Moore’s MailBag - Friday, August 20, 2004
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Ever Seen This Before???
Netscape Browser Search
Netscape 7.2 surprisingly limber
Browser Speed
Mozilla 1.3.1 troubles
Nice, polished feel
FireFox fan
iPod battery life
Entourage and PIMs[/url]
Ever Seen This Before???
From Frank Falcone
Hi Charles,
The past 2 mornings, when booting up my machine, I get the Apple logo and the little loading circle. After about three minutes of it doing it's thing - I saw a faint gray graphic that looked like the international symbol for "stop." A circle w/ a diagonal line through it. Then she froze. I had to unplug it and restart then all was fine. Still - very scary!!!
Additionally, a few days ago, while working normally - a window came up saying in about 5 languages that I had to restart my machine. It meant it. Any thoughts?
Frank
Hi Frank;
I actually have seen that phenomenon, while trying (unsuccessfully) to install Jaguar on my WallStreet PowerBook. My son tells me that it indicates OS X is unhappy with the RAM it's encountering. I have a mixture of PC 66 and PC 100 RAM in that machine, so he may be correct.
In your case, you got past it and the machine booted. However, if it happens again, you might check to see if your RAM is properly seated in its slots, and/or up to Apple's specs.
The five languages thingie is a kernel panic dialog. That usually indicates that there is a hardware issue with your machine — probably whatever caused the startup freeze. Try running System Profiler, and/ or a diagnostic program like DiskGuardian ot TechTool.
Charles
Netscape Browser Search
From Elaine Stannard
Hi Charles,
Having tried all the other browser, often, I remain a Netscape fan and am delighted with 7.1 as it runs in OSX 10.3x.
However, there is what I've been told is a "known" issue with searching bookmarks that guarantees a search will immediately crash Netscape. My bookmark file which began with Netscape 2x is large and functions perfectly, including searches, when transferred to other browsers. Fortunately, my bookmarks are organized well enough that I can search them visually but crash Netscape when I use the search bookmarks option.
So, after this long preamble, my question is how does the bookmark search work in Netscape 7.2? I know I can check for myself but if you've already tested the feature, why not use your expertise?
Thanks for your good work at Applelinks and for your response to my question.
Best regards,
Elaine Stannard
(The one whose response to your "Software for Sewers" you published in toto a long time ago.)
Hi Elaine;
Well;I checked out the Bookmark Search in Netscape 7.2, and found it fast and slick and no crashes. However, my Bookmarks file is not terribly large in that application. Your milage may vary.
More optimistically, they may have squashed the bug.
Charles
Netscape 7.2 surprisingly limber
From Krishna
Netscape 7.2 is surprisingly limber on my single 1.8GHz G5 at work. I still use Safari for my needs, but Netscape 7.2 is a good second-contendor for my browsing needs. Great review, Charles!
Thanks, Krishna.
Charles
Browser Speed
From George Slusher
Charles wrote: " And it's fast! I can't say categorically without stopwatch comparisons that Netscape 7.2 is faster than Mozilla or Firefox, but it feels like it could be."
See this page for an explanation of why it's very difficult to get a good comparison of browser speeds:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2004_05.html#005496
Hi George;
Thanks for the article link. Very interesting analysis.
Ultimately what matters I guess is how fast the browser gets what you're looking for displayed, regardless of whether the page has technically finished loading.
When I have timed browsers, I just measure the lapse between when pressing the key and when the reload button appears or ungrays.
Charles
Mozilla 1.3.1 troubles
From Ben Gravely
Charles,
I have been having a devil of a time setting up Mozilla 1.3.1 (OS 9) on a new hard drive. I have the old and new hard drives connected, so I just moved the application and related files over to the new drive.
Mozilla on the new drive runs fine, but is actually communicating with the old files on the old drive.
I want to disconnect the old drive and run only off the new, but I can't get the settings and mail files to transfer. The address book is no problem.
Mozilla (and Netscape) don't have an export function for mail, and the import function won't point to the old files.
I need help.
Thanks,
Ben Gravely
Hi Ben;
If you drag your Mozilla folder over from the old drive to the Documents Folder on your new drive and then trash the copy on the old drive (or stuff it so the browser can't find it if you want to keep a backup), it should access the copy on the new drive.
Charles
Nice, polished feel
From Jeb
Downloaded Netscape today after reading your article. So far only about 1-2 hours with it, but it's really got a nice, polished feel and it is indeed fast. In fact, I am already leaning toward switching from Safari. Keep you posted.
Jeb
FireFox fan
From Jonny
This guy gets around his browsers. I use FireFox mostly (0.9.3) and can't remember experience those lockups ever. There are features in other browsers I wish Firefox had like Safari's little orange circle with an arrow in it
iPod battery life
From Stephen H.
I see a lot of discussion about the life of iPod batteries being dependent upon how much a person drains the battery down and recharges it. There is something else that I noticed is not covered in the referenced [url=http://www.iPodbatteryfaq.com]http://www.iPodbatteryfaq.com[/url]
Battery life of lithium-ion batteries (it doen't matter if they are used in cell phones, PDAs, or iPods) is about 2-3 years, and the clock starts ticking the moment the batteries roll out of the battery manufacturing facility. Even if the battery sits idle for the entire time - its over in 2-3 years. The reason for this is that the battery chemistry oxidizes over that period, which results in increased internal resistance. the number of and the depth of charge/discharge cycles will reduce this to a degree.
With battery lifetime in mind, don't be tempted to buy a replacement battery for the iPod that you might see advertised in a magazine and store it for a year or two until you believe you need it. The battery will most likely be as dead as the one you are replacing. When you send your unit in for battery replacement, a good service facility will install a factory-fresh battery.
Another important item is the heat is the enemy of ALL lithium-ion batteries. DO NOT leave an iPod in your car on a sunny day. The interior of the car can soar to 160 degrees F, and that will kill any lithium-ion battery in a big hurry! These batteries operate best in the temperature range of 32-77 degrees F (0-25 degrees C). That's not to say they won't operate outside that range, but higher temperatures will degrade the batteries faster.
Hi Stephen;
Good advice all-round — for laptop LiIon batteries as well as iPods or whatever.
Charles
Entourage and PIMs
Erica Marceau
I downloaded the latest demo of Office for the Macintosh just to see the latest work of Jud Spencer. He worked on Claris Emailer and moved over to work on Entourage. I don't know if he still works there but Entourage is a fine piece of software and if I didn't despise Microsoft and the bloated nature of the programs in Office I would probably get it even though it's quite expensive for me.
At this point I'm going to keep on using Palm Desktop, hope for Personal Organizer to be updated, and start working on a PIM that has the features I want. It seems that in the case of PIMs the only way to get a full-featured program is to make it myself.
***
Charles W. Moore
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