It's been six months between major upgrades to browser credentials manager and all-around swell pal 1Password, and the Agile team has not been napping; the new version 2.6 offers anti-phishing tech courtesy of integration with PhishTank.com, compatibility with SSB fave Fluid, and a more streamlined password-changing option to avoid the proliferation of old credentials.
Single-user licenses of 1Password are $34.95 and 3-license family packs are $49.95 (otherwise known as $35 and $50; can we agree that pricing downloadable items as if they were sportscars or boxes of detergent, while psychologically valid, is darned silly) and upgrades from 2.5 to 2.6 are free of charge for most users. MacHeist II bundle owners are covered for this upgrade, however those who got a free license via Macworld's Mac Gems promotion will have to cough up the dough for the new version.
I have an admission to make: I change browsers on a fairly regular basis (normally, I'm found swapping between Camino and Safari in short succession as I struggle to find a nirvana between the two of them). But what to do with my favourites? Some people I know like to keep browser favourites separate, but I can't stand that. If anything, I've yearned to be able to simply use the same bookmarks (and keyboard shortcuts for Bookmark-bar items) on all the browsers I possibly can.
That's where Bookit comes in handy. There's three options: Manage, Migrate or Restore. You can manually edit bookmarks, and compare them to a 'master' set (in my case, Camino); Migrate will allow you to take a browser's bookmarks, and completely over-write existing bookmarks on any other browser (or overwrite a synchronised copy of your Bookit bookmarks on .Mac), while Restore will allow you to retrieve a previous configuration. With only Safari able to synchronise bookmarks via .Mac, the ability to do so with Camino and Firefox is a welcome relief for those of use who don't (always) use the default OS X browser.
I've used Bookit on three of my Macs around the home and office, with the application working perfectly in bringing my bookmarks across to all of them. Given that the application costs just $12, if you're working with multiple browsers, favourites and machines, I'd highly recommend Bookit.
File this one under, 'they still make that app?' iCab, the Mac only browser in case you haven't heard of it, has hit 4.0. This version marks the app's triumphant entrance into the 'Cocoa only' club, which means it should run faster (according to the developers, I don't want to start a Carbon vs. Cocoa discussion here). iCab offers up a number of interesting features including per URL 'filters' which let you block specific content from pages (like cookies that come from a site other than the site you're visiting). It also has a few interesting views that show you all the links on a page in a side window, and the source of the page.
iCab is shareware, so you can use it for free but you'll then have to deal with a gentle reminder window that helpfully points out that you can register your copy for $25.
We've covered the concept of site specific browsers before. Basically these are stand-alone browsers designed to work with just one website, e.g. Gmail. Fluid takes this idea to the next level by automating the process of creating Webkit based site specific browsers. When you launch Fluid it asks for the URL and name of the site, and then it creates a Cocoa application just for that particular site. The reason that this is handy is that it separates your general browsing (and related crashes) from your Gmail, facebook, etc.
Fluid is in beta and can be downloaded from Todd Ditchendorf and requires Leopard.
We Mac users take our web browsers seriously, which helps account for the fact that there are just so many of them to choose from. For my money the top browser on OS X is Camino (though Safari 3 is closing in fast). Camino, as you can see from the accompanying picture here, makes a big deal out of its 'Mac Style,' and it does feel much more at home on a Mac than Firefox does (though the Firefox team is working on that).
Camino is free, as are most browsers these days (Ominweb, I'm looking at you), but that doesn't mean you can't chip in to support development. The Camino Project recently announced that they can now take donations. Working with the Mozilla Foundation the Camino Project has setup a way for you to donate money to support the app, and get the added bonus of writing it off on your taxes. Best of all, the Mozilla Foundation will offer a 2 for 1 match until the end of the year, or until the donations reach $10,000, whichever comes first.
If you're a big Camino user be sure to head on over to their donation page and send 'em a few dollars.
I run my personal site using WordPress, and one reason I like using it so much is that (although this is hardly exclusive to WordPress as a content manager) is all the great plugins available for it. On another site I ran under WordPress, I loved using the WP-Print plugin-- it automatically creates a "printable" version of each page on your site. All of the printer compatibility, none of the actual work.
