How can I download Apple's Safari 4 Beta?

You are by no means the only person who gets frustrated with journalist, bloggers and other "digital cognoscenti" who seem to be more interested in showing how cool, hip, and plugged-in they are than in actually helping the rest of us figure out how to travel the same path.

Fortunately, I too have been curious about this and am ready to try and figure this out anyway. So, let's do so!

My first stop would probably be http://www.apple.com/safari because I know from experience that for their major applications the home page tends to be "/appname" (for another example, http://www.apple.com/itunes). Now, arguably, I know that because poking around is part of what I do, meaning that I'm not quite like you after all.

Still, here's what you'd see if just went there:

Let me eschew that shortcut and play fair, however. Instead? I'll go to Google and type in a reasonable search pattern:

The results:

Ah, so pretty much all roads lead to Rome, or, well, Apple in this case.

Anyway, click on the "Download" button (and a tip: Go to Apple Menu -> About This Mac to find out what version of Mac OS X you're running: Leopard is 10.5 and Tiger is 10.4).

If you're on a Mac you'll now see:

Say "OK". If you're on a PC, you'll get a similar prompt to save the archive file, which will then automatically run.

Now you'll have a disk image:

Click on the "SafariBeta4.0Leo.pkg" (though I'm not sure how my friend Leo got involved) and you'll move into the regular software installer app, which you're probably quite familiar with.

Say "yes" to all the prompts and in a few minutes you'll be one of the cool kids too, with Safari 4 running on your computer.

And now you know how us "insiders" solve problems. :-)