re:OK, so what's new? by fault0 · 2003-01-07 12:54 · Score: 3, Interesting

> Popup killer: Mozilla. Instant bookmark categorizing: Phoenix. Google toolbar: Phoenix. Dragging bookmarks around: IE.

Uhm, if you think Mozilla invented the Popup killer, Phoenix invented instant bookmark categorizing, or that Phoenix invented the google toolbar, you're sadly mistaken.

Re:Why not gecko? One word -- scrolling. by Sardu · 2003-01-07 12:56 · Score: 2, Funny

But it's like Gecko, according to the User-Agent it sends:

"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/48 (like Gecko) Safari/48"

=)

Re:Why are all Mac users fags??? by puetzk · 2003-01-07 13:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

stealing? hardly. The list of contributions covers a very impressive number of optimizations and TODO's in KHTML, and the code was submitted with an excellent changelog. If this is stealing KHTML, we could sure do with more thieves like this :-)

They are doing exactly what the LGPL (as chosen by the KHTML authors) wanted them to do... improve KHTML, and use it.

--
The Matrix is going down for reboot now! Stopping reality: OK. The system is halted.

Re:According to stevie boy... by Hadlock · 2003-01-07 13:13 · Score: 2

the 15" powerbook has a full sized keyboard (L & W, not depth, at least). the 12" powerbook is pretty much exactly the same size as the keyboard, which is still a full sized keyboard. if the keyboard got any bigger (for the 17"), it'd be akward.

--
moox. for a new generation.

Autoadjust not just cool, actually important... by alispguru · 2003-01-07 13:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

... because it can help extend battery life, big time. Those of you with power-hungry x86 laptop CPUs may scoff at this, but my experience with my 500 MHz iBook has been that I can run it for a little over three hours with the display at full brightness, and a little over four hours with the display at its dimmest (and if you're on an airplane at night, that's actually a practical way to hack). This means the display accounts for about 25-30% of the power consumption. Anything that automatically makes the display draw an appropriate amount of power might extend my battery life half an hour or more.

--

To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.

Re:Autoadjust not just cool, actually important... by MoneyT · 2003-01-08 17:20 · Score: 2

So you need 2 bateries to get 5 hours out of your Dell. As opposed to the 7 hours I could get out of two bateries for my powerbook.

As for the 0 support for firewire 800, everything has to start somewhere, and since PC people are afraid of change, I guess Apple has to start it.

So you've had 15 and 15 inch screens for a year, I believe Apple had had 15 inch for at least 2 years now. No one was bitching about 15 inches being to big. The only time I remember people bitching about 15 inches being to big was back when laptops were 2 - 3 inches thick, and heavy as a load of bricks.

And in all honesty, I think the 17 inch is too big, but people will buy it, someone always does.

--
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984

Lack of USB 2.0 by yet+another+coward · 2003-01-07 13:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

I read about USB 1.1 ports on the new PowerBook, but saw nothing about USB 2.0. It seems that USB 2.0 and Firewire would be a nice combination for maximum flexibility.

Why Tabs are Bad by Josuah · 2003-01-07 13:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you really think about it, however, you would realize that adding the tab feature to something like a web browser window is in fact BAD DESIGN. It may be more convenient for you, but it drastically changes what a window represents to the user.

With tabs, closing a window can in fact remove the contents of many windows. Something that should only happen when you quit the application. Granted, adding this as a default-off feature might be okay, but I can just see all the grandmas wondering why all their different web pages went away when they only closed the front window.

There would also need to be a cycle-tabs keystroke, in addition to the cycle-windows keystroke. (Something that does annoy me when I use tabs in Phoenix.)

Re:Why Tabs are Bad by dangermouse · 2003-01-07 14:35 · Score: 2

If you really think about it, however, you would realize that adding the tab feature to something like a web browser window is in fact BAD DESIGN. It may be more convenient for you, but it drastically changes what a window represents to the user.
Hi. I am the user. What the hell are you talking about?
With tabs, closing a window can in fact remove the contents of many windows. Something that should only happen when you quit the application. Granted, adding this as a default-off feature might be okay, but I can just see all the grandmas wondering why all their different web pages went away when they only closed the front window.
Speaking as someone who has a grandma, I think you vastly underestimate her intelligence.
There would also need to be a cycle-tabs keystroke, in addition to the cycle-windows keystroke. (Something that does annoy me when I use tabs in Phoenix.)
Yep. There sure would. There are already keystrokes for changing tabs in Chimera and Mozilla, but they're a little unwieldy. I'd like to see simpler ones.
If using tabs is a pain for you, don't use tabs. But don't presume that tabbed browsing befuddles the rest of us. A lot of us use tabbed browsers and actually like it.
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by X_Caffeine · 2003-01-07 15:10 · Score: 2

I think what he's saying is that tabs make the interface inconsistent. One of the marks of good interface design is that the same actions accomplishes the same thing throughout the program.

It's a bit like the whole double-click mess. Tons of people double-click hyperlinks and form buttons in web pages because their experience with Mac-Finder/Win-Explorer tells them that double-click means "make this do something."

Anyway, I love tabbed web browsers -- I generally have 6-10 websites open at any time, and that's far too many windows to juggle. Especially given that OS X is so cluttered and all the widgets are huge -- I can never seem to fit enough in a 1024x768 screen.

I think the answer to this particular interface inconsistency problem is to make tabbed browsing available for advanced users who are bright enough to turn it on. A bit like two-button mice; don't ship them with the computers, but have support ready for those who want to go out and buy them.

--
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by spectral · 2003-01-07 15:39 · Score: 2

Uhh.. Ok, I'll bite.

1) If they don't know how to use tabs properly, where are they even going to get one from? New windows (javascript, targets) open in: new windows. Unless you go and change the option, no tabs, no worries.

2) ctrl+tab. similar to alt+tab for applications. Yes, it works in phoenix (I just did it) It even supports going backwards (ctrl+shift+tab) just like alt+shift+tab. This was all done using windows 2000 on a public computer btw.

