Aquarius Software’s Playwatch is a handy menu bar iTunes controller which will display the song information of whatever track is playing in a little mini iTunes-esque ticker, right in your menu bar. This provides a quick and easy way to view what song is playing without even having to press any buttons.

However, if you hover your mouse over the display, HUD window pops out with a variety of options. You can play, pause, skip a song or go back to the last one. But in addition to that you can select any other song from the currently playing album to play or go directly to iTunes. Most of these features are new additions in recent versions. What started as a simple ticker display has blossomed into a full-fledged iTunes controller in only a few versions. Personally, this creates a much more full experience and could change the way that you interact with your music.

Playwatch also has a wide array of preferences which let you customize the size, colors, font, and specific information that appears in the ticker. There is also a small progress bar at the bottom of the ticker that indicates how far along in the song you are, and an optional play/pause, rewind, fast forward button that can be displayed in the menu bar.

One of the problems I had with Playwatch was, although it is very customizable in other areas, the lack of options regarding the pop-out menu interface. You can control how many seconds the mouse needs to hover to activate it, but I would prefer to just click and activate it, and perhaps Command + click would give the menu with preferences and other information. Another problem is that the preferences are a completely different application, and don’t seem as polished as they could be, organization-wise. Playwatch has some really cool features, but it’s misses the polish and cleanness that are common among many other iTunes controllers.

Finally, I can’t forget the price. Playwatch costs just under 7⚬, or just above $13. If Playwatch were freeware, I know it would be a much more attractive solution for many mac users. However, because of it’s fairly high price (at least in dollars) I don’t think it is my preferred controller. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t try it out and see for yourself. There’s a free 30-day trial. Additionally, I feel that Playwatch will improve in the coming versions, seeing how it has matured in only the last few months.

You can download the trial of Playwatch from German website Aquarious Software. The english isn’t great, but that shouldn’t turn you off from this interesting iTunes controller.

If your iTunes library is spread out over numerous computers in your house and all on one wireless network, then this is incredibly useful, but that’s as far as the fun goes. Outside of a wireless network, no sharing is allowed. That’s where SimplifyMedia comes in. SimplifyMedia works exactly like the sharing feature in iTunes, but with one difference: You don’t have to be on the same wireless network to share your music.

Downloading SimplifyMedia is easy, and it’s even available for PCs, too. Once you’re all signed up and installed, opening up the application presents you with a window that allows you to invite up to 30 friends with whom you can share your music library (you can invite someone simply by entering their username or email address). Once they accept your invitation, all you have to do is be online at the same time as them and you’ll be able to stream each other’s music libraries. Granted, your computer has to be on and both SimplifyMedia and iTunes have to be open, so this isn’t free music 24/7.

Besides sharing with friends, one of the ways SimplifyMedia can be used is to bring together music libraries spread out over various computers that aren’t necessarily in the same WiFi network. Or, it could be used to listen to music in someone’s home music library while at work. The possibilities are endless. As long as you have a capable computer connected to the internet, you could bring your music library with you anywhere, regardless of hard drive space.

One of the main problems with SimplifyMedia, though, is that you many not have any friends to share your music with. I’ll get you started, you can add me: swruler9284. There are also some music-hungry users on iusethis who have shared their usernames.

SimplifyMedia is available for free on Macs and PCs (also with Winamp support) and there is experimental support for Linux and even the iPhone — probably the coolest use of SimplifyMedia I can think of!

The answer seemed to come when it was announced that Firefox 3 (now well into it’s beta) would have OS integration, giving Firefox a Safari-esque look. The new look is nice, but it’s not quite Safari, still retaining features in the interface similar to features on Windows and Linux, like an enlarged back button (which, frankly, I think is ugly). This post is intended to get your Firefox 3 Beta 5 looking 99% like Safari, even down to the resizeable text boxes.

