While PC users sweat, complain and ponder which over-priced version of Windows 7 they’ll be forced into buying to fix everything wrong with Vista, most Mac users are likely licking their chops at what Snow Leopard will bring, and how little it will cost.

You’ve heard it’s cheaper, faster and even more stable than ever before. Though Apple has stated that, beyond a few high-profile features like a new version of Quicktime, Snow Leopard is more of a maintenance upgrade for Leopard users, rather than the feature-packed blockbuster we’re normally used to with a full version number upgrade. You might call Snow Leopard a comprehensive tune-up.

As is almost always the case with Apple, though, it’s those little tune-ups to Mac OS X that can make all the difference in your daily computing experience. If you happened upon the Snow Leopard Enhancements and Refinements page on Apple’s Web site, you no doubt found at least a handful of things that brings a smile to your face.

Sure, I’m looking forward to a speedier, fully-Cocoa Finder, a fancy new version of Quicktime, and a faster, much smaller OS X installation just as much as the next guy. But of much more interest to me are all of the minor tweaks that will make more of an impact in my daily routine.

Gamma Update

For starters, and one thing near and dear to my heart; Apple has chosen to change the default Gamma from 1.8 to 2.2. For many users the benefit may not be obvious. If you’ve ever noticed photos and graphics on the Web that appear much lighter or washed out than the ones you have on your Mac, it’s because Windows, the Internet, and most television content standardized on Gamma 2.2 long ago. With Snow Leopard, Mac users will enjoy more consistent color across platforms by default.

Finer Finder

iStat calendar menu feature

The Finder’s menu bar clock will soon show the date alongside the time. You can do this now with a finicky hack, but it’ll be handy to turn it on and off with the click of a button. One thing I wish Apple would add here is the ability to display a small calendar with clickable dates that launch iCal without using any third-party utilities, such as iStat. Baby steps, I guess.

Another minor Finder annoyance are the window sidebar headers: Search For, Devices and Places. They can be turned off in Snow Leopard. I always found them to be uselessly taking up space, since I don’t use the search feature, and rarely require Devices and Places. This leaves room for three more folder shortcuts in my sidebar without resizing the window. Adjusting the size of icons via a small slider in every Finder window, saving a trip to the View options window, will be a small, but welcome addition as well.

Apps and Utilities

iChat will see numerous improvements under Snow Leopard such as a lower bandwidth requirement, as will Preview, which will offer improved image scaling and an annotation toolbar. Preview is one of those apps that most users overlook. But if you take the time to investigate, you’ll find it to be quite a powerful and useful little app. For many consumer users, there’s no need to download Acrobat Reader because Preview actually offers more features.

File sharing via Airport Express will be improved for local network users. If you have a Mac acting as a file server over an Airport network, it will continue to share those files, even if the host Mac goes into sleep mode. And now your Airport strength meter will display the signal strength of all available networks before you connect to them. Nice!

Internet Improvements

Safari isn’t the only Internet app Apple has been working on. Mail and iCal have received some much-welcomed improvements, too. Mail’s ability to reorder mailboxes in the sidebar is enough to quench my thirst alone, but I won’t complain about the speedier display of messages, and improved HTML mail composition thrown-in for good measure. iCal will also make it easier to set up your Gmail or Yahoo calendars, and being forced to open a new inspector window for each task will be a thing of the past. While business users will surely love Microsoft Exchange support, most-everyone else could care less; these modest changes will give everyone something to feel warm and fuzzy about.

In Conclusion

While none of these features are game-changing, they’re all extremely useful. In my eyes, they’re much more sexy than Cocoa Finder, OpenCL, Grand Central Dispatch, smaller installation size, and the other big-ticket items. These little features are the ones I’ll interact with on a daily basis, along with faster start-up and shut-down times. I liken it to the cup-holder locations in a new car — it doesn’t mean a lot on its own, but if done poorly can certainly sway your buying decision whether you realize it or not.

For a $29 upgrade price for Leopard users ($169 for non-Leopard users), you’re getting some stunning under-the-hood improvements, and some pretty darn nice refinements that may not be typical Apple front-page news, but are incredibly useful. Finely tuned indeed.

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Windows users have long had the ability to create a new document for any application they have installed from the desktop with a simple right-click. Many switchers probably miss that capability, and I must admit that I never understood the need for it on the Mac — until I actually started using it.

Document Palette, a free application from Cold Pizza Software, gives Windows switchers and long-time Mac OS X users searching for yet another way to save time, the ability to create new documents in the Finder with a quick keyboard shortcut.

Creating a new document from the Document Palette bezel

Document Palette runs in the background and is invoked by hitting Command + Control + Option + N. Doing so brings up a semi-opaque bezel (much like the built-in Application Switcher) containing document icons from which you can choose to create new documents. By default, a plain text, rich text and HTML file are available, but you can add your own document types simply by dragging a document into the Document Palette application list window.

Adding application documents & shortcuts

What makes this a really handy app is that all documents created are copies of the original document you drag in the Document Palette app list. This allows you to essentially create a starting template for any type of document.

You can also assign a keyboard shortcut for each specific type of app document which you can use once you invoke the Document Palette bezel window.

This is one of those features I wish Apple had built into OS X, and I’m sure one many Windows switchers are left scratching their head looking for. Document Palette is free, and requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later — great news for those who haven’t upgraded to Leopard yet!

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When Apple introduced the Dock with OS X, people immediately either loved it or hated it. Over time, we all got used to it. Among some of the usability complaints about the Dock is the fact that, without hacking, you can’t simply get rid of it. Hiding the Dock will only get you so far — it still pops up at inopportune times. If you’re frustrated by the inability to completely hide the Dock, there is a simple solution.

I know what you’re going to say. “Just hide the Dock; it’s simple.” While that is true, it’s not a complete solution. Hiding the Dock doesn’t really get rid of it, rather it just moves it off the screen — barely. Moving your mouse, even slightly, to the edge of the screen brings the Dock back into full view, and launching a new app makes the icon bounce into view even when the Dock is hidden.

