Wahey! Google showing more Mac love is always a good good thing. I often wondered why Google didn’t put more effort into Mac applications, considering how close Google and Apple work together. Well today I can finally quit wondering and bask in the warm light of Google Desktop for Mac OS X! Still in beta, Google Desktop for the Mac gives you the power of Google.com on your desktop, allowing you to search your local files, web history and even your Gmail email while offline. They are even nudging in on Quicksilver’s territory, allowing you to use the Quick Search feature to launch applications and files. Helloooooo!

Read more: Google Desktop for Mac | Google Desktop for Mac (Thanks Wolfgang)

The desktops are alive with the sound of widgets and now more than ever thanks to Wigipedia, a wiki community collecting everything there is to know about desktop and web widgets for Windows, OS X and Linux computers. Wigipedia is attempting to catalog the development of all widgets and gadgets, across all platforms, allowing developers to upload their creations in order to collaborate with other developers and offer their small apps directly to end users. There’s also a comprehensive section with tutorials and code samples so you can learn to create your own desktop widget!

Widget more: Widgipedia.com

So your favorite band came through town, you missed the show and now your friends are all telling you how killer it was? Have no fear, a pair of grad students have gotten fed up and have developed a delightfully simple tool for keeping track of both your MP3 library AND your favorite band’s tour dates so you won’t miss the next killer do. The tool is iConcertCal and it’s a free iTunes plugin that monitors your music library and based upon your most playlist, generates a personalized calender of upcoming shows in your city. THe interface mimics iCal and is available for both Windows and Mac OS X.

Download: iConcertCal

So Twitter is our new fun obsession and what better way to enjoy a newfound hobby is there than to find all the free and open source software you can for it!? NONE! Twitterrific is a light and fun little application that lets you easily publish “tweets” to your Twitter account or read tweets from your Twitter contacts, all while stylishly occupying a small spot of real estate on your Mac’s desktop. Let your friends know what level your World of Warcraft character is or how badly you want the iPhone you’re reading about without having to leave your desktop!

Download: Twitterrific | Twitter

Working in web development I’m constantly finding myself taking screenshots, which I am then manipulating manually, cutting and pasting here and there and back again, in an attempt to get the perfect shot. I knew of screenshot tools on the PC, maybe even used one or two here and there, but, for some reason they just never stuck. Now that I’m fully using OS X for everything I do, I’ve noticed the need for taking screenshots rapidly, with as little downtime as possible, and I think I’ve finally found the perfect piece of software for me. InstantShot! is a freeware piece of software (free as in beer, or bier) which creates a menu icon under OS X, assigning an easy to use UI for OS X’s screenshot functionality, allowing you to capture whole screen, partial screen and timed captures. All this for the low-price of nothing, but donations are highly encouraged.

Read more: InstantShot!

Admittedly I’m no expert in the mobile industry, but I have to say, I’m feeling the iPhone. Beautifully designed, packed with features, it’s *almost* everything I’ve wanted in a mobile device (I say this as I cancel my order for the Nokia E61/E62). I’m a little bit disappointed with the lack of AGPS/GPS and/or UMTS and I’d have preferred a $399/$499 price point, but I quickly get over that disappointment the minute I take a look at OS X running on that beautiful wide screen. Apple has really done it again and if the execs over at RIM, Palm, Microsoft and every smart phone manufacturer aren’t muttering a few “uh-ohs” under their breathe, they’re living on another planet.

Now I ask the question, was Microsoft mistaken to not converge the Zune with a mobile phone? I’d think yes. The age of carrying a personal media player and a mobile phone are over, the age of hand-held mobile computer is coming and it seems Apple is ushering this in and Microsoft is left missing the boat (does the UMPC still exist?). To all the new Zune owners, I almost joined you, but a month later, I’m thanking myself for not taking that leap. Seems my near-death iPod Mini will have to last until June.

See the beauty that is iPhone after the jump…

Read more of ”Apple iPhone everything the Zune could have and should have been“

The early developer milestone release of Firefox 3.0a1, codenamed Gran Paradiso, has reached Alpha 1 and is available for download for web developers, testers, and folks who like to risk their browsing experience for the sake of being an early adopter. This isn’t the official Firefox 3.0 alpha, so don’t get *too* excited, but this does give an early look into the next generation of Firefox. Builds are available for Windows XP (98 and ME no longer supported!), Macintosh OS X and Linux varieties. There are no major front-end improvements, but the back-end has been torn apart with Gran Paradiso now using Cairo for all of the graphics and text renderings. Cocoa Widgets are now used in OS X builds also! Padow!

