Every now and then I find myself working on slides in Keynote and writing Download Squad posts - and struggling to find a suitable image. Of course, Flickr is the best way to find images - their clear licencing and Creative Commons support makes finding images fairly straight forward. However, getting the image into Keynote isn't entirely painless. The workflow of browsing search results, viewing the image and then finding it at a suitable size (if it exists) takes time - however that's where Viewfinder steps in.

A native Mac OS X application (requiring Mac OS X Snow Leopard), Viewfinder allows you to search Flickr from the desktop apply filters to show only Creative Commons images, and specify a particular image size. Then, once you select an image you can download the image, set it as your desktop background - and most importantly - send images straight to Keynote for your slides.

If you're a heavy keynote user (or blogger) who frequently needs to find Flickr images for your work Viewfinder is indispensible. I've been testing it since early September and found it an incredibly convenient tool to have at hand. A licence costs £15 (roughly $25) and a free demo is available for you try from the Viewfinder webpage.

If you aren't sure whether your favorite Mac apps are compatible with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, SnowChecker can help. It scans your hard drive for apps, and then checks their compatibility against the info posted at snowleopard.wikidot.com. Not only does SnowChecker show you whether your apps are incompatible, it also gives you details notes about which features are broken.

To quickly see which apps are going to have issues under 10.6 and might need to be updated - either by you or by the app's developer - sort the list by status. Red Xs are apps whose functionality is completely borked in Snow Leopard, while yellow alerts represent apps where one or more inessential functions don't work. SnowChecker will sometimes even offer a workaround for these, like running the app in 32-bit mode or disabling Google Gears. Snow Leopard has been out for a while, but if you're just installing now, you should run SnowChecker first to figure out what your compatibility options are.

I'll admit that it seems strange to use Microsoft's Live Mesh on a Mac, but with Apple's MobileMe getting spotty reviews, some Mac users prefer to look for alternative ways to sync. Until now, Snow Leopard users who rely on Live Mesh were out of luck, but a new version of the Live Mesh client supports OS X 10.6. If you're still on Leopard, you don't need to update to the new release, but Snow Leopard users will have to reinstall Live Mesh to get it working again.

Remembering that Live Mesh is available on the Mac - and seeing the new iPhone app from another syncing service, Dropbox - got me thinking about whether you can use Live Mesh on an iPhone. It turns out that the answer is yes, although there's unfortunately no app for that, yet. If you're sharing files through Live Mesh, you can get to them on an iPhone via the web interface. Although Apple fans tend to balk at using anything from Microsoft, this might be one case where it's viable.

The latest version of Skype 2.8 for OS X fixes a whole mess of Snow Leopard compatibility problems. The bugs include everything small UI problems - the field where you type in phone numbers was too dark - to serious problems (like four different crash bugs and a broken hold button). It also clears up some problems with adding new contacts.

In addition to the Snow Leopard fixes, there are also some improvement for users of OS X 10.3 Panther, which Skype surprisingly still supports. If you already have Skype 2.8, this update won't show up when you use File -> Check For Updates. You'll have to download it directly from the Skype website. If you don't have Skype 2.8, I highly recommend downloading it, because the audio and video quality improvements alone make it significantly better than previous Mac versions.

[via SkypeJournal]

When Apple introduced the new shelf-like dock in OS 10.5 Leopard, users were up in arms over how ugly it was, with some even switching their docks to the side of the screen to avoid seeing it. If you hate the shelf, or just wish you could make it look better, you should give Dock Library a try. It lets you replace your dock with a custom design, and works in both Leopard and Snow Leopard.

Sites like LeopardDocks.com and LeopardDocks.net have extensive libraries of designs you can download and add to Dock Library. Once you've got a few of them set up, it's just a couple of clicks to change to a new one, or go back to the default. To install a new dock, you don't need to expand the downloaded, just use Dock Library's "import" button and select the .zip file.