3) You're thinking of things document centric anyway, which I guess considerign the article is a good thing, since this is a mac page. Windows tends to be application-centric, hence the MDI interfaces et al. where closing the program DOES close all the windows inside it. Basically tabbed browsing = MDI with a decent window switcher inside, from what I can tell. Which probably doesn't make it too surprising that apple did NOT implement it, since the apple paradigm is one window, one document. The document is the center, not the application (thus you can close document windows and leave applications open. Annoying at first, but sometimes useful)
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by dangermouse · 2003-01-07 16:18 · Score: 2

My point is that there's a disconnect between what theory tells him and what reality is telling him, in this instance, and it's not useful to choose theory over reality when the two conflict.
Theory says that tabbed browsers should offer inconsistencies that frustrate users. The reality is that users love tabbed browsers. (Really, I can't think of anyone who's told me they don't like to have tabs.)
So instead of descending from the mount and telling us why we don't want what we think we want, figuring out how to make what we want work and doing it is the way to go.
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-07 16:53 · Score: 2

With tabs, closing a window can in fact remove the contents of many windows.

Finally! Somebody who gets it! Tabbed browsing rubs me the wrong way for this very reason. No other application uses the multiple-data-sources-in-one-window approach; having your browser do it makes for frustration and confusion.

--

I write in my journal
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-07 19:07 · Score: 2

Look at Office. Open 3 word docs and they all stay in one window.

No, they don't. Oh, wait, you're thinking of Microsoft's ill-advised MDI paradigm. I know for a fact that Word 2000 no longer forced that particular beast on users; I can't recall exactly when Microsoft dropped it.

MDI is a dumb idea. It blurs the line between an application and a document, and not in a good way. One document, one window is the right way to go.

Tabs, to me at least, should be present in almost any application

Oh, please. You have got to be kidding me. Tabs don't even really belong in preference dialogs, though that's where they got their start and that's where they mostly remain entrenched.

I shouldn't have 24 windows open all over my desktop if I'm only using three applications.

Pray tell, how are you going to look at two web pages at the same time unless you have two different windows? So it's not "one window with one tab per page," and it's not "one window per page." It's some bastardized combination of the two: "one window with some tabs, and another window with some other tabs." That's the kind of wooly-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten.

--

I write in my journal
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by biglig2 · 2003-01-07 23:33 · Score: 2

I guess Mr. Jobs's take on that would be that you need a 17" powerbook. ;-)

Actually, who doesn't need one?

--
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by toriver · 2003-01-08 02:15 · Score: 2

With tabs, closing a window can in fact remove the contents of many windows.

With multitasking, turning off the computer can in fact kill many applications.

Users aren't stupid; if they use a tabbed/MDI application they learn to "close" tabs instead of the entire window.
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-08 03:12 · Score: 2

Where do you think they belong, then?

Nowhere! That was my point. While it is possible for tabs to be implemented well, and no doubt there are times where they're downright necessary, as a rule they're bad and wrong.

--

I write in my journal
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-08 03:20 · Score: 2

The way I use tabs is that I open a new tab for a sub-page on the same site (e.g. I might have one window with tabs containing the slashdot main page, a slashdot discussion, a subthread in the discussion etc.) and a new window for a new, unrelated site.

SnapBack is your friend! It lets you drill down and then easily pop back up without having to have either piles of tabs or stacks of windows. In fact, I'm using it right now to reply to my Slashdot messages.

--

I write in my journal
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-08 03:25 · Score: 2

Uh hello?

Project Builder, while an outstanding IDE, is hardly the acme of user interface design. That said, it still conforms to the "one document, one window" convention: in single-window mode, each project occupies one window. In "many windows" mode, a window is used for each major UI element, including one window per file. The difference is that single-window mode treats the project as the document, while "many windows" mode treats each file as a document.

Next time you post something sarcastic, you might want to take just a second to make sure you're right first. Otherwise, embarassment could result.

--

I write in my journal
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by psxndc · 2003-01-08 06:00 · Score: 2

Oh, please. You have got to be kidding me. Tabs don't even really belong in preference dialogs, though that's where they got their start and that's where they mostly remain entrenched.
So you should have a separate window for every preference dialog? Please tell me you're kidding. As for looking at two windows at one time, which I admit is useful, I should be able to open a second instance of the browser. But I shouldn't be forced to. What kills me is that people bitch about something like wanting tabs, and people come around saying "No. It doesn't make your life any easier because I say it doesn't. It's bad design because I think it's ugly and non-useful. Therefor it should never exist". How about they implement it and if it makes my life easier I use them. If you don't like them, don't use them.
psxndc

--
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-08 06:22 · Score: 2

So you should have a separate window for every preference dialog?

Behold the OS X System Preferences application. That's a good multi-mode, non-document user interface. Each preference pane takes over the whole window, except for the toolbar. Preference panes can be selected from the menu, from the main screen, or from the user-configurable toolbar. This beats the shit out of tabs because it's extensible, among other reasons.

Of course, some preference panes include tabs within them. I'll consider those to be just barely acceptable, as long as the content of each tab is independent of each other tab, and there are no more than about 4 or 5 tabs in total.

Sherlock also has the same basic UI: each Sherlock channel is a pane, and each pane is independent. Wouldn't work for a browser, because it's not suitable for a document-type interface, but for a multi-mode interface, it kicks.

What kills me is that people bitch about something like wanting tabs, and people come around saying "No. It doesn't make your life any easier because I say it doesn't.

Actually, just to be clear, I'm saying that I don't care whether tabs in your web browser make your life easier or not. They're a bad UI design, and if asked I would opine that they don't belong in any browser, even as an option. If you don't like it, either use a browser that has them, like Mozilla, or write your own. Like Mozilla. But don't argue that they should be included in a browser that strives to have a clean, consistent, friendly UI. They shouldn't.

--

I write in my journal
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by psxndc · 2003-01-08 07:32 · Score: 2

But don't argue that they should be included in a browser that strives to have a clean, consistent, friendly UI
We'll just have to agree to disagree. I personally think tabs make it more user friendly and if every program included them like I think they should ;-) then it would be consistent. You disagree. I don't think we're going to convince each other.
But for the record: I hate the way OS X deals with their preferences. It seems klunky. And why can I get to the System preferences eight different ways? I should be able to do it one way. Again, these are matters of opinion and I don't think either of us will ever be "right". It's all personal preference.
psxndc

--
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-08 08:13 · Score: 2

I personally think tabs make it more user friendly and if every program included them like I think they should ;-) then it would be consistent.

This, as has been said before, harkens back to the bad old days of Windows' MDI paradigm. It was a bad idea then, and it's a bad idea now.

