I first used Fluid , the site-specific browser creation tool for Mac OS X, a long time ago. But I didn’t find it compelling enough to integrate it into my daily life, in part because virtually all of my digital life still lived on the desktop. As I personally moved more and more to the cloud, it became key. I tend to use Fluid apps for things that I want to have open and at the ready all day. These are things I consider to be more like apps than websites, so having a separate window makes sense, if for no other reason than I can easily command-tab among applications by selecting the appropriate high-resolution logo. With Safari , Chrome and Firefox , I’m in and out of a lot of websites throughout the work day, but most are content sites, or web applications that I use once per week or less. Here are a few of the key ways I’m using Fluid today. Google Calendar I long ago tired of problems with invitations in iCal. There were just too many frustrating examples of invitations not coming through properly or at all, and I invested the maximum amount of time I was willing to solve it. Last year, I also tired of Mail.app’s performance when dealing with many accounts and large numbers of messages. I was using Google Apps for several accounts with IMAP enabled, and using Mail.app as my client.

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Like LogMeIn Ignition, TeamViewer lets you access a computer over the Internet from your iPhone. The big difference: TeamViewer is completely free. Yup, free. The new iPhone app from German-based TeamViewer complements their (also free) desktop app, which means now you can help grandma find cool Firefox plugins, or show dad how to open iTunes —

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Filed under: iTS , Software , Internet Tools , iTunes , Apple , App Store Apple has apparently taken another step towards bringing iTunes to the browser, as you can now browse actual categories of the iTunes store right in regular HTML rather than having to click over into iTunes. There’s still no support for television or movies, but you can dive in from categories to artists and then even explore and preview songs , right in your browser of choice. Assuming, of course, that your browser of choice is Firefox or Safari — while Chrome or IE will probably work, we haven’t tested them extensively yet. All we need now is for iTunes to cut it out with the automatic jump into iTunes — even though your browser will load up a real page in the background, the browser store still tries to throw an external link request out to iTunes. Our own Brett Terpstra found that when you copy or type a browser link directly into your browser, the store won’t try to open, but if you click in from an external link (like those here on TUAW), iTunes will try to open. Apple may not want us just browsing iTunes outside of the official app, but it would be nice for those of us who are pointing out iTunes content to folks who may not actually have iTunes installed to have a link to share. App Store categories get browser pages originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . App Store categories get browser pages originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Still running a PowerPC Mac and hurting for some serious browser speed, up-to-date security and web standards compatibility? Being open-source applications, Mozilla’s web browsers and Thunderbird email client are open to being breathed on by third-party developers, several of whom specialize in optimization of particular versions of the Mac OS — such as Chris Latko’s Mac Intel- optimized variants of Firefox. Terrific Results However, for us PowerPC holdouts, a reader recently tipped me to some PowerPC-optimized Mozilla web browsers plus Thunderbird by R.P. Mozely, noting that he’s been getting terrific results and highly recommends these tweaked apps. That sounded promising, as I’m still using two G4-upgraded Pismo PowerBooks for production work, and haven’t found the latest Mozilla gecko-based browsers to be particularly happy campers on the old laptops running OS 10.4 .11. So I keep reverting to old Netscape Navigator 9, which works nicely, but is getting long in the tooth, beginning to encounter some limitations content-compatibility wise. Of course it hasn’t had any security updates for nearly two years, since development was terminated.

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Section: Mac Software , Web Applications / Development I think we can all agree that web comments are a wretched hive of scum and villainy, where ill-formed opinions are expressed in a mixture of bad grammar, logical fallacies, and assertions about the sexual orientation of other commentators (usually in ALL CAPS). But aside from a few extensions like YouTube Comment Snob , which work with specific sites, there has never been a web-wide solution for blocking comments. Until now. ShutUp is a custom css form for your web browser which blocks comments. That’s all it does, and after a few days of using it, I have to say it works well for 99% of the websites I visit. It’s available as .css file that auto-updates, or as a source file that you can customize. Both are free of charge. There are instructions for configuring it with Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. What do you think about it? Leave your comments below! Product [ ShutUp ] Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell . | Comment on this Article »

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Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Originals The most romantic day of the year is just a week away. If you want to express your love in the digital style, these applications will help you to be the romantic that you should be. Let’s walk you through your enhanced romance. Valentines Countdown Seller: Energize Compatibility: iPhone or iPod Touch Requirements: OS 1.3 or Later File Size: 9.8 MB Price: Free Age Rating: 4+ Holidays can be easy to forget, but if you forget this one, you may be up the creek. If you are not good with dates, this application will help you to stay on track. Just be aware that it comes with all of the cutesy bells and whistles you would expect from a Valentines day application. Expect to see cute teddy bears and deep red backgrounds, and hear sappy music. On the bright side, you can turn a lot of that off in the options menu. Be warned, though, that this app will not be able to do anything for you if you leave the shopping to the last second. Buy Valentines Countdown Love Songs – The 100 Greatest of All Time Seller: Meleodo Compatibility: iPhone and iPod Touch Requirements: OS 2.1 or Higher File Size: .5 MB Price: 1.99 Age Rating: 12+ What is a romantic day without a romantic soundtrack? If you want to have the perfect mood music, or make your intended an amazing mix, this application will help you to find the exact songs that you need. The songs can be streamed through your phone for free if you have access to wi-fi or a 3G connection. You can use this application to jump right to the iTunes page to make the songs a part of your collection forever. Buy Love Songs – The 100 Greatest of All Time Valentines Day Recipes Seller: Aimfre Ltd