And now, someone's cooked up an iPhone version of that same plugin, where you simply install the WP plugin on your blog (for WordPress 2.2.1), and instantly you can see all your posts formatted specifically for the iPhone. Instead of creating a whole other, "mobile" version of your site, you can simply put in this plugin, and you can get a link that will reformat your content for the iPhone or iPod touch. Very excellent.
If you run a WordPress blog or site and were thinking about creating a version of it for the iPhone or iPod touch, your work is done. Download the iWPhone plugin from Content.Robot, install it, and you're set.
Roger Kenny sends word that one of the best web-based games for the iPhone, Battlefleet, has been updated. Not only is there a new splash page (quoting an eminent Mac gaming scholar-- ahem), but Roger has set up an "iPhone Entrance," a "Web Browser" entrance (which, strangely enough, didn't work right in Firefox 2.0.0.7 for me-- I had to play the iPhone version in my browser, which worked fine), and an "Internet Explorer Exit." Very nice.
In game, there are some good updates, too-- most notably in the Options menu, you can now switch sides and play as either Red or Blue. Unfortunately, still no multiplayer play yet, but last time we posted the game, Roger mentioned in the comments that multiplayer was as forthcoming as he could make it. Meanwhile, the game plays just as smoothly as before, and faithfully recreates the BattleShip experience.
And yes, you cheaters, Cheat Mode still does work. I won't ruin things by telling you how to do it, but it's intact.
We wrote about the 1.0 of Slife in February, and I thought it was a fascinating application-- there's nothing you look at more every single day than what you do with your own life, and yet here's a piece of software that lets you look at how you spend your time in a different, more objective way.
And now they've sent word that Slife has entered version 1.3, with numerous additions to the interface. The program can now work in the background, and apparently it no longer has to scan your hard drive for all the different applications to track-- if a new app shows up in your usage, it'll start tracking it automatically. They've also added a few social networking options (which sounds like a better idea than an actual feature to me-- do I really want people knowing how much time I spend playing World of Warcraft?) with their Slifeshare service. You can track your friends' activities, even down to what app they're using at the moment.
But while I'm personally not interested in completely sharing my pastimes (I'm sure there's an option to turn it off), I do really like the idea of the program, and I love the abilities it gives you to take a close look at exactly what you do on your computer when. Slife is available as a free trial (will track 3 apps), or as a full application for $34.
I haven't gotten into social music database Last.fm much, mostly (I'm ashamed to say) because I'm worried about some of my musical guilty pleasures being browsable by the Internet audience at large. Also, because I listen to my music in all kinds of ways, not just simply through iTunes.
One of those ways, of course, is my iPod, and if you've been trying to figure out how to get your iTunes listens scrobbled into Last.fm, worry no more: Scrobblepod is here to save the day. It's a go-between for iTunes and Last.fm, and allows you to sync your iPod listens up with Last.fm before your iTunes listens get entered, ensuring everything gets listed just fine. Now, people will be able to see that you've listened to Mamma Mia whether it's on your iPod or your iTunes install.
Of course, I still haven't seen a way to track the other way I listen to my music-- I keep all my actual music files on my Powerbook, and share them directly to my desktop through iTunes. That way, I have access to my music no matter where I take my laptop. Unfortunately, neither iTunes or Last.fm treats listens through shared libraries as if they were "real" plays, so no matter how many times I listen to that Timberlake Justice remix, it'll never show up on my "Recently Played" list, or in Last.fm.
But anyway, my problems are complicated. If all you want to do is track your iPod listens into Last.fm, Scrobblepod's got you covered.
Our sources at WWDC are reporting that, for now, there is officially no Flash support on the iPhone. Apparently, in the State of the Media address yesterday, the announcement was made that: "There will be no Flash support at the moment on the iPhone." Developers are being told not to serve video via Flash, as there simply isn't a player built for the phone yet.
On the upside, the word 'yet' is apparently being used liberally, so things might look better for Flash on the iPhone sometime down the road.
