Weblog of a “Switcher”

Secrets was (and hopefully still will be) a great little System Preference Pane that allows users to make adjustments to their system without having to worry about running Terminal and typing in scary command-line commands. I reviewed it earlier here: "Secrets".

I say was because I am reading text in the Secrets Discussion Group that gives me the impression that the developer has stopped working on it. This seems a little surprising to me since the developer is related to textdriven.com which is the developer that wrote Quicksilver. Although didn't the developer of Quicksilver put the source into OpenSource so that the project could continue?

Anyway, I have a suspicion as to why Secrets may lose development. MacPilot 3.0 has a great new feature that basically looks just like Secrets.

As you can see, MacPilot's General tab looks a lot like Secrets. I guess the big difference here is that the developers of MacPilot are the only ones adding items to this section of their program where with Secrets, anyone could add a new adjustment, if approved.

Now, MacPilot isn't free. It costs $19.95, but along with the functionality of Secrets, it also has a bunch of other adjustments that can be made to pretty much any part of Tiger and Leopard. I had bought it a while back as part of a software bundle and was quite pleased with the way it works. It's my main tool for making Leopard adjustments.

Now that MacPilot 3.x is out, I have removed the Secrets Preference Pane since it's had bugs that make it difficult to work with. Secrets had some great potential, but there just hasn't been any real progress made to fix bugs that have been found.

Its possible that the folks working on Secrets are just really busy with other coding projects and will get back to Secrets soon, but I can't recommend Secrets anymore knowing that MacPilot is out there and works so well.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: macpilot, pane, Preference, Secrets, utility

I guess with all the blogosphere attention that Apple got over the Windows version of it's Apple Software Update program having Safari 3.1 in the list as an "Update", they felt that they had to make a change. I commented about this back when it happened here and here

I have been keeping an eye on Apple's software update program ever since this whole mess started up. I wanted to make sure that when the Safari 3.1.1 update hit, that it would still stay hidden based on my choice to use the menu option: "Ignore selected Updates".

Today I saw that along with Safari 3.1.1 and iTunes + QuickTime, there was an entry in the "Updates" list noting that the Apple Software Update program was in need of an update. (It's not showing up now since I updated it before I took the screenshot.

So it looks like Apple made a change to the update program to create two lists. One list contains all the "Updates" and the other list is titled: "New Software". This should help alleviate some confusion over wether an item is an "update" or an "install".

One problem that is still going to be complained about, mark my words, is that the entries in the "New Software" list are checked by default. This was one of the complaints about Safari being in the list. Some people didn't have a problem with Safari being in the list, they just objected to it being checked on by default.

I pretty much agree with the fact that "New Software" should be unchecked by default. This way, a user won't accidently install "New Software" without realizing it when all they really wanted to do was update QuickTime or iTunes.

It's going to be interesting to see what the blogosphere says about this attempt to appease the masses. Somehow I don't think it's really going to appease them at all. I guess time will tell.

Update: Did any Windows users notice as they updated their QuickTime version (if they did), that Microsoft updated their computer, yet again, without telling you what was updated or even giving you the option to not do the update?

This happened to me on my older Windows box (the one I used to take the screenshot with) after I updated QuickTime. When my machine was finished rebooting, it told me that Microsoft had updated my system with a critical update. No notice before the update, no prompt before updating that there is an update ready.

So where are all the people out there crying "dirty pool" for this act? At least these folks that are calling "foul" on Apple are Apple users. I just don't understand why there are not more people out there complaining about Microsoft basically taking over their machines with their updates. I will be the one deciding on wether an update is necessary for my machine or not. With Microsoft's track record of updates causing problems with their OS I don't want updates being installed on my Windows computers without my knowing what is being updated.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Apple, apple software update, Software, update

After seeing a poor attempt at describing what symbols match up with what keys on the Mac from another website, I decided that it would be good to actually show all of them and also show you how to find a page in OS X's help system to find a lot of them.

