I’ll be testing Safari 5.1, Safari 4 beta (thanks to its tabs-on-top design), Chrome 5, Firefox 3.6, Firefox 4 beta 3, Opera 10.6, Camino 2, Shiira 2.2, Sunrise 2.1, and iCab 4.8 .

Testing so many browsers presents a problem: Not all browsers use the same UI conventions. For example, Opera doesn’t have a bookmarks bar; its bookmarks are contained in a sidebar. To remedy this, I’ve broken the tests into two sections, showing different parts of the browser chrome. Section one will be with the bookmarks bar hidden, so only the tab bar and toolbar are showing, so I’m able to include Opera. Section two will be with the bookmarks bar shown, so Opera will be excluded from it. I’ll also include a third section that shows the data overall. I omitted testing status bars because Chrome doesn’t really have one, and I’d argue that most people don’t use them.

Tab Bar and Toolbar

I’ll go ahead and say that there are two winners here: Chrome 5 and the Safari 4 beta. But why is Chrome also a winner when the Safari 4 beta so clearly trumps it? My reasoning is that Chrome is a current browser, and that I had to go through a strange rigmarole process to even get the Safari 4 beta running, and it still crashed every time I opened a new tab, so it’s not really usable.

The loser here, by a large margin, is iCab. This was using the default configuration, so I messed with it a little, used small icons and hid the text beneath them. It still came in last, right behind Shiira with 91 pixels, only beating itself. iCab developers, if you’re reading this, please make iCab less space-hungry.

What’s interesting about the comparison between Firefox is that tabs-on-top actually uses slightly more pixels than tabs-on-bottom. Also, using small icons will save you eight pixels.

Here’s a screenshot comparing the top six browsers in this section:

With Bookmarks Bar

Unsurprisingly, the winner here is the Safari 4 beta. However, I was surprised to find that the second winner was Safari 5. Yes, Safari 5 narrowly beats out Chrome by just one pixel. iCab is last in place, by a large margin, again.

I also figured out that, on average, you can save about 20 pixels without the bookmarks bar.

Here’s another screenshot showing the top five browsers in this section:

Overall

I’ve made two graphs that show the data overall: the first by number of pixels in ascending order, the second by browser. I’ve also included a couple of bonuses: I measured Internet Explorer 5 for Mac and Netscape 9. IE doesn’t have a tab bar, so I just measured it with the bookmarks bar. It makes a good watermark for big browsers. And yes, iCab still comes in last, even behind IE. Netscape was surprisingly small, with the minimum being 83 pixels, just behind Sunrise.

Is pixel-friendliness important in a browser? Does it affect which browser you use? Sound off in the comments.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: What Does the Future Hold For Browsers?

The free app from Firefox, which now joins Opera as a browser company with a presence in the App Store, brings a user’s search history, saved passwords, bookmarks and open tabs to an iPhone or iPod touch. This harmony between multiple devices is made possible due to a Firefox desktop add-on from Mozilla dubbed Firefox Sync. As the name suggests, the free-to-use Firefox Sync add-on synchronizes all of a users browsing data, from multiple devices — making it readily available in the cloud, wherever a Firefox browser is installed.

But how can you get your Firefox browsing data, be it from a PC or Mac, on your iPhone? Our guide shows you how.

Getting Started

The first thing you are going to need to do is download the application from the App Store.

Install The Add-On

When you open up the companion application the first thing you will be asked is whether you have a Firefox Sync account. If you do, then you can go ahead and select the appropriate option to proceed. But for those who don’t have an account you will need to head to a computer to get going.

When at your computer (in my case a PC, as I tend not to use Firefox on my Mac) open up Firefox and navigate to Mozilla’s sync add-on page. Follow the on-screen prompts to get the add-on installed and restart the browser.

Set-Up Sync

When the browser restarts a pop-up will prompt you to begin the setup process for the now installed extension. As you are new to Firefox Sync you will need to select ‘I’ve never used Sync before’. Selecting this will begin the sign-up process. The sign-up process is a typical one made up of a few simple steps. You will need to provide a username, password, email and a 12-character secret phrase.

With all your sign-in credentials in order you will then need to name your device, for example ‘My Windows 7 PC’ or ‘My Mac Mini’. Taking a few seconds to name your device correctly is an important step for later use, as when you have multiple sync’s in place it’s an easy way to see what data is from what device.

