macBlogger - Apple Mac Blog

Roland from Mac Tips has pieced together some very helpful screencasts which demonstrate some equally useful applications and how to ‘pimp’ your Mac a bit.

At the time of writing this post there are seven screencasts in total on the site. Some of which include:

• How to include the date in the menu bar
• Add web search to the menu bar
• Ways to cool down your Mac

The videos are excellently put together and are very easy to follow for novice users.

The Monocle application, which places a search bar in the menu bar is especially useful.

Monocle is a simple search tool that puts a universal search field at your disposal. When you want search, you can choose from a number of engines to perform the search in different places. Monocle comes preloaded with engines for Google, Wikipedia, Windows Live Search and Yahoo! Search. You can easily add your own engines by performing an example search inside a web browser window in Monocle

The above quote is taken from the excellent iUseThis site.

I don’t think there is anyone left on this planet who is not involved in a social networks of sorts. They’re poping up everywhere, some you signup for, some you ignore.

Facebook is one of those social networks which has been flying under the radar for quite some time. MySpace and Bebo get a lot of media attention but for the most part they’re on the receiving end of bad press (spam, abuse and what have you..).

Facebook on the other hand is thriving in a postive manner. They’re receiving up to 50,000 new signups on a daily basis and last week I joined the Facebook heard. (profile link)

Facebook is a far more mature alternative to MySpace and Bebo.

I signuped with the intention of just chating with friends and exchanging photographs…the usual social networking items. But there a few additional features which grabbed my attention. One such feature is simply called ‘Groups’

macBlogger Facebook Group
The idea behind Facebook’s Groups feature is quite simple. Facebook users can join a group of like minded souls and chat within their discussion threads about topics relating to their group. The exchange of information, photographs, videos and general discussion is the order of the day.

We have setup a macBlogger group on Facebook which we hope will provide valuable information on all things Apple.

Facebook Widget
A tidy little widget called Facebook Watch has been released upon us which acts as a portal between your dashboard and your facebook account. The feature rich widget allows you to view the latest postings on your wall, check who has ‘poked’ you, take a look inside your inbox and it also allows you to check the latest activity of your friends.

Here are a few other Facebook widgets available to download on the Apple website.

iUseThis works much in the same way as Digg. But instead of digging news stories you are digging OS X applications. The site contains pretty much every application imaginable and provides registered users with the ability to declare that ‘they use this’ application via a voting system.

iUseThis displays similar and related applications on the profile view of each application as well. This is a handy way to find cheap alternatives to expensive applications such as Photoshop. If you take a loot at the profile page for Photoshop you’ll see that iUseThis recommends Goldburg and Gimp as alternatives.

The iUseThis top list of applications features VLC on top followed by Firefox, Adium, Safrai and Quicksilver.

There is a bit of an FAQ on their about page if you want to know more but I covered pretty much all you need to know in this short post. It’s a simple but powerful website and is especially useful for those looking for free alternatives to expensive software or those who are new to Macs.

I setup my own profile this morning and I have already added a good few of the applications which I use on a daily basis.

Do you have a profile? If you do then post a link to it in the comments.
Cheers.