iChat vs Adium - Fight!

For about two years now, there are always heated debates in the Chat sector of the Mac, debating if iChat or Adium is the best Mac Chatting client. I've used both Adium and iChat for an extensive amount of time, and I personally prefer iChat since it has a simplistic UI and I don't use the platforms it doesn't support anyways, so I don't have a problem with that. So, I've decided to make a few rounds of head to head competition on the major aspects of what is expected of a chat client. Then, at the end, I'll post comments from people who I've asked the preference of client.

Round 1 - Platform Support

iChat and Adium both support multiple chatting platforms, such as AIM, Jabber, MobileMe, and usually work fine. However, Adium supports almost 4 times more of what iChat supports, and it also works fine. What Adium supports that iChat doesn't:

• Yahoo! Messenger
• MySpace IM
• Facebook
• QQ
• LiveJournal
• ICQ
• Novell GroupWise
• MSN Messenger

Adium definitely is the winner in Round 1. iChat doesn't have a wide selection of different chat support, it only supports the basics.

Round 2 - User Interface

Now, here is where things get kind of tough. Adium has an OK basic UI, however you can fully customize it to whatever fits you. iChat has an amazing basic nice and bland UI, however you can't change the font, UI, or colors unless you use a 3rd party application, such as chax. However, the latest version of Chax is no longer an add-on, its an actual app. But it looks exactly like iChat and you can fully edit it. So who wins this one? Its really a tie because Adium's base UI is weaker than iChat's, but you can edit the UI completely and make it just like you want it. You can change fonts and order of how iChat's buddy list is sent by using Chax, but you can't change the actual UI like it's colors. You can change the format which is included in the actual iChat(meaning you can change format w/o Chax), to Bubbles, Boxes, or Compact. Round 2 is a tie between iChat and Adium.

Round 3 - What you think

I asked a few people of what they thought of iChat and what they thought of Adium and also asked them what the better client was. Here's what they Said:

TrueSongmedia answered Adium is better: "because it 1) is more stable ... 2) supports more protocols ... 3) looks better ... 4) can log/organize chats". He also went on to add "iChat is okay, but Apple should get a clue and use the libpurple library for IM instead of writing their own crappy one".

Jeff answered Adium because it had multiple platform support.

So, it looks like the majority of people prefer Adium because of the reasons I've stated in the blog post. It would be nice to see Apple make iChat more customizable, but seeing how pretty much every other Apple-made Application is nice and basic, I don't see that happening in the near future. But since I do LOVE the simplistic interface on iChat, I'll keep to iChat.

If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, I'm @Knunez.

Apple and Gaming

Any Mac user knows very well that gaming options are very limited in OS X. There is a very small amount of games on Mac OSX available. The few games that were designed natively being games such as The Sims series,World of Warcraft,etc and the games that were ported by aspire media such as Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4, Quake 4, etc. don't add up to a large number of options available.

Despite the short number of mac games available,apple is dominating in the portable market with the iPod Touch and iPhone app store.It is very easy to find any caliber of game on the app store.Weather it be a short time wasting puzzle game,an in-depth RPG, or a fleshed-out racer the app store has it.

After Apple's keynote this year, CEO Steve Jobs said himself that Apple intend to market the iPod Touch as a gaming platform. It's strange to see this choice by apple for their media player and not for their range of computers. Every new Mac to some extent is capable of running a lot of modern games and it's not a good thing to see Apple not taking this into consideration.

I am a Mac user and I feel that Mac OS X is a fantastic operating system and definitely the best I've used, but moving from Windows I had to take the loss of gaming. Sure I can still play Spore and World of Warcraft, but I am missing the experience of playing Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress, Battlefield, Burnout, Unreal Tournament, Crysis, etc.Most of these games would run fine on an entry level Mac Mini, and run great on a higher level iMac. With an addition of Steam to run on Mac, OS X would pretty much be the perfect operating system.