Once all the data has been added, the sign-up process will be completed. You will now find a new ‘Sync’ option in your browser under the Tools menu. A sync of your data is automatically made once a day, however this new menu will show you specifically when a last sync was made, in addition to allowing you to make a sync take place manually.

Back to the App

Now all the settings are in place, it’s time to try the application. Select ‘I Have A Sync Account’ and enter the same login information, including your secret phrase, that you just entered on your computer.

When logged in you will see four options: Search, Tabs, Bookmarks and Settings. The Settings page will let you sign-out, refresh your synced data and see what data is being sync in the cloud. As expected, the Bookmarks, Search and Tabs pages show a listing of any bookmarks, history or open tabs you have from your last sync. Sadly Firefox’s application is lacking in one browsing essential — an address bar. You can’t manually input a URL, therefore using the search tool seems to be the most effective way to navigate around, allowing access to any pages in your history.

And that’s how you use Firefox Home on your iPhone.

Thoughts On Firefox Home

Why Mozilla decided to take this route for its mobile application is unknown, especially considering Opera’s success in getting Opera Mini approved and on the App Store, address bar included. However, despite its flaws, the app does have some value. Take this example — you’re about to head out but want to continue working on a few things while on the move. Mozilla’s app makes this a fairly easy and instant reality, allowing you to pick up where you left off, tabs intact. How often this scenario would arise to be of great benefit to someone is unknown, but the option sure is nice.

While using the app a few things were noticed; the pinch to zoom, like Opera Mini, isn’t quite right. If you have a lot of data to sync, it can take a little while. Finally, unlike the full desktop sync service, the mobile version is not compatible with private servers.

Firefox Home is available to download for free from Apple’s App Store now. Have you tried it, and if so, what are your thoughts on this ‘browser companion’?

Now there’s a solution for the Mac: Rapportive. It takes over the advertisements area in Gmail, and provides basic information about your email correspondents: occupation, Twitter/Flickr/LinkedIn links, age, location and custom notes. Yes, it supports Google Apps accounts, and the preview version of Mailplane now has an option to view Rapportive data. The experience definitely feels like a beta, with occasional inaccurate or missing information, but it’s great having so much additional context inside my email.

The problem? Rapportive so far only works in Google Chrome and Firefox as an extension. Safari is missing out since it doesn’t support simple extension development. Now that Chrome has overtaken Safari in market share, Apple needs to step up its game in terms of features. Both Safari and Mail.app need extension support to integrate all of these new social products. I am aware that some important extensions like Evernote and 1Password exist for Safari, but there is no official Apple documentation or support on how to build extensions. This needs to change. Unfortunately for Apple, Google and Mozilla already have thousands of extensions available.

Another nail in OS X 10.4 Tiger’s coffin was recently hammered in a post by Mozilla Foundation’s Josh Aas.

Support for Tiger Already Terminated

Aas reveals that development support for OS X 10.4 Tiger was terminated as of September 2009, but much of the code required to support 10.4 was left in the tree in case the developers wanted to reverse that decision. The point has arrived that a final decision to either restore 10.4 support or remove the (large) amount of 10.4-specific code from the next iteration of Mozilla’s Gecko browser engine must be made.

He presents the not unreasonable case that the developers want to take advantage of advanced technologies in later OS X versions and retaining OS 10.4 support has been a hindrance, as workarounds consume valuable time and effort.

25% of Mac OS X Firefox Users Still Running OS 10.4

Aas concedes that approximately 25 percent of Firefox’s Mac OS X users (roughly 1.5 million) are still running OS 10.4, but would continue to be supported by Firefox 3.6 until it reaches end of service several months after the next major Firefox version release (built on Gecko 1.9.3) later this year. Cold comfort and a mighty short time window for those of us still running Tiger, the last OS X version that supports G3 Macs and G4s slower than 867 MHz. I’m hoping to get at least two or three more years of production service out of my two old Pismo PowerBooks running OS 10.4.

Aas counters that in the past Mozilla hasn’t lost appreciable market share after dropping support for a Mac OS X version, making the fair observation that they’re typically one of the last vendors supporting older Mac OS X releases. However I wonder if any of those previous abandonments represented a quarter of their user base.

OS 10.4 a Special Case?

I submit that Tiger represents a special case because of its straddling of the PPC/Intel transition, and that there are more PPC diehards likely holding on to older Macs that only support up to Tiger for longer this time than would customarily have been.

