So much has happened while I've been away (well, I haven't really been away, but I've been too busy to write.) I'm going to try to catch up on a few highlights.
First up, the mozilla web browser has finally reached 1.0. They are calling it 1.0 Release Candidate 1 (RC1.) So while it's not the official we promise it's done 1.0 release (which should come in the fall) it is a maybe it's done 1.0 release. And really it is done. I'm sure they will do a lot of polishing between now and the final 1.0, but it's ready to go today. It really works well. I strongly encourage everyone to check it out. Moving away from Internet Explorer is very important for the future health (and diversity) of the web. You can download it here (9 to 14 megs, depending on your platform.)
I've been using Mozilla as my main browser since 0.9.4. I thought 0.9.8 was basically good enough - but it had some serious text area weirdness that kept me from recommending it. I'm all about text areas. 1.0 RC1 fixed that and other less anoying stuff. I still don't use mail, or news reader, or composer, or IM - but the browser itself is rock solid (on OS X at least,) renders fast, and once you use tab browsing there is no going back.
It took a long time, but this really is a triumph.
I'll also note chimera which is a project to build a native Mac OS X browser using gecko, the heart of the Mozilla browser project. (Mozilla is all open, so it's not only good in itself, but it enables all sorts of other creative projects.) While I think Mozilla looks good on OS X, chimera looks amazing. Native OS X apps have access to sophisticated text rendering, and this puts it to good use. Chimera is only at 0.2.6, and not really usable yet. But if it gets there I'll switch.
If you're on OS X and want some guidence, click through to the comments below...
I'm running OS 8.6 on my Mac and want to switch over to Mozilla. What version do you recommend?
For OS X I recommend downloading from here (choose the MacOSX disk image of course.)
This will download 'mozilla-macosX-1.0rc1.smi.bin' to your desktop. This file should automatically unstuff itself to 'mozilla-macosX-1.0.0.smi'. If not, double click the first file, stuffit will open and unstuff it for you, leaving the second file.
If you are using a previous version of Mozilla you should quit that application. Go to your applications folder and rename the old mozilla folder to something else (maybe old_mozilla, or mozilla_.99.) If you have the Mozilla icon in your dock you should move it to the trash (just grab it - click once and don't release, and then drag it down the dock and into the trash.)
Then double click on the unstuffed mozilla .smi file. This will open disk copy which will verify the file and mount the disk image on your desktop (it will look like a little white external hard drive that says Mozilla for MacOS X.) Double click on that to open it up and drag the mozilla folder over to your applications folder. That's it.
Open up the new mozilla folder, grab the icon and drag it back into your dock. Now you can launch it from there.
Once it's running I recommend the following steps. (This is just what I do.)
In the Mozilla menu choose preferences. In the navigator category set it to start up with a blank page. Unselect all five buttons at the bottom of that screen (bookmarks, go, home, etc..) to clean up the interface as much as possible.
Click the arrow next to the navigator category to reveal the sub categories. Choose 'Tabbed Browsing'. Click the top two options, and the top one of the bottom three. You may want to experiment with the second one in the top category. Confusing to explain, but simple if you play around with it. This is for tabbed browsing. When you click on a link, hold down the click for a second before releasing the mouse and you will get a little pop up menu. Choose the top option 'open link in new tab' and you'll see how tabs work. Use it for awhile, and then try switching that second option in preferences ('load links in the background'.) Find what works best for you.
Then open the Privacy & Security category (click on the arrow next to it) and choose the Cookie sub category. On that screen click 'Enable cookies for the originating web site only' and click 'Ask me before storing cookie'.
Then click on the advanced category. Uncheck 'Enable java' if it is enabled. Then click the arrow next to advanced to reveal the advanced sub categories. Click on Scirpts & Windows. This is one of the best parts of Mozilla. Click 'Enable JavaScript for Navigator'. Then in the list below uncheck everything but the last three.
This is fucking brilliant. You can keep javascript on (which I would have never done before) but unchecking all those options means that it won't let people do all those nasty javascript tricks. No more pop up windows. No more resized browsers. No alternate text for mouse overs. Heaven.
Finally
And then I like to set up a few keywords. In the bookmarks menu click on 'manage bookmarks'. With that window open click on file in the top menu, and choose new -> bookmark. In the name field write 'google' (or whatever) and in the location filed put
http://www.google.com/search?q=%s
Now find the new bookmark you just made in the 'manage bookmarks' window we opened before. Click once to highlight it, and then click the edit menu and select properties... at the bottom (or click to highlight the bookmark and press command-i.) The properties window will display the name ('google'), the location ('http://www.google.com/search?q=%s') and then under that fill in 'g' for keyword. Click OK to close. You can close the 'manage bookmarks' window as well.
