This has been one of those super annoying things about switching to the Mac OS X. When filling in a form on a web page I like to use the tab key to advance to the next form field. This allows me to avoid picking up the mouse and making my carpal tunnel any worse than it currently is. Unfortunately when tabbing in a form, it always skips over select lists such as a drop down list of states therefore I have to pickup the mouse. Ugg. This is the case in both the Safari and Firefox (Deer Park) browser.
Here is the solution: Open up System Preferences, click ‘Keyboard and Mouse’, and select the option “All Controls” at the bottom of the window next to “In Windows and Dialogs press Tab to move the keyboard focus between”.
It even works for dialog boxes such as javascript popup confirmations.
Oh happy day! I’m starting to truly feel like this Mac really can do everything that I could do on my PC. Its just a matter of learning all the tricks.
Pssst– Hey Apple. Make this one default.
I’ve been kind of bummed lately because I felt like Firefox was pretty sluggish on my Macbook Pro. I was certain I had installed the univeral binary build but tonight I really began to suspect I had not selected the native code. Firefox seemed really slow and it was using a large chunk of memory (250MB). So I killed Firefox, dragged it to the Trash Can (gotta love that 
), and downloaded the latest build of the native Firefox universal binary codenamed Deerpark. Immediately I realized that indeed I did not previously select the UB because the icon was different.
I fired it up and tried a few sites. Amazing! This thing is screaming fast even with my extensions installed. I swear its faster than Safari and certainly faster than Firefox on my phatest PC. Also memory usage dropped to 50MB. Deerpark only takes about 1 second to start versus about 7 seconds on the non-native build. The best part is that all my extensions and bookmarks remained entact. I love you Steve Jobs.
It happened. After 5 days of calls to the Apple store in NY I discovered that they received a shipment of Macbook Pro’s this afternoon. I got the fix I needed. I hopped on the R line and prayed the stock would last long enough for me to reach SOHO. When I arrived, a very friendly sales rep named Jeremy told me they received a few hundred just an hour ago and their were only 10 left. I was lucky enough to snag a 2.0 Ghz model. Here I am sealing the deal 10 minutes after walking in:
I was very anti-social and immediately left my friends that came with me to SOHO and took this sucker home for NotSleepy configuration.
Here is a photo of the machine booted in my hotel on the last night of the SES conference:
I need a name for her. Any suggestions?
Ok, to be absolutely clear I don’t actually have a MacBook Pro. I have ordered one (we’ll actually three) but I am in an agonizing queue that I cannot see the length of. Yes three. This is how bad my addiction to this beautiful machine has become. After pouring over the first reports of folks who had received shipment confirmation early, I made the assessment that some configurations were shipping sooner due to their higher cost and lower demand so in addition to my 1.83GHz order I also placed an order for a 2.0GHz and the highly overpriced 2.16GHz model hoping to increase my odds of getting one sooner. Perhaps even more shocking behavior is that I’ve actually gone so far as to install the bloody Yahoo messenger in the event that I might receive an update email from Apple.
I scour the forums for more info on the MacBook Pro. The Apple store at Southpoint is getting sick of my phone calls. I’m hiding my frequent order status checks from my wife. I’ve even begun checking my American Express card for authorization of funds. How did I get like this? I’m even a Windows person!
I’m a Macbook Pro addict and I need help.
Off to call the shops in NY. Screw SES panels. I need my Mac.