There was a time, dear ones, when a giant walked the Web: Netscape Navigator, the browser sovereign, held a massive 80%+ share of the market back in the mid-1990s, until some funny business (where "funny" = "anticompetitive & monopolistic") led to the dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. The open-sourced core of Netscape 4 led to the development of the Mozilla, Firefox and Camino browsers we all love today.
Whence the original Netscape browser? The 8.0 release skipped the Mac, but believe it or not, the big N is back: Netscape Navigator 9 beta is available now as a Universal Binary. Under the surface, Navigator 9 is really a rebranded, tweaked and gracefully skinned version of Firefox 2.0 (including add-in compatibility), but nevertheless it's nice to see the green giant back in the saddle.
Note: TUAW and the Weblogs, Inc. network are corporate siblings of Netscape under the AOL umbrella.
Mac users have a dizzying array of web broswers to choose from, which makes finding a favorite a tricky thing. My browser of choice has been Camino for a long, long time. It just looks like a Mac app, and it uses the Gecko rendering engine so I get all the goodness of FireFox (sans extentions which I don't use) and none of the ugly controls.
Camino 1.5 has just been released, and it is a very nice update indeed. New in this release is:
Spell checking using OS X's dictionary
Session restore - in case the broswer crashes, it stores all your open pages in a session which it offers to restore on launch (this is very handy)
Keychain compatibilty - use the same Keychain entries for both Safari and Camino
Full screen mode - because it is the new hotness in apps
Gecko rendering engine 1.8.1
All of this and more, for the low, low price of free. Camino 1.5 is available now.
Thanks, jimmy.
Update: I misread the 'Window Zoom' feature. The new feature resizes the Camino window to fit the content of the page it is displaying instead of taking up the whole screen (this is when you hit the green button on the menubar). My mistake.
We've seen the betas for quite some time now, but Shiira v2.0 - the feature-packed open source browser based on the same WebKit that powers Apple's Safari - has gone official. As far as I can tell, the feature list hasn't changed wildly from beta into this full version, but check out some of the slick tricks Shiira has up its sleeve:
Tab Exposé (yep: Exposé comes to browser tabs)
Sharing bookmarks with Safari
Side drawer showing bookmarks and history
Search field with choice of search engine
Cache control panel
Window appearance switching (Aqua and Metal)
Enable/disable favicon with bookmark
Wheel button operation (open in new tab, and tab switching)
Auto-tab for bookmark folder
Displaying back-forward list on toolbar buttons
Search text field for bookmark and history
The feature list is far from over, however, so check out Shiira's official screenshot and features list for more details and even some movies of its features in action. Since Shiira is open source, it's available free from Shiira.jp.
TUAW reader Neil points out that this means that at least some of the .NET framework must have now been ported over to the Mac. You can read more about the introductory post here on Tim Senath's Microsoft blog and Neil's .Net on Mac analysis here.
This week's podcast covers 1Passwd, the password manager and autofill tool that brings some really unique features and multi-browser support for the Keychain to the table. For just under 8 minutes I demonstrate some of the killer features of this app that go above and beyond the norm, and the whole thing weighs in at a mere 28MB. Snag it from our iTunes Store Podcast directory, this direct link or our own podcast rss feed. Enjoy!
I have an admission to make: I change browsers on a fairly regular basis (normally, I'm found swapping between Camino and Safari in short succession as I struggle to find a nirvana between the two of them). But what to do with my favourites? Some people I know like to keep browser favourites separate, but I can't stand that. If anything, I've yearned to be able to simply use the same bookmarks (and keyboard shortcuts for Bookmark-bar items) on all the browsers I possibly can.
We've 
We Mac users take our web browsers seriously, which helps account for the fact that there are just so many of them to choose from. For my money the top browser on OS X is 
I run my personal site using 
Roger Kenny sends word that one of the best web-based games for the iPhone, Battlefleet, has been updated. Not only is there 
We wrote about 
There was a time, dear ones, when a giant walked the Web: 
Mac users have a dizzying array of web broswers to choose from, which makes finding a favorite a tricky thing. My browser of choice has been Camino for a long, long time. It just looks like a Mac app, and it uses the Gecko rendering engine so I get all the goodness of FireFox (sans extentions which I don't use) and none of the ugly controls.
At this year's NAB, Microsoft has revealed 