For this interface overhaul I used OS X Leopard 10.5.2 and the Firefox 3.0 Beta 5. This isn’t supposed to be risky, but it might just might break Firefox, so beware. First, download Firefox 3.0 Beta 5. I think we all know how to do this. Mount the DMG, drag to your applications folder. If you want, call it something else like Firefox 3 as opposed to the regular Firefox if you want keep your old Firefox intact.

Once Firefox is installed, open it up and download Aronnax’s Grapple Yummy theme for Firefox. Once it’s installed, go to Add-Ons and activate it, then restart Firefox. Oooh! Pretty, right? If you want the Safari bookmark button down at the beginning of the bookmarks toolbar, you can! Just drag the regular bookmark button down and it will change its look to match. At first glance you’d think this was Safari, except for a few small things which will be covered below. From now on I’m going to be covering small, nitpicky things that most people probably don’t even care about. But they are add-ons and tips for Firefox that can duplicate some of Safari’s unique features.

First, we want to get a combined reload/stop button. To do this we’re going to have to download the Stylish extension for Firefox. Once it’s installed, enabled, and Firefox is restarted, download this style from userstyles.org. Make sure to follow the directions on the website by putting the stop button in front of the reload button before adding the style.

Next we’re going to get that Safari combined address bar/loading bar. The Fission Firefox extension does this for us. (As usual install, enable, restart.) You can even change the color of the loading bar if you really want to.

Finally, one of Safari’s really nice features is resizeable text fields. You can easily replicate this using this bookmarklet from the Man in Blue. Just drag it to your bookmarks bar and click it whenever you want to resize a text field, and then drag the corners. Dead simple.

There you have it. Yes, it really is Firefox, only beautified and integrated into the OS. Or, you can think of it as Safari plus all of the amazing extensions available for Firefox. (Although some extensions may not work because they are not compatible with the Firefox 3.0 Beta). Enjoy Safox!

This may only be my personal opinion, but I hated the look of Office 2004. The free-floating toolbars just didn’t work for me. They weren’t a part of the main window and you couldn’t dock them. The result was a cluttered, ugly layout that was not ideal for working. Because of this I instead chose the free alternative NeoOffice for my word processing needs.

But now Microsoft has won me back over. Overall, Office 2008 just feels more polished and clean. The interface integrates well with the Mac and the toolbars are docked in the top area by default, which is how things work in most Mac applications. You can also re-arrange and edit toolbars, which, although expected, is still a great feature for people who just need to work in a certain way.

One of the features that I liked about Office 2004 was the so-called “Formatting Palette” which allowed you to access all basic word processing functions in a small little window. Microsoft has now expanded that window to include dozens of more commands and functions. You can edit formatting, alignment, and margins in the formatting tab. But then, if you move over there are drawing shapes, a citation generator, a feature called “Scrapbook”, a thesaurus, a dictionary, and a compatibility checker. These features aren’t necessarily new, but putting them all in one easily accessible place was a great move on Microsoft’s part. The formating palette also replaces those pesky windows that popped up whenever you start working with pictures or tables. Instead, the palette will just tab over to the correct function and you can edit it from there.

Another new feature in Office 2008 is a shiny little toolbar that gives you access to tables, charts, word art, diagrams, and document designs. It’s the layout part of the new Word, and it’s effective. As with the formatting palette, it puts new and old features in an easily accessible area. Excel and Powerpoint both have similar toolbars which do similar functions for their respective apps, with a nice color scheme to match each one.

Finally, the not-so-good. Visual Basic is gone. This doesn’t affect me personally, but many people are upset about this. You can no longer record macros and automate your workflow, with Microsoft’s excuse being that it would have taken 2 years to add Visual Basic support in xcode. For many people this will be a major turn-off. However, this is a sign about the direction of Microsoft Office (at least for the Mac). The new features like the formatting palette and layout toolbar are meant to bring the powerful features of Word up front so the average consumer can take advantage of them. This unfortunately means that the power user will feel left out as Microsoft stops supporting Visual Basic in order to focus on more average, consumer-oriented features.