I love the convenience of the Dock, but there are times when I’m working in certain apps like iMovie, iPhoto, Photoshop and a few others in which application icons, windows and scroll bars go right to the edge of the screen. Trying to use certain elements in those apps which are close to the edge almost always invokes the Dock, causing a brief yet annoying interruption in my workflow. At the same time, I want access to the Dock without a trip to the Terminal or other convoluted method to bring it back on screen.

Dock Gone System Preference Pane

Enter Dock Gone, by Old Jewel Software. Dock Gone is an OS X System Preference Pane which allows you to turn off the Dock completely, not just hide it.

Like any great Mac application, Dock Gone offers more than one option to turn on and off your Dock: via the Preference Pane, a menubar icon, or a keyboard shortcut — which you can customize any way you like. You can even have it play a system sound when the Dock is turned on and off.

Dock Gone menubar options

Turning off the Dock using any method available with Dock Gone results in the Dock gently sliding off the screen, and playing the system sound if you have that setting turned on. Beyond the menubar icon, which you can hide if you so choose, you’ll not even notice it’s there — a great usability trait.

Whether or not you feel that such an app is worth having, I can say that Dock Gone performs as advertised, with perhaps the only ill side effect of using 9.2MB of my RAM to do nothing 99.9 percent of the time. Still, if the default behavior of the Dock is disruptive enough to you, it’s probably worth putting up with.

Dock Gone works on any Mac that can run OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or higher, and a single-user license is $14.95. A 15-day demo is available for download from the Dock Gone site.

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In my quest to upgrade an aging dual-monitor setup (a 20” main screen with a 17” screen off to the side to house application palettes, iTunes, etc.), the only real decision to make was choosing between an Apple 30” Cinema Display and a Dell 30” UltraSharp Widescreen.

I decided to go large with a 30” LCD to give me as much screen real estate as possible, cut out the extra set of cables that litter the floor behind my desk with a dual-monitor setup, and banish forever the annoying gap between the two displays. After reading numerous reviews on tech sites, soliciting advice from fellow designers, and seeing both in action, I ended up choosing the Dell 3007WFP-HC over the Apple 30″ Cinema Display. The Dell simply offered enough bang-for-the-buck to satisfy me.

Rather than give a run-down of tech specs you can get on your own, I decided to give you a comparison from a user’s perspective. Keep in mind that I’m a designer by trade, and my use and requirements of an LCD monitor may be different than yours, so what I consider an “issue,” you may not. Below are my comparisons of a few key areas and my results of using both monitors after a month of owning the Dell as well as using the Cinema Display fairly regularly.

On the Desk

Believe it or not, a single 30” LCD actually takes up much less space than my previous 20”/17” dual setup.

The Apple Cinema Display uses a single curved stand to support the display, offering a hole in the stand to manage cables. The bezel around the screen is thin, but due to the brushed-metal finish, it is “in your face” at all times. You definitely know you’re using a Cinema Display. The only adjustments available to you is tilting the monitor slightly forward and back.

The Dell Ultrasharp uses a more standard single arm stand with two legs that jet out to the sides for added support. The stand is sufficiently heavy enough to support the large screen, and just felt more substantial (read: safe) than Apple’s display. The black bezel around the screen is thinner than Apple’s, and simply disappears into the background because it’s black — I don’t even notice it’s there. Where the Dell shines in comparison is the available adjustments. Not only does it match Apple with tilt, but you can swivel the monitor from side to side, and adjust the height of the screen as well. Making any of these three adjustments requires two fingers and a small amount of force. At no time does the base move on the desk.

Winner: Dell Dell 3007WFP-HC, no contest.

Getting Connected

I have a Mac Pro tower; I do no gaming; and I don’t hook up my TV to my Mac, so my requirements for connections were fairly simple. While many people criticize the Dell for its lack of VGA, HDMI and other connection methods, it simply wasn’t an issue for me. Both LCDs require a dual-link DVI graphics card capable of supporting the resolution of the display (2560×1600 in both cases).

The Apple Cinema Display uses DVI to connect to the Mac, and offers two Firewire 400 ports, and two USB 2.0 ports. This is more than adequate for most users. The ports are placed rather inconveniently on the lower back of the display, but that’s fairly typical. The main cable is hard-wired to the display, something I don’t like at all. If something goes wrong with the cable, you’re returning the entire monitor for repairs.

The Dell Ultrasharp also uses a single DVI connection, but the cable is not hard-wired to the display. A 9-in-2 media card reader is available on the side of the monitor, as are two USB 2.0 ports. I really like the placement of these. Having them on the side of the display means I can just swivel the monitor to use them. On the back of the UltraSharp are two more USB 2.0 downstream ports, and a single USB upstream port. No FireWire ports are available on the Dell 3007WFP-HC. The ports on the back of the display are rather difficult to get to because they face downward. However, these are really made for connections of a more permanent nature, so it’s not that big of a deal.

Winner: Dell 3007WFP-HC. The card-reader and two USB ports placed on the side of the display make it infinitely more useful in this respect. The extra 2 USB ports put it over the top.

Looks Are Everything

Both companies are known for offering displays that have a great picture, and my use confirms that. But there are differences. If you’re concerned about color accuracy, you really should have a hardware calibration device. Both monitors offer a 178-degree viewing angle for smooth and accurate picture from any reasonable sitting position.

The Apple Cinema Display is about as color accurate out of the box as you can get for a consumer monitor. And, of course, OS X ships with color profiles for the Cinema Display to make calibration as simple as possible. If I have any complaint about Apple’s 30” LCD, it’s that it’s not bright enough.

The Dell UltraSharp does not ship with any calibration profiles, and out of the box it’s not as color-accurate as Apple’s display. Colors appear much more saturated on the Dell, but even running a simple calibration in OS X’s Display Preferences can quickly bring it up to par. The display is much brighter than Apple’s as it ships, perhaps even too bright. Again, you can adjust this to your liking.