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Santa may have been generous enough to bring you a new Mac for Christmas, but after firing it up and poking around a bit, you might be overwhelmed and not sure where to begin. Thankfully, MacLife.com is here with some ideas on how to spend Christmas Day (and beyond) with your new friend — just consider us one of Santa’s friendly elves! 5 Things To Do First With Your New Toy 1. Visit Software Update OK, so maybe checking to see if your operating system is up-to-date doesn’t sound like the most fun thing to do with your new computer, but you’d be surprised how many times small problems that crop up even with new systems can be solved by doing so. Under the Apple Menu, select “Software Update…” and install anything that pops up there. Some updates may require a reboot, so be sure you’re not in the middle of something else before you do so. 2. Fire up your own personal Time Machine If you’re a first-time computer owner, you haven’t experienced the horror of losing your valuable files due to a hardware failure or hard drive crash. But you will, someday! It’s better to be safe than sorry, which is why Apple introduced Time Machine with Mac OS X Leopard 10.5, and it’s gotten even better (and faster) with Snow Leopard 10.6

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While it’s easy enough to game browsers to score well on specific kinds of tests, the latest pre-alpha release of Opera 10.5 runs JavaScript not just faster than every other browser out there — it eats every other browsers’ lunch and dinner. The folks at Lifehacker put the new pre-release of Opera 10.5 through its paces with Mozilla’s Dromaeo JavaScript tests and found support for Opera’s brag that their new browser is seven times faster than Opera 10.1. Not only that, but according to Lifehacker’s measurements, the newest version of Opera smoked everyone else on the market, clocking nearly four times as fast in JavaScript as the nearest competitor, Google’s Chrome. Testers over at the gHacks blog confirmed these speed improvements in JavaScript but also noted huge increases in page rendering. Image Source: Lifehacker.com The secret is in the sauce, in this case Opera’s new JavaScript engine, Caraken, which replaces Futhar, the previous engine. The other is in brand new layout engine, Presto 2.5, and Vega, the new graphics library. Taken together, these three new under-the-hood roll outs take Opera from wannabe to the browser to beat. Developers at Opera have also decided to join other browsers in adding in a private browsing mode, building in both tab and window iterations. While Opera’s market figures have languished in the low single digits, if these figures hold up in the stable release they will undoubtedly boost user stats at least in the short term. What is clear from these results, though, is that developers at Apple, Google, and Mozilla will be studying Opera’s success and hoping to mimic it.

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Perhaps you’ve grown tired of Tweetie , Twitterific or Socialite . Before you resort to Adobe AIR apps like Seesmic and TweetDeck, give Kiwi , the new kid on the block, a try. Fans of customizable third-party clients for other social services like Adium will probably find something to love in this fresh-faced addition to the Mac’s Twitter options. Kiwi comes with a number of theme customization options pre-installed, and being primarily utilitarian in my own tastes when it comes to Twitter, I’m not sure what else you could ask for. For those with more imagination and a thirst for variety, though, you can download countless more themes from the web. You can also customize the toolbar that appears above your time line in the client window, just like you can with Firefox. It’s a neat feature, but so far, there aren’t enough options to choose from to make this worthwhile. It could prove useful later, depending on how Twitter’s growth plays out feature-wise. Kiwi is simple, in terms of functions, which makes it an appealing choice for the casual Twitter user.

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If you’re having problems with your new 27-inch iMac, you’ll be interested to know that Apple released a fix via Software Update for the machines that’s said to resolve screen flicker issues. Now your expensive new purchase will only disappoint you in two or three other ways. Many users are also reporting issues with cracked screens and yellow tinting on the displays, with a gradient from cool to warm as you move from top to bottom down the monitor. I had the latter issue on two replacement iPhone 3GSes, too, so I can’t help but wonder if Apple’s increased ability to move product isn’t affecting quality control. Apple’s also passing the buck in the description of what the new fix for the software-based flicker problem actually does. To wit: The 27-inch iMac Graphics Firmware Update applies to the graphics firmware on ATI Radeon HD 4670 and 4850 graphics cards to address issues that may cause image corruption or the display to flicker. Elsewhere, the company notes that the firmware update isn’t a cure-all: If your screen remains black after applying the updater or if you continue to experience image corruption or display flickering after successfully completing this update, contact AppleCare or an Apple Authorized Service Provider. So not only does Cupertino seem to be blaming ATI for the issue, it’s not actually promising to necessarily fix anything with this update, either. Whether Apple goes with ATI or NVIDIA, it just can’t seem to avoid graphics card-related issues.

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