thriftmac

Which Twitter app do the cool kids use? [1]

2009-07-05T05:44:02Z

The trouble with Twitter apps for Mac is that there is a ton of them out there, and pretty much all of them are good — or at least good enough that it really comes down to personal preference as to which one you consider the best.

So instead of laboriously going through a long list and making comparisons that only a geek would love, I decided to check in on what the cool kids are doing. By that I mean the people who make their living writing about Mac apps and just happen to have Twitter accounts. As you may know, each tweet is accompanied by a line showing its time and date and the program that was used to create it — thus revealing the tweeters’ app of choice.

I went to a site called MacNotables, which claims — not without merit — to have “the Mac experts you want to hear from.” With one possible exception, I agree that their experts are indeed notable and might even pass — in their own nerdy way — for the cool kids of the Mac universe.

I hunted them all down on Twitter, and here’s what I found:

(“Web,” by the way, refers to Twitter’s web interface.)

Christopher Breen, Macworld senior editor — Tweetie

(This one’s dicey, because I’m not sure if I have the right guy. Update: Confirmed. This one’s right.)

Bryan Chaffin, editor in chief of Mac Observer and iPod Observer — Tweetie

Jim Dalrymple — CEO and publisher of Loop Insight — Tweetie (along with a couple from Twitterific)

Adam Engst, publisher of TidBITS and Take Control — TweetDeck

Tonya Engst, editor-in-chief at TidBITS Publishing — web, with a couple from TweetDeck

(Interesting that the Engsts appear to differ.)

Dan Frakes, Macworld senior editor — Twitterific mainly, but also Birdfeed (an iPhone app) and web

Andy Ihnatko, technology pundit and self-described beloved personality — web

(OK, OK, he truly is beloved.)

Chuck Joiner, the voice of MacVoices, MacNotables and The Mac Jury — mainly Nambu, but also twhirl and txt

(Anyone know what “txt” might mean?)

Ted Landau, columnist for Mac Observer and Macworld, founder of MacFixIt — Tweetie

Bob LeVitus, author of dozens of technical books — Tweetie

Dennis Sellers, founder/editor-in-chief of Macsimum News — web

Jason Snell, Macworld editorial director — lately Twitterific, before that Tweetie

(He has an article in the August 2009 issue of Macworld about how to use AppleScript with Twitterific.)

Robin Williams, writer of many technical books — this heretic does not appear to have a Twitter account

And here is the final cool-kid tally:

Tweetie — six
web — four
Twitterific — three
TweetDeck — two
Nambu — one
Twhirl — one

Looks like Tweetie is the way to go if you want to be with the in crowd. Be careful, though, because they could switch at the drop of a tweet and leave you on the outs.

Those darn Firefox bookmarks [4]

2009-07-02T18:29:40Z

One thing that’s proving to be a deal breaker for me with Firefox is the way it organizes bookmarks in the sidebar.

With Safari, when you click on a folder in the sidebar, you get a list of all its bookmarks in the main part of the window along with their URLs. Click on another folder, and the list instantly changes.

With Firefox, when you click on a folder, it toggles open and the bookmarks are listed below it. This isn’t so bad if the folder is near the top, but if it is in the middle or near the bottom, you wind up having to scroll to see the entire list. And if you want to switch to another folder, you first have to close the one you’re in or you’ll wind up with a real mess.

Clicking on bookmarks also brings different results. With Safari, the sidebar disappears and the entire browser window is devoted to the site you’re visiting. With Firefox, the sidebar remains in place, creating a cramped view of the site. Some might argue it’s handy to have the sidebar stick around if you’re visiting a lot of sites, but I prefer to have it get out of the way.

Another thing I appreciate about Safari is that each of the bookmarks has a favicon to the left of it instead of the generic icons shown by Firefox. It’s a small thing, but it’s one of those nice touches that you come to expect from Apple products.

StumbleUpon for Safari

2009-06-30T17:23:22Z

Speaking of Firefox, one of the main things I use it for is the StumbleUpon toolbar add-on, which allows you to randomly browse websites in categories of your choosing. You can also give them ratings, write reviews and share with friends.

StumbleUpon is not officially supported for Safari, but there are a couple of ways to get around this. First, you can use a demo by clicking on this link. The toolbar doesn’t have all the features of the official version, but it looks slick and covers the basics. Second, you can install Stumbli. It puts another menu in Safari, with options for stumbling, reviews and so on — not quite the same as having a toolbar, but you can always use keyboard shortcuts. They want $4 for it.

Firefox 3.5 is out

2009-06-30T16:11:52Z

The latest version of Firefox is out, and it’s faster than ever — or so they say.

According to Mozilla’s test results, Firefox can load Javascript-laden websites in mere milliseconds. This is a good thing, because an increasing number of sites use applications based on Javascript in one way or another. Think of all those sites that let you share documents, edit photos or backup your files.

Other features include anti-phishing and anti-malware technologies for better security, thousands of add-ons for customization, and enhancements to private browsing.

I’m a confirmed Safari browser, but I’ll be taking the latest Firefox out for a spin over the next few days to see how it compares.

Hey, we're on Twitter

2009-06-26T20:31:15Z

We’re a bit late to the party, but you can finally follow thriftmac on Twitter. There’s also a nifty little logo you can click on at the top right. We tend to be artistically challenged, so if you can’t figure it out, that’s the Twitter bird skewering Scrimpy the thriftmac worm. You’ll mostly find links to the thriftmac RSS feed at our Twitter account, but we’ll occasionally throw in a few surprises as we continued to delve into the ever-changing world of Mac freeware.