Apple Fans!

  • Thread starter HACKr
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I usually alternate computers between PCs and Macs. Early next year (tax refund time), my wife and I plan to buy 3 new systems-- 2 cheapo iBooks (or the equivalent) and a mini to use as a server/media unit.
 
Question to Mac users: What browser, instant messenger client, media player do you use?

As for me:

Browser:
Safari (Main) - simple and fast. I also love the fact that you can highlight a word and search Google, find the definition, etc. without having to copy and paste

I use Camino occasionally. I want to try out Shiira sometime, looks promising.

Instant Messenger:
Adium - very customizable and blends in well with OS X

Media Player:
Quicktime with Flip4Mac to play wmv files
VLC player
 
Browser – Safari 99% of the time. I’ll occasionally use Camino if a web developer decided to ignore Safari, and I use Firefox only when testing cross-browser compatibility of websites I’m building. (Only because Firefox handles widgets differently than Camino.)

IM – iChat. I used to use Adium, but keeping up with the development builds became annoying, I only use AIM, and Adium just isn’t reliable for some things (like Direct Connecting or File Transfer). I still keep an old copy of Adium on my HD though in case I ever need MSN or something else.

Media Player – QT with Flip4Mac WMV. I never liked VLC’s controller metaphor, so I just don’t bother (plus, I use themes, which always go better with QT than VLC).
 
Browser- Safari, and extremely so very rarely Explorer.

IM- I don't IM on my Mac. (Vhat in zeh vurld?)

Media- iTunes all the way!
 
Safari for browsing, but I might switch to Opera 9 when it goes full release. I loved the Opera 9 beta, but it couldn't handle flash. Once it can, it should be good.

Adium for IM. I love the customizability. I wish you could make the IM windows borderless, tho.

Media- VLC for DivX and WMV, QT for other video files, and iTunes for music. iTunes is pretty much the only music player you can use all the time in OSX, sadly :(

I find it funny, Sage that you use iChat, but so often had the Adium Duck as your avatar...
 
Event
I find it funny, Sage that you use iChat, but so often had the Adium Duck as your avatar...
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Yeah, I used to be a huge proponent of Adium – I even made and submitted a Message Style at one point. I only switched to iChat a few months ago (you’ll notice that’s when I dropped the duckie avatars ;)), because I decided that Adium was just getting too big to handle. I find that iChat with Chax installed works just fine for what I need. :)
 
Browser: Firefox. There are a few sites I visit that didn't like safari way back when, and I'm too lazy to give it another chance.

Chat: I don't use a chat app. It destroys my productivity.

Media: QT/iTunes.
 
If you want to use the Gecko engine, I seriously recommend you use Camino instead – Firefox is just nasty on OS X.
 
Anyone else having issues with Safari right now? I'm running Tiger with the latest updates and it seems like Safari's performance has not been as good as it was. I find myself having to reload a page because it didn't load correctly, slow performance, spinning wheel of death... etc.

I've tried:

1. Repairing Permissions
2. Restarting
3. Emptying Safari's cache (this helped a bit)
4. Running OnyX for system maintenance

I've been using Camino lately because of the repeated appearance of the spinning wheel of death.:indiff: Luckily, Camino is a damn good browser:tup:
 
The only problem I’ve had using Safari under Tiger is that it’ll occasionally render only part of GTP’s HTML because of a few unclosed tags – no slowing down or anything like that though. I even have SafariStand and FlashBlock installed, and no stability probs.
 
I think I have resolved my Safari issues. I don't know what I did, but it only crashed on my once in the past week.

I found an article with an interesting video. The video shows fast os switching between OS X, XP, and Dapper Drake Beta (with cube effect goodness we all know and love).

http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2006/05/fast_os_switching_on_intel_mac.html

Anyone else think they will be doing this with their next (or current) Intel Mac? I don't think I will be doing this unless I find it necessary, but I think this is a better solution than dual booting.
 
dougiemeats
I think I have resolved my Safari issues. I don't know what I did, but it only crashed on my once in the past week.

I found an article with an interesting video. The video shows fast os switching between OS X, XP, and Dapper Drake Beta (with cube effect goodness we all know and love).

http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2006/05/fast_os_switching_on_intel_mac.html

Anyone else think they will be doing this with their next (or current) Intel Mac? I don't think I will be doing this unless I find it necessary, but I think this is a better solution than dual booting.
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One of the guys at work has an Intel Mac (2Ghz Core Duo). He has this installed and was showing it to me the other day - Works pretty well.
 
Well, I can officially say that I'm a Mac fan as well.

I'm using a Mac mini Core Duo, and it's lightning fast, even the browsing speed in Firefox is literally 10x faster, with GTP loading in a split second. There's a ton of cool features, like it has it's own media center you can control with a remote, the dock of course, and everything on Windows is better on here. Sure, it's harder to find programs, but I love it. It's just cleaner and faster. And efficient. I can't hear it making noise to save my life.

As for what I use...

Internet Browser: Firefox, it's faster, and there's extensions and themes.

IM: Adium, and MSN Messenger, but I'm still deciding what to choose. Adium because it supports multiple IM systems, and there's the duck ;), and Messenger for it's simplicity.

Music: iTunes, all the way.

Video: Quicktime and Windows Media Player, but I'll try out the Flip4Mac thing and possibly ditch WMP.
 
Welcome Duċk! Good choice on the Big Mac.

I just use Spotlight to find my applications. I think its faster than Windows' Start Menu.

Is Flip4Mac a universal binary? It'd be a shame to the Intel users if it wasn't. I didn't have a good experience with WMP for Mac.

If you have any questions, feel free to post it on here 👍
 
Bah, Spotlight’s too slow for apps – Quicksilver’s the way to go. :D I have Applications disabled for Spotlight, so I use QS for apps and Spotlight for docs. Works unbelievably well – better than you’d think.

I don’t think Flip4Mac is Universal yet.
 
Uh, this iMac is also a G5. ;) (Albeit 1.8 GHz instead of 1.9 GHz.)

When I type “iPhoto” into Spotlight, it takes about 1.5 seconds to give me all the results, and none of them are the application itself. When I type “iP” into Quicksilver, it’s already found it (the very millisecond I type P). QS is just awesome as an app launcher. 👍
 
Well, somehow I missed this thread.

•I am typing this on the family desktop (1.8 GHz Power Mac G5, one of the original three models released)
•My main computer, which is a 1.67GHz Powerbook with 1.5 GB ram, 100GB HD, Tiger 10.4.6, and a lovely 17 inch screen. Got it last August, major splurge.
•My old 12 inch Powerbook, with a 867MHz G4 :lol:, 256 RAM:lol:, and a 40 GB HD:lol:

As far as programs go, I use Safari 100% of the time, it loads loads faster than FF or Opera.
For media, QT with Flip4Mac plugin, and occasionaly, VLC.
For music: iTunes, with 50.77 GB of music.:sly:
 
dougiemeats
Really? It's almost instant for me. It must be my fire-breathing G5:dopey:

I will check out Quicksilver though.
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Quicksilver is the best thing about Mac OSX, IMO. It makes a start menu completely un-needed. When a windows user asks, wheres the start menu? THe program I want isn't on the dock! I just press a hot key, type a few letters, and I'm off! It saves a LOT of time when I want to use an app thats not in the dock. THere are a bunch of advanced features as well, but I haven't taken the time to look into them. Supposedly they're awesome. The next best thing about OSX after Quicksilver (which should be bundled with Leopard, IMO) over XP is Expose, IMO.
 

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