A Hidden OS X Feature… For Word Nerds

I love finding those little hidden features within OS X that make using my already great Mac, an even nicer experience. That's why, when I found this feature by mistake… I had to share it with all of you.

 I know a lot of you reading this do not know me personally, but if you did… you would learn rather quickly that I am a true word nerd. I love knowing the exact definition of words so I can use them later in their appropriate context. When I am browsing the web, I sometimes come across a word that I do not know, and because of this… my dictionary lives in my dock. But that may change, thanks to this nifty little keyboard shortcut.

 Say you are reading a news article, and you aren't exactly sure what a certain word means. All you have to do is move your cursor over the word you want to look up, and press Command+Control+D. You will see a little contextual window pop up right in the browser with the full definition of the word.

 I'm not sure how well known this is, but hopefully that helps some of you!

Snow Leopard Major Additions/Refinements

Intro/QuickTime X

After playing around with Snow Leopard for quite some time, I noticed that there are numerous amounts of additions and refinements to the overall operating system. There are more refinements than new features. The main new feature is QuickTime X. QuickTime X is a nice application that allows you to view videos (of course) and record movies, audio, and your screen which is one of the new main features in QuickTime X. Not all the features that were in QuickTime Pro are in this version of QuickTime, but that may not be a big deal to some people. All the features that you had to pay for in QuickTime before are now included with QuickTime X. I will be giving a review/overview of QuickTime X shortly.

Exposé

 Exposé is also refined in Snow Leopard. Many people use Snow Leopard (especially me), and it now enhances your experience with your Mac. It is arranged in a classier fashion, and it prevents screen clutter of your application windows. When you hold down on a certain application, all the windows will open in that application will be shown in Exposé. Pressing tab will open Exposé in your other open applications. Also while in Exposé, your minimized windows are shown at the bottom of the screen.

Stacks

Stacks has also undergone a makeover. Stacks is much more professional-looking while still bringing you the same wonderful organization tool that Apple has provided. As everyone knows Stacks is very nice when you want to quickly access something. Now Stacks is scrollable, and now when you click on a folder in a Stacks, Stacks will bring you to the contents of that folder without opening the finder window. It was very annoying before when Stacks rerouted you to Finder.

Finder/Speed/Responsiveness

Speaking of Finder, it has become much more responsive and fast making it much easier to use. It has been totally rewritten in 64 bit, as have many of the other applications making them more responsive and fast. Waking up your computer from sleep and shut-down is much faster preventing wasted time waiting for your computer to do these sometimes stressful tasks. In addition to all of this, Microsoft Exchange support is now available.

Conclusion

Overall, Snow Leopard has many new refinements that enhance your experience using your already-wonderful Mac. It is a nice addition to Leopard, and it is definitely worth checking out especially since it is only $30.

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Snow Leopard: Don't judge a book by its cover

Ah, Snow Leopard. The most advanced operating system on the planet as of 12AM on 8/28/09. But is it really a "new" OS, or just an upgrade to Leopard? To tell you the truth, its a brand spankin' new OS. It may look the same on the outside, and honestly it really does look like Leopard. But on the inside, not even close. In fact, only 20% of Snow Leopard will be Leopard. The enhanced Snow Leopard Finder was re-written from the ground up. Quick Time, also re-written from the ground up, has "quick trimming" like on the iPhone. So yes, you can now record from a video device and trim it up, right inside Quick Time, which is very handy. You can now save videos to the web directly from QuickTime. That means you can record, trim, and send to YouTube. Quick Time is even giving Screen Flow a run for their money by allowing you to record your screen. Mail, iCal, and Address Book have been re-written as well. All three apps now have MS Exchange support. In Mail, you can now compose and edit HTML email messages more reliably. Heck, Mail can now even detect flight numbers. iCal now automatically sets up your Gmail and Yahoo calendars. So you don't have to go back and forth.

That's only half of the new things inside Snow Leopard. Pre order your copy now! All you need to do is click here.

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