- Command
- Shift
- Option
- Enter
- Return
- Control
- Up Arrow
- Down Arrow
- Left Arrow
- Right Arrow
- Page Up
- Page Down
- Top (Home)
- End
- Escape
- Delete (or Backspace) (above \)
- Forward Delete (or Del) (next to Home/End keys)
- Eject key
- Tab
- Back Tab (or Shift Tab) (Probably not seen on screen)
- Space (appears in some program menu items)

That pretty much covers what you might see in Menu Item mnemonics (or shortcuts).

You can find a great list of keyboard shortcuts for OS X in OS X's help system. In Finder, pull down the "Help" menu and type shortcuts. You should see an item called "About keyboard and other shortcuts". Select that entry and Apple's help system will pop up with a list of shortcuts for pretty much every aspect of OS X.

Also, if you type "Symbols for special keys" in the help menu or Help's search field, you will see an entry of the same name. That is where you can find most of the symbols and their names like what I have displayed above. I have added a few that you will probably see in menu items that were not displayed in that help page.

I hope this post helps you to understand the strange symbols displayed all over when describing keyboard shortcuts or combinations to get to certain functions and features. I know I could have used them back when I was starting out on the Mac.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: keys, Mac, special, symbol

MacHeist is offering a new software bundle for $49. This one has a lot of software I already own so I don't see myself taking advantage of it, but if you haven't purchased the earlier bundle, this one might be OK.

The software in this bundle is:

• Awaken
• Cha-Ching
• CoverSutra
• DEVONthink Personal
• iClip
• Overflow
• Wallet
• WriteRoom
• XSlimmer
• Enigmo
• Bugdom 2
• Nanosaur 2

Awaken: This is a great program if you are a business person who travels often and usually bring your Macintosh notebook with you. Just load up iTunes with some good tunes to fall asleep to and to wake up to and setup Awaken to use them. Awaken has a sleep timer that will slowly change the volume of the music playing down to 0 when the sleep timer is up and in the morning it will slowly raise the volume to gently wake you up. I have used it for this purpose and it works great.

I would even go so far as to buy a Mac Mini to use as a replacement for my home alarm clock if it weren't so expensive. You can program alarms in such a way so that you never have to mess with it again. A great app.

Cha-Ching: I got this from the previous MacHeist bundle and I don't really use it since I do all my banking on the web these days. If you don't it's a pretty decent money management program.

CoverSutra: I really like being able to see the cover art of music that I am playing, but I don't like leaving iTunes all the way open. I typically use the mini view. CoverSutra lets you place an image of a CD jewel case on your desktop with the artwork of the track that is currently playing. Plus, it has a menu bar item that allows you to access all your playlists as well as search for individual tracks, artists and albums. This is something I use all the time now.

DEVONthink Personal: I have this program from a much earlier bundle. I have pretty much never used it and I haven't updated it. I really can't review it and won't here.

iClip: I have this program too. I tried to use it back in the day, but it was just too cumbersome to use easily, so I stopped using it. I now use Savvy Clipboard ($12) which is a much better clipboard manager and is cheaper than iClip by itself.

Overflow: I bought this program a long time ago back when I was looking for a decent program launcher utility. I played with it for a while, but found it a little difficult to use. I then switched to Quicksilver (free), but found that program way to hard to take full advantage of. I settled on LaunchBar ($19.95). It's almost as powerful as Quicksilver, but has easy to use menus to help you use it and has a decent help file too.

If you don't mind the way Overflow is activated, it's a pretty good launch manager. I just wish it had a better way of editing the panes it uses to display applications.

Another program to look at is DragThing ($29). It's a little pricy, but it's the most powerful program of it's type. I used to use it back in the days of OS 9 and I even purchased an upgrade to use it with Tiger and Leopard. I don't because of it's use of screen real estate, but if you like this kind of program, it's the best.

Wallet: Now this is an odd choice since this bundle is being billed as the "12 Top Mac Apps". I think 1Password ($34.95) is way better than Wallet even if it is more expensive. Wallet is what I started with though. I used it for quite some time, but was unable to upgrade it for some reason. I sent them several emails about my problems with upgrading, but I never got a response back. That's when I switched to 1Password.