Having never used Visual Basic, I have found this upgrade to be fantastic. I have Word customized just how I want it and I think that Microsoft has taken a step in the right direction with Office 2008. It integrates well with OS X (typical eye candy shiny effects mostly) and is overall easy to use. To learn more about the features of Office 2008, you can visit Microsoft’s website which has some great videos exploring some of the new features.

There are 4 versions of Office 2008:
1. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac (Standard) which goes for $400 on Apple and $325 on Amazon.
2. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Upgrade which goes for $205 on Amazon.
3. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition which goes for $500 on Apple.
4. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Student and Teacher Edition which goes for $150 on Apple and $130 on Amazon.

For those of you who haven’t seen it before, LepardMOD is basically a preference pane for those “hidden features” in Leopard. LeopardMOD is the ultimate leopard customization app.

It does everything that the smaller apps do, only all together and in one place. It doesn’t just change the dock from 3D to 2D, it also does other common and not-so common modifications to the Finder, Dashboard, Menu Bar, and more. Here’s what LeopardMOD does:

Finder:
Enable/Disable list view stripes
Enable/Disable full path names in Finder

Dock:
Choice of 2D or 3D dock
Add a cool “stack rollover” effect to grid stacks
Drag empty spacers to the dock to better organize applications

Dashboard:
Enable/Disable Dashboard
Enable/Disable Dashboard “sticky mode” to remove dashboard widgets from the confines of the dashboard

Safari:
Enable/Disable Page Inspector
Enable/Disable Debug Menu
Enable/Disable Pie Chart loader (as opposed to regular loading bar)

Menu Bar:
There are three choices for the Menu Bar: The default Leopard translucent look, a high-contrast solid “White” look, and a slightly darker but much easier on the eyes gray look.

Expose:
Adds an option to add a blue blob in the top right corner of the screen that, when clicked, activates Expose

The list isn’t extremely long, certainly not when compared to the full-fledged preference panes like TinkerTool and Cocktail, but LeopardMOD is great because if focuses on simple end-user customizations generally having to do with new features in Leopard. For me, it has been the best customization tool I’ve seen so far, and the developer seems responsive to suggestions for new customizations. You can download LeopardMOD over at MacUpdate for free.

However, first person shooters get tiring. Lucky for us, there’s a great shareware game called Lugaru. What’s the premise of Lugaru? Well, basically you’re a rabbit named Turner on the island of Lugaru, and you’re out to avenge your family’s death. Hey, you’ve gotta give them points for creativity!

Lugaru is a third-person 3D hand-to-hand combat game. You start out with a couple of different fighting moves: Kick, punch, swipe, etc. Then, as the levels progress you get to use knives, swords, and staffs against the variety of rabbits and wolves that you fight. The gameplay is fast-paced and very dependant on timing and you can crouch and jump unrealistic yet awesome distances. (Hey, it’s a rabbit ninja – what do you have to compare it to?) Other “supported” tactics include sneak attacks, knive throwing, and jumping around a lot to confuse your enemy.

Lugaru’s graphics aren’t terrific – they’re not really up to par with commercial video games, but they certainly aren’t bad. Lugaru 2 is supposedly going to have much improved graphics and gameplay when it comes out in the near future. (demo video) If you take a look around on the Wolfire Lugaru forums, there are a large number of maps and full-fledged “expansion packs” featuring brand new campaigns and stories in the Lugaru world.

Lugaru is shareware with a few levels playable for free, and avaiable for $20 from Wolfire Software. It is likely that Lugaru 2 will be another $20 or so out of your wallet when it is released sometime soon (so the developers say) so some may prefer to wait before buying.

Downloading FStream is simple; it’s under 4 MB and it works just like any OS X app. Once it’s ready and installed, FStream opens up as a tiny window, obviously taking a design cue from iTunes.

The two buttons on the right allow you to control volume or access the features shown in the screenshot. You can choose a previously-listened station or instert the URL of a stream to add it and start listening. FStream can also float above all other windows so it can fit neatly into the areas of free space to the sides of your dock.