Read more: Gran Paradiso Alpha 1 available for download

David Watanabe, the creator of the great NewsFire RSS reader has done it again (and again) with his brand new torrent client, Xtorrent. This man definitely knows how to design a piece of a software. The user interface is elegant and simple, with the multi-source searching a breath of fresh air compared to searching the dredges of the internet trying to find a torrent file. I’m sure David will keep up the great work, but he’s already won me over, Xtorrent is already my torrent client of choice for OS X, not that I’d use such an evil and illegal technology.

Read more: Xtorrent

MacLibre is a nifty little open source application for Mac OS X, developed at Google’s recent Summer of Code. Consider MacLibre to be the quality control of open source Mac apps, providing Mac users with a pre-selected list of applications available for quick and easy downloading through the use of MacLibre’s internal bittorrent client. More open source applications are being added quite often, naturally after passing MacLibre’s vigorous testing and quality assurance requirements.

Read more: MacLibre

Converting to a Mac was one of the best computing choices I’ve ever made, the beauty and simplicity of the OS X operating system is astonishing and always a pleasure to work with, making me cringe when I even have to think of turning my PC on to play Eve Online. Freeware on the Mac is a thing of beauty, with large amounts of freeware applications spread throughout the internet enhancing user experience and productivity in more ways than one can count. Today we’re going to list more of our favorite OS X freeware, applications we find crucial to our daily use and crucial in our obsessive need to be on the cutting edge.

Shrook - RSS feed reader
Vienna - RSS feed feader
Both are solid and free RSS readers with features on both sides which give them an edge. Vienna features a nice mini-browser, smart folders and flagged articles. Shrook however wins me over. It’s a bit more lightweight, going for simplicity, which is always admirable for application design. One of Shrooks major features is it’s sync abilities, allowing users to signup to Shrook.com (for a small fee) and then use Shrook over multiple Macs without having to carry your RSS feeds anywhere, open Shrook, log-in and bam, your RSS feeds are there waiting for you.

Deer Park web browser (Optimized Firefox 1.5.0.6 for G4, G5, and Intel Macs)
The official Firefox for Mac drives me insane. I want so badly to use it, but, the performance is so sluggish and unusable that it almost makes me miss IE 5.0. Thankfully there are Mac OS X hackers who’ve had enough and have begun distributing Firefox updates in a Mac-friendly form, under the name Deer Park. Deer Park isn’t a perfect solution but it’s a step in the right direction that’s for sure, taking the usual Firefox updates and puting a little more effort into optimizing them to run more smoothly on G4, G5 and Intel Macs, without the Firefox branding of course as it’s not an official Mozilla product. Switching to Deer Park is easy, you won’t lose any of your bookmarks or other user settings and I haven’t found an extension yet that hasn’t worked with the Park.

Dashalytics - Google Analytics Dashboard widget
A highly recommended Dashboard widget for any obsessive compulsive blog owners who leave a Google Analytics tab open at all time. Dashalytics is a handy little freeware widget which gives you a quick and clean overview of your site’s day, week, monthly and yearly page visits and page views, supporting multiple sites as long as you have them setup with Google’s Analytics service.

Letterbox - Widescreen plugin for Mail.app
Widescreen is the future of computing (and gaming!), you can take that to the bank. As more and more users switch to widescreen resolutions, the need for widescreen support in many applications will be a must. For instance, Mail.app, OS X’s ultra-powerful email application included with every version of Apple’s operating system. It’s not so friendly for a widescreen resolution, especially for those of us with multiple email accounts and thousands upon thousands of emails. But there’s hope in the form of a simple little Mail.app plugin named Letterbox. By rearranging the Mail.app interface into 3 vertical columns, Letterbox instantly transforms Mail into a widescreen users email heaven, allowing the user more vertical space for mailboxes as well as a large preview pane.

QuickName - File utility for renaming large amounts of files
QuickName is a program that I need only a few times a year, but still an important little tool to have. QuickName is as straight-forward as it gets, a small utility that allows you to quickly change the naming conventions of large amounts of files. For instance, you have 275 images in your blog that you were given the suffix .JPG, but you want them to be .jpg. Launch good old QuickName and let her rip, renaming said files in a matter of seconds.

Ventrilo - Group VOIP for OS X
TeamSpeex - TeamSpeak for OS X
VOIP is a godsend for gamers and businesses alike. Ventrilo and TeamSpeak are the standards for group-chat functions in the gaming world, with clans from Counter Strike to World of Warcraft to Eve Online using the applications to communicate during group activities in-game (and out). It took awhile, but there are finally stable OS X builds for both applications, bringing Mac gamers (or those of us who use their Mac for Ventrilo while playing on their PC) into the world of group VOIP communication.

Read more: 10 favorite applications for OS X