Show Safari 4 the Door
I downloaded the Safari 4 Public Beta from Apple, and everything in it
is so confusing and frustrating. Why did Apple change everything, and
how can I go back to Safari 3?
If you want to go back to Safari 3 and ditch 4 altogether, simply run
the Safari4.0BetaUninstall.pkg installer file that comes included on
the Safari 4 disk image that you downloaded from Apple’s website.
That will both uninstall Safari 4 and reinstall Safari 3 for you.
However, if you want to stick with Safari 4 for its improved speed
but just want to suppress some of its most annoying features, you can
do this by accessing Safari 4’s hidden preferences. The easiest way to
do this may be to download Safari 4 Buddy (free, www.swoon.net),
which gives you a graphical user interface to access all of Safari 4’s
hidden preferences. Be sure to quit and relaunch Safari for your
changes to take effect.
Safari 4 Buddy gives you a quick way to access the hidden preferences in
Safari 4, so you can go back to a “normal” user interface again.
You can also modify the hidden preferences by using the Terminal
(located in /Applications/Utilities/). We also found a great list of
Safari-fixin’ Terminal commands—for things like bringing back the
blue progress bar and Stop/Reload button, putting the tabs back
where they used to be, restoring the ability to clear recent Google
searches, and more—on Caius Durling’s Random Genius blog at
www.swedishcampground.com/safari-4-hidden-preferences. Again,
you’ll need to relaunch Safari to see the changes take effect.
Did HandBrake Break?
I used to depend on HandBrake for making backup copies of
the commercial DVDs that I purchased. But now, with the latest
version of HandBrake, my converted video files are nothing
but static.
HandBrake (free, www.handbrake.fr) is a popular, feature-packed
application that converts DVDs into MPEG- 4 files. However, almost all
commercial DVDs are encrypted by a DRM (digital rights management)
technology known as CSS (content scramble system) that’s designed
to prevent you from copying these DVDs onto your computer. This
encryption of DVDs has been widely criticized, because it prevents you
from exercising such fair-use rights as making a backup copy of your
own purchased DVD.
HandBrake used to be able to decrypt commercial DVDs encrypted
with CSS. But starting with version 0.9.3, HandBrake lost that ability.
Fortunately, the app VLC Media Player (free, www.videolan.org) still has
the ability to decrypt commercial DVDs. And even better, HandBrake
can automatically use the decryption libraries that are built into VLC,
so if you have VLC installed on your Mac, you can continue using
HandBrake like you used to.
Just drag VLC into your Applications folder and then launch
HandBrake. You’ll be able to make backup copies of your commercial
DVDs again.
Just drag VLC into your Applications folder, and HandBrake will be able to
decrypt and convert your commercial DVDs.
Ask is written by Scott Rose, a Los Angeles–based FileMaker developer
and Mac consultant. Visit him at www.scottworld.com.
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