Some of us Tiger holdouts either don’t want to give up on computers performing superbly and reliably for us, as my Pismos are for me, or simply can’t afford to upgrade our systems during this economic period.

I accede to the eventual inevitability of Tiger’s demise farewell, and Apple itself could terminate security update support for Tiger any day now. I just don’t welcome it and hoped it wouldn’t arrive quite this soon.

How about you? If you’re still using Tiger, how big of a deal will Firefox support termination be for you?

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.

Squeezing Every Bit of Speed Potential Out

Now this R.P. Mozely cat doesn’t just provide a one-size-fits-all PowerPC generic optimization, but discrete dedicated versions for G3 PowerPC 750, G4 PowerPC 7400, G4 PowerPC 7450, and G5 PowerPC 970, presumably all the better to squeeze every bit of potential speed out of each respective processor. My hot-rodder Pismos have 550 MHz G4 7400 CPUs, so last weekend I proceeded to download the G4 7400 optimized builds of Firefox 3.5.6, Camino 2.0.1, and the SeaMonkey 2.0.1 Internet suite application.

Worth the Effort?

So was it worth the effort? I think so. These browsers are definitely faster than the stock builds, performing remarkably well on the old Pismo, even when it really needed a restart to clear the memory heap, dipping into virtual memory swapfiles on the hard drive routinely.

I had been especially hopeful that the PPC-optimized Camino would work well, and it does. My seat-of-the-pants assessment is that it’s the fastest browser I’ve used on the Pismo — livelier even than Opera 10, which is no slouch speed-wise itself.

Sluggishness Banished

I’ve found recent versions of Firefox, Camino and SeaMonkey a bit sluggish on the old G4 machines, which is a big part of why I keep using Navigator 9. But that complaint is pretty much eliminated with these PowerPC optimized builds of the current Gecko browsers, at least in their G4 7400 iterations. However, for what it’s worth, I think the Camino variant is the pick of the litter.

If you’re still hanging in with a PowerPC Mac, I think you’ll thank yourself for taking the trouble to download one or more of these PowerPC-optimized browser versions.

While the debate over Mac versus PC will last for eternity, one of the elements that many “diehard” PC users have thrown at Apple fanboys is the ability to really tweak their experience, through application add-ons and plugins.

Mac users who use Firefox have had a little taste of this with Greasemonkey, a Firefox add-on that allows support for on the fly changes to websites. If you haven’t heard of Greasemonkey, this is a must read for you and if your browser of choice isn’t Firefox, we’ll show you how to install its equivalent, GreaseKit with Safari.

What Is Greasemonkey?

Greasemonkey is an add-on for browsers that allow users to install “scripts” that are fine tuned to affect how different websites function. For example, if you’re a person who uses MySpace and really hates how the login page is full of ads, you can install a script that adjusts the display of the page when it loads and gives you a cleaner experience.

Cleaning up MySpace is just the beginning; there are scripts for just about everything. If you’re not a fan of the default Gmail web interface, you can use a script that declutters it.

But it’s not just about changing the look and feel of a website; there are scripts that remove content like ads and scripts that add functionality, like a script that lets you add notes to entries in your Netflix queue.

Installing GreaseKit in Safari

While Greasemonkey is an easy add-on if you use Firefox, you can also use similar add-ons in Safari. For Safari users, begin by downloading SIMBL and install it. Then download GreaseKit and install the bundle file inside to ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins. If this folder doesn’t exist, just add it before dropping the file inside.

Next, relaunch Safari and, provided things worked well, you’ll see a new menu entry for GreaseKit. Now go find some scripts (see below) and click “Install This Script” to copy it into GreaseKit. You’ll see the JavaScript flash on screen and eventually it should be added to your GreaseKit menu.

Getting Scripts

There are a variety of places to find the scripts that integrate with Greasemonkey or GreaseKit. Userscripts.org is perhaps the largest of these and an excellent place to start. I urge caution though as these scripts can become dated when the websites they affect are updated. Also, because you’re not running the scripts in Greasemonkey on Firefox for Windows (where they are usually tested), the add-ons may not function exactly as described. This is likely to happen in Safari if the script is overly complex, requiring additional interfaces to manage it.

Here are the scripts I’ve discussed in this article:

• Netflix Notes
• MySpace Clean Redesigned Login and Logout
• Simplify Gmail

You also might enjoy the Unfriend Finder for Facebook that lets you know when (and who) has unfriended you. This particular script doesn’t work well in Safari, so I recommend using it in Firefox.

