Apple’s WWDC 2011 keynote just wrapped up and we heard some good news. Steve Jobs said that OS X Lion will be available this July, and it will only cost $29! No extra costs for physical distribution or media means apple can let it go for much less.

4 Great New Features in OS X Lion:

1. AirDrop – With AirDrop in Mac OS X Lion, you can send files to anyone around you —  wirelessly. AirDrop doesn’t require setup or special settings. Just click the AirDrop icon in the Finder sidebar, and your Mac automatically discovers other people nearby who are using AirDrop
2. Resume – Whenever you quit and relaunch an app, Resume opens it precisely the way you left it. So you never have to start from scratch again.
3. Mission Control – Mission Control is a powerful and handy new feature that provides you with a comprehensive look at what’s running on your Mac. It gives you a bird’s-eye view of everything
4. Mail 5 – Demo’d in the recent Keynote, Apple’s Mail 5 has a beautifully updated user interface with some exiting new features like threaded messaging.

Check out all of the sweet new features here.

For the most part OS X is very fast and nimble. However, with just a little bit of time and effort, you may find that you can get even more performance out of your mac. Try starting with these apps.

ATIccelerator II is an overclocking app for ATI based video cards. This app allows you to increase the clock speed, and thus increase performance of ATI based video cards on your Mac.

I recommend atMonitor to monitor GPU temps to insure your card doesn’t overheat after overclocking. If you see increased temps after overclocking, try installing smcFanControl to increase system fan speeds.

Xslimmer works by removing unnecessary bits of code from apps you have already installed on your mac. The slimming of the apps can often speed up launch time as well as recover gigabytes of hard drive space. (I saved 3.8GBs over the span of 28 apps)

If your Mac is a bit on the older side, you may be able to eek a bit more performance if your not attached to the “Dashboard’. OS X’s Dashboard feature can consume upwards of 100MBs of RAM in addition to stealing some CPU performance. If your not using it everyday, try disabling it until you find you need it. Just paste this string of code into a terminal window. defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES Press enter, then this killall Dock

“Inside sources” claim Apple has set December 13th as the official launch date for the upcoming Mac App Store. Mac App Store submissions started rolling into Apple around the 3rd of November. So the store it self should be fairly well stocked at the time of launch.

I love the idea of the Mac App Store simply for the fact that it will be so convenient to discover new apps. There is no doubt that all apps available for OS X will not be in the app store, but I believe it will still benefit the majority of OS X users.

The Mac App Store has another benefit as well, updates! All apps installed via the app store will also be able to receive updates directly through the app store. This centralized update hub should definitely help to keep everyone up to date with the freshest software release.

Apple to sell iLife, iWork apps individually

Sparrow is a minimalist mail application for Mac. It was designed to keep things simple and efficient. No fancy stuff here… just your mail and nothing else. Quickly flick through threaded conversations on your mac like never before.

• Growl integration for instant notification of new messages
• Threaded conversations make for easy reading and organization
• Support for multiple accounts

http://www.sparrowmailapp.com Read the rest of this entry »

“HyperDock adds long awaited features to your Dock: Select single application windows just by moving the mouse on a dock item, use mouse clicks to quickly open new windows and many more.” -bahoom.de

I would try explaining the full functionality of HyperDock, But the picture will sum it up better then I ever could.

It can see minimized windows and windows from other spaces and is fully drag & drop aware. I’ve been using the beta for only a couple of hours but I’m already addicted to the increased functionality it offers me!

Download the beta and learn even more about HyperDock from the developer.

As you may or may not know, Foursquare is a very popular iPhone app that gives you and your friends new ways of exploring your city. Earn points & unlock badges for discovering new things. ( Click here to learn more about Foursquare )

FoursquareX is an OS X version of the mobile foursquare app. Developed by Eric Butler and utilizing Snow Leopard’s Core Location service, FoursquareX is a perfect example of a great port. Slightly enhanced features and beautiful OS integration make using this app nothing less than fun and intuitive.

It’s functional and free so why not give it a try today! -

FoursquareX ( Requires OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard )

If you do any sort of content creation on your mac, I’m sure you have needed to take a screenshot of something at sometime. When that time came you either accomplished that task with ease due to your amazing short-cut knowledge or you didn’t.
If you didn’t conquer the previous task listen up. And even if you did, pay attention and you might learn something new.

If you’re looking to grab a shot of you’re beautiful desktop and capture the whole screen, you simply need to press Command-Shift-3. Looking to select the area you want captured? Command-Shift-4.

But now I’m gonna tell you about the ever so useful third option. Hold down the Command, Shift, and 4 keys, then press the Spacebar, a small camera icon appears. When you move this camera icon over the element you’d like to capture, that element is highlighted. Click and you’ve captured a screenshot of just that element — no further cleanup required.

We’re not surprised by this but we sure are glad to see it out so soon!

All you netbook owners, current or prospective, may exhale your sigh of relief.
The support for Atom is acquired by actually injecting a different kernel into OS X itself, so, your talking a pretty serious hack. Rest assured, most hacks can be fine tuned to make it much easier and or automated.
We can thank the hacker teateam for this gem. He can be found on the InsanelyMac Forums

So here’s to hoping Apple leaves the door open to Atom users in 10.6.3 and showing us how great of a company they really can be.

For the longest time multicore macs have unfortunately been held back by old and un-optimized code that was designed for single core CPUs. If you have any sort of system monitoring device on your computer you may notice that your mac is often using 100% of one core and 0% of the other. The release of Snow Leopard and the inclusion of GCD (Grand Central Dispatch) hopes to change all of that.

More cores, not faster clock speeds, drive performance increases in today’s processors. Grand Central Dispatch takes full advantage by making all of Mac OS X multicore aware and optimizing it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors. Grand Central Dispatch also makes it much easier for developers to create programs that squeeze every last drop of power from multicore systems.
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I have owned many Macally products in my life and I have never been disappointed.  All of there hardware is well designed and durable. Macally has recently introduced a few new gadget and I thought it would be nice to give them a quick once over. I have found that Macally products fit just a little more comfortably in my hand.

First up; The BTkey Bluetooth keyboard. The Macally BTKey is a stylish wireless bluetooth extended keyboard. Low profile Scissor keys reduce key stroke travel distances and eases pressure on your finger tips.

It features:

• The latest Bluetooth 2.0 technology
• 108 key ultra slim Bluetooth keyboard
• Enhanced Scissor-Key-Switches for thin keycaps with sensitive and responsive touch
• Caps Lock, Pairing and Low battery indicator LEDs
• Quick access keys for CD Eject, Mute, Volume up and down
• On/Off switch for energy saving
• Two AAA batteries (included)