[via Sizlopedia]

If you're a Safari user who enjoyed plug-ins -- some people insist on calling them Input Managers, we're agnostic on the subject -- like Glims and PithHelmet in Leopard, and you're sad to see that they don't work in Snow Leopard, you'll be happy to see an update to SIMBL that will let you hack your plug-ins back to life. The new version of SIMBL does indeed work with Snow Leopard, although you'll need to run Safari in 32-bit mode until plug-in developers write 64-bit versions of their plug-ins.

After installing SIMBL, you'll want to drop some plug-ins into your /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins folder. Next, find Safari and put it in 32-bit mode by doing a quick Get Info and checking the box. When you fire up Safari, your plug-ins should be working just as they did in Leopard. It's a bit hacky, but I definitely prefer it to browsing without an ad blocker. If you're wondering where to find plug-ins, you can check out some of my favorites in this post.

If there's one thing that's something of a chore on a computer it's the task of keeping your software up to date. Sure, operating system patches are handled by the OS itself and some applications implement their own update systems (particularly on the Mac where Sparkle is prolific), but wouldn't it be great if you could manage all of your application updates in one place? Well, if you are on a Mac then the free application AppFresh - which has just received a minor update - is the answer to your prayers!

As you can see from the screenshot above, AppFresh searches your machine for applications and lists the currently installed version, latest available version together and the release date. Simply select the applications you want to update, hit 'Install' and off it goes to work it's magic... and magical it is indeed!

There's a lot to like about AppFresh. It looks very slick and has a user interface that is in line with the best Mac applications, it's frequently updated and best of all it's free! AppFresh interfaces with the iusethis website for it's version information and can also save information on the applications you are using back to your iusethis profile. A benefit of this is that if you rebuild your Mac at any time, you can ask Appfresh to reinstall all your favourite applications from your iusethis profile. Neat!

As well as applications, AppFresh supports widgets, preference panes and application plugins (as well OS updates) ensuring you are always up to date.

The newly released version 0.8.5 of the application (yes, it is a pre-release version) adds improved Snow Leopard compatability (while retaining compatability with Tiger) as well as a host of minor fixes.

Postbox - the e-mail application for Windows and Mac OS that we first mentioned back in February has exited it's long Beta period and reached a 1.0 release.

Postbox pitches itself as being 'smarter than your average e-mail client'. Built on a Mozilla core, the application works behind the scenes to catalog everything in your mail. Text, contacts, addresses, links, pictures, attachments - all of them are indexed, providing a very powerful search experience and a useful e-mail view that abstracts potentially interesting content from the body of the e-mail itself.

If, like me, you use GMail, you will have become accustomed to the conversation based message view and this is a perspective that Postbox retains, making migration from the web interface to the Postbox application a painless process. Postbox is compatible with a wide range of e-mail services (Gmail via IMAP and POP3, MobileMe, AOL Mail, Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail Plus as well as any generic IMAP or POP3 account) and includes excellent integration with the most popular services. One such example is the integration between Postbox's powerful 'To Do' flagging function and GMail's own 'Star' system.

The feature list is really too extensive to list here, but includes RSS support, Newsgroups support, Facebook / Friendfeed / Twitter integration, emoticons, draft auto-saving, password protection, spam filtering, return receipts, add-ons and much more.

Postbox retails for $39.95 with discounts available for 'Family Pack' purchases. A 'Lifetime Upgrade' option is also available.

By far the best way to experience Postbox's powerful search facility and unique content abstraction is by trying it - and thankfully a free trial is available from the Postbox site.

The only question is... is there still a place for desktop e-mail clients in today's online e-mail environment?

For those of you unfamiliar, WideMail offers a range of customizations for Mail including the ability to have messages appear in vertical columns as opposed to the default "over under" view we're used to. The plugin also offers custom display settings like altering the color of messages, choosing what text to display in your inbox and spacing our your messages for a less cluttered look.

During beta testing of Snow Leopard, the developer promised the app would work but unfortunately, the final release of Snow Leopard has totally disabled the incompatible plugin. The developer is working on a fix now and one should (hopefully) be available soon.

