After abandoning the slow Office 2004 in favour of Apple’s iWork, I could hardly wait to get my hands on Office 2008. But the new Office performance is not where I have imagined it would be. It is slow, very very slow to lanch, and during the normal operation it feels somewhat faster than its predecessor, but not by any respectable margin.

I decided to run some tests just to see how fast does the new Office launch, and compared it to Apple’s own iWork.

The computer used for testing is a MacBook Pro with 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo processor and 2GB RAM. OK, it’s not the fastest rocket in the universe, but I guess it sits nicely somewhere in the middle between the latest C2Ds, and G4s and G5s, plenty of which are still out there.

I firstly timed the cold start; reboot the computer, wait for 2 minutes to make sure any background processes have finished and start the Word 2008. Then I closed the application (Cmd-Q) and reload it again several times. The time was measured from the moment I click the Dock icon to the moment the first character (u) is displayed in the application (I key in uuu as soon as the application opens on the screen).

I have repeated this 4 times and the figures below are the averages, however the results of individual measurements are very close.

The next step was doing the same four times with Excel 2008, four times with Pages and finally with Numbers.

Then I updated the Office to version 12.0.1 to see if there is any difference. Of course there is, just not what I expected. Repeated the test, rebooting four times for Word and for Excel, the cold start is much much slower, but the reload is a little faster.

I read a tip somewhere that you can speed up the launch of MS Word by disabling WYSIWYG fonts in Word preferences, and this is true. It reduced the launch time for about 7 seconds, but only the cold start, reload is of course unaffected. All tests were done with the WYSIWYG fonts turned off.

FFXporter is a free iPhoto plugin for Flickr. It provides a convenient way to upload your iPhoto descriptions, titles, keywords (tags), and ratings along with your photos. It also supports sets and preserves GPS tags and other EXIF data.

FFXporter is a free download

This is the list of WYSIWYG html editors for Mac OS X. Please note this list doesn’t include any applications that are code-only, or those where you have to code and then preview in WYSIWYG mode.

Adobe Contribute (from US$ 149) enables content authors to quickly and easily update existing websites and blogs while maintaining site integrity — with no technical expertise required.

Adobe Dreamweaver (from US$ 399) quickly and easily design, develop, and maintain websites and web applications — from start to finish. Built for both designers and developers, Dreamweaver CS3 offers the choice of working in an intuitive visual layout interface or a streamlined coding environment.

Adobe GoLive (from US$ 399) allows both web professionals and graphic designers to visually create sophisticated, CSS-based content. Design graphics in other Adobe applications and bring them to the web with ease, using familiar tools and concepts.

Create (from US$ 149) a low-cost application with all the features of professional page layout, illustration and web-authoring systems and free upgrades for life.

Freeway (from US$ 89) works like any page-layout application, so getting started is quick and easy. You design your website by placing objects anywhere on the page, adding text, graphics and rich media, then letting Freeway do the rest – you never have to worry about the code. The code Freeway writes is clean, efficient and standards-compliant.

Goldfish (from US$ 39.90) can create your individual websites in a few simple steps. With its special, easy to use interface, you can place items on your page using drag and drop: no code required. Even a beginner can create a professional website with Goldfish.

iWeb (from US$ 79) makes it easy to create a website that’s stunningly beautiful — and totally you. Start with an Apple-designed theme, then customize it with your own text, photos, movies, and podcasts until it’s exactly what you want. And switch themes with a click anytime.

iWeb comes free with all new Macs or can be purchased separately for US$ 79 as part of the iLife suite.

Microsoft Front Page 2008 for Mac (from US$ 129) – Microsoft is back with its popular web publishing application, this time aimed at Mac users. Microsoft has seen potential in growing Mac user base … he-he, only kidding! God forbid that we have to deal with Front Page on Mac.

Mozilla Composer (freeware) was was firstly introduced as Netscape Composer. During the Mozilla Suite days the Composer was naturally part of this pack and you can download the last Mozilla Suite version 1.7.13, dating back to April 2006.

Mozilla Suite is known under the name of SeaMonkey these days, and the Composer is still part of the pack.

There are also at least two standalone versions of Mozilla Composer.

- Nvu (freeware) seems to be somewhat abandoned, it was an attempt to “rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver” by creators of Linspire OS (formerly known as Lindows), but the last version was published in 2005 and is, of course, only a PPC version.

- KompoZer (freeware) is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing. KompoZer is in active development and the current version is 0.7 ( in Dec 2007)

RapidWeaver (from US$ 49) is a revolutionary, but friendly piece of web design software made exclusively for the Mac. RapidWeaver will help you create and publish beautiful, modern sites, compliant with today’s web standards.

Sandvox (from US$ 49) is fast becoming the website creation tool for people who want to spend time developing their lives, not their websites. Creating a website can be easy and elegant. Drag and drop content, watch your site take shape as you create it, and make it available to others with Sandvox’s publishing assistant. Sandvox is that simple—and that powerful.

ShutterBug (from $39.95 CAD) satisfy the hunger and do more with your website – photo albums, movies, journals, image rollovers, contact forms and a selection of more than 80 fully customizable free themes. Create a simple online gallery or go all the way with a full featured website.