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InBox: Camino, Fake Music, Spam, iPod, Apple RAM.

Most comments came as a result of Tera switching from Safari and Firefox to the hot Camino browser. Well, “switch” is too kind. Tera said she “dumped” Safari for Camino.

There’s just no loyalty among female Mac users, I guess.

Why the commotion? Browsers, like email are “personal.“ We have our favorite applications, as readers pointed out right away. Reader “dan” had views similar to Tera’s:

“Thanks for a great article on Camino. I decided to try it again, and I love it. It feels fast, looks nicer than Firefox or Safari, and works with almost every site I visit. As of Monday, it’s the default browser on both of my Macs, with Firefox my second choice, Safari third.“

Many readers had other ideas about Safari, Firefox, and Camino. Almost no one mentioned anything about Microsoft Internet Explorer, so we consider that one to be a dead browser. Reader “clue” seemed to echo most of the comments about browsing:

“Pretty much spot on.  I actually like Firefox more than Camino (as I type this from Camino) because it seems to render pages *much* faster than any other browser, and do it correctly.  However, as Rob (above) said, both Firefox and Camino will run up my processor usage for no apparent reason.  Firefox is so bad, that if I wake my Powerbook from sleep, the first thing I (used to) do was quit Firefox and relaunch it.  That usually did the trick.  Firefox also does not support the Keychain application.   

Safari ran great for me for a while.  It still (usually) does the job in a pinch, but it seems to take *forever* to load pages.  I’ve tried all the tricks, yet still Safari is far and away the slowest of all to do most things- with the exception of scrolling.“

Just as personal as broswers for Mac users is email, more specifically “spam.“ Everyone gets it, everyone hates it. Tera’s drastic solution was to avoid the spam filters, add on filters, and Apple’s Junk Mail filter.

She set up a simple filter that send ALL incoming email direct to the junk mail folder, unless—the incoming email address is already in the Apple Address Book, or the sender’s email address is in the Previous Recipients List.

That’s drastic, but it works. Mostly.

Have you used Apple’s “bounce” feature in Mail? That feature basically “bounces” a spam message back to the sender and treats it as if the intended recipient (you) didn’t exist. Of course, there’s problems there, too, as pointed out by reader “dan”:

“Mail.app’s Junk Mail filter has been working great for me.  Very rarely one will slip through, and I just mark it as junk.  I also took Apple’s advice in using the bounce to sender feature of Mail, which has drastically reduced the amount of junk I get… Eventually they send less if they think it’s not a valid address. “

I tried that and had to set up another filter to filter all the bounced messages that bounced back to me after I bounced them back. Got that?

Does your Mac have enough RAM? Our Sunday poll indicated that the vast majority of Mac users just say “no”. There’s not enough RAM. Of course, it’s one thing to vote in a poll and it’s something else to voice that opinion in a comment. Reader “jbelkin” summed it up and gave us a history lesson:

“I agree more RAM should be included. For us who remember, there were a couple quarters or maybe a full year where Apple was stuck with RAM they bought at high prices when prices dropped like a rock so I think it’s partially that they are afraid of repeating that,  b) it’s another option for them & their resellers - while Apple doesn’t allow much discounting on the list preice, retailers and apple can fiddle with bundles like more RAM,  printer, etc ... so I think it’s the combo of the two and c) it helps the bottom line look well, a little more bottom - a lot of $499 PC’s offer 128MB of RAM so…“

Surprisingly, Tera’s article on the iPod and iTunes Music Store becoming the new standard for music replacing CDs drew almost no response at all. The same held true with Alex Kayhill’s article on making music with GarageBand. Maybe Mac music lovers don’t read, they’re too busy doing it.

Off Topic Note: I’ve updated the Mac360 Store with over 100 new categories—More Macs, more iPods, more Mac books, more software. Click Here and select any category for more detail, or use the handy search function. Whenever you buy from Amazon through the Mac360 Store you help support Mac360. Finally, here’s a few questions for Mac users: (1) What’s the world’s fastest browser? (2) What’s the best notebook for Mac users? (3) What’s a good back up strategy for your Mac?

   • Article by Bambi Brannan • Published on Saturday, October 2, 2004
   • Category: In Box • 0 Reader comment(s) • Email This • Digg This • Shop Now
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