Now in your browser, where you usually type in web site addresses (this is the location field) you can type:
g whatever
and you will be taken directly to the results page of a google search on 'whatever'. You can use quotes just like you would in the google box. So:
g "grand central station"
will return results which have those three words in a row, while:
g grand central station
will return results which have those three words anywhere on a page.
This is really addictive. Especially combined with tabs. When I'm working (almost always in my browser) and I want to know something I just type command-t to open a new tab and then 'g' followed by whatever I want to know. Hit enter, and the results come. My hands don't even leave the keyboard. It's amazing how often I use google now that it is so easy. You should too.
You have to be running some version of 9.
I know, I know....
I thought so, but on the download page I found this:
Mozilla 0.9.9 - Completed March 11, 2002
Release Notes - The release notes contain installation instructions, system requirements, what's new, and a list of known issues that you should read before reporing a new bug.
Source Code Tarball (gzip, 36.7M) (bzip2, 27.3 MB) (sit.bin, 56 MB)
snip
(9.8 MB) MacOS 8.5 - 9.x MacBinary files require Stuffit Expander 4.5 or better talkback enabled Full Installer (12.8 MB) for reporting crash data. If you don't understand what the other MacOS builds are, then get this build.
I guess this is the only version available to below 9 users.
You might want to give it a shot anyway. It might work, but they just didn't want to support it (or the mac team doesn't want to deal with too many different OS versions for testing.) Then again, it's a big download over a dial up, and there is a good chance it won't work.
You might want to put 9.2.2 on your G3 anyway. That will definitely work.
adot's notblog has set me straight. I read the interview he mentions which is why I said the final release of Mozilla 1.0 would be in the fall. It did seem like a long way off. Should be in about a month if adot is correct.
Go on you, get offa Jim's site. That'll have to do until you get back.
|
First up, the mozilla web browser has finally reached 1.0. They are calling it 1.0 Release Candidate 1 (RC1.) So while it's not the official we promise it's done 1.0 release (which should come in the fall) it is a maybe it's done 1.0 release. And really it is done. I'm sure they will do a lot of polishing between now and the final 1.0, but it's ready to go today. It really works well. I strongly encourage everyone to check it out. Moving away from Internet Explorer is very important for the future health (and diversity) of the web. You can download it here (9 to 14 megs, depending on your platform.)
I've been using Mozilla as my main browser since 0.9.4. I thought 0.9.8 was basically good enough - but it had some serious text area weirdness that kept me from recommending it. I'm all about text areas. 1.0 RC1 fixed that and other less anoying stuff. I still don't use mail, or news reader, or composer, or IM - but the browser itself is rock solid (on OS X at least,) renders fast, and once you use tab browsing there is no going back.
It took a long time, but this really is a triumph.
I'll also note chimera which is a project to build a native Mac OS X browser using gecko, the heart of the Mozilla browser project. (Mozilla is all open, so it's not only good in itself, but it enables all sorts of other creative projects.) While I think Mozilla looks good on OS X, chimera looks amazing. Native OS X apps have access to sophisticated text rendering, and this puts it to good use. Chimera is only at 0.2.6, and not really usable yet. But if it gets there I'll switch.
If you're on OS X and want some guidence, click through to the comments below...
- jim 5-01-2002 5:20 pm
I'm running OS 8.6 on my Mac and want to switch over to Mozilla. What version do you recommend?
- steve 5-01-2002 5:43 pm
For OS X I recommend downloading from here (choose the MacOSX disk image of course.)
This will download 'mozilla-macosX-1.0rc1.smi.bin' to your desktop. This file should automatically unstuff itself to 'mozilla-macosX-1.0.0.smi'. If not, double click the first file, stuffit will open and unstuff it for you, leaving the second file.
If you are using a previous version of Mozilla you should quit that application. Go to your applications folder and rename the old mozilla folder to something else (maybe old_mozilla, or mozilla_.99.) If you have the Mozilla icon in your dock you should move it to the trash (just grab it - click once and don't release, and then drag it down the dock and into the trash.)