1Password has a secure way to access the information you store in it on the web as well as on some mobile devices including the iPhone.

WriteRoom: I don't own this one and haven't checked it out. I'm not a writer which is what this program seems geared toward. It basically helps remove all distractions associated with a computer when you are using it so that you can concentrate on your writing task instead of dealing with incoming email, IM's, Twitters, etc... It's probably very good and the retro "green screen" look is pretty funny. Reminds me of my days with my Apple ][ and monochrome monitor.

XSlimmer: I have heard conflicting views of using a program like XSlimmer to save hard drive space. I suppose as long as you have all your install images, it's safe enough to use. It helps you save hard drive space by removing the code in applications that you don't use. If you have an Intel Mac, then it will remove the PowerPC code and it will remove the Intel code if you have an older G5/4 Mac. I believe it also removes the languages that are not being used as well from programs that offer internationalization such as French and Spanish versions as well as English.

If you have a program like AppZapper ($12.95) or CleanApp ($10), then you won't need XSlimmer since those programs do the same thing as XSlimmer as well as help you uninstall software you no longer use.

Enigmo, Bugdom 2, Nanosaur 2: are all games. I bought Enigmo on my own, but got Bugdom 2 and Nanosaur 2 via other software bundles. They are pretty fun. I especially like Enigmo. A nice program that reminds me of a real game from Ideal called "Bing Bang Boing". (I love the internet! Where else would I be able to find a copy of an ad from back in 1972 about a game that never really took off!)

written by Dave M. \\ tags: bundle, cheap, Macheist, Software

As I run this site and keep track of the statistics from Google Analytics, I have had a couple of search hits from people looking to know how to remove a Preference Pane from System Preferences.

When I first got my Mac's, I too didn't know how to do it and relied on 3rd party programs like AppZapper and CleanApp to help me remove them. Later I found out exactly how to do it via OS X and so I thought I would pass along that knowledge.

So, say you have a Preference Pane you don't use anymore and want to remove it from System Preferences. Obviously, the first thing to do is Launch System Preferences.

As you can see, I have quite a few installed, but I am not currently using Witch, so I'll walk you through the process of removing it.

First thing you do is while holding down the Ctrl key, click on the Preference Pane icon you wish to remove. Now this is not the same as Right-Clicking on the Preference Pane icon. In fact, Right-Clicking on a Preference Pane icon will simply display the Preference Pane.

When you Right-Click on the Preference Pane icon, you will see this popup menu appear. Actually, you won't see the exact one because I have a few Context-Menu plugins installed as well. However, the "Remove "preference pane name" Preference Pane" menu item will be present when you do it.

No all you have to do is select the "Remove "preference pane name" Preference Pane" menu item and that Preference Pane will be a thing of the past. It's just that easy.

I get the impression that the designers of OS X wanted to make sure that removing a Preference Pane is something that you actually want to do and not do by accident. That is the only explanation I can come up with that explains why you have to use the Ctrl key instead of just Right-Clicking. Which, by the way, is what the Ctrl key is for when you are using an Apple one button mouse.

There is a drawback to removing a Preference Pane this way. You don't remove all the preferences for the just removed Preference Pane. Each Preference Pane has options that a user can set. Hence it being a Preference Pane. Those options are stored in a special folder in the users home directory kind of hidden away. Typically the path is {your home folder}/Library/Application Support/{name of preference pane}. It's usually pretty difficult to find the correct files to remove. Fortunately, these files are not big enough to be a bother and they are just text files so they won't slow down the OS like Windows' Registry typically does.

AppZapper

CleanApp

AppCleaner

If you are like me and really want to make sure that you have all the files to a Preference Pane removed, then I would suggest a program like AppZapper ($12.95), CleanApp ($10) or the free program AppCleaner (free). Each of those programs help you remove Preference Panes as well as Applications and other files that you may not need to help you recover space on a Hard Drive. I personally use CleanApp, I found it to have more features than AppZapper and it's a little cheaper. I have not looked at AppCleaner, I wasn't aware of a free Application Uninstaller like AppCleaner until after I had purchased CleanApp. However, I don't mind paying the $10 for a program. It's less than a trip to the movies these day.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: how to, Leopard, Mac, Os X, Preference Pane, remove, System Preferences, Tiger

Update: OK, I feel pretty darn stupid now. I found out why so many people are not able to restore closed tabs in Safari like I have been able to.

