Apple's Safari Browser for the PC (Beta) Review

Last night I decided to see what Apple had to offer with their new Safari Browser. From what I've heard from Mac users, Safari is less of a resource hog than Mozilla Firefox on the Mac, and it also seems to load pages a lot quicker. The download took no time at all, nor did the installation. However, like all Apple products for the PC, it simply has to install at least one other piece of software on your machine that you didn't ask for. In this case, it was the "Apple Product Update" and "Bonjour". I believe that these pieces were optional, but still, the point is that you get nagged to install them anyways.

To apple's credit, the browser certainly was fast. I felt like my internet connection increased significantly as pages rendered and loaded quite well. The interface was weird. Apple certainly went to great pains in making the Safari Browser look a lot like OSX's platinum theme. Using their browser in full-screen view made you think that you were on a Mac, with the buttons and animated features working seamlessly as you surfed. I found it quite annoying for some of its functions with tabs and configurations, but that's probably stemming from years of Firefox and IE. It was something that was going to take some getting used to. At least I had tabbed browsing.

Installing plug-ins was not that difficult to do, but unless you scoured the download page or did some decent Google searching, you were out of luck. Also, a lot of pages weren't ready to distinguish between Safari Plug-ins for the Mac and ones for the PC. What's more, some of the so-called "plug-ins" were actually full versions of the software.. This left me with stuff I didn't want, like Adobe Acrobat Reader 8, which is one of the chunkiest pieces of software out there (The install was about 123 MB once installed).

My favorite remote PC access site Logmein.com didn't work so well. For some reason, after installing the Java Plugin, restarting, and various other attempts didn't fix the issue. I was forced each time to use the HTML implementation which is way too annoying for anyone.

Then came the killer. I was browsing randomly and ready other forums and reviews on Safari when I noted that one article mentioned something about memory usage. I had known that Firefox has had issues with memory management, but these days, things were much better than originally. The article prompted me to check out my memory usage from Safari. After spitting out my drink in a spray all over my desk and picking myself up off of the floor, I looked again at what the memory monitor said: 131MB of memory used (and counting). That was rediculous. More than 10 percent of my system memory (1024MB) was being used up by Safari with just one tab opened. Despite its speediness, that's enough to take a toll on any system. I feel bad for the poor chap who has 512 or even 256MB on their system trying to run this thing.

With that revelation, I quickly uninstalled the browser from my machine. It was clear that the glaring issue was the system memory usage. And with LogMeIn not working so well, I could find little to justify using it in day-to-day use for my job.

In conclusion, the Apple Safari browser is a slick and snappy program. It has available plug-ins for the typical browsing needs such as Flash and Java and even Media Player. However, the interface is not too configurable, the tabbed browsing can be tiring when compared with Firefox or even IE7. Lastly, the fact that it eats system resources for lunch make it not too great of a browser for less-equipped PCs with less than a gig of memory. Thankfully, Apple can punt to "Beta" as a good excuse for these things. It is noticeable, however, that anything that Apple tries port over to the PC (such as iTunes) proves to be less than stellar. Nice try Apple, but it's not ready quite yet.

The Linux Dilemna

Besides the obvious factor of being a computer geek, there is some mysterious appeal to learn and use an operating system other than Microsoft Windows. Am I against using Microsoft Windows? Not really. Most of what I know and understand about computers has come from learning it in a Windows environment. I guess I'm curious to know how the other half lives. Recently, we've been toying with the idea of possibly running Ubuntu Linux on the computers in the elementary lab. This idea is mainly motivated by the idea of saving a lot of money, as well as giving a chance to an open source alternative.

So what is the dilemma? The dilemma has a lot to do with the support and maintenance of Linux. As well as the unpredictability of what could go wrong. What if the printer stops working? What if certain well-used programs don't work? What if our web-filtering software is not compatible? What if I die in a tragic blimp accident and they don't have anyone else who even remotely can figure out the mess I've made using Linux? These questions keep me away. Admittedly, I've been using Ubuntu Linux on my home desktop and my work laptop for about 2 weeks now and I'm really content with it. Only rarely do I find any need to boot into Windows for the use of Internet Explorer or Picasa2 (it runs so slowly in linux for me). Would I recommend Ubuntu Linux to others? Sure. Would I use it in my school's elementary lab this coming year...probably not. Not yet, at least.

A Very Dark Graduation

Friday June 1, was Hershey Christian School's first high school graduation. They graduated 8 seniors. It was a momentous occasion for the school. However, it was probably like no other graduation. About 10 minutes before the ceremony began, a strong storm knocked out power to the area and the entire ceremony was done in the dark. I commend our headmaster for sticking it out, but there's just a little less magic in a room where you can barely see anybody. I kind of felt bad for the people that put so much hard work and planning with the assumption that there would be electricity readily available. There was no slideshow, video address, microphones, speakers, video recordings, air conditioning, etc. In any event, the kids still got their diplomas and will be able to look back on it and say that they got to graduate in the dark, I guess.