And why can I get to the System preferences eight different ways? I should be able to do it one way.

You can get to it two ways: launching the System Preferences app, or using the System Preferences menu item. That's it. Just two.

--

I write in my journal
Re:Why Tabs are Bad by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-09 17:15 · Score: 2

I don't see any method in project builder of turning off the multiple files in one window mode of operation completely

Project Builder menu -> Preferences. Look under "Task Templates."

--

I write in my journal

tip: how to limit runs of animated gifs by davebo · 2003-01-07 13:47 · Score: 2

Open (or create, if it's not alread there) "~/Library/Application Support/Chimera/Profiles/(random)/prefs.js". Add this line then save it as text, not rtf:

user_pref("image.animation_mode", once);

(PS - I stole this directly from here )

Thank you, Apple! by Brian+Knotts · 2003-01-07 13:49 · Score: 2

The petulant griping of the Mozilla fanboys aside, Apple has done a great thing here.

I am a Konqueror user, and am very happy that Apple has contributed a large number of improvements to KHTML, with more to come, I'm sure!

Thank you, Apple!

Re:Thank you, Apple! by pressman · 2003-01-09 05:18 · Score: 2

I'm thrilled they went with KHTML as the rendering engine. I have a Dell something or other laptop that I installed SuSE Linux on just to learn more about it and Konqueror came with it. Konqueror made me very happy; light, fast, responsive. An all around great browser despite the lack of Flash and Quicktime support.

It's good to see such a responsive browser available for OS X.

--
Pooty tweet
Re:Thank you, Apple! by Brian+Knotts · 2003-01-09 06:30 · Score: 2

FYI, Flash does work with Konqueror. Dunno about Quicktime.
Re:Thank you, Apple! by pressman · 2003-01-10 04:46 · Score: 2

Interesting! How did I manage to never hit a Flash site while browsing with Konqueror?

--
Pooty tweet
Re:Thank you, Apple! by Brian+Knotts · 2003-01-10 06:49 · Score: 2

Well, you do have to install it, and then in Konqueror's preferences, let the plugin thingy find it. But I have used it for a while, and Flash 6 works just fine.

Re:A bigger keyboard??? Why? by elliotj · 2003-01-07 13:51 · Score: 2

I totally agree. Having a numeric keypad would put them head and shoulders above the competition on a key usablility point.

why switch and keep using X11?? by Jamie+Zawinski · 2003-01-07 14:02 · Score: 2

I can't imagine switching to MacOS X and then continuing to willingly inflict the X Windows Disaster on myself. I mean, wouldn't that be the whole point of switching?

But of course the only question that really matters is, does XScreenSaver work properly under OSXX11?

"Open Source - We Think It's Great" by vought · 2003-01-07 14:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

Who else but Linux devotees goes to a Linux convention? People don't use operating systems as their job - they usually do something else.

My point is, that by promoting the ideas and benefits of Open Source to Graphic Artists, Travelling Business People, "Creative Types" and the Casual Mac User(tm), Apple is doing more to promote open source among non-technical people than any other company out there - at least any other company my grandmother has heard of, anyway.

Here's a screen shot:

Apple Keynote Screen Shot

Is Safari based on Konqueror?? by blakespot · 2003-01-07 14:09 · Score: 2

Is Safari based on Konqueror?? Truly??

Where is this shown?

blakespot

--
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com

Obligatory Safari comments (posting from it now) by wirelessbuzzers · 2003-01-07 14:23 · Score: 2

Like every mac geek out there, I have to post my comments on the new browser. So here goes:

1) It's bitching fast! Much faster than Moz for rendering HTML. Marginally faster than Chimera. Loads fast, light, runs fast, downloads fast.

2) Nice interface! Google toolbar too! I'm not a huge fan of brushed metal and similar iCandy, but this was really well done. The bookmarks are especially nice. Good default fonts too (although white on black would be nice for generic text files, but hey, what can you do?

3) A bit buggy. Especially with java. Some of the defaults are messy. But hey, it's a beta.

4) Missing features: Everything is drag-n-droppable except text, which is mostly what I want to drag-n-drop. No tabs. No "always ask" mode for cookies. No sidebar, but I don't care so much about that. And worst, no way to give them feedback other than bug reports (don't send a bug report containing a feature request; that will just piss them off. Email them instead, I don't know where. Forums?)

--
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.

Re:Anatomy sized notebook by thedbp · 2003-01-07 14:35 · Score: 3, Interesting

are you kidding me?!?!

i want one i want one i want one i want one ... for a cool 2.1K you can sweeten the deal w/ a superdrive. take it home and hook it up to my bad ass 17" CRT Apple Studio Display for serious design work; its small enough to fit under the monitor. add my Pro keyboard and Graphire, and i've got something worlds better than what i have now with built in bluetooth and a 54Mbps AirPort card. and its so freaking small and light that it isn't something i have to decide whether or not i take it with me.

it just comes with me.

now i'm sorry i bought that palm! this would pretty much replace it. i have no need for a slim-down under-powered pocket pc when i can have something like this so gosh-darned small.

Gecko v. KHTML in Safari by kalidasa · 2003-01-07 15:04 · Score: 2

I'm disappointed that Apple didn't convert Chimera to Safari and so provide improvements to the Gecko engine. On the other hand, given David Hyatt's presence on the Safari team, I assume they at least made an informed decision.

As I see it, the disadvantages to using Gecko are mainly 1. the huge size of the code base, 2. the relationship with AOL/TW, 3. the slowness of the engine (relative to KHTML, if my day's work with Safari is any guide).

The disadvantages to using KHTML: not as standards compliant (though it is standards-based, like Gecko and Opera and OmniWeb; it is more compliant I believe than OmniWeb is).

The disadvantages of Safari over Chimera: no tabs; don't like the bookmarks UI much, not as configurable, and I like having a status bar.

The Safari beta seems more stable than Chimera. That's not saying much, though, as Chimera's one problem is stability.

Ultimately the presence of a KHTML-based Apple browser is good for open source, and what's good for open source is good for Mozilla. The competition may also be good for Chimera (and I doubt Apple sees Chimera as something it wants quashed). Also, the entry of a new non-IE browser with instant market share (I'd love to know how many Safari users there are already, just this evening) is good for web standards.

Posted with Safari by a Mozilla user.

