eugene gordin

Just a quick tip for those of you who are Safari users (all you Mac users should be using Safari anyway). Personally, I was always really annoyed that Safari didn’t open links in a new tab, always opting to open them in a new window.

As a result, I found myself using programs like Saft and SafariStand, purely to get my links to open in new tabs instead of new windows. Luckily, thanks to a post on TUAW today, this problem is no more. Even those of you who are Terminal-shy can definitely do this. I promise it won’t hurt (and is well worth it!). Just keep in mind that you need the newest version of Safari (3.1), which you can get via Software Update.

All you have to do is open up Terminal, and paste the following command into it, and press return.

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true


That’s it. From now on, your links will open in new tabs, instead of new windows. To undo this preference, just copy the same command above into terminal, changing the true to false. Enjoy.

Update #1: I found some more really interesting Safari tips via Digg. Be sure and check those out too!

Update #2: In keeping up with my apparent theme of cool Safari tricks, Jon Hicks of Hicks Design pointed out a cool new trick in the leopard version of SafariStand. Its called History Flow. Just as the name implies, it allows you to go through your browsing history with a coverflow-type interface. Very cool for those instances that you remember what a webpage looked like, but not what it was called. Click on the image to the left for a screen shot.

Simply put, I was disappointed. After just over two weeks with the Time Capsule, I found myself stopping my Time Machine backups manually, constantly fixing little problems here and there, and being just plainly frustrated. Let me explain why.

1. Configuration is Complicated: the first backup must be done over wired ethernet, but if you don’t use the Time Capsule as your main wireless router, you need to reconfigure it at least twice, involving Time Capsule restarts each time you make the slightest configuration change. Sure, once its finally set up, the Time Machine just works in the background, but this only brings me to my next complaint.
2. Speed is Terrible: even after the initial backup is done, the incremental (and hourly) backups take entirely too long, often staying in the “Preparing to backup” stage for hours at a time, regardless of backup size. Sure, it doesn’t matter how long it takes because its in the background, but that little clock icon spins infinitely, and the backup results in errors a quarter of the time.
3. Other Connections Suffer: Trying to browse the internet while one of the Time Capsule backups is working is almost impossible. Since there’s no way to throttle or prioritize the Time Capsule traffic, my internet connection would go out almost regularly during a backup session (which happened every hour). And I wasn’t the only one feeling the hit – those on my network had problems connecting too. This is entirely unacceptable.
4. Server Grade Hard Drive My Foot: It turns out the much touted “Server Grade” hard drive inside the Time Capsule is about as server grade as I am. Not the biggest deal, but why advertise it as such?
5. SuperDuper Doesn’t Work: This has less to do with the Time Capsule (or Superduper) than it does with the way OSX is built. Basically, you can’t create a bootable copy of your hard drive with SuperDuper and Time Capsule because OSX cannot set the permissions correctly on shared network drives. There are workarounds, but nothing that will allow you to create an instantly bootable copy.

After two weeks of dropped connections, errors, constantly spinning icons, and unbootable backups, I’m finished. Indeed, I loved not having to connect my external hard drives and printer to my computer each time I needed them, but daily usability shouldn’t suffer in the mean time.

I want to be sure and note that just as I’ve said before, any backup solution is infinitely better than no backup solution. In fact, if you plan to use Time Capsule as your main router, and only backup, then I recommend it. In that sense, Time Capsule is a great idea. However, Apple’s unbelievable ability to take great ideas and turn them into great products simply failed with the Time Capsule. Most of the problems it has can (and most likely will) be fixed in the future, but in the mean time, I’d rather not deal with them myself.