Fugu is pretty slick, but it would only open files for editing using one of the preset editors, none of which I had. I decided to see if I could change the list of available editors to include TextEdit, since I was only editing basic CSS.

Turns out you can. Here’s how.

1. Right click on the Fugu application and choose “Show Package Contents”

2. Navigate to Contents, Resources, ODBEditors.plist

3. Open the ODBEditors.plist file in TextEdit. Scroll to the bottom of the file and either create a new entry or modify one of the existing entries. I modified the emacs entry, since I don’t plan on ever using it. This is what it should look like:

4. Save the file and you’re good. Load up Fugu, click Fugu, Preferences. In the preference pane, click the Files icon. In the External Text Editor, choose the name of the editor you just created. In my case, TextEdit.

Viola! You can now command-J to edit files with your chosen editor from Fugu.

The Good

Installation is a snap. Really. The best thing about the installation is that it grabs everything from IE. When I fired it up for the first time it had all my bookmarks, history, cookies, options, and even all of my “auto complete” things (where it remembers stuff you’ve typed into the form before and will drop down possible matches to what you are typing now). It was awesome. The idea of not having all of those on a new browser is one of the things that has kept me from switching in the past.

Firefox supports tabbed browsing. I actually was not a fan of tabbed browsing until I started using it in Safari. Now I use it all the time. Tabbed browsing in Firefox takes some getting used to, mostly because I’m so used to IE where everything is in a new window, that I don’t remember to just close the tab. However, then a nice little box pops up to ask if I really meant to close the whole window (you can turn it off, but I don’t recommend it unless you are used to tabbed browsing on Windows already).

Popup blocking is built in. So far it has caught every popup, which is pretty good since the Google toolbar has recently been letting some through.

Finally, there is a built in Search bar, which by default searches Google, although you can change it to whatever engine you prefer. You can also add eBay, Amazon, dictionary.com and a lot more.

The Bad

I really haven’t had too many problems with Firefox. The main issue is that plugins for previous versions don’t work with 0.9RC. In fact, I haven’t found a single plugin that works, I’m not sure if it’s because they haven’t been updated or because plugins were for some reason disabled.

Internet Explorer only stuff doesn’t work with Firefox. Makes sense. However, I’m typing this in IE because FreeTextBox (kind of like super Notepad for the web) is IE only. Also the Google toolbar is IE only, which wouldn’t be a big deal if plugins were working, but I really miss being able to click “Autofill” and all the form fields are magically filled in, no typing required.

The Ugly

Themes don’t work in 0.9RC. Or, like plugins, they haven’t been updated yet. The default theme is ok, but there are much nicer looking themes available for 0.8. In fact, I went back to 0.8 for the themes, but then all of the other cool features of 0.9RC didn’t work anymore so I switched again. I’m sure once the actual 0.9 release is made, themes and plugins will work.

If you’re interested in downloading Firefox, go to mozilla.org or directly to the official Firefox page.

Edit: If you’re having trouble getting themes and extensions to work, you may be having the same problem I had.

There are still some bugs with Themes and Extensions, especially those that have not been updated for 0.9, but at least they install now.

One new feature that is pretty useful is the improved printing options. Now you can print a list of your songs, or a list of all the albums you have. You can also print cd covers with actual album art (or a mosiac of all the covers for a mixed cd). I don’t really ever burn discs, but if I did, I think this is a really cool feature. I’m thinking about making a mix cd just to test it out. :)

All of the audiophiles out there will probably be happy with the new Apple Lossless Encoder, which promises full CD quality audio in about half the size an uncompressed audio file would require. This would also probably be a good option to back up CDs onto your computer without a loss in quality.

If you go to the iTunes site you can read about all of the other features I didn’t cover like: Radio Charts, iMix, Wish List, and now your library has links back to the music store as well.

Ok, I gave in. If you want to see some of the songs I listen to you can view my very own iMix list (you need iTunes).

Before I go any further I must warn you that this software is BETA! If you don’t know what that means, don’t install it. Simple as that. The software is known as SideTrack and it is currently at version 0.8.
http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/index.html
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12800

Installation. Installation was fast, just run the program you download. However, when I rebooted the fist time, I didn’t think my computer was going to boot. It took a LONG time to move from the grey screen. Don’t worry, it booted normally the next time I restarted. When you finally get it rebooted, tapping the trackpad is turned off by default. Go to System Preferences and at the bottom you’ll see the SideTrack button. Then configure away. This driver has a LOT of features. Go to the link above for a good list of everything it does. I’ll just cover the features I found most useful.

Scrolling. You can set up the scroll area to be either on the left or right of the trackpad and you can set the width of the scrolling area. It takes a while to get used to the scrolling and where exactly you need touch the trackpad to get it to work. If you set the area wider it may help you get used to it. After using it for a week I can pretty much always hit the correct area. You can also set up horizontal scrolling but since I rarely need to scroll left and right, I haven’t set it up.

The button. You can set the mouse button to be either a right or left mouse click. At first I set it up as a right click, since I mostly tap the trackpad to left click (if you intend to keep it this way, you need to set the tap to “left click with drag“ or you won’t be able to move windows or select text). However, after using that button as a left click for over a year, I found it was just too hard to retrain myself to see it as a right click. So, I changed it back and found a different solution for right clicking.

Corners. You can set the corners to be a left or right click, or a keystroke, or other options. So, for right clicking, I set the top left corner to a right click. It takes some practice to find exactly where you need to tap, but you can always make the area bigger and I like it better than Ctrl clicking.

Ok, that’s what I like about it. There is really only one thing I can complain about–sometimes your mouse will freeze for a second or two. Not really too annoying but you will notice it. Overall, though, it’s very, very cool. And the thing I love the most? You can set it to let you tap to select the user to login. I never understood why tapping didn’t work in the fist place.