Re:Gecko v. KHTML in Safari by Coretti · 2003-01-08 02:14 · Score: 2, Informative

The disadvantages of Safari over Chimera: no tabs; don't like the bookmarks UI much, not as configurable, and I like having a status bar.

Have you looked under the View menu? Or hit Command-\ ?

The status bar is there, it's just hidden at first.
Re:Gecko v. KHTML in Safari by kalidasa · 2003-01-08 05:36 · Score: 2

Have you looked under the View menu? Or hit Command-\ ?

Thanks, Coretti. Yeah, I noticed that last night after I posted this, and felt like an idiot. It's more configurable than I thought it is.

12" Powerbook. Great. Too bad about Nvidia by obi · 2003-01-07 15:16 · Score: 2

Dammit. I was considering getting an Ibook, but knew had to wait for MWSF. The new, small powerbook is GREAT, except for 1 thing: the NVidia graphics card.

I really wish they threw in an ATI9000 in there. the Geforce has no Pixel/Vertex Shaders, which I wanted to play with. And second, and more importantly, it has no 3D drivers for linux, not even closed ones.

Don't get me wrong, MacOS X is nice and all, but a bit too restricted to my taste. Good to run the occasional proprietary soft on, but for all the real work I'd prefer Linux.

Why, oh why doesn't nvidia release drivers for Linux PPC!! They have some for Linux AMD64, IA64, X86... UGH!

David Hyatt is on the Safari team? by X_Caffeine · 2003-01-07 15:27 · Score: 2

Does that mean the death of Chimera?

--
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.

Re:David Hyatt is on the Safari team? by hysterion · 2003-01-07 15:44 · Score: 4, Informative

He just posted a few comments.

--
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes

Hats off to OroborOSX by ReadParse · 2003-01-07 15:54 · Score: 5, Insightful

So when I found that Apple had come out with X11 for OS X, the first thing I thought was "So what? That's already been done. Somewhere along the way (probably while waiting for the new X11's "Optimizing" process to finish), I went over to the OroborOSX site to see if they had mentioned Apple's new X11, and that was when I remembered what's so cool about (most of) the open source community.

They didn't bash it. They didn't knock it. They didn't even complain about it. They said something like, "How does this affect our project? We don't know. Download it. Check it out. Don't forget to back up the X11 directories beforehand, just in case." And they linked to a message forum thread on their site that had been created to talk about this new product from Apple. Even in the forum, there was very little criticism of Apple's X11 product, and everything critical they had to say was constructive.

Even though this product could completely obliterate the need for their software, they were open to an alternative. They didn't go into FUD mode and immediately issue press releases bashing the "competition".

One could argue that they have no reason to get upset or concerned, because they were giving their software away anyway. No money to be made or lost, right? So take your ball and go home. Not so. You can't tell me there's no pride in Open Source. These people found a void and filled it, and the void could very well be filled AGAIN by the very people who caused the void in the first place. It would be very understandable for the OroborOSX team to get a little miffed.

Hats off to these guys for representing the best of the Open Source Community, which most often really DOES seem to be about ensuring that we all have the very best software that we can get, no matter who makes it.

Now I'll check to see if my "optimization" is done yet, and I'll begin my little evaluation of Apple's new effort. But I will be very careful to REMEMBER who has already been here and to not forget the work that they have done. Now that they have been here, the bar has been RAISED for Apple and they will have to produce quality software. This is a great role for Open Source software, if nothing else.

Cheers,
RP

Re:Hats off to OroborOSX by TellarHK · 2003-01-07 17:15 · Score: 2

I have to wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. I believe the OroborOSX team did an excellent job, and had I the time to really get into using it, it would have really become a staple of my powerbook. Thanks, whoever you all are.

--
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Re:Hats off to OroborOSX by Junta · 2003-01-08 15:55 · Score: 2

As much as I loved OrborOSX, I have to say this was very much needed. One, the integration is even smoother with Apple's X11, and secondly, acceleration for 2D and 3D operations was very needed.

--
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.

Re:Other stories by ealar+dlanvuli · 2003-01-07 16:10 · Score: 2

Phoenix borowed quite alot from the mac GUI, thats why it's such a good windows app. Seems the last program to do that (Excel) ended up doing quite well also. Interesting trend, I wonder why it is (note sarcasm).

--
I live in a giant bucket.

Re:Other stories by jericho4.0 · 2003-01-07 16:22 · Score: 2

While there are things I liked about Mac IE over PC IE, it was slow to load, slow to render, and broke down with pngs.

I've been using Safari all day. It's my new browser of choice.

--
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis

Re:Safari is the fastest Mac browser by jericho4.0 · 2003-01-07 16:26 · Score: 2

I totally agree. Fast, lightweight, and highly complient. I bet we'll see tabbed browsing and other features introduced very soon.

--
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis

Examples! by prockcore · 2003-01-07 17:19 · Score: 2

No offense to KDE which I hold oh so dear over any other WM system, but Gecko is just a better engine.

A perfect example are the articles at www.iht.com. They work perfectly under Gecko, IE, and Opera. They don't work at all under KHTML-based browsers. Because KHTML doesn't support the overflow css tag (to name one or two)

Re:Other stories by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-07 17:23 · Score: 2

Are you kidding? I've used IE on both Mac and Windows, and have to say that the Mac version is much better

Then IE for Windows must suck. IE for OS 9 was pretty darned good, but IE for OS X is chiseled spam. It frequently fails to load pages correctly-- or at all-- and spins off into never-never land for no apparent reason. Not to mention being slow, slow, even on a fast dual-processor machine.

IE for OS 9 was the best browser of its day. IE for OS X is an unqualified disaster.

--

I write in my journal

Re:Anatomy sized notebook by King+Babar · 2003-01-07 17:39 · Score: 2

You missed one of the biggest speed improvements.
The RAM is much, much faster in the new PowerBook vs. the iBook. The 12" PowerBook is using 266MHz DDR, the iBook 100MHz SDRAM. I'd pay about $100 for that difference on its own (at least). >2.5-fold increase in RAM speed will make a huge difference in performance, probably about as much as the G3->G4 change.

Well, I won't know about the performance until I see one, but as far as I know, the DDR memory system implementation is still that weird suboptimal one forced upon them by memory bus issues. In other words, you might get some improvement in memory bandwidth, but not as much as you might like. When I tried to "guesstimate" the improvement overall, I factored in the DDR, but not as highly as the G4, which is pretty key for things like iPhoto in particular (or so it seems to me).