Winner: Apple Cinema Display. This was a close one. For my needs, I have to calibrate both displays anyway, so it was a wash. But the Dell requires adjustment even for the average consumer.

Purchase Options

Price isn’t always the main consideration, but it’s certainly a big one. I wanted a little more than a bargain on price.

The Apple Cinema Display costs $1,799 no matter where you buy it. The return policy is simple: You own it once you take it out of the box, and Apple doesn’t have much of a policy on dead pixels — you’ve got to have a cluster of dead pixels in one small area in order to get a replacement. The Cinema Displays do, of course, come with the standard one-year warranty, but that’s about all you get with it.

The Dell Ultrasharp currently sells for $1,049 direct from Dell, but you can get a better deal (see below). Dell offers a zero-dead-pixel guarantee, with a three-year advanced replacement warranty.

I didn’t want the hassle of dealing with a possible return, so I purchased the Dell from Costco, where you can get it for $999 (at time of publication), and have the comfort of knowing you can drive it to any Costco store and return it with no questions asked. Nice!

Winner: Dell UltraSharp. I’m willing to pay a little more for quality, but not nearly twice as much. The Dell offers a better warranty, more adjustments, and an $800 savings.

Satisfaction

Overall, I couldn’t be happier with the Dell UltraSharp. Once I got past the idea of buying a Dell product over Apple, it was easy. The display has performed superbly the last month or so, and I’m so glad I didn’t needlessly spend the extra money just to have an Apple logo on the front.

If you’re in the market for a 30” LCD, you can’t go wrong with the Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC. It offers a great picture, plenty of nice features, sturdy construction, and a price that simply can’t be beat.

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Apple’s iTunes application is perhaps the most popular app ever installed on the Mac. It’s also one of the least flexible, in terms of customization. There’s little you can do to “make it your own,” so to speak. However, all is not lost for habitual tweakers like myself; the iTunes Visualizer can satisfy your need to not leave well-enough alone.

If you display your iTunes window on a second monitor, or just like to look at the iTunes Visualizer full screen on your 30″ LCD, you should know that you have some really nice options available for customizing the appearance of the Visualizer.

iTunes default Visualizer

Invoking the Visualizer by hitting Command + T (hit Command + F to make it full screen if you wish) then hitting the ? key brings up an overlay on the Visualizer screen containing a few keyboard shortcuts to control various aspects of whichever Visualizer you’re running at the time. But these customizations only go so far. To move beyond minor tweaks to Apple’s built-in Visualizers, you can install a number of truly cool third-party Visualizers which really enhance the iTunes experience.

Download More Visualizers

I’ve put together a list of some of my favorite Visualizers to get you started. This is by no means a complete list, so if you’re looking for even more, I suggest a quick Google search to quench your thirst.

All the Visualizers listed below work perfectly with OS X Leopard, iTunes 8.2, and are free to download and use. Click the preview image to go directly to the download page of each Visualizer.

Punkt Visualizer

Punkt is a Quartz Composer Visualizer that is much cooler than it appears in this screenshot. Colors burst to the beat of your music.

Circle Visualizer

Circle places the track name, artist and album in a circular format, and floats in a 3D space.

Fountain Music Visualizer

Fountain Music is probably one of my favorite Visualizers. It reminds me of the drummers in The Blue Man Group, where water is blasting upwards from the drums, highlighted by bright neon lights as they play. Fountain Music also has a decent amount of customization options, such as particle size and color.

Dragon Visualizer

Dragon features a squishy, squirmy dragon dancing to your music. I almost feel like this one borders on being somewhat icky — but it’s truly awesome.

WhiteCap Visualizer

WhiteCap places dynamic wireframe mesh visuals on your screen, cycling through colors and traveling through space.

Figure Visualizer

Figure places the track title, album, artist and album art on a virtual wall, swiveling around in 3D space.

Bugaboo Visualizer

Bugaboo places colorful dancing lightning bugs on screen. This is another one of those that you have to see to appreciate.

Cubism Visualizer

Cubism brings a Tetris-like appearance to your Visualizer, bouncing blocks to the beat of your music. A 3D cube with the album art mingles among the blocks as well.

Gaslight Visualizer

Gaslight is a customizable frequency spectrum analyzer — kind of old-school, but still quite nice!

Snow Visualizer

Snow, another offering from WowLab, displays colorful snow blowing across your screen. This one is really nice for soothing music after a rough day at the office.

LED Flow Visualizer

LED Flow uses Apple’s Quartz technology to place a colorful level meter in 3D space.

G-Force Visualizer

G-Force, the original awesome third-party Visualizer for iTunes, still going strong with its fractal goodness!

Sing Visualizer

Sing places a friendly little creature in your iTunes window and sings. Sort of. Well, it’s cool to look at anyway.

Jumping Steve Visualizer

Jumping Steve pays homage to Steve Jobs with a cutout jumping jack that dances to the beat. Hit the P key for a special iPod commercial-like silhouette feature.

Don’t forget that different Visualizers will offer disparate customization options, the level of which (if any) varies between minor, and fairly major stuff — it just depends on the developer, and how much time they bothered to put in. Don’t forget to hit the ? key to find out what options are available to you.

If you’ve never installed a plugin or other add-on to iTunes, Visualizers are a great place to start. They’re simple, require little effort to get up and running, and typically they either work or they don’t, with no ill side-effects.

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Apple Announces Netbook! That’s the headline you wanted to see, right? That’s the headline that industry analysts and so-called experts believe Apple must have in order to remain relevant in today’s economic climate. That’s also the headline you’re not likely to come across unless it happens to be April 1.

“It’s not a space we’re interested in,” according to Steve Jobs, and a few others at Apple. At least one site run by a reputable Mac journalist claims to have first-hand knowledge that a netbook does indeed exist deep inside Apple’s headquarters, but goes on to back up what we’ve already heard: It’s a prototype, and it’s just not going to ship.