FStream can also be skinned and even made semi-transparent. Undearneath the hood, FStream is compatible with the Apple Remote, Growl, and Apple’s text-to-speech software. Finally, pressing shift while using FStream allows you to record the current radio stream that you’re listening to and save it as an AAC file. What more can you ask for?

The iTunes’s web radio list is an excellent place to start looking for radio streams. FStream can be downloaded for free from the French site SourceMac. (English translation)

There are many ways to do this. The online service Resizr is easy, but you can’t do batch resizes and only .jpg files are supported. I know many people on MacApper use the freeware-with-paid-benefits app ImageWell for their image resizing needs, but the free version doesn’t support batch imports either, and it does so much more than just resizing. What do you do when you just want to resize a couple of pictures? You resize ‘em all!

Just to be clear, Resize ‘Em All isn’t just a phrase, it’s an awesome freeware application that can resize all of your photos with a simple drag and drop interface. Resize ‘Em All has a similar feel to the popular shareware Photoshop alternative Pixelmator, with a little bit of eye candy and a nice dark hud window to change the dimensions of images.

In addition to resizing the image (with or without keeping proportions), Resize ‘Em All allows you to rotate the image, and change the picture to a variety of popular file types. That, included with batch image resizes, and a “revert” button is about all that you’re gonna get with Resize ‘Em All. No, you can’t apply watermarks or do basic Photoshop-like tasks like you can with ImageWell, but Resize ‘Em All is an app that doesn’t do any more than it should. It’s there for when you just need to resize an image or two quickly and painlessly.

Resize ‘Em All is, in my opinion, the easiest way to quickly resize images and is available as a free download from eagle-of-liberty. How do you resize your images? Why would you use ImageWell and not Resize ‘Em All? Tell us in the comments!

While Macs don’t really have that many applications available physically in stores, there are a ton of them available online made by independent developers in the form of tried and true shareware. Looking at it that way (as an alternative to store bought apps) it doesn’t sound so bad. But, if you put shareware up against freeware, there’s often no comparison. In a lot of cases, freeware wins, simply because it’s free.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for people supporting independent developers by buying shareware apps, but I also think that freeware, donationware (freeware where donations are highly recommended), and open source software are all underrated. There are a lot of really good free applications out there, but nobody knows about them. These developers work just as hard as shareware developers, but they don’t do it for the money. Sure, donations come in, but it’s nothing compared to the money made by popular shareware apps. One of the reasons why I think people prefer shareware is because it’s more polished. The websites are always better designed and easier to navigate, the application usually looks more native, and there is almost always better integration with iLife apps, and OS X in general.

In the mac community, there are many popular shareware applications: MarsEdit, Assignment Planner, and NetNewsWire. But there are excellent freeware alternatives to those, QTM, Schoolhouse, and Vienna respectively. Okay, QTM doesn’t have the blog auto-detect feature that MarsEdit does, and its icons aren’t exactly pretty. And sure, Vienna doesn’t have the extra features that NetNewsWire does, but I know that Schoolhouse is more full-featured than Assignment Planner, and it’s free to boot. And no matter what, the ratio of free to any other number of dollars will often not be equal to any of the extra features that the shareware product may have.

I’ll admit it, the shareware apps are usually better, and in a lot of cases are something you simply need to opwerate. Some people will also argue their icons are nicer, they’re less buggy, and they’re usually much more robust than their free counterparts. And yes, in many cases I would rather use the shareware app compared to a free alternative. But, if I don’t need the features that the shareware app has then I’m not going to buy it, when I can get 90% of the features for free. Maybe I’m just cheap, but I almost always go the freeware way. What do you think? Is the $20+ worth it for you? Tell us in the comments.

Having said all that, over the next few weeks I’ll begin featuring some obscure freeware applications that are great alternatives to popular shareware applications. Some of the other guys here at MacApper are also hard at work on a massive list of must-have freeware so watch for that as well. I hope some of you will be surprised.

