As the heat of the summer kicks in, Adam turns his attention to the just-released Firefox 3 and finds it full-featured and surprisingly capable after the previous version, which could barely be considered a Macintosh application. Meanwhile, it’s Glenn Fleishman’s fate to explain complex Internet technologies, such as why there are public and private IP addresses, how to tell which your network has, and what that means for using Apple’s Back to My Mac service. Jeff Carlson changes gears entirely, and talks about how AppleCare once again proves its worth by providing a replacement battery for his MacBook Pro. In the TidBITS Watchlist this week, we look briefly at the releases of CrossOver Mac 7.0, the Xserve EFI Firmware Update 1.1, ConceptDraw Office, and Growl 1.1.4.
Buying AppleCare with a new Mac can seem like an unnecessary extra cost, but for Jeff, AppleCare's replacement of his MacBook Pro's weak battery made the service worthwhile.
Firefox 3, the latest version of the Web's second most popular browser, looks like a significant upgrade, with features like bookmark tags and increased performance making Adam wonder if it deserves to be his default browser.
Back to My Mac relies on a public IP address being available on the router to which your Mac is connected. How do you find out if you have a public IP address - and why is it so danged hard to make connections like this over the Internet?
Notable software releases this week include CrossOver Mac 7.0, the Xserve EFI Firmware Update 1.1, ConceptDraw Office, and Growl 1.1.4.
Readers are talking about old Macs this week, wondering which versions of the Mac OS can run on outdated systems (and whether it's worth the trouble). Other discussions focus on the iPhone 3G (its industrial design and performance in Australia), using online banking within Quicken 2007, possibilities for next year's Snow Leopard release, using Entourage with MobileMe, removing items from the Recent Items list, and more.