Tze Chuen’s Weblog

Recently, a friend asked me if there was a way to access IE-only sites on his Mac. Off the top of my head, there are two options - one is to use IE itself thru virtualization methods and secondly is to spoof your User Agent in Firefox.

Every browser has its own designated user agent that tells the website what browser you’re using. Therefore, you can actually trick the website to think that you’re actually using a different browser such as Internet Explorer.

Enter User Agent Switcher - this Firefox add-on does just that.

This add-on is extremely easy to use. First, download it here

After installing, you will see the option to switch between different user agents in Tools => User Agent Switcher

As you can see, there are 3 different user agents to choose from. The add-on itself is also easy to use.

Here, using IPChicken to check my user agent and indeed the add-on spoofed it to IE7. Neat stuff.

This tip works on any computer that has Firefox. Doesn’t matter if it’s running Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD etc.

Hope you found much use with this tip. Cheers ;)

Previously, I wrote about three different apps that allows you to take control of your iTunes/iPod music here. I stated that I did not have another iPod to test Misu. Earlier today, a friend of mine requested me to fill up her iPod with songs. I saw it as a perfect opportunity to test out Misu. I would like to thank Ollie Wagner for giving me the opportunity to test out Misu’s app at its fullest potential.

Upon launching Misu, you can click on the iPod icons to swap their places. This allows you to choose which iPod is providing the music, and which one is receiving them.

Here, you can see that my friend’s iPod is smaller than the amount of music that I have. Misu intelligently prompts you to choose if you want Misu to stop copying music when the target iPod is full, or you want to overflow the target iPod (I have no idea what overflow does because I chose the first option).

Misu’s progress pie doesn’t seem to be accurate. It was stuck at 100% for quite some time (about 5 minutes). I think this could be due to the “Stop copying when Full” option. Nevertheless, it’s just a cosmestic issue and harmless.

When copying is finished, a pop-up will appear asking if you want to copy Misu’s app into the iPods so you can launch Misu from any Mac. This is a very clever option in my opinion.

The copying of approximately 4gb worth of songs took about 10 minutes for me. After copying, I realised something - the songs are actually copied into a folder inside the target iPod. For some reason, I had the impression that Misu would automatically add the songs into the target’s iTunes library. I think this feature is not impossible and I hope it would be added in future releases.

For the techie geek like me, I would’ve preferred MacFuse + iTunesFS over Misu if I would like to painlessly copy music over from one iPod to another. Misu, on the other hand requires you to do one more step when you connect your iPod to your own computer, and that is to add them to your iTunes library and then sync them to your iPod. In the meantime, Misu is great and easy-to-use for people who don’t wanna fiddle with MacFuse. I believe there is a lot of room for improvement for Misu.

With more and more people getting iPhones and iPods (and storage getting bigger and better), Misu will no doubt be popular in the future because with the snap of a finger, you can have your friend’s music collection.

Interested in trying out Misu?

Misu is available for a free trial (with 15 songs limit) or you can get it for $19 per copy or $29 for 3 copies.

While surfing MacTalk forums, I saw a thread with pictures that I find both funny and true.

I believe these are the installation steps for a particular DJ equipment. Now I know why there are so many DJ’s around using MacBook’s ;)

Macheist has recently released a bundle of 12 Top Mac Apps. Though most Macheist members (like me) have already owned some of the apps listed, you might find the bundle worthwhile! The original price of the apps altogether are almost $300! You can get all these amazing apps for only $49. That’s a whopping 80% discount. And I bet Macheist will throw in another app or two if the sale goes well. So, what ya waiting for? :)

Get the bundle here.

I was surfing around and noticed that this article ‘Five reasons why Vista beats Mac OS X’ was linked in 9to5mac’s site. I was curious so I clicked on it, expecting it to be an article with constructive arguments based on hard facts. But no, it made me laugh my head off. No surprise the article had negative rating (at time of writing it has -68 rating after 142 votes).

The first reason he gave was that Vista runs more software. Ok, fair enough Vista DO run more software. However, what was wrong is that he argued Virtualization software like Parallels won’t let you run even the most basic games such as FreeCell, Hearts, Pinball, Solitaire and Minesweeper. If that’s not funny enough, he argued that it’s because Parallels doesn’t support DirectX9. HAHAHAHAHAH!! Since when the f**k does Solitaire and Pinball require DX9? Also, recent versions of Parallels and VMware Fusion are already supporting DX9. This just shows how f**king clueless this guy is because he wrote his article only about 2 days ago.

Then, he also said that Vista is safer. He argued that this was because the MacBook Air got hacked first in the recent hacking competition (PWN2OWN). I’m sorry but the MBA wasn’t hacked REMOTELY. On the first day of the competition, nobody managed to hack any of the 3 laptops (MacBook Air and 2 others that ran Windows Vista and Linux). So the next day, the rules was loosen and contestants were allowed to physically access the laptops. What!? It doesn’t take a genius to agree that it is much easier to hack a computer when you have physical access. Also, of course the MBA was hacked first. Who the f**k wants a black ugly Windows laptop that’s worth half the value? Vista more secure than Mac OS X? Then try running it without anti-virus and anti-spyware, dumb ass.

The 3rd reason he gave was “It’s the money, stupid”. He argued that a Vista machine is cheaper than a Mac. Even though that’s true, I don’t see his point here. If a Vista machine is 10 times cheaper than a Mac then he probably got a point. But no, I personally don’t think that couple hundred of bucks difference will make the London Bridge fall. Besides, you’re gonna spend a lot more money on a Vista machine by getting software licenses for your anti-virus/anti-spyware products. Have fun on a sluggish machine, bro.

The 4th reason he gave did not even make sense. He argued that the Vista is open while the Mac is closed. He said that Vista can be installed on all pc’s while installing Mac’s on pc’s will get you sued. While it is true that Mac’s can’t be installed on PC’s, it doesn’t justify as a valid point. That’s like saying the OpenOffice suite is much better than Microsoft Office because it can be installed on all kinds of OS.

The last reason he gave was even more ridiculous, he said “Two words — Steve Jobs”. He argued that Steve Jobs was a master marketer. So what? Who the f**k cares if a well-marketed product is actually good. He even said that Steve Jobs sends his lawyers after people who leak information on Apple products. Again, so what? It does not meet the point of argument that Vista beats Mac OS X. I really think this guy is f**king clueless on things he say. I’m willing to bet he didn’t spend more than an hour using a Mac. Hang on, maybe he did…. The last time he used a Mac was probably during the 80’s!