Well, friends, thanks to the tireless support of Simon over at Bitcartel, I've got my PandoraJam working again. Apparently, the problem was caused by a conflict with "Hear", an app I just installed a short while ago. Here it is:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/27310/hear
I really like Hear, it's pretty awesome, but I can't live without PandoraJam, so until the conflict is fixed by Joesoft, I've uninstalled Hear from my system. Unfortunately, it must be completely uninstalled for PandoraJam to work (use FindAnyFile or a similar app to locate all of the pieces; simply deleting Hear won't do). Good luck to you all!
And thanks again to Simon at Bitcartel for the excellent support.
Okay. Let’s get something straight right off the bat -- Firefox’s new versioning method is stupid. The end.
Despite that, Firefox is improving by leaps and bounds. Google Chrome may be a wonderful browser; I’ve tried it and wasn’t impressed enough to switch. Google offers folks a lot of great freebies, but for those of us who are more security conscious, Google is a no-go. End of story. If you like Chrome -- wonderful! Good for you. Enjoy. However, this review will be focused on Firefox’s strengths and weaknesses. To that end, I will say:
The latest Firefox nightlies are freaking fantastic! (Download nightlies here:
http://nightly.mozilla.org/)
I’m still disappointed in the way they bungled the switch to the rapid release schedule, but as a someone who has been using Firefox since 2002 (when it was called Phoenix), I can honestly say that the Firefox team is finally back on the right track. Version 7.0 sucked, but v 7.01, 8.xx, and now v 9.xx are amazingly fast and stable (on my MacPro with 22 addons running). As a longtime user, I am really impressed! Flash and Youtube video performance has been greatly improved; I no longer have to repair disk permissions to free memory after using Firefox for a few hours, video doesn’t stutter as much on Youtube, and all of my extensions are working fine. I’m sure there’s room for improvement, but as of today, Firefox rates a solid 4+ on my system. Give it a try; you might like it too.
P.S. the Bookmarks manager has finally been improved as well; it’s still not great, but it’s leaps and bounds better than version 3.xx.
And if you’re sick of websites that use tiny (non-adjustable) text, do yourself a favor and install the NoSquint Addon -- it’s a Must Have! Seriously.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nosquint/
Wow -- that was fast! Recording and iTunes integration have now been restored in Version 2.0 (502). Also, the album artwork appears to be of better quality (500px by 500px when available). Nice work, Bitcartel! Thank you.
As you may have noticed, PandoraJam 2 isn’t up to par with previous version of PandoraJam -- features like recording and iTunes integration no longer work -- but these changes aren’t Bitcartel’s fault. Pandora recently switched to an HTML5 based player and abruptly dropped the old Flash-based interface; that’s what’s caused these issues with PandoraJam.
Happily, Bitcartel announced on their blog that they’re currently working on new versions of PJ and it will be a free upgrade for all users. They’re also offering a refund to customers who bought PandoraJam on August 1st or later. Nice! Thanks, Bitcartel! Here’s hoping the next iteration of PandoraJam is as successful as the first. Details here:
1Password is working just fine in version (Mystery Meat!) 7 of Firefox on my MacPro running Snow Leopard. (I've got Lion installed on another drive and I'll give it a whirl there later in the week when I have more time.)
As you know, there have been a lot of changes to our favorite browsers and O/S during the past few months, so cut the folks at Agile some slack. Personally, I think they've done an admirable job of keeping pace with these rapid fire releases Chrome and Firefox seem so determined to inflict on their users. I've contacted tech support at Agile numerous times over the years and they've never failed to be anything but prompt and courteous in their replies. It's understandable that they may be a bit inundated right now, but if you use a bit of commonsense (and patience), you will get your issue resolved. Don't forget to take advantage of the very friendly and helpful advice given by the users on the Agile forums and to file a bug report, when necessary.
That said, there are a few issues I ran into while updating to 1Password 3.8.1. Namely:
It took me a few tries to get the browser extension working on Firefox 7; this was due, I think, to general FF wonkiness and my own hyperactive security settings.
If you’re having problems getting the 1P browser extension to install from the Agile homepage, don’t forget to go into your FF prefs under “security”, “exceptions” and type in or copy Agile’s website address into the form and click “allow”. This will allow them to update/install the 1P browser extension just like you allow mozilla to update your addons from their website.)
And, if you're using the NoScript addon, allow Agile's site through.
If you’re running any network monitoring apps like Little Snitch or HandsOff, you’ll want to go into your prefs to allow FF or your browser of choice to access Ports 80 and 443. Little Snitch seems to be especially wonky in my case lately; it randomly eats my user defined rules (almost like clockwork after I clone my drive using SuperDuper, so be sure to check that issue too.)