Have you found any good scripts? Feel free to use the comments below and let us know what you think.

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Macworld’s Joe Kissell observes that there are many fine Mac Web browsers to choose from, and there’s no reason not to have several installed so that you can switch among them as needed. Indeed, I virtually always have at least three up and running at any given time.

Safari vs. Firefox

However, most folks are inclined to rely primarily on one main browser, and for that purpose, Kissell recommends using one of the two most popular ones — either Apple’s Safari or Mozilla’s Firefox  – which he says both make excellent all-around choices and work well as a default browser, which I don’t dispute, although neither are my own choice as my number one browser. Kissell notes that certain situations may make one or the other of these two browsers an especially good choice, outlining several areas where in his estimation they respectively excel. Of course such evaluations tend to be somewhat subjective.

For example, Joe likes Safari’s built-in PDF support. I’m personally not a big fan. While the built-in facility means you don’t have to switch to Preview or Adobe Reader to launch a PDF file you still have to wait while it loads in the browser window, and saving it is another step. I prefer the download and view mode, but that’s just me. Joe mentions that if you like inline PDF viewing, a free extension called Firefox-Mac-PDF will add similar functionality to Firefox.

Another Safari feature Joe likes is the ability to resize text area controls (multi-line text fields) by dragging the handle in the lower right corner of the field. This is indeed handy, but not a killer feature, in my opinion.

How Often Will You Want to Do That?

I do agree that Safari’s full-text history searches (Safari’s Top Sites view>History -> Show Top Sites) and search field for words that appeared on Web pages you viewed recently even if they’re no longer open is pretty cool, and he likes Safari’s ability to display graphics in non-Web TIFF or JPEG 2000 formats, although how often will you want to do that?

When Firefox May Be a Better Choice

However, Joe thinks there are also instances where Firefox is a better choice than Safari, such as when using Google Toolbar — another free extension for Firefox that adds a long and user-configurable list of features to the browser, including quick access to various Google Gadgets.

He also likes Firefox’s more flexible and versatile privacy setting configuration that lets you configure many privacy settings per domain, as opposed to Safari’s all-or-nothing privacy setting limitations, and praises the vast range of choice in Firefox add-ons and plug-ins compared with the lack of an officially supported plug-in API for Safari. For folks who like to tweak their browser functionality, Firefox is the way to go.

Firefox (and its sibling Gecko-based browsers like Camino and SeaMonkey) can also display inline mathematical equations, while Safari and other WebKit-based browsers only support display of linear strings of characters.

Why I Use Opera and Chrome More Than Safari and Firefox

Personally, I use Firefox more than Safari, but Opera 10 and lately Google’s Chrome for Mac each respectively get more hours of surfing on my machines than Firefox and Safari combined, and both Opera and Chrome have features I miss when using the more mainstream browsers, such as their superior download managers, Opera’s up-front and versatile Zoom menu, and Chrome’s raw speed, fast startup, and “right now” Finder response. Opera and Chrome both seem more nimble and less inclined to be memory hogs than Safari and Firefox (although the latter has cleaned up its act in that regard somewhat in recent iterations). I prefer the looks of Opera and Chrome as well, but as Joe Kissell noted, we have an embarrassment of choice in browsers these days, and everyone should be able to find a browser (or two or three) that suits their needs and tastes to a tee.

What’s your favorite OS X browser, and why?

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I’m talking about Adobe’s Bridge utility, a photo file browser bundled with CS3 and CS4, and in a slightly feature-reduced version, with Photoshop Elements 6 (PSE). I prefer Bridge’s more manual control and configuration options to iPhoto’s automation of how you browse, organize, delete, search, view, edit, and apply metadata to your image files.

Photoshop is too expensive for most, but its consumer version, Photoshop Elements, retains much of the power and functionality of the full version at a relatively low price. The Bridge version Mac PSE users get lacks only a few esoteric bits, like the “meetings” feature that supports project collaboration and the ability to apply camera RAW settings to groups of photos or to access the RAW converter directly.

When you access the Bridge from PSE (File Menu — “Browse With Bridge”), the Elements interface hides and the Bridge interface appears, allowing you to display folder icons or content thumbnails. Six interface layouts are available, with several panels — called Workspaces — that help you find and preview photos, review associated metadata, and so on. You can use the predefined panels, or create your own custom Workspace.