Turns out it's because I'm running an extension I found for Safari called Saft. Actually, I'm running a bunch of extensions for Safari. I liked a lot of the features I had in Firefox thanks to the extensions I had installed over there, but Safari doesn't really support extensions like Firefox does. However, it does support InputManagers or SIMBL programs. Saft can be run as an InputManager or as a stand alone application.

I run Saft as an InputManager so that it's around when ever I launch Safari. It does a bunch more things along with restoring closed tabs so head over to the programs website and check it out. It's not expensive at all and in my opinion, well worth what the developer is asking for it.

If you accidentally close a tab and want to reopen it, just type Ctrl-Z, or use the Edit menu and select "Undo Closing Tab".

I have no idea if this is a new Safari 3.1 feature or it's been in all versions of Safari since the beginning. I just had no idea it was there until today. Interestingly, it does not work in the Windows version of Safari 3.1. Can't say I understand why that is, they should be from the same build branch.

Here is why I'm posting this:

I just found a great feature of Safari totally by accident. Sometimes I close tabs I have open by mistake. It's pretty easy to hit Ctrl-W one too many times or just when you thought you were in a different application. At least for me it is. :shrug:

So I was working on an article I am going to post next when I accidently hit Ctrl-Z to undo something I had done in Snapz Pro X thinking I could undo something I had done. However, Snapz had completely gone away and Safari was the top app. I noticed that the page I was looking at had changed. I got a little worried since I had some text in a window I had typed and was afraid that I had lost it by closing the tab. So I looked at the tab bar and noticed that there were more tabs than should have been if I had closed it. I hit Ctrl-Z again and saw another new tab appear. I then realized that I was restoring tabs I had closed out earlier.

So I looked at the Safari menu bar to see if I could find out what Ctrl-Z did, not really thinking that it was Undo. I looked at the History menu first, then went over to the Edit menu and saw "Undo Closing Tab".

Now, at this point, I was saying to myself: Duh! Of course. Still, I wouldn't have thought to use Undo to restore a closed browser tab in a thousand years. Especially since Firefox and other browsers have other ways to restore closed tabs or no way at all.

So I pass this info on to others in hopes that it will make their decision to use one browser over another a little easier.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Leopard, Os X, Safari, Tiger, tip

There has been a lot of talk on the Apple blogs about a hacking contest where Charlie Miller won $10,000 plus a MacBook Air because he was the first one to hack into the machine and gain root access. How did he do this? He surfed to a test website he setup for the exercise with Safari. He managed this feet in just 2 minutes after CanSecWest security conference opened on the second day. No one was able to hack into any of the laptops setup for this purpose on the first day.

The way this contest was setup, if you can hack into one of the systems to gain root access you get prize money plus the system you hacked into. Hence the name of the contest: PWN2OWN. The first day was OS only attempts. The second day, the OS and software that is released with the OS are fair game, and on the final day, 3rd party software is added to the list.

Apparently, Microsoft Windows Vista was hacked on the 3rd day. No one managed to break into the 3rd system up for grabs, a Sony Vaio running the Linux distro Ubuntu.

I bring this up because one of my favorite bloggers to read brings up some valid points about security and Apple lax attitude for it. It has actually been a point of contention with myself an a lot of MacZelots. I constantly hear how secure OS X is due to it's Unix Kernel BeOS. Sure, that Kernel is probably very secure. However, there is a lot of software running on top of it that may no be so secure and the CanSecWest PWN2OWN contest shined a very bright light on that fact.