The truth is, Apple already has a netbook on the market, which they’ve been selling for quite a while now. It’s called the MacBook Air. It’s a powerful, good-looking notebook with a full-sized keyboard, spacious 120GB hard drive, and a 13.3-inch, backlit LED screen. It’s capable of running a full version of Mac OS X Leopard, iLife, iWork, and Microsoft Office at full speeds, as well as light-duty graphics work in Adobe Photoshop.

Compare that with most sub-$600 netbooks currently on the market, which run some obscure distribution of Linux, or cripple-ware known as Windows XP Home, and you start to see why netbooks aren’t all that appealing for many people. Not to mention, the standard LCD screens fall in the 10-inch range, the touchpad is practically guaranteed to wear out from excessive scrolling, the keyboards are 80 percent of “normal” size for people with Barbie doll-sized hands, and hard drives are smaller than your standard iPod.

And let’s talk about power. The MacBook Air features a full Core 2 Duo processor, while most netbooks are running an Intel Atom or Celeron processor that barely outperforms my digital watch in modern-day tasks!

Do you really want a netbook?

When I ask around to friends and colleagues about why they bought a netbook, the answer was always the same: “It was small and cheap.” But when I ask them what they thought of it outside those two factors, I didn’t get much in the way of positive comments. Tiny screen, hard to type on, cheap-feeling hardware, and junkware were a few of the descriptions I heard. I thought perhaps this was due to the fact that most of these people weren’t terribly computer-savvy folks, but apparently it’s more widespread than that.

According to this report from The NPD Group, a leading market research firm, only 58 percent of consumers who bought a netbook said they were satisfied, while 65 percent said they expected the same performance as a regular laptop. Many were so unsatisfied that they returned them. How many? Intel’s Sean Maloney was quoted in this article as saying, “They [netbooks] had very high return rates, and a couple of these guys [retailers] had return rates in the 30 percent range, which is a disaster.” Three out of every 10 get returned? Yikes!

In fact, after a slight dip in sales at Amazon.com, when interest in netbooks was at a fever pitch, Apple is back at the top of the sales chart with the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, which has been the top-selling laptop since the moment it was introduced.

Mac Users Want More

The market is apparently showing what Apple, and Steve Jobs, already knew. People want small and cheap, but they don’t want to give up power. As Mac users, we want more from our hardware, and we’re willing to pay a bit more for it. That demand prohibits Apple from selling a powerful, small, and cheap laptop.

Sure, it would be great to have a $500 MacBook. But do you really want to spend that much for a Mac that has limitations that might include a smaller keyboard, a smaller screen, a stripped-down OS, the inability to edit or even watch videos with smooth playback, or a hard drive only large enough to keep a small sampling of your iPhoto and iTunes collection on in order to save room for other documents. I sure don’t, and I suspect that I’m not alone.

Apple's MacBook Air

The MacBook Air, as I stated earlier, is quite a capable little machine. The lack of numerous ports and a media drive initially struck me as absolute craziness at the highest levels at Apple. But when I look at how I use my current 15-inch MacBook Pro, I was surprised to notice how little I actually used the media drive; the Firewire and USB ports; the card slot and the ethernet port. I do most of my heavy-duty graphics work on a Mac Pro at the office, so the extent of my laptop use is light-duty graphics for the web, office and web apps, with the occasional iMovie or iPhoto work.

I suspect my laptop use is typical of most laptop users, except I paid a premium for some extra processor power that I don’t use, a slightly faster hard drive and slightly larger screen that aren’t worth the extra weight or battery use over a MacBook Air.

In fact, when I look at my usage, I really need a netbook. My next laptop will be something cheaper, smaller, lighter and just a little less powerful, but not crippled. A netbook. Most likely it will be named MacBook Air.

Note: I highly doubt Apple will ever release what most consider a netbook. But I’m fully prepared to eat my words, if I have to. After all, I didn’t expect an OS X upgrade to cost only $29, either. With Apple, you just never know what the next headline will be.

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Having used Microsoft Office for many years, despite my utter disdain for it, nobody was happier than me when Apple launched the iWork applications. For my light office application needs, Pages, Keynote and Numbers are just perfect. Here are a few tips I use to make my time in the iWork apps a little easier.

Multiple Inspector Palettes

If you use any of the iWork ’09 apps on a daily basis, you’ve no doubt been frustrated by the fact that you’re forever clicking different Inspector tabs to get to various features. Wouldn’t it be handy if you could have more than one Inspector palette open at a time, with different tabs displayed? Thankfully, Apple offers a way to do just that in all the iWork applications.

Multiple Inspector palettes in iWork apps

Hold down the Option key while clicking any of the tab icons at the top of the Inspector palette to have a new palette open with that group of settings showing. This works in Pages, Keynote and Numbers.

Saving Palette Locations

Open and arrange multiple iWork Inspector palettes in all three iWork apps and they’ll be “saved” for the next time you launch an app, opening in the same location as you last left them. As obvious as it may seem, many users never even notice this feature.

Using Document File Info

The Document tab of the Document Inspector palette in Pages contains some great features. Here you can view raw stats of your document, such as word and character count, enter author, title, and keyword info, and file comments.

At the bottom of the palette, just below where Pages indicates how many times the document has been printed, you’ll find a Show File Info button. Clicking this button opens the File Info box of your document in the Finder. From there, you can adjust permissions, hide the file extension, view more data about your file, and enter Spotlight comments for easy searching.

Saving Spotlight comments in Pages '09

The one thing that I’m left wondering is why Apple didn’t have Pages automatically place the Comments from within the Document Info palette into the Spotlight Comments area in the Get Info box, instead of forcing you to copy/paste.

Keynote and Numbers offer the same feature in their Document Inspector palette.

Protecting your files

Password Protecting Files

In iWork ’09, Apple added the ability to password protect your documents. Microsoft Office apps have had this feature for quite a long time, so it’s nice to finally see it in iWork’s applications.

