I had almost got used to this - part of the initiation rite as a Mac devotee - but now I have two machines on my desk at work, with different keyboard layouts, so it's driving me pretty crazy. Enough is enough. Real Mac UK Keyboard Layout (hat tip: Greg Knapp).

Gmail seems to be the best of the bunch by far, offering IMAP and an excellent webmail interface, free of charge. (Yahoo won't give you IMAP access, and Hotmail ... enough said!) I'm using Apple Mail on the Mac, and setup was easy, thanks to some helpful instructions on Geekology (I didn't use the "IMAP Path Prefix" bit though). A few very minor issues (such as the way many messages appear twice or several times when you seach in "All Mailboxes"), but I'm very happy so far. Except that I still have 191 messages waiting to be dealt with, plus however many are sitting in a queue (I hope!) at Sussex...

First, buy a Mac. Then

Option 1 (uses bash): add the following to your ~/.bash_profile

function rem {
for b in "$@"
do
osascript -e "tell app \"Finder\" to delete POSIX file \"${PWD}/$b\""
done
}

Then type 'source ~/.bash_profile' in Terminal.

Or Option 2 (uses Python and gives slightly more meaningful error messages): make an executable file called 'rem' somewhere in your $PATH:

#! /usr/bin/python
import os
import sys
if len(sys.argv) > 1:
    for arg in sys.argv[1:]:
        if os.path.exists(arg):
            os.system('osascript -e \'tell app "Finder" '
                      + 'to move the POSIX file "'
                      + os.path.abspath(arg) + '" to trash\'')
        else:
            print "Error:", os.path.abspath(arg), "does not exist"
else:
    print "usage: rem file(s)"
    print "       move file(s) to Trash"

Now, either way, to move 'blah.txt' to Trash, simply type 'rem blah.txt'. Wildcards and lists of files are permitted. You even get the sound effects!

(This makes use of Applescript and works for me on OS X Tiger and Leopard. Thanks to kw for pointing out the problem with Option 1 and leading me to think of an alternative - 3 July 2008. And thanks for icke for showing me how to make the bash version work all the time - 6 Nov 2008.)

Both have:

• Easily-accessible search box in top-right
• Tabbed browsing
• Most other useful things

In favour of Firefox:

• Same on all platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac. Big plus for me, as I use all three on a regular basis.
• Interactive search (Ctrl-F etc).
• Quick Searches, e.g., "wp cucumber" gets me the Wikipedia article on cucumbers.
• The WYSIWYG editor for this blog doesn't work on Safari.
• Lots of extensions available: if I think, "I wish Firefox did xyz," then xyz is probably available on the Firefox Add-ons page.

In favour of Safari:

• It looks nice.
• Surely it's disloyal to use non-Mac software? Let me explain. Macs seem to be very integrated. Rather than switching the computer on to find that it does nothing, when you switch on the Mac it has everything there already - Apple Mail, iTunes, iCal, iPhoto, ... and Safari. And it's all good stuff, so there isn't really any need to search around for better software. So any "proper" Mac user will be a Safari user. (Not sure whether I like this or hate this. On the one hand, who needs a choice when you've got the best option already? But on the other hand, being able to shop around and then actively make a choice feels like a fundamental human right. Really - it would rob me of my dignity as a human being if I couldn't download Firefox. I have the right to choose!)
• Better RSS features (but I use Bloglines anyway).

Think Firefox wins. For now, at least. Especially now that I have the GrApple (Brushed) theme to make it look like Safari.

(Update: Firefox is being really slow this morning. I'm posting this using Safari.)