Safari is not clean software. This has been proven time and time again via Safari running on Windows machines and even the iPhone. It's hard to say how many problems are in other software that Apple produces, but Safari is a popular piece of software to attack these days. Especially since Apple all but forced it on Windows users recently.

This brings me back to my comment about a point of contention with MacZealots. See, I state that the reason Apple's OS X hasn't seen any major successful security exploits so far, is due to it's lack of market share. The old "security thru obscurity" argument. I have been ridiculed over and over again by my stating this.

What I mean by this is pretty simple. Since Apple owns a very small percent of the home computer market, virus writers don't see the OS X and the Macintosh as a viable platform for their attacks. Back in the 80's and 90's, virus writing was more of a personal pride thing. Hackers wanted to be able to claim that they were the ones to take down thousands of computers using their "handles" or monickers. Apple and Microsoft were targets back then.

Currently, virus writers are finding huge profit in the work they do. They write elaborate systems to allow spammers to get out their messages without drawing attention to themselves by using millions of "zombie" systems to do their dirty work for them. They are willing to pay big money to do this. In fact, there are viruses out there that actually have anti-virus software in their code to eradicate competing viruses so that only their virus is on the unsuspecting computer users system. They don't take computers down like before, but try their best to not be noticed at all.

Trust me when I say this is a big business. Spammers make millions of dollars spamming us, they are very willing to share some of that wealth to good virus writers to make sure that they have their way of sending out spam messages.

So what happens when Macintosh and OS X becomes more popular? Say when they see 30% market share or better? The Mac and OS X will wind up being a target just as much as Windows. Will that ever happen? I don't know for sure, but Apple is doing everything in their power to make Macintosh and Apple a very popular name. It also doesn't hurt that Microsoft has put out a dude of an OS called Windows Vista. Windows users are re-evaluating their decisions and seeing their friends running Tiger and Leopard and seeing that they don't have any problems with speed and usability.

The last couple of months, Apple has seen great sales numbers. Better than they have ever seen in their Notebook and Desktop computer lines.

If Apple keeps up this trend, they are really going to have to step up their security efforts in their software to make sure that they are secure. One thin Apple does have going for it is that when an exploit is discovered, it's fairly quickly corrected. Apple doesn't wait for "monthly updates" like Microsoft does. When they have a security update that needs to go out, they send it out.

So I am really hoping that Apple starts looking more closely at security and stops sitting on it's hands thinking that they are the best when clearly they have work to do.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Apple, Bloggers, Charlie Miller, Clean Software, Fair Game, Gain Root, Grabs, iPhone, Lax Attitude, Microsoft Windows Vista, Os X, Party Software, Point Of Contention, Prize Money, Reason Apple, root access, Safari, Security Conference, Security Exploits, Security Tag, Sony Vaio, Test Website, Unix Kernel, Windows Machines, Windows Users, Wit

While checking out my statistics at Site Meter this morning, I notices something rather disturbing. The majority of my readers are using Firefox 1.x.

It's not disturbing that those users are using Firefox. In fact, I would further suggest that all you Internet Explorer 6.x and 7.x users (22.2%) should consider looking at Firefox, Opera, Safari, or any other browser that doesn't use Internet Explorer as it's rendering engine (means of displaying web content). Your Windows computers will be much happier if you do.

No, actually I'm concerned that 37.4% of my readers, the majority, are using older versions of Firefox. Firefox 2.x has been out for quite some time now and is a faster, more reliable version than it's older 1.x version. In fact, version 2.x (and many later versions of version 1.x) support the ability to update themselves automatically. In fact, click the image below to go straight to Firefox's download page:

Download Firefox

Making sure that Firefox automatically update's itself is very important. The folks that develop Firefox stay on top of security issues that arise from security experts and hackers finding holes in Firefox. As soon as a fix is made and tested, it's released as an update that Firefox will prompt you for the minute it detects it.

To make sure that Firefox will update itself for the Mac, go to the "Firefox" Menu and select "Preferences..." (or Command-,) to bring up Firefox's Preferences dialog.

To make sure that Firefox will update itself for Windows, go to the "Tools" Menu and select "Options..." to bring up Firefox's Options dialog.

