The Lad’s mom was just here for the weekend. What a nightmare. But, instead of dredging that up, I shall instead take this time to tell you why I’m not going to be able to use Safari full time. It’s pretty easy, really. And I can sum it up for you into one word.
Gmail.
Huge fan of the Gmail I am. In fact, it’s the only thing that I have found that can actually manage the volume of email I have to sort through. Including the over 15K pieces of spam I receive every month. Nothing else even comes close.
Well, Google, in their infinite wisdom, has been making changes. Changes that are actually pretty cool but, and you probably saw this coming, don’t work with Safari. The big one is auto-complete.
I use auto-complete exclusively for filling in the To:, CC: and BCC: boxes. Without fail. 100% of the time. But one of the changes in Gmail has made that feature no longer work in Safari.
That’s ok, since I’ve been using IMAP and Mail.app, right?
Not so much.
IMAP in concept is a great idea. All of your email stored on a server and you can access it with a client on your desktop. Bonus with Gmail is that you can access with a kick ass web client as well. The problem, for me, is that is too slow. Or I have too many labels (folders for you desktop app users). And Spam is handled weird.
I can deal with the slow. But when I’m not notified of a new message because it is in the bottom of my label list, that is a bit of a pain in the arse. But, I do now exactly how many spam messages I have, always staring at me from the dock. Sure, I could turn that off and only have notifications about messages in my inbox, but what about the labels? This is problematic for me.
So, what I have done, is turned firefox into my web-based application running app. I’m still using Safari for general browsing, but for email (Gmail), news (Google Reader) and FTP (leave me alone about anything because I have tried them all and they all suck), I’m using FireFox. All set to tabs that open when it starts.
Now if the Mozilla guys could make FF run as fast as Safari under Leopard I would be a VERY happy guy.
14 Responses to “The Sunday Post XX3”
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November 12th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
you don’t like CyberDuck for FTP?
November 12th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Only 1 avian app is allowed on my system at a time, and for now it’s Adium.
But, the real reason? I haven’t used a program that crashed so much since Netscape 4. What a pile of junk. However, FireFTP is a fine app that run as an extension on FireFox and works great.
I’m picky about my FTP clients, and honestly, I haven’t found one for the Mac yet that I like.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:42 am
interesting, I’ve not had CyberDuck crash but I only ever use it to upload the WP files so that’s not very often, er, well fairly often these days I suppose. My biggest problem is that I can never remember which bird is Adium and which is CyberDuck and invariably launch the wrong one.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
if you don’t want the new gmail features you can still use the old version of gmail using the link in the top right; auto complete still works in Safari. Could be a stop gap until someone (Apple or Google) fixes it?
November 13th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Sure sure, but here’s the thing.
You have to click the ‘old version’ link everytime. It doesn’t remember. What a pain in the arse.
Much like having to remember to press the ctrl key before clicking
November 14th, 2007 at 10:44 am
you do?? ack, what a load of pants.!
November 14th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
This is new. My bank site does not work with Safari. Great.
November 15th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
One thing you can do (although who would want to) is to type an email with everyone’s email addresses in the ‘new’ version- after that, you’re set (it remembers it from now on)- I checked it in Safari and Firefox.
And, in my opinion, cyberduck sucks. That thing crashes more than a drunk in a kmart shopping cart…pony up for transmit or (gulp) coda..
November 15th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
db- two word: mighty mouse.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Coda is pretty sweet, if not pretty spendy, I’ll give ya that. I have only heard about the awesome that is transmit, but again, not free. I actually like using FireFTP because I can transfer the setting between Windows and Mac and it works exactly the same on both.
I didn’t know about that trick with FireFox. I might actually give that a while since FF is so much slower now.
Mighty mouse? Ick. Mice need 2 buttons. And a scroll wheel. Not work by voodoo and magic.
November 17th, 2007 at 8:11 am
I think I might shell out the $30 for transmit..out of all the ones I’ve tried (transmit, fetch, cyberduck, couple others) I think it works the best. Cyberduck times out all the friggin’ time (I’m using dreamhost, btw). But, maybe before I do I’ll try FireFTP.
So, am I the only one using Time Machine? To be honest, it’s not much better than superduper, but, I do like showing off it off to unsuspecting friends and family.
I picked up DVDpedia and Bookpedia (http://www.bruji.com/bookpedia/) a while back and they’re godsends for people like me who feel everything needs to be cataloged…
dB- did you ever download appfresh (free)? it is rather awesome.
November 17th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
I love Transmit so much I actually paid for it. Me likey Panic apps. I am using Time Machine, but only because I’m too lazy to set up Super Duper for regular updates. We’ll see which one is the best, next time my iMac’s hard drive crashes.
November 20th, 2007 at 2:08 am
I have thought about using Time Machine, but the every hour grab of cpu cycles scares me. I’m good with the thrice weekly SuperDuper! me thinks.
But maybe I’ll give it a whirl.
November 20th, 2007 at 6:04 am
It’s amazing how fast you get used to the regular cycling up of the hard drive. Even just sitting down watching tv, I hear the vibration and starting up of the drive and think “Welp, there goes Time Machine, backing up again”.