Wanna bring back the rounded corners? 2D-ify that dock? Kill that transparent menu? Whatever it is, you can likely find it here. Do let us know if we missed some.

The Dock

Hate it? Love it? Make you dizzy?

2D-ify It!
DockDoctor Dashboard Widget

Probably the biggest complaint about Leopard is the new dock. Personally, I think it’s just dandy. But, if simplicity is your thing, you can easily change the default glossy dock look and change it into a sleek darker shade of the original OS X dock. You know, the one that appears by default when the dock is on the left- or right-hand side of the screen. And, if you like, you can change it right back. Quick and simple.

Color It!
with DockColor

Do you like the shiny dock, but does it just not go well with your wallpaper? No more! Easily change the color of the dock from the color palette and get the dock just right to match your wallpaper. This may require some creativity. I mean, colors are just colors, but I suggest the use of subtlety. Perhaps a slightly pink dock to go with the space-time Leopard wallpaper, or a dark navy with the original OS X one.

Theme it!
with Dockulicious

Don’t like the shiny, glossy look of the dock, no matter what color? Change it! Choose from dozens of themes made by users on the website and easily give your dock a whole new look by simply dragging the downloaded .zip file to the Dockulicious icon. And, if you want to change your dock back to it’s original look, it’s easy to revert to the original.

Triangulize it!
with a quick customization

Get rid of those glowing blue indicators at the bottom of your dock, and replace them with the classic Mac OS X triangle. Fairly simple tutorial.

Hide it!
with MacPilot

Make hidden application icons translucent with this neat feature of the shareware product MacPilot. Feat not, however. You have 15 days to make the changes until you have to start paying. This can also be achieved through a simple terminal command.

Stacks

Do they increase or decrease clutter?

Overlay it!
with “Drawer” icons

One of the biggest complaints about stacks in Leopard is how the icons are displayed on the dock. They’re just, well, stacked. And if the folder changes constantly, the front-most icon will also constantly change. These drawer icons fix that. Just drag one of these beautiful icons to the stack you want, and poof it’s there. It sits in the folder as an image with a last modified date of 2010, so you’re folders and files look like they’re in a shiny little translucent drawer.

Recent-ize it!
in the terminal

Make a stack with only your recent items, with some quick terminal commands. Great for if you’re working on a project where you constantly have to access the same files, or accessing recent downloads without finding it in the clutter of the download stack. Or, you can even have it show your favorite items instead.

App-ify it!
with a quick tip

Make a stack with a collection of apps in it for easy access. Quick and easy tip, no coding required. This is a very useful way to keep your dock tidy, but still provide easy access to groups of similar applications. Perhaps put all school-related apps in an app stack, or all web browsers that you use every-so-often.

Hierarchical-ize it!
with Quay

Remember the old way to view a folder from the dock? Right clicking would bring up a menu with all of the items inside that folder, and allow you to browse all of the subfolders in it with a hierarchical structure. Now you can do it again with Quay. If you make more than one hierarchical folder, you have to pay $10 for Quay. Watch the video tutorial for more info.

Menu Bar

Don’t you hate when this gets cluttered?

Round it!
with Displaperture

OK, they’re only rounded corners, but still! In previous version of OS X, the menu bar had rounded corners, a couple of dark pixels on the corners of the screen that gave it a nice effect, kind of a way to blend in with the thin dark border around the screen. And Leopard took them away. It’s a small thing, but surprisingly important for many people. Now you can bring them back with Displaperture, even choose how round you want for the corners to be.

Opaque-ify it!
with OpaqueMenuBar

Hate the new transparent menu bar in Leopard? OpaqueMenuBar changes your wallpaper so that the menu bar appears to be non-transparent. Not the most conventional way to do this, but it gets it done quickly and easily – as long as you don’t use another app to rotate your desktop wallpapers. Also, it’s to contrasted for my eyes after looking at it for a while. But that’s just me.