Another Bridge feature, “Stacks,” organizes your photos into stacks of images. It lets you keep each series of photos in a single spot in Bridge, making it easier and faster to find the ones you want. Bridge also lets you apply keywords to help organize photos in growing photo libraries. In the Keywords panel you can create and assign terms to photos, allowing you to instantly filter your library.

There’s also Collections, which allows you to save groups of photos for quick access, or to gather shots you want to use in a project. For example, if you have several cameras, you can segregate your library based on the camera used by organizing the photos from each into different collections.

Note that, unlike in iPhoto, when you move or delete a file in Bridge, you’re editing or disposing of the original copy. Bridge doesn’t keep backups, as it is purely a browser for finding and organizing files — one of the reasons I, being manual control-oriented, prefer it. Bridge is not a busybody app that second-guesses you.

Recently, a reader with a photography business asked my advice on a good Mac-based photo management system. His requirements included the ability to add the files’ EXIF to his contact info, details on where and why the picture was taken, copyright info, and keywords searchable by various image galleries he uses. He also wanted a tool that would leave his directory structure intact. Sounded like a job for Bridge.

The reader said he’d owned almost every version of Photoshop, from 5 to CS3, and checked out Bridge when it was first introduced, finding it slow and clunky, but would give it another try. He reported back that the current version is much better, adding that my suggestion might have just saved him hours of tedious organizing.

If you already have Photoshop CS3 or Elements 6, it’s worth taking a look at Bridge. If you don’t have one of those apps, Photoshop Elements at $89.95 has to be one of the greatest-ever software bargains, and inclusion of Bridge in version 6 is the icing on the cake.

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With invites going out every day and Google and Apple being in the news many times over because of the rejection of its native Google Voice app for the iPhone, many are giving this service a close look. If you’re a Mac or iPhone user, here are some tips that’ll help you get the most out of this service.

Unlocked Phone? Free calls!

Though officially iPhone users in the U.S. should be on the AT&T network, if you’re using another carrier, you may be able to use your Google Voice number to get around your monthly allotment of minutes. Some carriers, like T-Mobile, offer the ability to provide a list of “frequently” used numbers that do not impact the minutes allowed on a monthly plan. Since Google is footing the bill for connecting calls between a Google Voice number and any other number inside the U.S., simply adding your Google number to your “favorite list” results in free calls. It’s too bad AT&T doesn’t support this feature.

No GV Mobile? No problem!

The internets were in a tizzy last week over the removal of GV Mobile from Apple’s App Store, leaving iPhone users with Google’s mobile website to place calls. If you are one of few who have jailbroken your phone, you can find GV Mobile through Cydia. For more information, check out Sean Kovacs website.

If jailbreaking isn’t your bag, then no problem! The traditional way that Google Voice works is that you simply call your Google Voice number and then press “2.” From here, you can dial the outgoing call as normal. For those who frequently are calling contacts with their Google Voice number, here’s a quick way to simplify the process.

In your iPhone’s address book, you can add another number for a contact and format it so that your iPhone does all the dirty work of calling Google and connecting the call for you.

The process is simple. Create a new contact entry for your desired contact and for their number, insert your own Google number. Then press the “+*#” key and then the “pause” button to insert a pause. Now type a “2” followed by another “pause” and finally the desired phone number for the contact. Now you’ve told your iPhone to dial Google, initiate a new call and contact the number you’ve selected. Here’s how it should look:

Though dialing will take slightly longer, it’s all automated and the other person will see your Google number when their phone rings! Depending on your settings, you may also need to input your PIN number with appropriate pauses. Also, make sure your Google Voice account is setup to allow direct access to voicemail when calling from your phone. These options are all in your Google Voice settings.

Google Voice On Your Mac

If your browser of choice is Firefox, developer Chad Smith has developed a plugin that quickly allows users to click any phone number on the web and dial and connect via their Google Voice number. This free plugin is available here.

Are you a Google Voice user? Have you discovered other neat tips and tricks? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Sound off and share your thoughts!

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You may already be running Firefox 3.5, if you grabbed it early from Mozilla’s FTP servers, where it’s been available for a little while now, but if not, head over to Mozilla.com to update. I’ve been using the Beta and the Release Candidate versions for some time, and aside from the usual incompatibility with a few add-ons, I can tell you that 3.5 not only works great, but also packs some useful new features.