In the same Document tab of the Document Inspector at the bottom, you’ll find a checkbox, which when clicked will pop open a dialog box where you can enter a password and hint for your file. This is a great addition to the iWork suite, especially if you work in a server/multi-user environment.

M.I.A.: Drag & Drop

Much of the Mac OS offers the ability to drag and drop files, text, and images from one app to another. For some inexplicable reason, iWork apps are different. Though you can drag text from one app to another, you can’t do the same with objects and images. For this reason, you should keep the Media Browser palette open to make it easy to drag images into your documents from iPhoto, or folders located on your hard drive.

Adding More Shadow

You probably know you can add a shadow to your text simply by selecting the text container and clicking the Shadow button in the main toolbar. If you’re looking for a bit more from your shadow, try adding a second one.

Adding a second drop shadow to text in Pages

Once you’ve customized the appearance of your shadow using the Graphic Inspector, select the text itself (rather than the text container) and apply a second shadow using the Fonts palette Shadow button. A second shadow will appear beneath your text, which is completely customizable separate from the original shadow.

While these tips are certainly not Earth-shattering, I hope I’ve been able to share at least one tip you didn’t know about. How about you, do you have any handy tips for using any of the iWork applications?

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Apple has a history of either buying apps or boldly copying features from developers and including them in OS X. So what borrowed features could we see next in OS X?

Software companies frequently acquire other technologies to speed up development of their own platforms, and Apple is certainly no stranger to acquisitions. Cover Flow, LogicPro, Shake, DVD Studio Pro, and several other high-profile apps and features all arrived on Apple desktops via acquisitions. iTunes is probably the most well known of those acquisitions — formerly known as SoundJam MP from a company called Casady & Greene, which Apple bought in 2000.

But Apple has also borrowed its fair share of features from other developers without acquiring the company. OS X’s Dashboard feature is thought by many to be a complete rip-off of an older software package called Konfabulator from Arlo Rose (now owned by Yahoo, called Yahoo Widgets).

With Apple’s next operating system, code-named Snow Leopard, rumors have surfaced that the OS will implement screen recording features using Quicktime. This capability has long been left to third-party developer apps such as Snapz Pro, SceenFlow, and iShowYou. Time will tell how well (if at all) Apple actually implements such a feature, but if it does, it’s just another one on a long list. More than a few developers are probably already stewing over the fact that Apple introduced minor editing and sharing capability into Quicktime X at WWDC.

So what could Apple add next?

Though the recent rumor of Apple acquiring Twitter was laughable in my mind, it got me thinking. Apple doesn’t need to buy Twitter, but it could easily borrow a few features from other developers and add Twitter connectivity into OS X on a few levels.

First the obvious. Apple already bundles iChat with every Mac. It’s easy to use and already offers integration with AIM and Jabber, so why not add Twitter into the mix as well? It’s a good-looking app, has shortcuts available via the menu bar, integrates with OS X’s Mail application, and more.

Safari140 Plugin

Because Apple controls the most popular browser on the Mac platform, Safari, it could also integrate URL-shortening and “Tweet This” -style features into iChat and Safari, making it the most complete Twitter client for Mac users. Oh, by the way, the ability to “Tweet This” in Safari is already available via Safari 140, a plugin from David Watanabe.

It’s clear that social networking is here to stay, and Apple has a great opportunity to add many social networking features into their apps, and the OS itself. The only questions are will Apple do it, and from whom might it creatively “borrow” features?

What features do you think Apple should add next?

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• A 2011 Connected Consumer Forecast

In May of 2001, Apple opened its first retail outlet store in Tysons Corner, Va. It was immediately met by critics and the typical roster of Apple-haters with predictions of doom and massive financial losses. Eight years later, Apple has more than 255 retail stores worldwide, and are the darling of the retail computer industry. So what makes them so successful?

While the Mac, iPod, and iPhone are what makes Apple successful, the formula for the retail stores’ success isn’t so obvious until you actually visit an Apple store. Sure, great products sell themselves, but Apple has made sure that its products have the best opportunity to do so by creating an environment that offers virtually no reason for a buyer to go elsewhere.

The Typical Computer-Buying Experience

When I think of how I used to purchase computers in the past at stores like CompUSA, Circuit City, Computer City (all three now out of business), I do so with little in the way of fond memories. Dimly-lit stores with out-of-date computers, software, and hardware litter my thoughts. CompUSA in particular was famous for the horrible way in which it showcased their hardware offerings. Most computers were dirty, had broken keyboards (if a keyboard was attached to the computer at all), no monitor attached, and usually had no software installed — which mattered little, because if you actually found a computer that worked, it was typically password protected and there was rarely a sales rep to be found.

Even today, most stores like Staples, Best Buy, OfficeMax, and Fry’s Electronics make the computer buying experience as difficult as possible. Desktop computers typically sit idle on shelves high out of reach and completely lifeless. Laptops are barred, bolted, strapped and nailed down to a low display shelf, with as many of them as the store can squeeze in. One person looking at a laptop in the middle of the isle effectively prevents anyone from looking at that laptop, and the one on each side of it. Price tags on the shelf rarely coincide with the computer sitting right above it, and offer little in the way of computer specs.

You can’t pick them up or comfortably test the keyboard in a natural position, and just like the previously mentioned stores, they either have no power running to them, or are password protected to prevent you from actually using them. The few working models you do find have little-to-no software installed, and none have Internet access.

The Apple Experience

It’s really not difficult to understand why Apple chose to open its own stores. Steve Jobs wanted a better environment for buyers to experience the Macintosh. And Apple pulled it off masterfully. It’s all about the experience.