That wraps up our list of Leopard customizations. Do you have any more? Post them in the comments and we’ll check them out, and add them to the list.

Right after the quick breakdowns is a poll asking you to select which browser you prefer. I’m really looking forward to hearing your preferences and opinions, so here we go…

Firefox

Firefox is all the rave in the PC world, but here on the Mac side it’s not really that big of a deal, as we have such a wide range of browsers to choose from. Firefox is a real powerhouse mind you. While takes up a good chunk of the system memory it also has support for a whole world of add-ons, which some people find they can’t live without (like web developers).

Pros: Add-ons, themes, cross-platform.
Cons: Not that native, a well known memory pig.
Who it’s for: Anyone who works daily on both Macs and PC for familiarity’s sake, and people who can’t live without Firefox’s powerful extensions; power people.

Camino

Camino, also by Mozilla, supposedly fixes the problems with Firefox for Macs that so many users complain about. Add-ons don’t work here, but there is a sweet cocoa interface and it is considerably faster than Firefox and most other choices.

Pros: Native interface, faster browsing than Firefox.
Cons: No official add-ons (check out Pimp My Camino), can’t re-order tabs.
Who it’s for: Anyone who wants a clean, fast browser based on the gecko rendering engine.

Safari

Safari is Apple’s web browser that ships for free with OS X and runs on the snappy Webkit rendering engine. It is obviously Cocoa based and its main focus is simplicity and usability, which it does very very well. If you’re on a Mac you are definitely using Safari to some degree. Am I wrong?

Pros: Native interface, integrated with Mac OS X, built-in RSS reader.
Cons: No tab button (must use Command-T), few advanced features.
Who it’s for: For Mac purists and people who want a browser that does stuff fast and simple.

OmniWeb

OmniWeb has been around a while and is what many people might call a “premium” web browser. It’s a bit difficult to gauge its overall popularity but it certainly has its fans. According to some it has the features of all other web browsers, and then some. That some will cost you $15 though.

Pros: Native interface, many advanced features including: session saver, RSS capabilities, built-in ad blocking, visual tabs.
Cons: Costs $14.95.
Who it’s for: People who want lots of advanced features but can’t stand Firefox. Also I guess people with $15 to blow on a web browser.

Flock

Flock is a browser based on Firefox that is helpful on integration with Web 2.0 services like Flickr, Del.icio.us, and more. Flock also seems focused on the management of media on the web, but overall it seems a bit bloated. Flock was reviewed recently here.

Pros: Nice theme, integration with pretty much any web service that you can think of, blogging and RSS features, compatible with most Firefox add-ons.
Cons: Interface not particularly native, somewhat bloated.
Who it’s for: People who are signed up and using many Web 2.0 services and want a browser to work with them nicely. People looking to ditch Firefox but not its plugins.

Shiira

From Japan comes a relatively new contender in Shiira, touted as the next browser for Mac. Shiira is also based on Safari’s webkit rendering engine, and in many people’s opinion takes Safari to the next level.

Pros: Native theme, very similar in feel to Safari, “PageDock” alternative to tabs shows a preview of pages, very fast.
Cons: Can’t re-order tabs, feature set limited but expanding with new releases. Users still reporting crash issues.
Who it’s for: People who are signed up and using many Web 2.0 services, are beta friendly, or interested in a sleak, newskool style of browser.

Opera

Hmm really what can you say about Opera that hasn’t already been said? Opera has been around a long time and really is a powerful and stable web browser with some interesting end-user features. There I said it.

Pros: Webpage speed-dialing, cross-platform, long life cycle, dedicated developers and community, helpful features for the disabled and elderly.
Cons: Interface not native (seems a bit dated), quite bloated and needs to be paired down by the user.
Who it’s for: Some of my University professors use Opera. If you’re elderly, disabled, or looking or a browser you can scale down Opera might be for you.

So what’s my choice? Camino. I used to use Firefox, but these days it just feels too slow for my casual surfing sessions. I miss a couple of the extensions for Firefox (like the webdev stuff), but Camino fulfills most of my needs for a browser. My next favorite after that will have to be Safari or Shiira. They’re just so snappy and simple.

