StyleMac.com

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).

Those of the more OS agnostic might agree that the package management solution for software installation is a great enhancement over traditional means of distribution. Especially when it comes down to open source software, which often needs to be compiled for the underlying hardware, package management can be a salvation - since it allows one to turn away from complicated problems like finding all the necessary libraries / headers to satisfy “./configure” or finding RPM’s in the right version so the selected software will finally install.

If you’ve ever worked with Ubuntu’s Synaptic or Debian’s dpkg you know how easily software installation via package management can be.

For Mac OS X, there’ve always been several solutions to package management: Fink, MacPorts, DarwinPorts and even Gentoo Portage.

While some of these already come with a solid UI, MacPorts doesn’t. It’s standard distribution contains the powerful but not-so-easy-to-use “ports” commandline application. Porticus is a 10.4+ GUI package manager which tries to fill this gap. It offers a (quite synaptic-like, if I might say so) overview over available and installed packages, and allows of easy package installation.

Features:

• Viewing the current MacPorts categories
• Installing, uninstalling, updating, activating and deactivating ports
• Port variant handling
• MacPorts self-update support
• Growl Integration
• Sparkle Software Update

Porticus is freeware and can be found here.

Today is the first day of the World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California. With over 5,000 people in attendance, this is one of the largest WWDC’s yet.

The House That Steve Built has some exciting announcements that have been coming seemingly every minute. Among the highlights are for the first half of the day are:

- Not only is iPhone 2.0 in beta with over 4,000 people in the beta program, but that there will be three parts to the SDK: Enterprise, SDK, as well as new features for the end users.

- Several demos from SEGA, Apple, eBay, Pangea Software, MIMVista, among others.

- SEGA shows off a video of Super Monkey Ball, which will be a launch title in the new App Store for $9.99 USD.

- MIMVista shows off a program designed to help medical students study and learn various parts of the body with almost realistic images.

- Steve anounces new iPhone 2.0 features, including contact search, support for Microsoft Office documents, and support for Asian languages. The iPhone is set to be released July 11th.

- Mobile.Me is the replacement for .mac, current .mac subscribers will be automatically updated to the new service. A 60-day trial of Mobile.Me will be included with the iPhone 2.0.

- The new iPhone will be thiner, sexier, include support for a 3G network, Enterprise support, more affordable, available in more countries, and have advanced GPS support.

- Target price for an 8GB iPhone 2.0 will be $199, a savings of $200 over the current price of the iPhone.

- Later in the day, Mac OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard was announced, but would feature no new features, only improvements over older ones.

Isolator is a rather simple Freeware application that helps you gaining focus through covering everything on your screen except for the task at hand. This allows to concentrate on what you’re doing instead of repeated distractions by means of IM, Twitter, Mail or others.

If you’re in the market for a easy-to-use website creation software, you should head over to TUAW, as they’ve post a review of the new RapidWeaver 4. I’ve had version 3 courtesy of MacHeist 1 and liked it alot. Judging by the review over at TUAW, RapidWeaver 4 seems to be a great enhancement to a already incredible software.

The Blender Foundation just released the newest Version of the popular and very powerful open source 3d Modeller “Blender 3D”. The work on their second open source movie “Big Buck Bunny” has resulted in a new version with a greatly improved feature set. There’s a new “Hair and Fur” System, with astonishing capabilities, a completely rewritten Particle system, Cloth Simulation, improved Render Baking, Approximate Ambient Occlusion (awesome speed & quality), raytraced soft shaows, and much much more. So if you’re into 3D, or just want to experiment with it, you should definately try Blender, since it’s not only free but also very competetive. 

In order to create stunning HDR Pictures, one needs a tool which allows to combine pictures of different exposures into one composition. This is possible with Photoshop or Gimp but way more difficult than achieving the same effect with a dedicated software. The standard tool for this task is Photomatix Pro. However, with Hydra there’s a new contender, and it supports integration in Apple Aperture (although still in beta). So if you’re interested in creating stunning HDR Pictures, you might hop over to www.creaceed.com/hydra and see if it’s the right tool for you. Hydra costs $59.95

There’s one thing about Spotlight that seems to bug everyone who can in the one or other way falls into the category of ‘Pro’ or ‘Above normale’ users. It’s the fact that the actual Spotlight interface is rather limitless if it comes to tracking down a specific file fast. There’s so much meta-information connected with each file that additional search criteria like for example ‘Type of the file’, ‘Modification Date’, ‘Size of the File’ could really help in identifying the wanted file quickly. Sadly, most of this comfort is only available via the normal ‘Finder Search’ Dialog, and even there it’s rather awkward to use.

Enter HoudahSpot, a new Application from Houdah Software, which serves just the purpose of enhacing the Spotlight-Interface. I just tried it and I’ve to admit that I’m pleasantly surprised, the interface is quite easy to understand, and offers some nice features like for example a meta-inspector or a preview-pane for the result-list. HoudahSpot allows to set up quite complex queries through a simple interface, where complex queries refers to cascaded And/Not/Or logical conditions (example: (if a and not (b or (c and d) ) ) ). They offer a free demo which is limited to 30 queries, so if you think that you could benefit from an enhanced Spotlight-Interface (thus leading to even faster search results) you should really try this application.

NOTE: If you’re seeing this on June 16, 2006 head over to MacZOT, you might be able to get a Free copy of HoudahSpot

If you’re using Safarilicious to export your Safari Bookmarks to Delicious, then you’ve probably been searching for a simple way to access these bookmarks from within your Safari Browser or even the operating system.

Matteo Rattotti wrote a software called ‘Delibar’ which allows to reach your Delicious Bookmarks from within your Menubar. Nifty

Delibar - A cocoa delicious client -

[via www.tuaw.com]

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