We're talking Mac's here, I would have thought someone would've mentioned that its not just MHz that matters by now:)

That's true, but given enough truth serum I have to report that something even as old and klunky as the IBM Thinkpad A21p just completely stomps on the current G3 offerings in terms of speed...on the other hand, that sucker is huge, has a wireless card that sticks out almost 2 inches, and runs Win2K. *That's* the stuff that matters to me.

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Babar

PDF Export by vanguard · 2003-01-07 17:45 · Score: 2

FYI, everything that can print had PDF export on the mac. Converting to a PDF is part of the printing process in OSX. What I'm getting at here is that mac users already have PDF export in ppt. Vanguard

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That which does not kill me only makes me whinier

Re:PDF Export by King+Babar · 2003-01-08 05:25 · Score: 2

FYI, everything that can print had PDF export on the mac. Converting to a PDF is part of the printing process in OSX. What I'm getting at here is that mac users already have PDF export in ppt. Vanguard

Um, yeah. I did know that of course, since that's how I sanitize read-only Word documents. I probably did have something in mind back there, but I have no idea what it was now. :-)

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Babar

Re:i don't like Safari by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-07 17:55 · Score: 2

has no keychain support

It does, but only for HTTP auth passwords, not passwords you enter into a CGI form.

doesn't show the link when mouseover

Turn on the status bar. (Hint: cool stuff can be found under the View menu.)

the metalic look is no good, but it's more of a personal perference and it's minor.

You can turn it off if it really means that much to you. See other posts for the NIB trick.

auto complete of url is not as convinent as chimera. typing www.apple goes nowhere.

Use the same number of keystrokes and type "apple.com."

all downloads goes to the download folder, saving to other places is not even an option

Yes, but dragging-and-dropping from your downloads folder is. Quicker and easier, too.

so what should i do with all these files in the download folder? clean them up from time to time?

Not to put it bluntly, but yes. Keeping your own folders clean is still something you have to do manually.

snapback? give me a break. it's just one of the tiny feature on the google toolbar.

SnapBack works any time you type a URL into the address bar. You can also invoke it at any time by using the "Mark page for SnapBack" item under the History menu, or typing command-option-M.

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I write in my journal

I copied my proxy configs by SHEENmaster · 2003-01-07 17:55 · Score: 2

from the mosaic man pages. No other ones had the information and "which manual should I RTFM?" fall on deaf IRC ears.

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You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.

KLyX by jbolden · 2003-01-07 17:57 · Score: 2

If you remember there used to be a KDE word processor called KLyX which is based on LyX. LyX has genuine advantages that Word doesn't (which is not to say its a better product but unlike most of the compitition its not obviously worse). My guess is that KLyX could be easily resinced again and or Apple could just create "AppleLyX" (or something. With some interface work + feature enhancements (both of which Apple is good at) LyX/KLyX/AppleLyX could easily be a substantially better product than Word:

-- professional quality typesetting
-- good handeling of complex documents
-- logical document design (vs. graphical design)
-- truly cross platform
-- excellent printer support
-- support for complex fonts (important for asia).

etc...

I've always believed that LyX should be where open source focuses for the Word processor. Its going to be impossible to chase the .doc format; its not going to be impossible to beat a product that hasn't changed much since 1993.

Re:KLyX by jovlinger · 2003-01-08 01:48 · Score: 2

I dunno. TeX is turing complete. There is a reason why pdf is preferred over ps: people like knowing that the fractal they're printing isn't being generated on the fly (pretty cool actually).

The thing is that turing completeness makes it undecidable whether a document ever produces output, and makes it basically impossible to reason about the internal structure. PS survived as long as it did because most people stuck to document structuring CONVENTIONS, with semantically meaningful comments.

yuck.

Mind you, that said, I LOVE TeX, but I don't think it's what my sister should use.
Re:KLyX by jbolden · 2003-01-08 03:02 · Score: 2

Well your mixing up levels here. LyX resolves to TeX which resolves to postscript which resolves to "stable version" ~ .pdf. You can similarly have Word produce postscript and pass direct postscript comments through a Word doc. Certainly .pdf is much more limited than postscript but dvipdf works fine so issues with postscript can be handled.

BTW my wife does humanities stuff. More and more I see the where TeX would have worked much better:

a) The need for translation fonts
b) The need to be able to search for certain types of interaction
c) The need for databases to work well with her material
d) The need for electronic versions to be stable across decades

All these things TeX works much better than word for.

2 levels of browsers by jbolden · 2003-01-07 18:07 · Score: 2

Here is an example of where it is useful that I don't think is uncommon

I often have multiple webpages open on unrelated topics like: foreign newspaper, yahoo email and slashdot. When I'm reading a web page I often want to fork to a link and get to it latter. Related webpages go in tabs unrelated go in seperate windows.

Re:bullshit by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-07 18:08 · Score: 2

Depends on? No. OS X "depends on" the kernel and the user space utilities. The compiler is not a big deal (and besides, NeXT and Apple practically did all the work on the Objective C parts of GCC anyway); if it weren't for GCC, it would be some other Objective C compiler. Same with KHTML. If it hadn't been KHTML, it would have been something else. (In fact, I'd be willing to guess that Apple would have written their own HTML rendering component if KHTML hadn't been available or suitable.)

The "GNU/Linux" (whatever) community really hasn't contributed a damn thing to Apple or to OS X, except providing a UNIX-based operating system that, by comparison, makes OS X look even sweeter than it is.

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I write in my journal

Re:i don't like Safari by anarkhos · 2003-01-07 19:12 · Score: 2

You forgot to mention System Preferences still lack a panel to change the file type mappings. You still have to use IE for that.

FYI: You can change the main browser window to not be "textured" using interface builder. I did this, the result is pleasing.

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>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life

Safari mounts ftp sites on desktop! by ruiner13 · 2003-01-07 19:35 · Score: 4, Informative

I've been playing with Safari, and I just found out that when you connect to an FTP site through it, it uses the built-in finder FTP support and mounts the site on the Desktop. pretty slick if you ask me! If this has been posted already, I'm sorry, I didn't feel like reading through all 800+ previous posts.

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today is spelling optional day.