For most users, the first thing you’ll notice is how much faster Firefox 3.5 is compared with the previous version. There are a lot of reasons for the speed improvements, but one of them is the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine that is much more efficient when dealing with resource-hogging web apps. There’s a great post over at WebWorkerDaily that goes into more detail about how that works and what it means.

My personal favorite new feature is the ability to tear off tabs and move them to new windows, something which I used to have to use a plug-in to accomplish. I can’t count how many times I need to do this on a daily basis when I’m referencing something for an article, or for debugging code and HTML.

Here’s a brief list of some of the highlights of the new version to whet your appetite (and more here):

• Private Browsing and Clear Recent History features.
• Location aware browsing via geolocation.
• Gecko engine 1.9.1, with many rendering process improvements.
• HTML5, downloadable fonts and other new CSS property support, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 offline data storage for applications, and SVG transforms.
• Open video support, meaning that you won’t have to download any plug-ins or use external viewers to watch web video content.
• Improvements to session restore, anti-phishing and malware, the Awesome Bar, and browser customization.

Check out the full Release Notes for 3.5 from Mozilla for a complete list of new features and additions.

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iPhoto is perfectly capable of displaying your photos as a slideshow or one at a time. But you’re limited to a flat display that doesn’t exactly “wow” anyone. With one simple download, you can view your iPhoto collection on a visually stunning 3D wall, right in your web browser.

Cooliris is a browser plugin available for Safari and Firefox that allows you to view photos and videos in a beautiful full-screen, 3D-wall format. You can scroll across the panoramic wall with your mouse, clicking on photos to enlarge them. At its core, the plugin allows you to view images on web sites such as Flickr, Facebook, and Google Images, as well as search through news outlets and movie trailer sites.

But one of the great features of Cooliris — that few people even notice — is the ability to quickly view photos located in folders on your hard drive or inside your iPhoto library.

Viewing images with Cooliris

First you’ll have to install the Cooliris plugin for either Safari or Firefox and restart your browser. Once installed, you simply activate it with the button in your browser toolbar. You will enter Cooliris in Full-Screen mode, and start out in Discover mode — which will show off a images from a variety of sources. Navigate to the upper left corner and click the My Computer tab from the source column. The tab will expand to allow you to select folders on your hard drive, as well as choose your iPhoto library, and any albums you currently have available.

Choose your iPhoto library, or the album you want to view, and the magic begins. All the images appear on a wall against a dark background. You can use the futuristic scroll bar at the bottom of the screen, or a mouse with side-scrolling capability (such as Apple’s Mighty Mouse) to navigate. Scrolling left or right speeds you along the wall of images until you get to an image you want to view. If the image sizes aren’t to your liking, you can scroll up or down to enlarge the images on the wall. Once you’ve found an image, you simply click to enlarge it. Your image enlarges and a frame includes more information about it, such as the file name, camera settings and more. As an added bonus, you can click a button to reveal the iPhoto image in the Finder, saving you a trip into iPhoto to drag it out manually.

To enjoy a slideshow of your photos, click the Full Screen button in the lower left corner of the Cooliris interface. This will zoom your image to fill your screen, as well as provide a horizontal frame-by-frame preview of your images.

Cooliris is absolutely free, requires OS X 10.4.11 or later, and is available for Safari 3 and Safari 4 Beta, as well as Firefox versions 2, 3 and the 3.5 Beta. To install the browser plugin, simply visit the Cooliris home page, and the proper version of the plugin download link will appear at the top of the page.

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Last week I posted a Beta Watch mini-review of Firefox 3.5 Beta 4, Mozilla’s sixth development milestone and fourth beta release of what will become Firefox 3.5.

Unfortunately I found that, like earlier beta releases of FireFox 3.1/3.5, beta 4 was a perplexingly sluggish performer on my setup, which is a 2.0 GHz unibody MacBook running OS 10.5.6 Leopard on a slow rural dial-up connection. Indeed, I found it slower than some of the earlier builds had been on my previous production machine, a 1.33 GHz G4 PowerBook. Go figure.

Several folks commented, including Chris Latko, developer of the “Shiretoko” Mac Intel optimized variant of the Firefox beta. He suggested that I grab a download of his browser and give it a try.

Sounded intriguing, and I did just that. My expectations were not terribly high, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the Firerox 3.5 beta come to life thanks to Chris’s optimization tweaks, whatever they are. The difference between his Shiretoko version and the standard Firefox 3.5 beta is quite tangible, at least on my rig.