Then double click on the unstuffed mozilla .smi file. This will open disk copy which will verify the file and mount the disk image on your desktop (it will look like a little white external hard drive that says Mozilla for MacOS X.) Double click on that to open it up and drag the mozilla folder over to your applications folder. That's it.
Open up the new mozilla folder, grab the icon and drag it back into your dock. Now you can launch it from there.
Once it's running I recommend the following steps. (This is just what I do.)
In the Mozilla menu choose preferences. In the navigator category set it to start up with a blank page. Unselect all five buttons at the bottom of that screen (bookmarks, go, home, etc..) to clean up the interface as much as possible.
Click the arrow next to the navigator category to reveal the sub categories. Choose 'Tabbed Browsing'. Click the top two options, and the top one of the bottom three. You may want to experiment with the second one in the top category. Confusing to explain, but simple if you play around with it. This is for tabbed browsing. When you click on a link, hold down the click for a second before releasing the mouse and you will get a little pop up menu. Choose the top option 'open link in new tab' and you'll see how tabs work. Use it for awhile, and then try switching that second option in preferences ('load links in the background'.) Find what works best for you.
Then open the Privacy & Security category (click on the arrow next to it) and choose the Cookie sub category. On that screen click 'Enable cookies for the originating web site only' and click 'Ask me before storing cookie'.
Then click on the advanced category. Uncheck 'Enable java' if it is enabled. Then click the arrow next to advanced to reveal the advanced sub categories. Click on Scirpts & Windows. This is one of the best parts of Mozilla. Click 'Enable JavaScript for Navigator'. Then in the list below uncheck everything but the last three.
This is fucking brilliant. You can keep javascript on (which I would have never done before) but unchecking all those options means that it won't let people do all those nasty javascript tricks. No more pop up windows. No more resized browsers. No alternate text for mouse overs. Heaven.
Finally
And then I like to set up a few keywords. In the bookmarks menu click on 'manage bookmarks'. With that window open click on file in the top menu, and choose new -> bookmark. In the name field write 'google' (or whatever) and in the location filed put
http://www.google.com/search?q=%s
Now find the new bookmark you just made in the 'manage bookmarks' window we opened before. Click once to highlight it, and then click the edit menu and select properties... at the bottom (or click to highlight the bookmark and press command-i.) The properties window will display the name ('google'), the location ('http://www.google.com/search?q=%s') and then under that fill in 'g' for keyword. Click OK to close. You can close the 'manage bookmarks' window as well.
Now in your browser, where you usually type in web site addresses (this is the location field) you can type:
g whatever
and you will be taken directly to the results page of a google search on 'whatever'. You can use quotes just like you would in the google box. So:
g "grand central station"
will return results which have those three words in a row, while:
g grand central station
will return results which have those three words anywhere on a page.
This is really addictive. Especially combined with tabs. When I'm working (almost always in my browser) and I want to know something I just type command-t to open a new tab and then 'g' followed by whatever I want to know. Hit enter, and the results come. My hands don't even leave the keyboard. It's amazing how often I use google now that it is so easy. You should too.
- jim 5-01-2002 5:58 pm
You have to be running some version of 9.
I know, I know....
- jim 5-01-2002 5:59 pm
I thought so, but on the download page I found this:
Mozilla 0.9.9 - Completed March 11, 2002 Release Notes - The release notes contain installation instructions, system requirements, what's new, and a list of known issues that you should read before reporing a new bug. Source Code Tarball (gzip, 36.7M) (bzip2, 27.3 MB) (sit.bin, 56 MB)
snip
(9.8 MB) MacOS 8.5 - 9.x MacBinary files require Stuffit Expander 4.5 or better talkback enabled Full Installer (12.8 MB) for reporting crash data. If you don't understand what the other MacOS builds are, then get this build.
I guess this is the only version available to below 9 users.
- steve 5-01-2002 6:36 pm
You might want to give it a shot anyway. It might work, but they just didn't want to support it (or the mac team doesn't want to deal with too many different OS versions for testing.) Then again, it's a big download over a dial up, and there is a good chance it won't work.
You might want to put 9.2.2 on your G3 anyway. That will definitely work.
- jim 5-01-2002 6:45 pm
adot's notblog has set me straight. I read the interview he mentions which is why I said the final release of Mozilla 1.0 would be in the fall. It did seem like a long way off. Should be in about a month if adot is correct.
- jim 5-02-2002 10:32 pm
Go on you, get offa Jim's site. That'll have to do until you get back.
- jimlouis 11-26-2004 6:26 pm