Re:But where's the funny helmet? by Chris+Johnson · 2003-01-07 19:35 · Score: 2

*poing*

Somehow I am not sure you meant to inspire instant raging browser-lust in those reading ;)

I realise you meant that as a form of mockery, but I guess you didn't USE Cyberdog. I did, and it was absolutely addictive. It was 'integrated' in the sense of being quite faceless and characterless, no splash screens, clean, elegant, nifty UI, everything about it would've been perfect if it had only been a normal program using current but not too ornate HTML.

Now, Safari is some form of that, only using current but not too ornate HTML. What's not to like?

DVI is bad for notebooks by g4dget · 2003-01-07 19:44 · Score: 2

I have a notebook for travel. The fewer cables I carry the better. VGA is a must for presentations, and if all you have is a DVI connector, you have to carry the cable. I think Apple made a mistake leaving out the VGA connector on the higher-end G4s.

OpenOffice Final Beta out by wfolta · 2003-01-07 19:47 · Score: 2, Informative

They announced it today evidently, even lower under the radar than the Apple X11 release: http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/index.html I'm downloading it now at a pitifully slow 12KB.sec.

X11 "native" support just like Carbon by g4dget · 2003-01-07 19:51 · Score: 2

Yeah, like OpenOffice under X11 has any chance of remotely looking like an OS X App

Do you complain about Classic apps on OS X as well? Do you think Carbon apps are "foreign" on OS X or have trouble looking like native apps just because they use a different API?

It took some work for Apple to make Carbon apps look like OS X, but they got it done. If anything, it's easier for X11, many X11 toolkits and apps already have all the necessary theming and rebinding in place--they can look as much like Aqua apps as Apple's lawyers allow it.

Re:X11 "native" support just like Carbon by Julian+Morrison · 2003-01-07 23:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

Look isn't the point.

Look and feel and expected behavior and interoperability are the point.

Ever tried to use an app that emulates your OS's native widgets with skins? It doesn't look right, it ignores global color and font settings, it ignores UI guidelines, it behaves differently when you drag the scrollbars, it uses its own oddball keystroke commands, you can't drag-n-drop to or from it... bleh.
Re:X11 "native" support just like Carbon by g4dget · 2003-01-08 05:10 · Score: 2

Ever tried to use an app that emulates your OS's native widgets with skins? It doesn't look right, it ignores global color and font settings, it ignores UI guidelines, it behaves differently when you drag the scrollbars, it uses its own oddball keystroke commands, you can't drag-n-drop to or from it... bleh.
You mean like Carbon on OS X? Sure, Carbon apps are annoying, but I can live with them, as can apparently most other people.
Seriously, this isn't about "skinning". X11 widget sets are often highly reconfigurable: color and font settings will follow system guidelines and keystrokes are reconfigurable. Drag-and-drop integration is something Apple could handle in the X11 server (and many Carbon and Cocoa apps, unfortunately, have serious limitations on dnd anyway).
X11 support for OS X could be as good as Carbon support, if not better. Apple just has to want it and let it happen. And that's what they seem to be realizing, common prejudices like yours notwithstanding.

Re:Safari like IE? by Melantha_Bacchae · 2003-01-07 20:07 · Score: 3, Informative

dfj225 wrote:

> Hummm...everyone on earth complained about IE being
> fully integrated into Windows, but when Apple gets the
> bright idea to do it with their next browser, people seem
> to think its a good idea.

Safari is integrated into OS X the same way any well written Mac program is.

Otherwise, Safari is just a file. A special file called a package, but from the user's point of view, just a file. Try this little exercise:

Drag the Safari application to the Trash. Now double-click on the Trash, and drag Safari back out of the Trash window. Repeat as many times as necessary.

Now try this on Windows. Well, actually, you can't. But you can hide it on Windows XP (if you haven't already hidden five of your special applications). This is thanks to a settlement in an antitrust case that dragged on for years. In order to get this wonderful feature (of hiding, not uninstalling, the apps you didn't want in the first place), you have to download Service Pack 1 (it's huge), and agree that Microsoft can access all your data and install anything it wants to on your computer. Great, now you don't have to look at the IE icon any more!

If that does not make the difference obvious, consider that Microsoft stated in a court of law that their operating system would cease to function if the browser were uninstalled. Did OS X cease to function when you dragged the Safari icon to the Trash?

The Microsoft case also involved special antitrust rules that only apply to mean bullies who have a monopoly and abuse it. These rules don't apply to Apple. Even if they did, Apple makes it easy for you to chuck their browser and set up another one of your choosing as the default.

Thanks to Apple's little present to the KHTML/Konqueror team, Konqueror and derivatives will share the speediness and improvements Safari made to the core engine. This will benefit Linux (and any other OS Konqueror runs on).

Do you really see Microsoft doing anything that would help Linux, especially if it involved the GPL?

"Your way of thinking is completely different from mine!"
Shinoda, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)

Re:no snake oil ssl support in safari! by MrMickS · 2003-01-07 20:34 · Score: 2, Informative

There doesn't seem to be any certificate authority management either :(

Oh well, bug report sent to Apple. There needs to be a way to override this.

--
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.

many bugs... by jericho4.0 · 2003-01-07 22:32 · Score: 2

Here is a big list o'things wrong with Safari. I've been using it all day and love it.

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"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis

Re:Why not to use Gecko? by DrXym · 2003-01-08 00:54 · Score: 2

Eh? Gecko is threadsafe, assuming you use it correctly, calling objects on the same thread that you were handed an XPCOM pointer to them on. And if you want to call an object from some other thread you can do so assuming you marshal the call or know the object in question is free threaded. Most of this is transparent since XPConnect can create proxy objects that marshal calls between threads over an event queue.

In fact, it would prove quite a good fit for Cocoa, which isn't multithreaded either unless you explicitly kick off a new thread. And if you do go multithreaded then you could still call objects in the ways listed above.

Certainly Gecko may have some threading issues, but these are more to do with what-if scenarios that no one has tested, e.g. what if you run the layout engine on a worker thread? etc. My guess would be yes it would work but until someone tries, who knows?

As for KHTML, I doubt the answer is likely to be any different. A glance through lxr.kde.org suggests that large chunks of it are thread unsafe too, e.g. two threads programatically altering the DOM are not protected from stomping over each other.

Re: 12" Powerbook? by Saint+Fnordius · 2003-01-08 01:30 · Score: 2

The biggest differences are things like the true dual monitor mode (not just mirroring), higher resolutions available on the external monitor, more extesibility and the G4 processor.