Chris says he’s been using WebKit, Minefield, and increasingly Opera as his main browsers for a while now. I’m an Opera fan, too, but like him I use several browsers. He notes on his web site that he’d been hankering after an Intel-optimized build of Firefox 3.5, hadn’t found one, and decided to make one himself. I’m glad he did.

Shiretoko (named after the Shiretoko National Park in northern Japan) transparently picked up where Firefox left off, even opening my saved browser session, and it runs the few Firefox add-on plugins I use as well. Aside from running faster and its distinctive application icon, it could just as well be Firefox 3.5b.

Anyway, it works for me, and puts Firefox back in the game on my rig. Thanks for the suggestion, and for this service to the Mac community, Chris.

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Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 is the sixth development milestone and fourth beta release of what will become Firefox 3.5, the next version of the Firefox Web browser. While this release is considered to be stable, Mozilla says that it is intended for developers and members of the testing community to use for early evaluation and feedback — for example, don’t expect all your plugins and add-ons to work properly with this beta. That’s not a problem for me since I don’t use many plugins, and one that I do, WeatherBug, works fine with 3.5.

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 is based on the Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 10 months, and incorporates many “under-the-hood” changes over the previous version, supporting new web technologies, improving performance and ease of use, and adding new features, some of which are:

• Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode and the updated Clear Recent History function (in the Tools menu) to keep your browsing habits a secret.
• Better performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
• The ability to provide Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation.
• Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
• Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
• Support for new web technologies such as: HTML5 and elements, downloadable fonts and other new CSS properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 offline data storage for applications, and SVG transforms.

New stuff you can do with Firefox 3.5:

• Tear tabs off the tab bar to create new windows, and drag and drop them from one Firefox window to another.
• Watch a video in your browser without needing any plugins or external media players.
• Control the Smart Location Bar results with special characters.

All to the good, although nothing to get up in the night and write home about, and there are no interface changes I could discern. What I really wanted to check out is whether basic performance had improved. Living and working in an area where broadband is not yet available, browser speed is critical for me. Previous builds of Firefox 3.1/3.5 had proved sluggish on my setup compared with other browsers.

Unfortunately, that pattern remains consistent with Firefox 3.5 Beta 4, which I persevered with for several days, but finally got fed up with and switched back to Camino 1.6.7, which is gratifyingly lively (so to speak in the dialup context) and stable.

The final version of Firefox 3.5 is anticipated for release later this year, perhaps before the end of Q2. Hopefully, they’ll be able to inject some Élixir de Lapin between now and then.

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Users Soon to “Prey” on iPhone – There have been rumors of fully functional first-person shooters arriving on the iPhone before, but Prey may be the first that’s playable and well-developed, if it does indeed come out in the next week or two like it’s supposed to. Watch for the non-accelerometer controlled interface, should be interesting.

Apple Asked Google Not to Use Multi-Touch, Google Agreed – Google seems less a competitor to Apple in the cell phone market and more a booster every day. First Google Sync launches on the iPhone, and now it comes to light that Apple politely asked Google not to use multi-touch tech in their Android OS, and Google politely complied. Then they had a tea party.

Leopard To Bring ZFS Support to Servers, Printer Drivers on Demand – If you get in your way back machine, you’ll find that Apple had originally planned to bring full ZFS file system support to the Mac with Leopard. Now, it’s looking like the desktop will again get passed up in Snow Leopard, although ZFS will come server side. Also, printer drivers will be on demand, so as not to add clutter.

Seinfeld, Microsoft Needs You – I liked the ads personally, and this article on CNET by Don Reisinger provides a stirring defense of the odd-ball Gates/Seinfeld team-ups.

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About seven months ago I made the decision to sell my Macbook and use only my iMac. I love this decision and I don’t regret it, other than one small issue…portability. This isn’t a huge issue but since I do quite a bit of traveling it does cross my mind once in a while.

Traveling without my iMac isn’t to say I go without a computer. I typically am given a loaner, or have a personal computer I am allowed to use on such trips, which is one of the reasons I decided I didn’t need my Macbook. However there is a catch, the computers I use are typically Windows machines. So how do I make the constant switch between the two machines without my own files, applications, or preferences? One simple application…Firefox.

One of the main issues I have with using a strange laptop is my hindered freedom when it comes to installing and customizing applications. However I was given Firefox to work with, which if used properly can be one of the most versatile and practical applications you can have installed. So how can you make Firefox bend over backwards for you?