Visitors at the Apple Store at the Scottsdale Quarter

• Spacious interior – The isles are wide, allowing patrons to move freely about the store. In fact, Apple almost encourages loitering with the amount of empty space and abundance of stools and tables.
• Plenty of hardware – Apple puts as many units of each model of computer it offers on display as they can comfortably fit. Other than launch days and special events, you’ll likely have no trouble getting at the hardware you want to check out. The Scottsdale Quarter store I recently visited had no less than 20 iPod touch and iPhone’s each on display, at least 20 laptops, and nearly a dozen or more iMacs and MacPros.
• In working order – Every single device Apple sells in their stores is working. And they don’t limit the access to the devices with passwords that require you to find an available sales associate.
• Internet Access – All computers, iPod touches, and iPhones are connected to the store’s Wi-Fi network. You can get on the web and check out your favorite sites on any device. This is such an obvious sales tool that most other stores simply ignore.

Easily accessible display units at the Apple store

• Accessible – You buy a laptop, iPod, or iPhone to take on the road. Comfort, weight and the overall feel of the device is important. Apple knows this, and makes it easy to handle the display models. Unlike most other stores, they’re not bolted down. Prices are clearly marked.
• Realistic Expectations – Every Mac in the store has the latest OS installed, as well as iLife and iWork. You can get a real feel for how the apps you typically use will perform on any particular machine. In many cases, Apple even installs Final Cut, and other third-party software such as Photoshop, Quark XPress, and Microsoft Office on some Macs. This is especially useful for high-end users looking to check out the latest Mac Pro.

Beyond the Macs

Along with their own hardware and software, Apple carefully chooses which third-party hardware and software to sell in its stores. You won’t find every obscure make and model of input devices, cameras, printers, speakers and software. Apple goes out of its way to select the best models that work 100 percent out of the box with the Mac. And like its own products, Apple puts them on display so you can easily try them out to see how they work. By limiting the amount of software and hardware it sells from other vendors, it ensures a pleasant and positive experience for the buyer.

Then of course there’s the check-out process and the Genius Bar. Most computer stores have four or more check-out registers, but only have one person working them. At the Apple store, you simply look for an available associate who can run your credit card through a handheld device and have your receipt emailed to you. Simple! And if you have any questions about your purchase, or have issues with an Apple product you already own, the Genius Bar offers free advice and warranty work — take that, GeekSquad!

Though the Apple retail stores probably aren’t as close to your home or office as the nearest Staples, it’s certainly worth the drive if you have one near you. The entire experience is much more satisfying than any other retail experience I’ve come across. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that Apple simply makes it a place you want to shop at, rather than one you have to.

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• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• What Google’s Honeycomb Means for Apple and Microsoft

With My Living Desktop, adding a little tranquility to your Mac has never been so easy. With plenty of built-in scenes, and a custom import option, your desktop will never be the same again.

The ability to run a screen saver or movie on your Mac’s desktop has been around for quite a while now. Unfortunately, the performance hit you take by running an intensive screen saver like Flurry with most of the hacks and applications out there is just a bit too much, not to mention that I’ve found them to not be very stable. And let’s face it, not too many people want to watch their kid on the backyard swing set over and over again.

My Living Desktop offers a soothing environment courtesy of peaceful movie scenes, accompanied by tranquil sounds, right on your desktop to help you cope with the stresses of your workday.

Now let me just say that I’ve tried running screen savers on my desktop in the past, and at least while I’m writing or working on something that requires lots of concentration, I don’t care for music, beeps or buzzing in the background. To my surprise, though, My Living Desktop struck a great balance with the scenes offered. At no time did I find myself wanting to shut it off because the sound or constant movement on my desktop was too distracting. You can tell the developer put a lot of thought into which scenes to include with the application. They’re all subtle movies and sounds that aren’t constantly fighting for your attention while you’re editing your spreadsheets for the boss, or editing photos of the kids.

My Living Desktop Scenes

With nearly 40 different built-in scenes, such as ocean beaches, forest waterfalls, falling rain, wind blowing across an icy mountain, and more, you’ll most likely not grow tired of the built-in offerings. But if you do, a handy scene-import application comes with the Screensaver/Desktop combo that allows you to use your own movies instead.

But wait. What if you want to listen to your iTunes while you work? My Living Desktop allows you to use the menubar icon to keep the scenes running, but mute the sound. You can also use the icon to turn the desktop scene off completely and return to your normal desktop picture should you need to do so.

Because all work and no play makes for a dull and unproductive Mac user, My Living Desktop adds the capability to remind you to take Serenity Breaks. You can set reminders for specific times of the day, or every X number of minutes, as well as how long the breaks should last. The screen saver plays throughout the break.

My Living Desktop Serenity Prefs

My Living Desktop offers a host of customization options which can be found in the Screen Saver tab in your System Preferences. Along with the above mentioned Serenity Breaks, you can adjust which scenes you want to use, or have it automatically cycle through all of them at specified intervals. You can also adjust the volume and brightness of the desktop scenes independently of the screen saver.

As I stated earlier, the performance-hit was a concern for me. I was sure this was just going to bring everything to a halt on my MacBook Pro. I was pleased to find that I noticed little-to-no performance hit when using Pages, Photoshop, InDesign or any other apps I normally run. Obviously if you’re running a lot of apps at once, you’re probably going to notice slowdowns — but having three or four apps open caused me no pain. Your mileage may vary.

To help out those who just can’t live without having every app they own running at all times, the developer has built in the ability to reduce CPU usage by using a less sharp version of the movies. You also have the ability to shut off the desktop scene automatically when using specified applications. So when you launch iTunes, iMovie, or any other app that has audio feedback, you won’t have to bother visiting the menubar icon to shut it off.

My only complaint about My Living Desktop is that while the screen saver portion works on a multiple-monitor setup (the screensaver appears on both screens at the same time), the living desktop portion only works on one screen of your choosing, with a static image from the scene appearing on the second monitor. Because the scenes aren’t distracting, I would really like to have them appear on both monitors at the same time. I suppose this was a planned “feature” to maintain acceptable performance.

A demo version of My Living Desktop is available, and requires a G5 or Intel Mac running OSX 10.4 or above with at least 1GB of RAM. Once you’ve purchased a license ($34.95 for a single user, discounts for multiple users), a high-speed Internet connection is recommended for downloading more scenes.

