Apple has released a public beta of version four it’s Web browser, Safari. I haven’t had much time to play with it, but it’s UI enhancements look very slick and are eerily similar to Google’s Chrome browser. It will be interesting to see what the reaction will be.

UPDATE: C|Net has posted some initial benchmarks. Safari 4 is apparently really fast.

In the days of Internet browser compatibility, the days have become rare when you arrive at a site that snubs you for your browser choice. Well, unless you use a Mac and your company uses UltiPro for payroll and administrative info. All I wanted to do was see my pay stub for today, but the site is IE-for-Windows-only.

Enter ies4osx, which allows you to run IE6 on OS X with very little effort. It uses Darwine (the Mac port of Wine) and X11 to run Microsoft’s grumpy old browser. Making sure to use Mike Kronenberg‘s version of Darwine 1.1.9, the installation went really smoothly. (NOTE: I already had X11 installed. It is not installed by default.) About ten minutes later, I was browsing my precious HR info.