Once there, switch to the Advanced tab by clicking on the word Advanced tab (the icon that looks like a gear), and select the Update tab inside. Now, make sure that "Automatically check for updates to: Firefox is checked. The "When updates to Firefox are found: options will allow you to have Firefox automatically download and install any updates, or ask you to update when you are ready. Even the automatic update will ask you if you want to update now or later, so it's pretty safe to use either option.

Making this change will allow Firefox to keep itself up-to-date and safe from any malicious website bent on making your web browsing experience, and general computer experience, unpleasant.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Explorer 6, Firefox Browser, Hackers, Internet Explorer, Older Versions, Opera, Options, Os X, Safari, Security Experts, Security Holes, Security Issues, Site Meter, Statistics, Tools Menu, Update Windows, Upgrade Browser, Web Content, Windows Computers, Windows Os, Windows Upgrade

I came off with the previous post as sounding like I thought that Apple including Safari in the "update" was a good thing. I do feel that they made a mistake in defaulting the item as checked and would be downloaded if the user just clicks the update button.

Yes, it's pretty sneaky marketing. Do you folks really think Apple is so pure and nice that they would never do such a thing? They are a business and to listen to some folks, a monopoly. At least as far as MP3 players goes, and this is the real problem here. People are saying that Apple is using it's "monopoly" in MP3 players and music as a means of gaining a market share in the browser world. Will they? Guess what. Probably not at all.

As some of my commenters have stated, people don't really have a clue that there are other browsers out there other than Internet Explorer. They wouldn't even notice that there was another browser to choose from when using their computer after running the update. For crying out loud, they don't even know that they have spyware and trojans running on their computer in the first place!

I'm just surprised that it's causing all this attention in the blogosphere. Everyone I read/hear is going on like this is the end of the world as we know it. The biggest complaint is: Now that Apple has done this, people are not going to want to run the Apple Software Update program and because of this, they are not going to run update software at all. So this will cause the internet to become less secure.

Oh please, give me a break! People have already been/being trained to make the internet less secure by Microsoft with Vista and User Access Control (UAC) not to mention Windows Update. People are turning off UAC all over the place because it's about the most annoying thing ever. Plus, just like crying "Wolf" over and over again, sooner or later, you are just going to assume that the next UAC prompt that shoes up is just another "cry wolf" prompt and tell it to go ahead when it really is a bad thing.

Windows Update is really bad to allow to run at all, much less tell it to let you know that there is an update to download. Windows Update has actually installed updates even when you tell it to not actually do anything other than warn you that updates are out. This hasn't happened very often, but it has happened a couple of times and Microsoft has been called out for them.

So I have to say, that maybe these computer journalists need to be making sure that Microsoft takes care of their issues before going after Apple.

Actually, this looks a lot like Greenpeace going after Apple for not being "Green" when compared to Dell and HP, Apple's messing up the environment is way less. After all, older Macintosh computers tend to get sold to new owners where older Windows boxes tend to just get thrown out. I really didn't understand that, but now Apple is even "greener" and the rest of the computer world is still as messy as before. Ah well.

Now, all that said, if you are a Windows user reading this far down the post, why not actually try Safari and see if you don't think that Safari is not faster than any browser that you are currently using minus Firefox 3 Beta. Firefox 3 being beta is still pretty unstable or I would have to say that they are pretty close to the same speed. Once Mozilla gets Firefox 3 out of beta, they are going to be a really good competitor.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Annoying Thing, Apple 2, Apple Software, Browser World, Clue, Commenters, Cry Wolf, Crying Wolf, Hub Bub, Internet Explorer, Market Share, Mistake, Monopoly, Mp3 Players, Safari, Shoes, Software Update, User Access Control, Windows Update, Wolf

I've been seeing a lot of griping about Apple's Software Update for Windows and it having Safari in it's lists of updates even when Safari for Windows isn't installed on that computer. (Yep Neil, I saw your Twitter response)

Here is my take on this for what it is worth...