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• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
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• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

There are a few really handy features in OS X that get very little attention — perhaps because they don’t have a snazzy GUI, or maybe it’s because they only appeal to certain users. Whatever the case, Summarize (found in the menubar under the Application menu) is one of those handy features that gets little attention, but delivers big by helping you get to the point.

Think of Summarize as OS X’s way of creating a CliffsNotes version of whatever text you want to read, but don’t have the time to do so. It simply shortens your text into smaller, more readable chunks.

For example, let’s say you really wanted to read Charles’ Mystery of the White MacBook Upgrade Unravelled article here on TheAppleBlog, but just don’t have the time to spare. The article, as it appears on TheAppleBlog, is approximately 565 words. I realize that’s not too terribly long, but hang with me here.

In a Services-aware application such as Safari, Pages, TextEdit, Mail, etc., select the text you want to shorten. Next, visit the Application menu, in this case Safari, in the menubar. Scroll down to Services, and select Summarize. A resizable window will pop up with the summarized text in it.

OS X's Summarize Service feature

The Summarize service offers a slider which allows you to customize how much of the original text OS X tosses out. I’ve found that the 30-50 percent range is a good amount to use. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to tell exactly what percentage the slider is set at. In my test, the original 565-word article was summarized down to about 350 words. Even when lowering the percentage down into the 25-30 percent range, the gist of the article was still relatively clear — even though most of the details were tossed out.

The two radio buttons in the Summarize window determine how OS X summarizes the text. From what I can tell, using Sentences is the way to go. The Paragraph method appears to simply toss out entire paragraphs in random order.

Now if you don’t feel like using Summarize saves you enough time by itself, you can further your efforts by selecting the text in the Summarize window and go back up to the Application menu and choose Services → Speech → Start Speaking Text. OS X will read the summarized text to you in the default voice set in your System preferences.

Summarize is just one of the many Services Apple built into OS X. If you take a look, you may even notice some of your favorite applications add their own Services as well. And if you happen to be using an application that can’t take advantage of Services, such as Firefox, you can always copy and paste the text into TextEdit and go from there.

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• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

Apple today stripped the beta tag from, and released, Safari 4 into the wild. Safari 4, which has been in beta since February, offers a host of features and enhancements to what Apple claims is the “World’s Fastest Browser.”

Safari 4 features an updated user interface, and numerous under-the-hood enhancements, all of which contribute to a great new browser, built with the user in mind. If you’ve been using Safari 3, this is a fantastic update you’ll definitely want to install immediately. If you’ve been using the Safari 4 beta for the last few months, some changes have been made, and stability has improved. No matter what browser you currently use, Safari 4 is a gorgeous app that puts the content up front and gets out of your way while you surf.

Safari 4 Top Sites

Top Sites

Top Sites is one of the more notable features, where you can view up to 24 of your most visited sites, via a slick 3D wall of page previews, in one window — making it much easier to get to the sites you visit most.

If you prefer to use Top Sites as your start page, which you can do in the General tab in your Safari preferences, you can “pin” specific pages so they’re always available, no matter how often you visit them. You do this simply by hitting the Edit button at the bottom of the Top Sites page and clicking the little pin icon in the corner of each page thumbnail.

Search

Searching in Safari has seen a few feature updates. You can use the new Search bar, which auto-completes terms, offers suggestions, and displays a list of recent searches for you. Pretty standard stuff. But here’s the cool part: Let’s say you want to search for a site you’ve been to in the past, but can’t remember where it was. Simply visit your Top Sites page and use the Search box at the bottom. Safari will search through your history and display thumbnail previews of the search results via Cover Flow in the browser window — making it much easier to find what you’re looking for. The Cover Flow feature also works with your Bookmarks.

Shortcuts

Apple has added a few options to the Customize Toolbar preferences. You can now add buttons for Top Sites, Bookmarks Bar, Site Information, Email Page and more. To make room for these buttons, Apple has removed the Stop/Reload button and made it part of the URL bar, as seen below.

Safari 4 buttons

For those who were using Safari 4 beta and didn’t care for the Tabs-On-Top feature, you’ll feel all warm and fuzzy when you find the Tab bar has been moved back to its Safari 3 location below the toolbar.

While browsers have had the ability to reduce or enlarge text for a long time, Safari 4 goes one step further by allowing you to zoom an entire page in and out, keeping the content and overall look of the site the way it was intended. Of course, you can also zoom the text only, and support for external style sheets is available, so you can choose your fonts, sizes and colors for all web sites.

A few other nifty features of Safari 4 include inline viewing of PDFs without cumbersome plugins, the ability to “clip” a web page to create a Dashboard Widget of the page, the ability to save images directly into your iPhoto library, and mail the contents of a page (in its full HTML glory) with the click of a button.

Safari 4 Under the Hood

The new JavaScript engine (Nitro) in Safari 4, which boasts speeds four times faster than Firefox 3, four-and-a-half times faster than Safari 3, and eight times faster than Internet Explorer 8, was noticeably improved over previous Safari versions — especially when loading JavaScript-heavy pages such as my iGoogle page.

Page rendering speeds have also been improved by up to three times, according to Apple’s statements. Not having any scientific data to back up my claim, I’ll say that it is fast. Very fast. Considering Safari 4 will run as a 64-bit app under Snow Leopard when it’s released in September, Safari with its Nitro JavaScript engine will be speeding along at a pace that will leave other browsers envious.

Safari 4 also boasts support for HTML 5, for the use of offline technologies, and some pretty cool CSS 3 effects such as animations, fonts and media effects. It’s also the only browser I know of that supports ICC color profiles out of the box, so images appear in the browser as they were intended to.

Of particular interest to web site designers and developers is the ability to invoke Safari 4′s Web Inspector to get a closer look at the underpinnings of a web site. You can view the CSS and HTML code, script and database information, as well as beautiful graphs displaying site statistics, such as image size. As you can see in the screenshot below, somebody really needs to optimize the MacBook Pro image!

