Hi Katie,
Welcome to Apple Discussions and Mac Computing
Some web sites, or certain aspects of sites don't work very well with Safari. It's more to do with the site developers than Safari. Safari is rather new to the browser scene, and its web requirements are very specific. If a site is coded more to work with Windows, then Safari may not be your best browser to use for that particular site. For example, Yahoo and CNN videos don't work on Safari. A good alternative in these type of situations would be
Firefox. It is free. Good to have an alternative browser option.
3.Why did I pay so much money for a computer that does not allow my to fully use simple websites such as ebay (that might be a total newbie question)?
Good question. Macs are free of viruses and spyware. They are very intuitive with a much more pleasing look than Windows machines. The hardware is top-notch and will serve you. Yes, you'll run into inconveniences such as the eBay problem, however, all in all, your computing experience ought to be more rewarding than in the PC realm.
There's a wealth of information available about using your Mac successfully. Excellent manuals available through national bookstores or the internet. Also, very good articles published on line by MacWorld magazine.
One thing important about Macs is to keep them maintained.
Here's a piece I wrote a while ago about Efficiency in using a Mac.
Suggestions for more efficient computing
A few things that can make computer life easier:
In Safari:
- Each day, go to the Safari Menu and "empty cache".
- In your Finder: /HD/User/UserAccount (your Home name)/Library>Safari folder, you'll find a file called "bookmarks.pilst". This file holds your Bookmarks. Single-click on the file, then command key + D to make a duplicate copy. Do this every few weeks or whenever you add a lot of bookmarks. This way, if anything weird happened to your bookmark file (corruption), then you have a back-up to revert to.
- keep the cookies file clean of unnecessary items - you can see the Cookies file in your Safari Preferences>Security panel - click on the "cookies" button. Remove any items you don't use regularly. The one's you want to retain are those for banking and credit card sites, Apple, and any other sites requiring passwords. The rest can be removed simply by single-click and then "remove".
Routine System Maintenance - This is so important. Otherwise, little problems that go unnoticed can become bigger ones, slowing down the system, or even corrupting the hard drive. For routine maintenance I use
OnyX. There is no charge for the software, but I believe the developer asks for a donation.
It's very easy to use. I run it twice a month. Once it is installed, you would double click on the OnyX icon in your application folder (or drag an icon to your dock for quick access) to open the application. After entering your administrator password, you would select "automation". The panel looks like this:
Select the same items I have checked and then select "execute". The program takes about 5 to 10 minutes to run. Leave your computer alone, that is don't use it for anything else until OnyX is finished. Once complete, restart the computer and you're good to go.
Lastly, the most effective maintenance is having a full backup of your system on an external hard drive. All machines fail eventually, despite the best maintenance. If you had a hard drive failure without any backup, then you would lose all your information, including documents, images, songs, etc. Not a pretty picture.
For your system, you would purchase either an external firewire drive for the older Mac machines (G5/G4 or G3), or a USB or Firewire Drive for the new Intel Machines. The key here is creating a "clone" backup on the drive, which you back up regularly, or at least once a week. For the backup process I use
SuperDuper. Very easy to use. The initial backup takes about 1 to 2 hours. Subsequent backups take 5 to 10 minutes. Total $$$ investment can be anywhere between $100 - $250 depending on the size of your Hard Drive.
Post back if you have any further questions.
iMac G5 Rev C 20" 2.5gb RAM 250 gb HD/iBook G4 1.33 ghz 1.5gb RAM 40 gb HD Mac OS X (10.4.8) LaCie 160gb d2 HD Canon i960 printer