The "Apple Software Update" program is a program that is installed when installing either of the three programs on the list in the above screen shot. iTunes, QuickTime, and/or Safari. It's a convenience program to allow you to keep those programs up-to-date without having to go to Apple's website every so often to make sure you have the latest. It's written fairly similarly to Apple's Macintosh "Software Update" program.

There has been a lot of griping about how Apple is trying to "pull a fast one" and sneak a copy of Safari onto Windows based computers by making it look like the user needs to update the program when in fact it's not even installed on the system. (Ok, so most of the complaining has been by either the Mozilla group, or Twitter posts...)

• SlashDot:
  Mozilla CEO Objects To Safari Auto Install
• Twitter:
  Molly Wood
• Twitter:
  Response to Molly's tweet
• Daring Fireball:
  Apple Offering Safari 3.1 to Windows iTunes Users
• Waffle:
  Where By “Interesting”, I Mean “Annoying”
• Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows:
  Mozilla responds to Apple's dubious use of Software Update to push Safari
• Daring Fireball:
  Paul Thurrott on the Safari for Windows Software Update Thing
• Waffle:
  The Sliding Scale of Right
• Alivad.com:
  Apple’s dirty Safari installer …
• Brandon Live!:
  Apple is the new Borg
• rare pattern:
  Apple's in the wrong, but Safari really is the better browser
• Cow's Blog:
  Apple Safari Backdoor Install 'Wrong'
• on and on and on...

The complaints seem to be focusing on the fact that if Microsoft did this, they would get their butt's in all kinds of hot water, yet Apple is getting a free ticket to do what they want.

Now, it's very possible that this is Apple's way of getting Safari onto Windows based systems with little effort. After all, if a Windows user has an iPod or iPhone, they will probably be running iTunes and will be running this software update program to make sure that iTunes is up-to-date. So basically, Apple is taking advantage of this fact to try to get Safari installed on as many Windows based systems as it can.

Is this evil? Eh, I can't really say. Personally, I use Safari now more and more since Firefox seems to be getting slower and buggier by the day. I have tried other Windows based browsers like Opera and Netscape, but none are really as speedy as Safari is. So giving Windows users another choice to me seems like a nice thing. Just my opinion here.

Now, getting back to the topic at hand. I can't speak for other platforms when it comes to their update software. I can speak to Microsoft and Windows Update. I still have a couple of Windows boxes laying around here running XP. There have been several times when Microsoft has decided to "update" my computer without my permission. I don't run Windows Update in such a way that it is supposed to update my computer no matter what. I like to make sure the updates I am installing are ones I really need. Yet, I know of at least 2 times when my Windows box has been rebooted by a software update that happened without my telling it to update.

With Apple's Software Update mechanism, I am given a list of programs that need to be updated, each with a checkbox in front so that I can tell the program that I don't want to update a specific piece of software at that time. Further more, I can tell the program that I don't ever want to see a specific update again, by using the Tools menu and selecting "Ignore Selected Updates".

Now, I don't see Safari in the list at all:

So, I really don't understand why all the complaining. It's easy enough to ignore software that you don't want to install. It's not hiding the fact that it's going to install/update the software if you click on the "Install n items" button at the bottom. Plus, installing Safari doesn't change your default browser, home page setting, browser search engine, etc... All perfectly benign.

I have seen install programs on Windows that sneak all kinds of junk on to your computer and don't give you even the slightest option to not install it or even tell you that it is going to install it except in that nasty piece of text called the EULA.

So, calm down folks, it's really not that bad and if you really don't want it, ignore it or even better, remove Apple Software Update from even running on your Windows system and you will never have to worry about it again.

Update: (8:18pm) I just cleaned up the links to other sites talking about this topic and moved them off to a list.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Apple Macintosh, Apple Safari, Apple Software, Based Computers, Cow, Daring Fireball, Free Ticket, Hot Water, Hub Bub, Macintosh Software, Molly Wood, Paul Thurrott, Quicktime, Rare Pattern, Safari For Windows, Software Update, Supersite For Windows, Twitter, Waffle, Windows Software