Safari 4 Web Inspector

Firefox, with its plethora of extensions available, has been my browser of choice for a long time. But Safari does offer one thing that Firefox just can’t seem to catch hold-of in Mac OS X — speed! Safari 4 just blows the doors off even Firefox 3.5 beta. And it does offer some customization capability via InputManagers (not supported by Apple, by the way). Overall, if you can live without dozens of extensions for Firefox, Safari is by far the best browser for the Mac.

Safari 4 is available now as a free download for Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later and requires that you install Security Update 2009-002. You can download Safari 4 from Apple’s web site.

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• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
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• What Google’s Honeycomb Means for Apple and Microsoft

Evolution of the Apple logo

If you’ve ever been called an Apple Fanboy, you’ve no doubt tried to defend yourself by claiming you simply like things that work, blah, blah, blah. So here are 10 ways to test your Mac geekiness to see if you really are a Fanboy.

1. You know that Apple was founded by the two Steves, and a third partner named Ronald Wayne, who was responsible for the creation of the original Apple logo.
2. You not only have an Apple sticker on your car window, but you’ve placed one in the corner of every window in your house, effectively notifying would-be thieves that you have something worthy of breaking in for.
3. The only three fonts you use in your documents are Motter Tektura, Garamond and Myriad.
4. You download updates to Apple software that you don’t even own.
5. You’ve taken the day off from work during every Macworld Expo to listen to the keynote speech.
6. You have milk crates for furniture, yet you manage to scrape up enough money to pay AT&T’s obscenely high fees for the privilege of owning an iPhone.
7. You take a screenshot of your desktop and upload it to Flickr…every day!
8. You have three fart, two flashlight, and three Twitter apps on your iPhone.
9. You have no less than seven black turtleneck shirts.
10. You have signed, framed and hung on the wall “unboxing” photos of every Apple product you’ve ever purchased…including AppleCare.

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iPhoto is perfectly capable of displaying your photos as a slideshow or one at a time. But you’re limited to a flat display that doesn’t exactly “wow” anyone. With one simple download, you can view your iPhoto collection on a visually stunning 3D wall, right in your web browser.

Cooliris is a browser plugin available for Safari and Firefox that allows you to view photos and videos in a beautiful full-screen, 3D-wall format. You can scroll across the panoramic wall with your mouse, clicking on photos to enlarge them. At its core, the plugin allows you to view images on web sites such as Flickr, Facebook, and Google Images, as well as search through news outlets and movie trailer sites.

But one of the great features of Cooliris — that few people even notice — is the ability to quickly view photos located in folders on your hard drive or inside your iPhoto library.

Viewing images with Cooliris

First you’ll have to install the Cooliris plugin for either Safari or Firefox and restart your browser. Once installed, you simply activate it with the button in your browser toolbar. You will enter Cooliris in Full-Screen mode, and start out in Discover mode — which will show off a images from a variety of sources. Navigate to the upper left corner and click the My Computer tab from the source column. The tab will expand to allow you to select folders on your hard drive, as well as choose your iPhoto library, and any albums you currently have available.

Choose your iPhoto library, or the album you want to view, and the magic begins. All the images appear on a wall against a dark background. You can use the futuristic scroll bar at the bottom of the screen, or a mouse with side-scrolling capability (such as Apple’s Mighty Mouse) to navigate. Scrolling left or right speeds you along the wall of images until you get to an image you want to view. If the image sizes aren’t to your liking, you can scroll up or down to enlarge the images on the wall. Once you’ve found an image, you simply click to enlarge it. Your image enlarges and a frame includes more information about it, such as the file name, camera settings and more. As an added bonus, you can click a button to reveal the iPhoto image in the Finder, saving you a trip into iPhoto to drag it out manually.

To enjoy a slideshow of your photos, click the Full Screen button in the lower left corner of the Cooliris interface. This will zoom your image to fill your screen, as well as provide a horizontal frame-by-frame preview of your images.

Cooliris is absolutely free, requires OS X 10.4.11 or later, and is available for Safari 3 and Safari 4 Beta, as well as Firefox versions 2, 3 and the 3.5 Beta. To install the browser plugin, simply visit the Cooliris home page, and the proper version of the plugin download link will appear at the top of the page.

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James Dempsey

Coming to TheAppleBlog from the dry, barren desert of Phoenix, Arizona, I wanted to introduce myself as the newest TAB writer and tell you a bit about myself.

A graphic designer by trade, I’ve been working in the business for over 20 years, both as a freelancer and for local and national ad agencies. As an Apple fanatic, I’ve been using Macs since 1984 starting with the 128k, up to my current desktop/laptop combo — and with the exception of the infamous hockey-puck mouse, I’ve loved every minute of it. I’m excited to be here at TheAppleBlog, and look forward to sharing my experiences with you.

You may recognize my name, or my ugly mug from my hobby, The Graphic Mac, where I post tips, reviews and commentary for graphic designers running Mac OS X. Or perhaps you’ve read one of my articles at Macworld.com or CreativeBits.org. While my writing for those sites focuses almost completely on graphic design-related topics, I’ll spare you that here, and offer a wide-range of software, Internet, and Apple-related topics — I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do writing them.

As for my current setup, I have a MacPro with 11GB of RAM, a 30-inch Dell Ultrasharp LCD, and a Logitech Wireless Wave Pro keyboard/mouse combo on my desk. When I need to take work on the road, I use a MacBook Pro 15-inch with 2GB of RAM and an Apple wireless Mighty Mouse. I also have a really old G3 iBook that I have no idea why I keep around, but I still use it on occasion. And of course I have an iPod, as does my wife and 2-year-old son (yeah, we’re starting him off early).

Being a Mac and Internet junkie, you can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or my blog. And of course, please leave comments on my articles — even the flaming arrows of death comments are entertaining!

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