On a consistent basis I use Gmail, Twitter, Pandora, Tumblr and various messaging clients. All of which have separate window/application on my Mac.

For email I use OS X’s Mail application, and I’ve gotten in the habit of not necessarily checking my mail. But rather having it check and notify me every thirty minutes or so of new messages. Aside from me just hating to go to the Gmail website, I find this to be much more productive. So to combat this on a computer without Mail, I installed the Gmail Notifier Firefox Extension.

After I locked down the basic survival need of email, I moved on to a few supplemental additions to my Firefox workhorse. I installed TwitterFox to fight my Twitter needs. TwitterFox lets me post, view, and reply to all of my friends on Twitter. This is one of my favorite clients for Twitter simply because I seldom find myself needing to actually go to the Twitter website, I can do everything from within this extension.

I, like many of you out there, love to listen to music while I’m working, and I rarely listen to the same artist song after song…I keep iTunes on a constant shuffle. Aside from just listening to my iPod, I like to frequent Pandora, and that is exactly how I’m bringing my music with me to an unfamiliar computer. Using Foxytunes, a Firefox extension that allows you to control nearly any media player out there as well as Last.fm and Pandora right from your browser.

Among listening to music, surfing the web, and Twittering I find myself blogging from time to time. Whether it’s a note to myself for later, or a post I want the entire world to see, I want the process of writing to be as frivolous as possible. So finding a blogging extension that fits my needs was a bit of a challenge until I stumbled across Scribefire, a blogging extension for Firefox. I have used just about every mainstream blogging platform in existence today, and this is a common trait between Scribefire and myself. Whether you use Tumblr, WordPress, Livejournal, or Myspace, Scribefire has you covered as far as your blogging needs go.

The last thing I needed was something for messaging. I could use Meebo, but I wanted something that I didn’t have to click into a tab each time I wanted to check my buddy list out. So I tried the Meebo Firefox Extension, which brings the functionality of the popular web service into Firefox, with a buddy list sidebar it makes messaging within Firefox a breeze and almost easier than using a standalone messenger.

Using a strange computer is always a hassle, but hopefully making a few customizations within a single application can ease the pain, and make the time pass a little faster until you can get back to that sweet, sweet Apple of your eye.

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The 24″ Cinema Display is mounted on an aluminum stand with an adjustable hinge that makes tilting the display easy and convenient. The downside? This puppy has a suggested retail price of $899. Ouch! If you can afford that comfortably, more power to you, but I think most of us will swallow hard before coughing up 900 bucks for a monitor — even a super-monitor like the 24″ Cinema Display.

JkOnTheRun’s James Kendrick announced last week he’s going to sell his 17″ MacBook Pro and switch to a new aluminum MacBook as his primary computer, so he wants to buy a big external monitor to use for for desktop mode duty. I’ve been musing about a somewhat similar strategy for my own next system upgrade. I’d love to have a 17″ MacBook Pro to replace my wonderful old 1.33 GHz 17″ PowerBook G4, but I find 17-incher prices, even for Apple Certified Refurbished units, too hard to justify rationally for what I do with computers.

David Wegener at Mac laptop specialist reseller Wegener Media suggested that a more sensible solution might be to buy a smaller screen Apple laptop and connect it to an external monitor — such as a 15″ MacBook Pro paired with a refurbished DVI 22″ panel, which David says is his personal preference. Wegeners can currently supply refurbished 22″ HP DVI displays with tilt option for $219, and this setup offers more portability with the 15″ machine but serious Desktop real estate with a 22″ panel at your workstation. For more information on the refurb displays, send a query at Wegeners’ contact page.

James Kendrick says he ordered one of the new Apple 24″ Cinema Displays, primarily because he knew it would work well with the unibody Mac, but it turned out to be back-ordered, which elicited some sober second thought, and he canceled that order, explaining “The more I thought about the high cost of that Apple display the harder it was for me to justify paying it. There are many third party monitors available today that sell for less than $400 and it’s just lunacy to pay $900 for an Apple-branded monitor. So I canceled the order and now I’m looking for a good alternative…”

I completely agree with that reasoning. A unibody MacBook with the 24″ Cinema Display would be a nice rig (still no FireWire, though), but money has to be an object.

Kendrick says he’s leaning toward a sub-$400 Samsung 24″ display that he’d like to confirm will work well with the new MacBook and is soliciting user reports and recommendations from readers, feedback from which I will be following with interest with a nod to my own system upgrade deliberations.

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