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Moore's Mailbag

Classilla Browser for Mac OS 9, Safari 4 with OS X Tiger, and More

Charles W Moore - 2009.07.08

Classilla, a new browser for Mac OS 9 based on Mozilla/Firefox introduced to replace long-discontinued WaMCom project. Also using Safari with OS X 10.4 Tiger requires version 10.4.11.

A New Web Browser for Mac OS 9

Hi Charles,

Classilla screen shot

I’m not sure if you know about this already, but I was searching around for a link to download WaMCom a few days ago (the original site is broken), and I came across this. Classilla is built on WaMCom and is currently only being updated for security holes, but it’s still cool because someone is paying attention to OS 9 browsers again!

Matt

Hi Matt,

Yes, great news for folks still using OS 9.

Low End Mac publisher Dan Knight sent this memo:

Just got wind of a new project. Classilla is an attempt to port the latest version of Mozilla to the Classic Mac OS, adapting the code as necessary to the Mac. The goal is to have it run on Mac OS 9, with Mac OS 8.6 compatibility possible.

I’ve just installed it on my WallStreet, and it looks and acts just like Netscape/Mozilla/WaMCom – but it’s being actively developed. It’s a work in progress, and it works nicely so far.

Charles

Safari 4 Performance on a G4 PowerBook

From David in response to Checking Out Safari 4 on an Old PowerBook:

Charles,

I saw your article on Safari 4 on your Pismo. How is it running on your PowerBook 17″ (Big AL)? I also have a PowerBook G4, 15″ 1.5 GHz with 1.5 gigs of RAM, running [OS X 10.5] Leopard. How is Safari on Big AL? Is is a major RAM hog, any more than Safari already is? Is it worth the upgrade? Curious to know your experience.

Dave

Hi Dave,

I had the Safari 4 beta installed on the PowerBook G4 in Leopard for a while, and it worked fine. Didn’t notice any extraordinary memory issues. I haven’t installed the final because it requires OS X 10.5.7, and I’m waiting for the 10.5.8 bug fix before moving up from 10.5.6.

I’ll probably reinstall it on the Pismo (running OS X 10.4.11 Tiger) sooner, now that I’ve learned how to work around the “Your network settings have been changed” bug (see below). It performed quite well on the old machine.

Charles

Safari 4 and OS X 10.4.11

Charles,

You may hear about this from others, but just in case you don’t: The “Your network settings have been changed” bug dates back to Security Update 2008-006 for 10.4.11, when it caused a lot of trouble for many users. I didn’t have to deal with it myself (apparently it hits only those with modems set up in the Network preference pane), but remember the discussion, so I went looking. On a quick search, the best discussion I found was (as usual) at MacInTouch. Go to this page

http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/security/topic4307.html

and do a search for “Your network settings have been changed”; see the hits under Oct. 29, 2008 for discussion and solution.

As for Safari 4, see my comments here:

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

Thanks. That certainly explains it. A big help. I’ll study the solutions and maybe give Safari 4 another shot on the old Pismo.

Charles

Solving Safari 4 Troubles in 10.4

From Daniel:

Hi,

I had the same problem as you about the reappearing dialog sheet in Network Preferences. I Googled “your network settings have been changed by another application” and found a bunch of links discussing the problem. Apparently it was triggered by one of the Tiger updates, and for me the solution was to trash a couple of network preference files. I hope this helps if you decide to use Safari 4 on that setup again.

Regards,
Daniel

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for the info. Looks like Safari 4 on OS X 10.4.11 may be possible after all.

Charles

Security Update Hassle

From Jerry:

Hello Charles,

I had the same problem as you did with the latest update. As I had just switched from dialup to broadband, I thought the problem was with the web accelerator software from my dialup service. After a hour or so of frustration with network preferences, I was going nowhere. As a last resort, I logged into my guest account – and lo and behold, no network issues! I then reset network preferences back to default, locked it up, and restarted in my account. No more issues!

As I had two more Macs to update, I was quite worried. I went ahead and updated my G4 iBook and PIsmo and had no problems whatsoever, Go figure. As to Safari 4 , very fast on all of my machines, but I’ll stick with Camino for now. I’ve been using it for so long I almost feel uncomfortable on another browser.

Thanks for a great column.

Jerry

Thanks Jerry,

Locking up the Network Preferences would seem to be the charm.

I’ve been using Camino 1.6.8 for the past couple of weeks instead of my longtime standby Gecko browser for OS X 10.4 – Netscape Navigator 9. I quite like it in many respects, but it’s a bit more sluggish responding to menu commands, especially once the memory gets into swapfile access, and it is often lazy about coming forward when you click on an open window in the background, at least on some pages I work with. Navigator 9 is more responsive and swapfile tolerant, and it doesn’t have the bringing forward issue, but it only supports session restore after an unexpected quit, and it experiences those more often than Camino. Safari 4 seemed stable and lively when I had it installed, and I may go back to using it now that I know how to avoid the “Your network settings have been changed” bug.

Charles

Craigslist Apps

From Jeffrey:

Last week Scott wrote.

Hey Charles,

Would you mind asking your readers if anyone knows of any software to automatically list items on Craigslist? I can find software like that for Windows but not for the Mac. I have a competitor who constantly deletes my listing, which I constantly relist. He’s obviously got software that automatically deletes my listing… Craigslist really ought to change their system. Oh well, I don’t have anything better to do! (laugh)

Scott

Jeffrey forwarded this link: http://www.macupdate.com/search.php?keywords=craigslist&os=mac

Seems there are several Craigslist applications.

CM

Editor’s note: None of the listed apps allow you to post to Craigslist. They are all for searching it. dk

Controlling iTunes and iPhoto

From Henry in response to I Want More Control of iTunes and iPhoto:

Hi Charles,

For Dan:

iTunes shuffle behavior: go to Controls / Shuffle / By Albums (or By Songs or By Grouping), and your albums will play as albums.

You can sort photos into albums as you always have (ignoring events), or you can edit events under the events menu. You can split events into separate events, merge events into a single event, name events, add comments, and organize to your heart’s content. I’m not sure what events adds that you couldn’t already do with albums, except group photos automatically by hour, day, or week (see Events Preferences). When your library reaches a few thousand pictures, looking through individual photos to find items for an album becomes unhandy, and after you have several dozen albums, finding one of them becomes unhandy. I have the idea that events is mostly a way to sort by the automatic tags from an iPhone or other smart camera, such as geolocation. Those of us who have an older camera have to organize manually to get the most from events.

A detailed prowl through the menus will turn up all sorts of features which aren’t immediately obvious.

Henry

Thanks, Henry. Forwarded to Dan.

Charles

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