I personally like it. This is the perfect mobile replacement for my home desktop computer; an iBook is (in my eyes) basically made for laptop use only.

Re:This will make toasty tech mad by WebMasterJoe · 2003-01-08 01:51 · Score: 2

Holy bad web design, batman! Animated .gif's as a background image was only cool the first time it could be done, and even then it wasn't cool. And nobody wants to hear some midi file start up when you open the page. Considering how little this guy seems to know about what web pages should look like, I don't think his opinions on IE are worth anything.

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I really hate signatures, but go to my website.

lol by Ender+Ryan · 2003-01-08 01:59 · Score: 2

You complete ass! Apple is using stuff developed by the GNU/Linux community, and you come back saying THAT! You arrogant, pompous ass!

WTF is your problem with recognizing that GNU/Linux has made software that has benefitted Apple?

And with regards to GCC, sure, Apple may have developed the Objective C parts of the compiler, but unix tools(everything on OSX that isn't part of the GUI) aren't written in Objective C.

Simply un-fucking-believable...

The fact is, Apple chose to use tools developed by the GNU/Linux community, because they were they best tools to suit what they needed. Props to Apple, they make great stuff, I like them, and I'm glad they have been willing to work with other people, contributing code, etc. You, OTOH, are a complete ass.

--
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden

Re:lol by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-08 03:28 · Score: 2

WTF is your problem with recognizing that GNU/Linux has made software that has benefitted Apple?

Nothing. My problem is when somebody says that OS X depends on Linux or GNU software. That isn't remotely true.

And with regards to GCC, sure, Apple may have developed the Objective C parts of the compiler, but unix tools(everything on OSX that isn't part of the GUI) aren't written in Objective C.

Heh. That's right. They were written by the FreeBSD developers. Not the "GNU/Linux community," whatever the heck that means.

Apple chose to use tools developed by the GNU/Linux community, because they were they best tools to suit what they needed.

Yes. But the GNU tools in use at Apple aren't core to their work. OS X doesn't "depend on" GNU or Linux in any sense at all. OS X "depends on" Mach and FreeBSD. Apple's relationship to the "GNU/Linux community" is a competitive one, not a cooperative one. Apple is (rightly!) trying to lure users away from Linux and get them to use OS X for their desktop and laptop computers.

Oh, and by the way, how's that anger management course working out for you? Doesn't seem to be helping much, from what I can see.

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I write in my journal
Re:lol by Ender+Ryan · 2003-01-08 04:07 · Score: 2

Nothing. My problem is when somebody says that OS X depends on Linux or GNU software. That isn't remotely true.
I never said in depended on Linux, just GNU/free software tools, and in it's current for it indeed does. You stupidly make the point that if it wasn't for the free software that Apple is using, they could develop/use something else. Duh! But they DIDN'T! But sure, I see/saw your point, as stupid as it was, but then you went on to make ridiculous disparaging remarks towards GNU/Linux developers.
Heh. That's right. They were written by the FreeBSD developers. Not the "GNU/Linux community," whatever the heck that means.
There you go again with the starwmen! That is totally orthogonal to my point. GCC was developed by/for the GNU project, which was what I was talking about.
Apple's relationship to the "GNU/Linux community" is a competitive one, not a cooperative one.
Another ridiculous statement by a ridiculous person. Sure, they are definately in competition, but they are ALSO cooperating with the free software community, and doing so very openly. You obviously haven't looked at the correspondence between Apple developers and free software developers, you just blather on in your total ignorance.
Oh, and by the way, how's that anger management course working out for you? Doesn't seem to be helping much, from what I can see.
Go fuck yourself. At least I don't have to hold un-fucking-believable contradictions as truth to be content with the platform I use. You, OTOH, can't even admit that the platform that you use has benefitted a lot from the free software community you so despise.
Please don't bother replying, I'm not going to argue with you while you continue to beat ridiculous strawmen.

--
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Re:lol by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-08 04:26 · Score: 2

You stupidly make the point that if it wasn't for the free software that Apple is using, they could develop/use something else. Duh!

Doesn't that mean, then, that Apple doesn't depend on those things? Hmm?

GCC was developed by/for the GNU project, which was what I was talking about.

Look, please make up your mind, okay? Are we talking about the compiler, or the user space utilities? If we're talking about the compiler, then Apple's developers wrote most of it, and they could easily use a different compiler if it came down to that. No dependency there. If we're talking about the user space, it all came from FreeBSD, not from the GNU collection. No dependency there, either. Clear now?

Sure, they are definately in competition, but they are ALSO cooperating with the free software community, and doing so very openly.

The "GNU/Linux community" does not equal the "free software community." The free software community includes entities like the FreeBSD project and the Mach project, the two projects that have contributed most to OS X. Apple does not cooperate with the "GNU/Linux community." They compete.

You, OTOH, can't even admit that the platform that you use has benefitted a lot from the free software community you so despise.

Again, please make up your mind. Are we talking about the "free software community," or the "GNU/Linux community?" They're not the same thing. Apple works with the free software community. Apple does not work with the "GNU/Linux community." Got it?

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I write in my journal

Re:IE & Powerpoint replacements - is Microsoft by pi+radians · 2003-01-08 03:14 · Score: 2

Also, if IE was your default internet browser after installing Safari it is automatically changed to Safari. This doesn't happen if any other app is you default browser.

Very interesting.

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sin(6cos(r)+5A)

Re:Anatomy sized notebook by Halo1 · 2003-01-08 03:29 · Score: 2

Quartz Extreme has nothing to do with AltiVec, it only depends on the video chipset (and the Radeon 7500 in the iBooks supports Quartz Extreme just fine).

--
Donate free food here

Re:I know they are slow... by NDPTAL85 · 2003-01-08 04:00 · Score: 2

Not only is that Pentium 3.2Ghz faster than an out of date Mac Plus, but its also faster than a brand new off the line Dual CPU G4 1.2Ghz PowerMac! This is not counting one single application in the known universe, Photoshop, that seems to disobey the laws of microprocessing physics.

Thanks for playing Trying to Setup a Strawman or Fallacy though. I really enjoyed it and hope you come back soon to play it again!

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Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.

Slashdot peeve number two billion one by Lovejoy · 2003-01-08 05:01 · Score: 2

orders of magnitude better than their previous effort.