This should go without saying, but make sure you’re downloading and installing the correct version of 1Password into your apps folder on your Mac (there are legacy versions available here at Macupdate and also on Agile’s site for users who want to stick with the older browsers) and when you do install 1P, turn off all browsers first. Then, open 1P from your apps folder and go into the prefs menu and “browsers” to enable additional browser extensions if you’re using Safari 5.xx, OmniWeb, etc.
Once that’s done, you might still have to do a little voodoo dance and wave your magic wand before opening Firefox because the Firefox addons “compatibility checker” is an a** and will sometimes turn off your addons without your permission to save you from yourself… and the special joy that can only be had by turning your extensions on one by one after every stupid update. (Also, don't forget to go into your Addons menu and make sure all previous versions of 1Password are disabled so that the latest one will work.)
Sorry for the novel, but I hope that helps some of you. Please remember to post issues on Agile’s forums or under the “troubleshooting” tab here at Macupdate (not under “reviews”) so that you can get the help you need. Ciao!
Thank YOU, Brenty -- and everyone else on the Agile Team. 1Password is my Desert Island App; I absolutely wouldn't want to live without it. You folks are doing a fantastic job -- 1Password is constantly evolving and improving. I love it so much, I bought a family license for Windows even though I only have one Windows computer (and gave the rest away to friends, who are now also diehard converts from Keepass. LOL).
I've had multiple unexplainable instances in the past when my Apple keychain became corrupted, but once I switched to 1Password, it has never let me down. Rock on! :)
I don't know if anyone has noticed, but VLC (so far, to my knowledge) has been the only media player to conquer the dreaded memory leak issue on Snow Leopard. In the past when you would use or leave any media player open for several hours, RAM would not be released -- even after closing the app -- and your system would gradually slow to a crawl. The only solution was to re-boot. This issue has been plagued Mplayer, MPlayer Extended, VLC, Movist, etc.
Well, I'm happy to report that VLC has fixed whatever was causing the problem because I can now leave it open for days at a time and not suffer any system slowdowns whatsoever.
Great job, Team VLC, and thanks for keeping this excellent app free!
Great idea! Now I don't have to suffer through the horrible, clunky YouTube interface and stupid comments posted by YouTube users just to hear a few songs. Thanks, MediaHuman.
I don't know what's up with VLC lately -- it chews through free memory like crazy. When VLC is running, after just a couple of hours, my system slows to a crawl and even after I turn VLC off, it never releases all of the memory it gobbled up. The only solution is to reboot my computer.
I hope the devs can fix this issue soon because a quick google search shows I'm not the only one having this problem.
Thanks for the tip, Ikir. You're right -- all of the other players do have this same issue. I don't know why I haven't tried QT+Perian lately, but I'll give it a whirl... there's nothing to lose at this point.
I'm having some crashing issues with this latest update.
I have Speed Download set to launch minimized and download in the background. If a file is downloading and Speed Download is minimized, when I click the green maximize button to view the current downloads, the app will crash. Anyone else having this problem?
If you're having trouble with Pollux lately, this message from the dev's website might help explain why:
"Over the last couple of days, Pollux has gotten an unanticipated high volume of traffic and downloads. We're very happy for the huge interest and success our app has received, but for the very same reason, the third-party services Pollux uses such as MusicDNS and Lyricwiki are no longer able to support Pollux for free. Thus, our current version (1.1.9) is broken.
As we are just two college students not looking for any profit, we are unable to pay for the services Pollux depends on even with the very generous donations we have received. We're looking to resolve this issue and continue to bring you Pollux at the lowest cost we can manage. We apologize for Pollux not working until we can sort out this matter, and we thank you for your interest and patience.
Thanks for the update, Bitcartel, but the issue still persists: if "Tag recording with album artwork" is NOT selected, the artist and song title is added to iTunes under the same field (Name). Also, the album title is not tagged at all.
Workaround for users who prefer to apply their own higher quality album art is to keep "tag recording with album artwork" selected in PandoraJam, then manually remove the PJ applied coverart while in iTunes, and reapply higher quality album art with iTunes or the tagging app of your choice.
When "Tag recording with album artwork" is NOT selected, the artist and song title is added to iTunes under the same field (Name). Also, the album title is not tagged at all.
