Tech Life Buying a Mac for home

Monday Night House Cleaning

I’ve got a thought, an observation, and a request this Monday evening.

THOUGHT: I’ve been actively trying to move off of Internet Explorer on my XP box. There are two reasons for this: First, the browser is not keeping up with recent innovations… namely tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking. I’m becoming dependent on these features and, amazingly, Microsoft appears to be ignoring their users. Good. Second, IE is “all screwed up”… it’s not remembering preferences (note to self: you sound like a Mac guy) and I’m too lazy to figure out why. I’m assuming it has something to do with the fact I’m using the multi-user features, but since my XP box is not my primary home, I have little motivation to do anything about.

The bad news is that Firebird is still just not as spunky as IE. I’m a fan of instantaneous feedback and Firebird, while feature rich, is still… taking… it’s… dear… old… time when I do just about anything. The good news is I’m going to buy a Mac for home.

OBSERVATION: FeedDemon is the best RSS reader I’ve seen for Windows.

REQUEST: I’m making a list of the networking_type websites out there. Please add your own:

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12 Responses

  1. niko 21 years ago

    Firebird slow? From my Athlon XP running WinXP at home to the P-II laptop my mother has from work, once Firebird loads (which does take an extra couple seconds compared to IE) it’s just as fast if not faster than IE.. Where are you noticing “sluggishness?”

    And with all the handy extensions (http://texturizer.net/firebird/) available I’ve been quite happy using 0.6 as my default browser on every computer I use. (Except macs. Safari wins hands down, even over Camino.)

  2. rands 21 years ago

    I am on a relatively slow XP box… 500Mhz. Yes, it blows. With my recent Mac conversion, I’m unlikely to pay actual money for a new PC.

    Slowness is general with Firebird. I was ad-hoc testing creating new windows (CTRL-N) and Firebird struck me as slightly slower… same general feeling firing up new tabbed windows.

    You know, this could just be a by-product of sitting at a Dual 1.42 G4 all day with Safari…

  3. Oscar the Groucho Marx 21 years ago

    Opera parses the lies of the internet faster than you can say, “nigerian spammer’s delight.”

  4. sx 21 years ago

    minor tips, in case you haven’t seen them elsewhere:

    – unless you’re really a fan of firebird’s smooth-scrolling, turn it off; it’s slow (general.smoothScroll) compared to IE

    – by default, the self-imposed delay of time between the time it starts receiving data and the time it starts doing layout/displaying is set rather high for many people; if you have a moderately fast machine + internet connection, kicking it down helps a bit. (nglayout.initialpaint.delay)

    both of these can be set in about:config. i’m running win2k on a disgusting via C3; after tweaking these, firebird beats IE on general navigation/layout speed here..

  5. zhixel 21 years ago

    On XP/Athlon 700/384MB Firebird is pretty snappy. The only thing that strikes me as slow is the occassional eternity when I have to wait for Firebird to swap back in. I guess I could use more ram.

  6. Eliza 21 years ago

    LiveJournal counts as a network, I’d say. Friends pages and permissions, “communities”, etc.

  7. Klaatu 21 years ago

    Dear Rands;

    Thanks for the http://www.livejournal.com link – I’m signing up. I like your ‘Blog so much that I’m tempted to keep a journal online.

    Luv,

  8. Peter 21 years ago

    I recommend k-meleon, http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/

  9. jeph 21 years ago

    As much as it is horrible emo evilness, http://www.makeoutclub.com is pretty effective networking for sad-sack twentysomethings.

  10. xfrosch 21 years ago

    I don’t know whether sixdegrees has been threatening to come back ever since they shut down in 2000, but there’s a “coming soon” banner at http://www.sixdegrees.com/ now.

    No idea what they’re going to do with it – could be the old sixdegrees concept (essentially friendster without the superciliousness and sexual tension), or could be gay porn.

  11. xfrosch 21 years ago

    extra credit book report for anyone interested in the mathematics of networking websites, Ponzi schemes, and transmission of venereal disease: A-L Barabasi, “Linked: The New Science of Networks”. also check out the man’s website at http://nd.edu/~networks/.

    the book’s an easy weekend read. flogs a lot of his research.

    Music: The Wesley Willis Fiasco, “Jesus is the Answer”

  12. Homberto 21 years ago

    I find opera to be a fabulous browser. It has some issues, but mouse gestures and whatnot make it super duper.