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We wrote about CPU architecture optimized Firefox builds before. Now with the advent of Firefox 3, new builds of Firefox for G5 and Intel processors arrived (due to legal issues they’re not called Firefox but Minefield though).

Normaly software is build so it runs on all kinds of different processors, so speed / memory footprint is, in a way, the lowest common detominator (keep in mind that I’m oversimplifying things here, to explain the benefits of optimized builds). However, if a software is optimized for just one archicture, one can throw in all kinds of extra features, that architecture has to offer (like for example SSE or MMX). This, of course, enhances the speed of the whole software.

So without further ado, here you can find the optimized Firefox (erm Minefield) builds. My first tests showed a strong enhancement in startup and scrolling speed.

Oh and btw. these builds use the beautiful MacOSXified Firefox-Icon from Adam Betts which I’ve been used myself for years by manually applying it to Firefox after installing. This icon fits into OSX way better than the original Firefox-Icon (imho, that is).

Ok, mind you, the title of this post is not entirely true, I sort bend the information so it sounded more interesting, but nevertheless:

One thing which always bugged me under Mac OS X was that I needed to have 3 Mediaplayers installed in order to play all the kinds of videofiles which are available out there: Quicktime, Videolan(VLC) and Windows Media Player
Now, thanks to those kind people from Microsoft, Windows Media Player files can be played in quicktime via Flip4Mac. But one still needs VLC in order to play most of the other formats which Quicktime doesn’t handle very well (I always have problems with Mpeg2 files in Quicktime).

And here’s a solution to the above problem: FFusion is a version of the libavcodec library (that’s the library which contains most of VLC’s media support codecs) which has been compiled so it can be used as a Quicktime Component. This enables you to play even more Videofiles with Quicktime, no need to switch to VLC (although VLC is a really good software, it’s just an added burden to start VLC after realizing that Quicktime once again couldn’t play a file). And apart from that it makes all those Videos Frontrow compatible, too! (at least that’s what I think, my Frontrow experiences are.. limited).

You can download the package at the official FFusion page. http://aldorandenet.free.fr/codecs/, however, those are a tad outdated, a newer version can be found on “Dr. Feelgood’s” (couldn’t find his real name) page: http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~feelgood/ (somewhere around the middle of the page)

Darwine is a Wine version which runs under Mac OS X. Wine is a compatibility for running Windows programs, it allows for example to use Internet Explorer or Photoshop under Linux. Previous Darwine versions were compiled for PPC but the fact that Windows apps are compiled for X86 constrained the Darwine usage to only PPC-Compiled apps (which are little to none).

Now with Mac OS X for Intel processors, Darwine can finally run X86 Applications, which means: All those Windows Apps and Games which run under Wine for Linux, should soon work under Mac OS X too (Halflife anyone?)

Here’s a screenshot from someone running Winzip:

OSx86 Project - WINE Arrives for Intel Macs
Mac OS X, Wine, Windows, Core Duo, Darwine, Internet Explorer

I just tried this application recently (they offer a downloadable trial). It’s awesome, offers great usability and, if you’re a bit comfortable with 3D / game stuff, allows to create games in a blaze.

http://otee.dk/

Ok this is not directly Mac related, but the K750i is an awesome phone, pity it lacks some mediaplayer capabilities which the w800i offers, like for example playback of unencrypted AAC files. Now Jaran of JaranBlog managed to flash his K750i with a W800i Firmware (the 2 phones are technology-wise really similar). There’s no tutorial on how to do it, yet, but I guess it’s just a matter of downloading the Firmware and flashing it. So in case you’re a tad adventurous and would really like to play all your ripped AAC files on your K750i, follow this link

There’re some widgets which deserve to coexist with your other desktop applications all the time as one require’s them so frequently that the F12-Click turns into a tedious task after time.

For example if you want to see your TagBag tags all the time, it’d be usefull to put the widget somewhere on the left side of your gourgeous Apple Cinema Display

There’s even a simple solution for this. If you activate the dashboard developer mode, you can drag’n drop dashboard widgets onto your desktop, so they’re always available. I do this a lot with the stickies widget as it’s a great way to save quick notes

Or read the corresponding article at macosxhints.com:

macosxhints - 10.4: Detach widgets from the Dashboard
Mac OS X, Tiger, dashboard, development, apple, mac, tagbag

Adobe Illustrator is one of those Applications many people use, but hardly really use. People often just use it to do basic vector editing, and some aren’t even capable of doing just that - as Illustrator is quite different compared to Photoshop but the partly similar Interface suggests otherwise

Veerle wrote/recorded a tutorial which explains how to use the pen tool in illustrator and how bezier curves work.

Illustration, from sketch to finish

If there’s one thing which I don’t like about iCal (well there’re actually 2 things, but I’ll only talk about one of those now) then it’s that newly created events don’t contain an alarm. On the one hand it’s tedious task to select 10 new events by hand and set an alarm for each of them, and on the other I frequently even forget that and thus accordingly forget the actual event as iCal never informs me

Now Robert Blum wrote a small iCal Fix which adresses just this issue: Newly created events now automatically haven an alarm set.
Great.

Making a better iCal

Veerle asked his fellow readership for submissions of tips on how to use Quicksilver. I found it sometimes a bit difficult to rework the way I think so I could use Quicksilver for accomplishing awesome stuff. Some tasks are burned so deep into my mind that it feels difficult to adhere to new ways of accomplishing them.
So these tips were a real goldmine for me. I’ll try to use Quicksilver way more often now.

Sure, Xcode is not the standard designers tool, but it might happen that you need to tweak an open source app, or that you want to build a frontend for one of your scripts. Either way, Xcode can be quite confusing, it took me some time to understand how to use it (I think it’s especially bad if ones comes from the VisualStudio background as things are really different there). OSNews lists some worthwhile Apple tutorials on Xcode, it’s a good read if you’re interested in this topic.
Link