2007-08-28
I think I've tried just about every web browser available for the Mac. The included Safari 2 didn't feel quite right, Firefox was too slow and a memory hog, Flock, Shiira and some others just didn't really fit what I was looking for. Camino was nice and light, and better integrated with the Mac than Firefox, but I was missing a good search box and it felt a little too limited in features. Now I'm using the Safari 3 beta and couldn't be happier. There are lots of little things that just feel "right" and it fits with the Mac OS nicely. After downloading an application you are warned that it contains an app, and if you approve the DMG file is mounted so you can run or install the app. But, the one thing that seems simple, but I've felt missing in browsers for a while is the tab management. On Linux I used Epiphany which has supported rearranging tabs for a while, and Firefox now supports it, but Safari gets one more thing right: dragging tabs between windows. So far I haven't seen another browser do this, but in Safari you can drag a tab up or down to detach it from the current window and either drag it to a different window, or out into a new window. It's not a feature I use constantly, but I do really like being able to keep my tabs organized in a logical manner instead of having a random assortment of tabs all open in the same window. Thanks Apple for getting this right.
2007-05-01
A week ago I started my new job at YouTube. Most people here use Macs so I got a nice shiny new MacBook Pro to work on. I've been using Linux (Debian and Ubuntu) almost exclusively for about 4 years now and Windows before that, so I've been quickly getting up to speed on using my new Mac.
One of my first major annoyances was that some form controls weren't keyboard navigable. Filling out web forms was frustrating since hitting Tab would skip past drop-down fields, and when dialogs popped up and I didn't want to respond with the default button I had to switch over to the mouse instead of just tabbing to the right one.
Fortunately I found these instructions on changing this behavior. Now I can use the keyboard to quickly navigate these inputs.
More on my Mac switch to come.
