Category: Macintosh

If you've switched over to the Skype 5.0 Beta for Mac, and you don't love the new look of Skype chat, there might be an easy fix. Skype 5 Mini is a simple chatstyle swap that cuts a lot of the whitespace out of Skype's new default chat appearance, letting you fit more text into your window. Mini is the Lego to the default's ages-3-and-up Duplo. The first thing you'll notice about Mini is that ...

Skype 5.0 Beta has finally hit the Mac, bringing with it the group video calling feature that Skype for WIndows users have been enjoying for a couple of months now. The OS X version also gets some Mac-only perks, though, including a nice new single-window UI and Address Book integration. The contact list (now attached as a sidebar to the main calling window) will grab all the Address Book ...

TweetDeck's User Streams Preview introduced real-time Twitter streams to anyone who was willing to beta test, and now TweetDeck v0.36 is bringing it to the masses. This release merges the User Streams Preview with the "original" branch of the app, giving all users the option to view their friends' tweets in real time. Real-time is on by default, so make sure to turn it off in preferences if ...

Ever wanted to use your non-jailbroken iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad as a USB flash drive? Then head on over to Phone Disk right now and grab yourself a free download for either Windows or Mac. Once installed, Phone Disk lets you use your iOS device of choice like a flash drive, with the majority of the file system available for browsing. Like a 'disk mode' or 'mass storage device', you can dump ...

Apple recently let loose an update for iPhoto '11, which should prevent the database corruption bug that a few vocal users experienced upon firing up the new version for the first time. It's a pretty serious error if you happen to lose your entire photo library just because iPhoto has to "upgrade your library," so let's hope Apple's put this one to bed. Still, if you haven't upgraded yet, it ...

After a rather epic and pregnant pause, the developers of Adium have finally squeezed out the next major version release of the best open-source Mac chat client in town: Adium 1.4. The main feature additions are Twitter and IRC support, but the contact list has also been overhauled to support contacts in multiple groups and instant searching. There's also a new version of libpurple under the ...

It ain't no Lorizzle, but LittleIpsum is pretty cool nevertheless -- a Mac application that lives in your menu bar and generates actual Latin Lorem Ipsum. It can do words, sentences or paragraphs, depending on your mood and/or needs, can wrap the generated text into HTML tags, and it supports Growl notifications. It can be set to start each time you log in and automatically download updates if ...

Bad news for Mac users -- a cross-platform Trojan that can infect the OS is currently being tracked, masquerading as a video. Boonana, official designation 'trojan.osx.boonana.a,' or 'OSX/Koobface.A' depending on who you want to go with, is being spread across Facebook and other social networks with the old 'Is this you in this video?' ploy. Appearing on people's Facebook pages, the link launches ...

Microsoft has officially released the retail version of Office 2011 for Mac. This update to the popular software suite includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Messenger, and adds Outlook to the Mac version of Office for the first time. Microsoft's cloud focus is evident in Office 2011, with Office Web app integration, cloud storage via Skydrive and networked file sharing with SharePoint. Design nerds ...

Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac, the utility that syncs media between your Mac and your Windows Phone 7 device, is now available for download from Microsoft. If you've ever synced files using iTunes, WP7 Connector's interface will be familiar to you. The UI and features are substantially the same, although the Windows Phone 7 Connector has a useful "browse device" view that shows you all the ...

Microsoft Messenger for Mac, Microsoft's instant messaging application for Apple-made computers has hit version 8, finished its beta testing, and is now ready to download and use. Microsoft Messenger for Mac 8 will be included in the upcoming Office for Mac 2011 suite as well. Messenger for Mac has all the features you'd expect -- it lets you instant message, audio and video call your friends ...

The idea of a Mac App Store has been bandied about on popular blogs for a while now, but most didn't think Apple would ever go for it. Apple cast all doubts aside today, announcing the Mac App Store at its Back to the Mac event. The Mac App Store launches in 90 days, and it will function much like the iOS app store, where Apple approves apps and takes a cut of sales. The App Store will get a ...

During an event in Cupertino this morning, Apple has announced FaceTime for Mac. A beta version of the application is already available to download. This partially addresses one of the biggest gripes FaceTime users have had with the service -- lack of support for video chatting with people on their computers. It only partially addresses it though, since it's only available for the Mac as of now ...

Amazon's Kindle software for Mac has received a number of nice feature additions today, of which annotation support and highlighting are certainly the most interesting. What's more, both of these work with Amazon's Whispersync tech to instantly sync your highlights and notes across all Kindle apps and devices. You can also search within a book now and use a multi-column reading mode. Kindle's ...

MediaRover is a free app that syncs iTunes libraries across up to eight Windows or Mac machines. That means songs you add to one machine's library will be available on your other machines, and any changes you make to iTunes playlists or metadata (like song names or track numbers) will be synced, too. If you've got a NAS or a streaming music device, like a Sonos, Squeezebox, or Blu-ray player, ...