Allow me to be a bit pedantic, well, very pedantic, and quote Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that word. I doan think it means what you think it means."

If something is "orders of magnitude" better it has to be at least 100 times better.

Yes, XP is MUCH better than 9x, and ME, but only slightly better than 2000, IMO. Not even approaching one order of magnitude better.

</high horse>

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Yes, it's a blog. Sorry if that offends you.

Re:Slashdot peeve number two billion one by Bert64 · 2003-01-10 20:16 · Score: 2

And i was comparing 2k/xp collectively as being better than 9x..
And to be pedantic, "orders of magnitude" is a phrase rather than a word.

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Re:TiVo via Rendezvous? Yuck, improve Tivo 1st! by swb · 2003-01-08 06:47 · Score: 2

Tivo will never allow for tranferring recordings off of the Tivo. Even the Tivo hackers who have done deep disassembly of Tivo hardware don't tread there, as they know its off limits.

Transfer of programs to Tivo may be some kind of an option, but of EXTREMELY limited value until Tivo releases some new PVR with a real GigE interface. You're not moving any video anywhere with the USB-Ethernet interface that Tivo will support.

Web-based programming of Tivo may be something that is actually coming (I believe the series 1 Tivos with hacked-in ethernet can run an add-on that does something like this), but I doubt it will be anything that requires or uses any third-party computers or software, just a small built-in web interface in the Tivo itself.

Re:sweet OS X by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-08 08:27 · Score: 2

Using the modem is the only thing my PowerBook can do under OS X that it can't under Debian.

Wow! Debian can run Photoshop, iTunes, and Word, both play and burn DVD's (video and data), rip CD's to AAC, watch QuickTime movies, interface with your iPod, sync to both your Bluetooth phone and your Palm, run Project Builder and Inferface Builder, run Sherlock, and play Medal of Honor? Amazing. Truly, this is a wonderful time to be alive.

Either that, or you could just be fucking wrong. Whichever.

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I write in my journal

Re:This will make toasty tech mad by WebMasterJoe · 2003-01-08 09:57 · Score: 2

He is really smart, but that is what makes it FUNNY

Bad, annoying design is not the same as humor. And being smart doesn't mean he can design web pages. I could understand if maybe the rest of his site didn't also look like crap. Why does each page need a different background pattern? That first link has some horrible color combinations, too. You can't get away with saying he intentionally made the page look bad when every other page on the site sucks, too.

--
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.

Safari... by ellem · 2003-01-08 15:01 · Score: 2

Well it is pretty and all but where's the tabbed browsing?

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This .sig is fake but accurate.

Re:Not bad - My only complaint by MoneyT · 2003-01-08 16:52 · Score: 2

Don't feel so bad, I just recently purchased a powerbook from them (what was the TOL model before), I'm almost half tempted to send it back, pay the restock fee and buy the new one.

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T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984

Re:Hierarchical windows by King+Babar · 2003-01-08 17:24 · Score: 2

If you really want to change something as fundamental as windowing, you don't want to do it on a per-application level. That gives you both inconsistency, and the ability only to do this hierarchical organization trick only with windows from one app.

Well, I would have no strong objection to a tabbed word processor, either, myself.

But I think the stronger argument here is that this is not the 90s anymore, and while the Microsoft "the whole OS is a web browser!" notion is clunky and weird, while Mozilla's "the browser is the kitchen sink!" is bloated, the notion that your web browser is just another app seems really dubious to me.

The more general solution to this is multiple desktops. You can then put all you browser windows relating to a project on one desktop, along with all your editor sessions in which you're taking notes, and all the mail messages which have useful reference material, and your IM conversations with your colleagues, etc, etc.

Been there. Seen it. Liked it a bit, too, but along the way I realized that what I really wanted in life was as few visible windows as necessary. Man, you should have seen my standard gnome set-up at one point... And I really did want Mac OS X to be like that. What cured me was cmd-tab an an invisible dock. That way, I maximized screen real-estate, but, whenever I wanted, could go immediately to a maximized open app and cycle through its windows (or not).

I also have an issue with the way most multiple desktops seem to think I should organize my work. So, in a nice workshop, you might have different workstations for your router and your band saw and what not and a separate area for painting. You might have multiple projects going, but it's usually easy enough to see what goes where. This is an analogy for the notion of multiple applications each with multiple documents. Now, you could imagine a virtual workshop of some kind where each project has its own bandsaw and router and what not, and that's the multiple desktops, with one desk per project. Interestingly (to me), I don't find that idea as attractive (with a couple of telling exceptions I won't go into here). What I usually do on my Linux boxes is set up a simple 3x3 screens desktop, plonk down 3 xterms, and emacs, an acrobat, 3 screens of (tabbed) web browser and leave one screen for Matlab or whatever other "special" app I need around. This is a nice set-up, and I thought I'd miss it in OSX, but I ended up not missing it because I could still go "anwhere" with just key strokes, and didn't ever run into the problem where I would "run out" of space if I needed (say) a space to run xfig. Now, a nice virtualdesktop could probably handle that, too, but OS X does this with a lot more style and grace than I would have expected.

I've been around for longer than I'd care to admit, but I have to say that I'm impressed with how much nicer my computing environment is these days than it used to be the 80s, on Mac, unix box, or PC.

--

Babar

Adding local CA certificates to Safari by nsayer · 2003-01-08 17:46 · Score: 2

I figured out how to add self-signed and alternate CA root certs to Safari. See how here.

Re: 12" Powerbook? by Saint+Fnordius · 2003-01-08 19:40 · Score: 2

Ah, I knew about the firmware solution, but I'm not *that* big of a geek to risk this. I think a lot of Apple customers are also loathe to void their warranties. No, I like the fact that this was designed for all sorts of professional usage. It can scale up AND down.

I envision using this with my old 21" monitor and external keyboard/mouse combo in the home office, and doing e-mail/web surfing in front of the TV with the rest of the family. Why like that? Well, my wife like to haul out that hoary "you don't like to spend time with me" just because I prefer to do my private correspondence in the evening. If it was pen and paper, I could do it in the living room. Instead, I'm currently forced to retire to the HO, and leave conversation range. And that's why I'm drooling so badly over this little floor wax/dessert topping thingy.

Still, thanks for the tip. I just wanted to clarify my position.

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