Ordinarily, smcFanControl is a very good app, but I'm having an issue in Snow Leopard that I'd like to make others aware of: SMCFC randomly shuts down without warning. This has happened numerous times after a reboot or after waking the computer from Sleep. It's happened on a clean install of Snow Leopard and I didn't notice until the temps were running quite high on (Original 2006 MacPro) and my fans kicked up a few decibels on their own, alerting me to the problem.
Please note: I don't this this is SMCFC's fault; I think this is a Snow Leopard bug as I've noticed other instances of the O/S not remembering various preferences (keyboard modifier keys, Wacom tablet settings, etc) or apps that I've set to open automatically at login. Hopefully Apple will have a fix soon. In the meantime, keep an eye on your system because SMCFC isn't 100% stable on Snow Leopard yet.
[Version 2.2.2]
Please login or create a new MacUpdate Member account to use this feature
VLC Media Player
http://techmeasy.blogspot.com/2011/11/trick-to-disable-building-font-cache.html
I haven't "upgraded" to v. 2.xx yet, but this tip works in v. 1.xx. Good luck.
PandoraJam
Dr.-Girlfriend reviewed on 05 Dec 2011
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/27310/hear
I really like Hear, it's pretty awesome, but I can't live without PandoraJam, so until the conflict is fixed by Joesoft, I've uninstalled Hear from my system. Unfortunately, it must be completely uninstalled for PandoraJam to work (use FindAnyFile or a similar app to locate all of the pieces; simply deleting Hear won't do). Good luck to you all!
And thanks again to Simon at Bitcartel for the excellent support.
+395
If you haven't tried it yet, I encourage you to give Hear a try. It's a great app and it's currently part of the MacUpdate bundle promo:
https://www.mupromo.com/
+395
PandoraJam
PandoraJam
Dr.-Girlfriend reviewed on 14 Oct 2011
Use the "check for updates" feature while Pandorajam is running to get the latest betas.
+3
Firefox
Dr.-Girlfriend reviewed on 03 Oct 2011
Despite that, Firefox is improving by leaps and bounds. Google Chrome may be a wonderful browser; I’ve tried it and wasn’t impressed enough to switch. Google offers folks a lot of great freebies, but for those of us who are more security conscious, Google is a no-go. End of story. If you like Chrome -- wonderful! Good for you. Enjoy. However, this review will be focused on Firefox’s strengths and weaknesses. To that end, I will say:
The latest Firefox nightlies are freaking fantastic! (Download nightlies here:
http://nightly.mozilla.org/)
I’m still disappointed in the way they bungled the switch to the rapid release schedule, but as a someone who has been using Firefox since 2002 (when it was called Phoenix), I can honestly say that the Firefox team is finally back on the right track. Version 7.0 sucked, but v 7.01, 8.xx, and now v 9.xx are amazingly fast and stable (on my MacPro with 22 addons running). As a longtime user, I am really impressed! Flash and Youtube video performance has been greatly improved; I no longer have to repair disk permissions to free memory after using Firefox for a few hours, video doesn’t stutter as much on Youtube, and all of my extensions are working fine. I’m sure there’s room for improvement, but as of today, Firefox rates a solid 4+ on my system. Give it a try; you might like it too.
P.S. the Bookmarks manager has finally been improved as well; it’s still not great, but it’s leaps and bounds better than version 3.xx.
And if you’re sick of websites that use tiny (non-adjustable) text, do yourself a favor and install the NoSquint Addon -- it’s a Must Have! Seriously.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nosquint/
Happy surfing!
PandoraJam
Dr.-Girlfriend reviewed on 26 Sep 2011
-1
PandoraJam
As you may have noticed, PandoraJam 2 isn’t up to par with previous version of PandoraJam -- features like recording and iTunes integration no longer work -- but these changes aren’t Bitcartel’s fault. Pandora recently switched to an HTML5 based player and abruptly dropped the old Flash-based interface; that’s what’s caused these issues with PandoraJam.
Happily, Bitcartel announced on their blog that they’re currently working on new versions of PJ and it will be a free upgrade for all users. They’re also offering a refund to customers who bought PandoraJam on August 1st or later. Nice! Thanks, Bitcartel! Here’s hoping the next iteration of PandoraJam is as successful as the first. Details here:
http://blog.bitcartel.com/
+5
1Password
Dr.-Girlfriend reviewed on 20 Aug 2011
As you know, there have been a lot of changes to our favorite browsers and O/S during the past few months, so cut the folks at Agile some slack. Personally, I think they've done an admirable job of keeping pace with these rapid fire releases Chrome and Firefox seem so determined to inflict on their users. I've contacted tech support at Agile numerous times over the years and they've never failed to be anything but prompt and courteous in their replies. It's understandable that they may be a bit inundated right now, but if you use a bit of commonsense (and patience), you will get your issue resolved. Don't forget to take advantage of the very friendly and helpful advice given by the users on the Agile forums and to file a bug report, when necessary.
