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Quick “Stocking Stuffer” Tech Tips from OWC

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011 | Author: OWC NewsFeed

Are you a new Macintosh user? Perhaps you’re just new to Lion or maybe you’ve been using Macs for years and you just want to brush up on things? Whatever the case, the OWC Tech crew have gotten together to bring you some quick tech tips – kind of a  “stocking stuffer” of sorts.

Comparing Prices/Products? Swap back and forth easily with Tabs. (OWC Laura)

Tabbed browsing isn’t anything new, but it sure makes switching between one page or another a lot easier. Interestingly enough, the command for opening a new tab in your browser window is the same in Safari, Firefox, and Google Chrome. A simple Command-T in any of these will open up a new tab, leaving the other page as it was. You can also Command-click on a link and it will open up the link in a new tab – incredibly handy when you’re not finished with the page you’re on.

Quick Switching Between Open Applications (OWC Ben P)

Want to switch between programs or close a bunch of programs at once? To switch programs quickly, hold the Command button down as you tap the Tab key. Tap Tab repeatedly to scroll through all your open applications. Once the app you want is highlighted, release the Command button and the selected program will move to the front. Article Continues…

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Firefox 4.0 Released

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

In case you missed it, the next version of Firefox was released yesterday morning. While version 4.0 has been in “beta” for quite some time now, this is now the full release version. It includes some interesting new features, such as:

  • moving tabs to the top of the window (not an aesthetic that I particularly like, but somebody may)
  • a unified stop/reload button
  • “App tabs” - for pages/sites you always keep open
  • “Switch to Tab” – great for those who keep about 50 tabs open at any given time, when you enter something in the URL bar that’s already loaded, this goes to the already-opened tab, rather than spawning a new one.
  • “Panorama” – Another one for “tab junkies.” Allows you to drag and drop tabs into groups, helping you keep things a little more organized.
  • There’s also improved HTML 5 support and other “under the hood” changes.

Even though I, personally, tend to stick with Safari for the vast majority of my Web browsing, I still keep an updated copy of Firefox handy; every so often, I’ll find a site that pitches a fit over Safari, yet handles Firefox just fine. However, on the two virtual machines (Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux) I have on my MacBook Pro, Firefox is the main browser I use.

Many other people I know—both Mac and Windows users—use Firefox almost exclusively. Its popularity and cross-platform compatibility are just two good reasons to at least keep a copy around.

You can get the latest version at the Firefox Web site. While the latest version doesn’t appear to be supported on PowerPC-based machines, you should be able to get the previous version on the same page. Firefox seemed to render complex pages faster than Safari under 10.5 on a PPC Mac, so grabbing Version 3.6.15 may be a good option for you if you have a PowerBook or PowerMac still in regular use.

OWC has no affiliation with this software and receives no benefit related to this support (other than a benefit we all share in the continued support of these applications). If you appreciate the function or functionality this software offers, we encourage you to support the authors.
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iPhone App Review: Opera Mini

Thursday, April 15th, 2010 | Author: OWC Chris S., OWC Mike H., and OWC Michael

We delayed our weekly Free App review by a day this week, in order to give ourselves some time to get to know Monday’s new release: Opera Mini Web browser.

App Description:

Get a fast, cost-efficient Web browsing experience. Use our powerful servers to compress data by up to 90% before sending it to your iPhone, so page-loads are lightning fast. Opera Mini is a breeze to use, and can synchronize data between your phone and computer.

Some great features of Opera Mini:
-Speed Dial gets you to your favorite Web sites with a single tap.
-An address field with auto-completion means you type less.
-Tabs allow for multitasking with several Web pages.
-Bookmarks can be easily managed and accessed.

Article Continues…

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Category: App Review
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November 9, 2005 – Firefox is released.

Monday, November 9th, 2009 | Author: OWC Chris S.

Firefox-CakeFour years ago today, Web users everywhere that were looking to escape from the mediocrity of Internet Explorer were treated to the official release of a new browser, Mozilla Firefox. Since then, It has since become one of the most popular Web browsers currently available, second only to Internet Explorer, which, of course, ships as the default browser for Windows.

Firefox started as an offshoot of the Mozilla Application Suite which, in turn, was built on the open-source code of Netscape Communicator. Since then, Mozilla dropped active development in favor of the standalone apps Firefox and Thunderbird, and the full application suite was spun off as the community-developed project, SeaMonkey.

Firefox is considered by most to be stable and safe, and is available in Mac, Windows and Linux versions. That compatibility, plus an extensive add-on architecture which allows users to customize Firefox, are the main contributing factors to its popularity.

Even though I, personally, tend to stick with Safari for the vast majority of my Web browsing (especially in Snow Leopard, where Safari 4 is a 64-bit application), I still keep an updated copy of Firefox handy; every so often, I’ll find a site that pitches a fit over Safari, yet handles Firefox just fine. However, on the two virtual machines (Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux) I have on my MacBook Pro, Firefox is the main browser I use.

Many other people I know, both Mac and Windows users, use Firefox almost exclusively. Its compatibility with many corporate and online banking sites is far better than Safari (without changing user agent strings); I don’t think we need to go into its security advantages over Internet Explorer. ;-) I’ve also found Firefox to be reasonably zippy on PowerPC-based machines, often rendering more complex pages faster than Safari, so it may be a good option for you if you have an older machine.

Overall, Firefox is well worth the download, even if you don’t use it every day. You can find the latest version (v.3.5.5, released late last week) at www.mozilla.org/firefox

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Category: Random Thoughts & Topics, Tech Tips
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Stop the Flash before it starts!

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 | Author: OWC Chris S.

Don’t tell some of the designers around here, but I really hate Flash content embedded into Web pages.  Sure, its great when you’re watching YouTube videos or listening to streaming music on sites like Pandora Radio. When you get to things like animated images or (worse yet) banner ads, however, its “No Thanks” for me. Don’t even get me started on those evil, evil designers who do their whole sites in Flash – there should be mandatory prison sentences for that sort of thing.

As one who’s still using G4 Macs, Flash’s drain on my system resources is quite a pain. It also eats up bandwidth. This may be fine if you have a fast connection, but it slows things down tremendously for those of us with slower connections.

Is there a point to this short little rant on Flash? Of course there is!

I recently came across ClickToFlash, a plug-in for Safari (or any Webkit-based browser, such as Opera) that simply and cleanly blocks Flash content from automatically loading. When the plug-in is installed, wherever Flash content is located on a Web page, a simple translucent gray box appears instead. If you want to see the Flash content, all you need to do is click the gray box and the content loads. You can even set up a whitelist so that content you do want (such as the aforementioned YouTube or Pandora) is automatically let through.

Of course, there’s the matter of price… How does “free” sound? All it costs you to get is the time it takes to download it.

Firefox users, you’re not left out in the cold, either. Flashblock is a free plug-in that offers similar functionality for many Mozilla-based browsers. You can find it in the Firefox add-on section.

Take back control of your browser and bandwidth, and install the plug-in for your favorite browser.

OWC has no affiliation with this software and receives no benefit related to this support (other than a benefit we all share in the continued support of these applications). If you appreciate the function or functionality this software offers, we encourage you to support the authors.
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