Speeding up Safari in Snow Leopard - My Solution
Safari in Snow Leopard frequently stalls with the 'Spinning Pizza' cursor and 'hang' what seems an age before it starts to load a page. This rapidly gets infuriating. One way I have found to improve things is to specify the DNS servers in the System Preferences Network settings.
I have a BT HomeHub wireless router. By Default the System Preferences Network settings look to the router to get the DNS servers. The following step-by-step method gives the servers specified in the router directly to System Preferences Network settings. I don't know if BT changes these from time to time but if I delete the numbers I added, Network settings defaults back to looking to the router for the DNS server addresses.
Note: To do this I needed to use Firefox. Safari does not work with the Advanced settings of BT HomeHub.
01. In Firefox: Go to the URL bthomehub.home
You may need to load in with admin and the correct password.
02. Click on 'Advanced' on the side menu
03. Click 'Continue to advanced...'
04. Log In with admin and correct password again
05. Click 'Configuration > Internet'
06. Note the Primary and Secondary DNS
Quit Firefox. (I fuzzed the numbers because I don't know if they are meant to be secret.)
07. Click 'Apple > System Preferences... > Network'
Apple = Apple Symbol, top left of screen. Network is in the Internet and Wireless section of System Preferences.
08. Click 'AirPort'
09. Click 'Advanced'
Look toward the bottom right of the dialog box.
10. Click 'DNS'
11. Under DNS Servers: Click '+'
12. Type in the Primary DNS noted earlier. Tap 'Return' key.
Return key = Enter key
13. Enter the Secondary DNS noted earlier and tap 'Return' key.
14. Click 'OK'
15. Click 'Apply'
16. Hopefully Safari will feel much more responsive.
If not, go back to Step 07 to get to the DNS numbers. Click on the first number and click '–' and repeat to remove the second one. Then click 'OK' and 'Apply'.
Gibberish text in Safari on Snow Leopard
After installing Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, I had problems with the Courier font in Scrivener (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/). It turns out that the problem is caused by a font conflict caused by having Microsoft Office 2004 installled. I needed to launch Font Book and delete the conflicting fonts.
I also was having problems in Safari 3.0.4 on some websites, most obviously on the maczot.com site, as shown below. It made the affected text illegible. The text changed if Safari was switched to run in 32-bit mode. The problem did not affect Firefox.
The illegible text
The illegible text in 32-bit mode
It turns out that this is also a font problem. At some time I had installed Helvetica Black and Helvetica Compressed. I turned off the two fonts and the problem was cured. Just to be sure, I chose to delete both fonts as well.
The problem fonts turned Off
Once removed the macZOT site offer header and price were legible.
Update: OS X 10.6.2 update caused the problem to return and I cannot fix it now. Boo.
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