Each time I get a new version of iLife I usually try to go back to using all Apple apps so everything works smoothly together. Normally though I stop using iChat pretty quickly and go back to Adium. This time though I found a program that makes iChat much more bareable called Chax. It fixes a lot of the annoying things about iChat and add some features that always should have been there. I’ll see how long it takes this time before I switch back, or maybe I never will.
Another interesting thing is that Flip4Mac is making their WMV Quicktime playback component free. It’s actually also being distributed on Microsoft’s site. I wonder if this signals the imminent demise of WMPlayer for Mac (not that it would be a big loss).
Wow. That’s news I never heard. I’d rather it be a Microsoft app (so I don’t have “upgrade” options in my Preference Pane), but Flip4Mac plays WMV amazingly in a browser. I used it for a while before but didn’t upgrade snce my use of WMV is low. Now I can watch CNN video just fine though
Either way, it’s obvious that Microosft is going to develop nothing but Office for Mac anyore, and that’s understandable. IF the buzz from the Apple Intel conversion this week is any indication, we might have another big up-tick in our future, and Microsoft should be worried.
Add to this Google Earth for the Mac, Blackberry providing Mac Syncing software for their devices, and the large amount of game vendors announcing products for Macs this week and it’s becoming obvious Mac is no longer a “well get to it” platform anymore.
Thing is, as we Mac users become larger and larger, will we lose our unqiness? Our family? Will we not applaud anymore when a Fortune 500 company announces it sold 14 million iPods, as if we had something to gain from it? Like a proud parent?
I don’t want Apple to become a Dell in people’s mind
Ok, that was cool as hell. What theme are you using for all this fading/commenting AJAX goodness?
I’m using K2 for my theme…well of course a modified version.
Yeah, I heard about Flip4Mac in MacWorld magazine in the current (Jan. 06) issue but it lists it as a version 1. The Flip4Mac available for download now is version 2, and I saw it was free.
Buuuuut. It is buggy. Bloody buggy. Everytime I try to close a tab in Safari that contains a .wmv I was viewing using the Flip4Mac plug-in, all of Safari closes, and this despite whether I close using Command W or manually click the X on the tab. The same happens when I try to close individual Safari windows with a Flip4Mac file open - all of Safari is closed. I want this to be fixed soon, because that is quite annoying and beyond inconvenient.
Ryan: They just released version 2.0.1 yesterday which should fix those issues with Quicktime 7.0.4. I haven’t had much time to play with it yet though.
Well, it looks like they are ditching the WMP for Mac:
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/01/12/microsoft-ditching-media-player-for-mac/
Thank goodness WMP is dead. I couldn’t get any official word from the Microsoft booth concerning its future, since it’s apparently is not a Mac Business Unit product.
Version 2.01 of Flip4Mac is definitely an improvement. I can now play CNN files flawlessly. The quality and stability of the feed is leaps and bounds better than anything I got with WMP.
I’m actually glad they stopped developing WMP for Mac. No effort is better than a half-hearted one.