The Back of Tuor's Head

I've been a bit of a Mac user for quite some time. One of my favorite things is to collect old computers and make them usefull again, or barring that, something fun and interesting.

Because of this I have come accross many old Macs, and here are some of my favorites:

Mac Plus - The first really usable Mac
SE/30 - One of the most powerfull of its time, and still quite usefull, it makes a great backroom server.
Color Classic II - The last of the compact Macs, and the only real upgrade in years for an SE/30
Mac II - The only 68020 with a PMMU so it can run unix, an increadible number of slots, and nicely matches the LaserWriter II printers, so it makes an inexpensive bridge. Mine died.
Mac IIfx - The successor to the origional II.
Mac IIci - A good design, and one of quickest. A cache card makes it as fast as an '040.
Mac TV - It's a TV, it's a Mac. A real dud, but so unique.
Centris/Quadra 650 - Quck, solid '040 computer.
Quadra 950 - Big. Tank. Lots of expansion.
Twentieth Anniversry Mac - From the Batman movie. It is ooh so cool looking.
6400/6500 - An extremely strange case, very big, but with a built in subwoofer and TV tuner. A unique and fun computer just fast enough to enter the internet.
5400/5500 - Another unique case design. It looks like a monitor with speakers and a CD tray hanging below it.
8100 - The last of the NuBus Macs. You can drop a good G3 upgrade in and use old style cards.
9600 - Another tank line the 950, this time in PowerMac form. The 200/MP and 350 are especially neat. The 9500/9600 are the last few that were BeOS compatable.
Cube - Really, a Cube. You have to get one of these.
Blue & White G3 (Late model) - Still passable with OSX, especially with a G4 upgrade.

Well, I know it's a long list, but these guys are really fun, and show the whole range of good ideas apple has produced. If you get a chance, play with one.

My Web Browser choice is dependent. By that I mean I have yet to find the "Perfect" web browser for all occasions.

Primarily, I'm a Mac user, and on my Macs, the browser I use most frequently is Safari.

Safari syncs with Mac services, which helps me keep my bookmarks between my laptop and desktop. It's also reasonably quick and compatible. Overall it makes a good compromise for the 'net.

After Safari, there's Firefox. If Safari doesn't get it done, Firefox will. It is a bit slower to launch, a bit less well integrated into OS-specifics, but remarkably compatible with servers.

I have used Camino on-and-off as it has been developed. While it shows great promise, the updates have failed to really meet pace with usefulness, but I hold out that it will eventually take Firefox's place in my circle.

Finally, no Mac user is complete without iCab. Sure it gets a bad rap in may reviews, but it excels in two areas that make it indispensable. It has perhaps the best download feature of any web browser, allowing you to grab an image, a page, or a site you need offline. It also has the best print feature of any browser.

iCab's printing is a marvel, you can imitate resolutions from 800 to 1024, zoom print sizes, reduce text, etc. All to get the right balance of length and readability. And it makes sure that the images don't get cut.

In the windows world, I prefer Firefox. Of course, there's no way to uninstall IE, and you can't run Windows Update without it, but beyond that, it really is useless.

And I do run some legacy systems. I have a handful of Classic Macs floating around. I used to use IE 5 for most everything, and it holds up well in Classic - better then the OSX version, but iCab has closed the gap on it significantly, and there is an unofficial 1.o Mozilla for Classic that fills any compatibility gaps you might have where you can't get to another system.

But - don't let me forget that there are full Mozilla and Netscape builds out there that are as good as anything available. And there's Opera and OmniWeb, both of which I always hear good things about.