With the crash and burn of Internet Explorer 5.1 on Mac OS X 10.1, I need an alternative browser. What do you know, today Netscape released Communicator 6.2 for Mac OS and Mac OS X. Netscape Communicator is based off on the Mozilla code, so it has many of the same problems as Mozilla. In fact, it's suprisingly unusable. This is starting to look bad. Hmm, I should iCab again, since https is supposed to work in Mac OS X 10.1. Indeed it does work. More testing shows that iCab also has major holes, only passing 5 of 9 tests (Netscape 6.2 passed four out of nine). Oh well, still no good solution out there...

Back to my review of Mac OS X 10.1. Let's examine the included Utilities Folder. There is now an AirPort Admin Utility, but since I don't have access to my Base Station I can't test it. At least I won't have to work with the Java-based admin utility that someone made. It was not that easy to use. There is also an Airport Setup Assistant which I will also not test.

Disk Copy 10.1 is worlds better than 10.0, which could only mount disk images and that's it. With 10.1 you can create disk images and even burn CDs (and maybe DVDs too). That'll eliminate a couple of utilities that I downloaded to create disk copy images. With Disk Utility 10.1 you can now configure a RAID setup. Couldn't test it since I only have one drive, but I suspect that -- as is the case with all software RAIDs -- it's kind of slow. There is a Java Web Start utility which when you launch does nothing. It's just a Java application that sits there with no screen and no menu. Nothing in Mac Help to give me a clue. Hmph. Stuffit Expander is version 6.0.1 which is not that old and good enough for me. I don't particularly like being forced to install other things just to upgrade, which is what Aladdin has done since to get Stuffit Expander 6.5 you have to install Stuffit Lite 6.5 -- there is no separate download.

Everything else looks the same. That was quick. Let's take a look at Project Builder 1.1. When you open up an old project it converts it to the new format and probably bars you from using it with 1.0. As with everything else, window resizing and moving around are noticeably faster and snappier. Hooray, for it was a bit slow for my comfort. Other than that, I didn't notice any other improvements offhand. Oh wait, now there is a function pop-up that lists all the methods in a file. Very useful because we have some big code files and it's a pain to search for a particular method in the file. And it's pretty speedy.

So I think that's it with 10.1. It occurs to me that maybe if I apply the latest PowerBook Firmware patch then the DVD Player will work. Balance that with the possibility of not being able to use my 512 MB extra RAM and you can see I'm hesitant to try that out (heck, you can't really run Mac OS X with only 128 MB RAM). Luckily I don't have to decide that now since Software Update doesn't work through a firewall. But maybe tonight. Big risk, big reward...

That thing I wrote about a new web site structure? It's dead. I looked at how Dave has his web site set up and it's a mess. Talk about a flat hierarchy. Well, it does have like one level of folders, but way too many things are at the top level. That and since I don't have root access to Thales anymore I can't go fix it up -- so it's too much trouble to reconcile it on Jennifer...

And just to show that Wil Wheaton is a cool guy, the answers to his Slashdot interview have been posted. The guy may not be the most technically savvy guy, but he tries. He works on his own web site and he futzes around with computers when he's not acting. Quite a wit too. Now, I was never one of the Wesley haters, mostly because I'm not that type of person. And I know that every actor I've seen at a convention has been kind and gracious and very giving. So it's amazing when people hate and vilify other people solely based on image or at least very little information. That's the way people are so I shouldn't be surprised. And that's the way I am too but I recognize it and try not to let that influence an objective opinion.