We've all heard - or seen for ourselves - how OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is basically a smaller, faster version of 10.5 Leopard. That doesn't mean much if your favorite apps still haven't been updated to be compatible with the new OS. I've had a good experience so far, with all of the major apps I run working quite well under Snow Leopard, but Apple's keeping a list of some that don't. Your incompatible software should be moved to the aptly-named Incompatible Software folder on your hard drive when you upgrade, but check out the list to be prepared in advance.

Parallels is one notable incompatibility, especially if you're using it to run key Windows apps on your Mac. The infamously troublesome Application Enhancer also doesn't work, which is good to know, considering that it crashed a ton of Macs during the last major OS X update. Some antivirus programs also make the list. Also, be aware that updated printer drivers might not be out for some printers and scanners.

[via Lifehacker]

Snow Leopard, the next generation of Apple's OS X operating system, is ushering out a lot of old technology. It's the first version of OS X that won't run on a PowerPC processor, and now Apple has announced that it will no longer sync with Palm OS devices.

While this might look like a slap in the face to Palm after Apple blocked the Palm Pre from sneakily syncing with iTunes earlier this summer, it's probably unrelated and unsurprising.

Palm OS is being phased out, and the Pre doesn't run it - it uses WebOS - so this is hardly a move by Apple to hurt an iPhone competitor. In fact, Apple had to write a Palm syncing feature into its own iSync software because Palm stopped updating its sync app for the Mac.

If you're still using a Palm Centro or Treo, you might have to look for some third-party sync options, but this doesn't affect Pre users.

Apple's latest and greatest operating system, OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, was initially not expected to ship until September,. Now we know that it's on its way this Friday, August 28th. Snow Leopard just popped up for pre-ordering on the Apple Store. It's an unprecedented $29 to upgrade from Leopard, because Snow Leopard isn't a flashy update. As we reported previously, most of the improvements are under the hood, but some new important new features are included:

Long-touted as 'just' a behind-the-scenes update, Snow Leopard features support for Microsoft Exchange, a re-written Finder and an all-new QuickTime player with hardware acceleration and built-in YouTube uploading. There's also a tonne of new developer technologies to allow developers to handle multi-processor machines with Grand Central, and an all-round speed increase for all the OS components.

Snow Leopard pricing, aside from the aforementioned $29 upgrade from 10.5 Leopard, look like this: $49 for a Family Pack (5 licenses), and $169 for the Mac Box Set. The Box Set includes Snow Leopard, iLife '09 and iWork '09, and allows you to upgrade from Tiger. Remember, Snow Leopard is the first Intel-only version of OS X, so you're out of luck if you're still using a G4 or a G5.

As someone who has used Windows as my primary operating system for years, I got very comfortable with modding various parts of the user interface. One of the things that was most fun to change is the startup image - my favorite was a very official looking FBI splash screen that made it look like you were logging onto a government computer.

Since switching to the Mac platform, I've been surprised at the relative dearth of modding options for the operating system. Thankfully, Steven Sande over at our sister site TUAW recently posted about BootXChanger, which allows you to change the monochromatic Apple logo that you see when booting into OS X to something different. While it's not an entire boot screen, it is enough to give your machine a bit of personality.

It turns out that creating images for use on the boot screen is very finicky, but BootXChanger comes with a set of fifteen sample images to get you started. Right away I was torn between using the radioactive symbol, or the classic Commodore 64 logo. The radioactive symbol won for now, but given the ease of switching boot logos, I can imagine I'll be swapping between the various options or maybe even taking a shot at making my own soon enough.

[via TUAW]

If you're anxious for Snow Leopard to ship, you might be excited to know that you can grab copies of the built-in desktop images, thanks to the developer previews and a crafty blogger over at Uneasy Silence.

While there are four images out of the set of 35 that feature leopards, the rest of the images run the gamut from beautiful landscape photography to classic pieces of art. The images are offered as JPEGs, so even Windows users might like to pick up a few.

It seems to be a requirement now that major operating systems release with a relatively substantial set of beautiful images to be used as desktop wallpaper.

No longer can OS manufacturers get away with offering eight photos and a few tiling images -- remember tiling your desktop? Does anybody ever do that anymore?