That said, there are a few issues I ran into while updating to 1Password 3.8.1. Namely:
It took me a few tries to get the browser extension working on Firefox 7; this was due, I think, to general FF wonkiness and my own hyperactive security settings.
If you’re having problems getting the 1P browser extension to install from the Agile homepage, don’t forget to go into your FF prefs under “security”, “exceptions” and type in or copy Agile’s website address into the form and click “allow”. This will allow them to update/install the 1P browser extension just like you allow mozilla to update your addons from their website.)
And, if you're using the NoScript addon, allow Agile's site through.
If you’re running any network monitoring apps like Little Snitch or HandsOff, you’ll want to go into your prefs to allow FF or your browser of choice to access Ports 80 and 443. Little Snitch seems to be especially wonky in my case lately; it randomly eats my user defined rules (almost like clockwork after I clone my drive using SuperDuper, so be sure to check that issue too.)
This should go without saying, but make sure you’re downloading and installing the correct version of 1Password into your apps folder on your Mac (there are legacy versions available here at Macupdate and also on Agile’s site for users who want to stick with the older browsers) and when you do install 1P, turn off all browsers first. Then, open 1P from your apps folder and go into the prefs menu and “browsers” to enable additional browser extensions if you’re using Safari 5.xx, OmniWeb, etc.
Once that’s done, you might still have to do a little voodoo dance and wave your magic wand before opening Firefox because the Firefox addons “compatibility checker” is an a** and will sometimes turn off your addons without your permission to save you from yourself… and the special joy that can only be had by turning your extensions on one by one after every stupid update. (Also, don't forget to go into your Addons menu and make sure all previous versions of 1Password are disabled so that the latest one will work.)
Sorry for the novel, but I hope that helps some of you. Please remember to post issues on Agile’s forums or under the “troubleshooting” tab here at Macupdate (not under “reviews”) so that you can get the help you need. Ciao!
+3
+395
I've had multiple unexplainable instances in the past when my Apple keychain became corrupted, but once I switched to 1Password, it has never let me down. Rock on! :)
+2
VLC Media Player
Dr.-Girlfriend reviewed on 16 Jun 2011
Well, I'm happy to report that VLC has fixed whatever was causing the problem because I can now leave it open for days at a time and not suffer any system slowdowns whatsoever.
Great job, Team VLC, and thanks for keeping this excellent app free!
+2
YouTube to MP3
Dr.-Girlfriend reviewed on 07 Apr 2011
+1
VLC Media Player
I hope the devs can fix this issue soon because a quick google search shows I'm not the only one having this problem.
+395
+1
WiFi Scanner
"Sorry, but the page you were looking for was not found."
+395
+1
Speed Download
I have Speed Download set to launch minimized and download in the background. If a file is downloading and Speed Download is minimized, when I click the green maximize button to view the current downloads, the app will crash. Anyone else having this problem?
+1
+395
+1
Think
+1
Pollux
"Over the last couple of days, Pollux has gotten an unanticipated high volume of traffic and downloads. We're very happy for the huge interest and success our app has received, but for the very same reason, the third-party services Pollux uses such as MusicDNS and Lyricwiki are no longer able to support Pollux for free. Thus, our current version (1.1.9) is broken.
As we are just two college students not looking for any profit, we are unable to pay for the services Pollux depends on even with the very generous donations we have received. We're looking to resolve this issue and continue to bring you Pollux at the lowest cost we can manage. We apologize for Pollux not working until we can sort out this matter, and we thank you for your interest and patience.
Chetan and Shashwat"
End Quote.
+1
VLC Media Player
+1
PandoraJam
+2
PandoraJam
Workaround for users who prefer to apply their own higher quality album art is to keep "tag recording with album artwork" selected in PandoraJam, then manually remove the PJ applied coverart while in iTunes, and reapply higher quality album art with iTunes or the tagging app of your choice.
Still no 64bit love either :(
PandoraJam
Anyone else having this issue?
+4
smcFanControl
Please note: I don't this this is SMCFC's fault; I think this is a Snow Leopard bug as I've noticed other instances of the O/S not remembering various preferences (keyboard modifier keys, Wacom tablet settings, etc) or apps that I've set to open automatically at login. Hopefully Apple will have a fix soon. In the meantime, keep an eye on your system because SMCFC isn't 100% stable on Snow Leopard yet.