There's a short in my NetNewsWire
When I started at PLANET ARGON, I was given a bright new matte black MacBook to use. It’s a beauty. This is the first time I’ve used a Mac extensively since around ‘89 and I love it. Well, mostly. For the last decade or so I’ve used Linux 90% of the time. First RedHat, then Fedora, and most recently Ubuntu, which in my experience is simply excellent.
What I miss most from Linux is the super responsive Gnome desktop, the wonderful Gnome Terminal, and the oodles of very high quality free software. With the Mac, I am quickly annoyed by the frequent appearance of that damned spinning color wheel, Mac-speak for, “uh, hold on, I’m having a moment”; the typing through molasses feel of iTerm; and paying for so many little pieces of software. Mind you, I’m fine trading my money for something of value, but if you are going to force the issue with me, you should probably ensure your process to lighten my wallet doesn’t piss me off.
Enter NetNewsWire. I’ve used it through it’s evaluation period and it’s been passable, nothing spectacular. But today, it wants money from me. So it puts up a friendly dialog, asking nicely. A bit miffed, I go ahead and click the “Purchase Software” radio button. Hmm, nothing happens. Seems that option is disabled. Oh well, sorry NetNewsWire, now I’m evaluating NewsFire
8 Responses to “There's a short in my NetNewsWire”
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July 10th, 2006 at 04:17 AM NewsFire is a better solution anyway. I got my first mac a few months ago since that's the direction the devlopers in my office were moving, and I started using NetNewsFire and wasnt very impressed. Not that it was bad, I just didnt understand the benefits. I asked the guys I worked with what the fuss was about, and they immediately corrected me, saying, "oh, you have the wrong program, NewsFire is the one you want to get" So I did and I love it. I think you'll soon find it's much more worthy of your money. I've pushed to find many freeware programs for my mac, but NewsFire's convenience seemed worth it to me to actually spend the money on.
July 10th, 2006 at 04:45 AM Hah. That's too funny. I bought NewsFire the other night only to switch back to NNW. It's mainly because I am too used to NNW. What did you use on your Ubuntu box for RSS? I'm working on wiping clean my Fedora box to install Ubuntu but having a hell of a time because the bios needs updated for the acpi. Dapper doesn't like my bios on this 64bit machine.
July 10th, 2006 at 05:06 AM Hey! I am totally with you. I switched from linux to mac about 4 months ago and my biggest gripe is iTerm (can't stand Terminal.app). I would be willing to *pay* for a good tabbed terminal client. Maybe we can start a bounty/fund for the iTerm bugs? There are few other quirks about iTerm, but the slowdown thing really kills me. Although, if you completely exit out of iTerm and restart, it seems to become responsive again (for awhile).
July 10th, 2006 at 05:47 AM I had the same exact problem with NNW. Sad ... they would have made some money. I didn't find NewsFire before finding Vienna (http://www.opencommunity.co.uk/vienna2.php). It's been an excellent, free alternative to NNW. But, I'll have to give NewsFire a look. As for iTerm, I get the slushy feel, too. Also, I can't seem to find where to change the emulation type, as it bombs out while editing in a remote session of nano & pico. I've resorted to having to learn vi (UGH!). BTW, congrats on the new job ... excellent stuff.
July 12th, 2006 at 10:49 AM Hi, How much RAM have you got in your macbook? You will want at least 2gigs. according to top I am using 1.78gigs of ram right now, once I start working in rails (opening a project in textmate, a few iterm tabs etc.) the usage will go even higher. The 512mb is *not* enough. iTerm is very slow and everything has a spinning wheel. Upgrade from 512mb and those problems will go away. NewNewsWire is a great app, if you don't want to purchase it then use the lite version, which is free.
July 14th, 2006 at 02:41 AM Greg: RSS on Linux? Er... actually, I've only recently started using an RSS reader. Before it was a combination of del.icio.us, memorized urls, and a few feeds in Firefox. Bummer Dapper doesn't play well with your 64bit box. I've installed the PPC version on a black G3 clamshell. That was sweet. And the other is a Dell Inspiron 5150. Both worked flawless. On the Dell, both Breezy and Dapper were way better than FC4. John: I would definitely pay for a tabbed terminal that works as well. Please do let me know if you find one. A: Wow, I realize the 512MB in this MacBook is pretty low for memory, but I didn't think I'd need to get to 2GB for decent performance. I fondly remember the time I was running an early RHL on a 486 DX 50 Mhz with 16MB ram. I could run X11 and at the same time MicroStation PC for DOS (a protected mode program) under DOSEMU. And the performance was really reasonable!
July 18th, 2006 at 04:09 AM With even 1 gig of memory, you'll notice a huge increase in performance. A is right though, get 2 gigs if you can. Make sure they are matched pairs (2 1 gigs or 2 512 megs) for best performance. The macbook uses the GMA 950 which uses main memory for graphics memory. That's why especially on that machine, 512 megs is NOT sufficient and 2 GB is best. And if you don't use them in matched pairs, DDR doesn't work and that slows both main memory access by the CPU and for graphics... don't want that. :)
July 20th, 2006 at 05:47 PM Scott, good information. Thanks!