What browsers do you use? Let us know by voting and if possible explain your reasons by commenting below.

The other included images are nice, as are digital photos of friends and family, or even your vacation photos – but what else is there? Desktopia is an app that keeps your desktop fresh all day. Put simply it allows you to make the desktop change its background at different times of day. It sounds unnecessary, but as it turns out it is really quite fun to play with.

Okay, this app isn’t going to change your life. But it will make it more interesting. On it’s own, Desktopia is included with 3 “picture sets” to use. The first is of a streaming light highway during 3 different times of day, then an interesting view of the clouds at different times of day framed by an airplane window. Finally, my favorite one is just a basic field with grass.

There are 8 photos in this set, and each of them is a stunning representations of the different times of day. It really looks amazing, with the dock tucked just underneath the grass line. I can’t really explain why I find such joy in the idea of a constantly rotating desktop series, but it’s kind of cool to see the weather outdoors reflected on your computer screen.

Of course, it would probably be better for each and every one of us reading this post to, instead of downloading this app, shut down their computer and take a walk outside. But we all know that’s not going to happen!

Desktopia is controlled from a menu bar icon and is easy to customize, even allowing for you to mass adjust the times that new wallpapers spawn, when daylight savings comes around. Even if the app doesn’t appeal to you, the included 8-piece wallpaper set is really worth the download. They are simply beautiful, and look great with Leopard.

Desktopia is by Pierre Chatel and is available for free with the 3 great picture sets. If this just doesn’t appeal to you as a desktop, you may want to check out the previously mentioned EarthDesk, which shows you an up-to-the-minute views of the earth in all of its day and night time glory.

You fear the worst. And for good reason. For kids, the logic is this: You press buttons, things change colors on the screen. Pretty. End of story. Solution: Press lots of buttons.

Trouble is, they’ll mess with your volume, eject your iPod, delete that important file on your desktop – even get overexcited and start banging on the keyboard repeatedly (ouch). That’s where AlphaBaby comes in. Fire up AlphaBaby, and let the 3-year-old in question bang away.

“But what of my files?” you ask. The genius of AlphaBaby is that it disables most key combinations. Apple-Q won’t quit (another, more complicated key combination will though) and all other keys (when pressed) will spawn the letter colorfully and at a random location on the screen, accompanied by another (you guessed it) random sound effect. Kids love it.

But AlphaBaby goes beyond that. You can also choose how to display letters; what font, what color, what size. Or maybe you want to add some shapes in, or perhaps some random pictures from your iPhoto library. AlphaBaby provides more functionality than would be expected (or in that case, needed) in a program simply for kids. But for some reason older, more *cough* mature people *cough* (read: me) seem to find it amusing.

AlphaBaby can even say the letters out loud when the corresponding letter is pressed on the keyboard, making it an educational tool as well. It’s not going to teach your kid calculus, but it could certainly help younger toddlers learn the alphabet, names of people in pictures and more, using OS X’s built in text-to-speech technology.

AlphaBaby is free, open source, and the .dmg is less than a megabyte to download. Warning: Kids will get excited. MacApper is not responsible for broken keyboards. For Windows users, there is a similar program called BabySplat which is also free, although lacking in AlphaBaby’s advanced features.

But when you look for the free games that came with your Mac, (as they do on Windows) you’re only going to find Chess. Sure, Chess is great, but sometimes you just need to play the classics to feel at home on a Mac.

While I can’t provide you with the original classics, there are some really good clones of those classic games out for the Mac. So, ready to get your game on? Here are 10 classic (and free!) games you can start playing right now.

Chess
OS X’s only game

The only game to ship with Mac OS X is Chess. Technically, it’s more classy than any of the other games here, so I figured I’d mention it. Apple makes a fine virtual version of a real-life game, but I admit I’ve only opened up this game once or twice. It’s not exactly the most popular app that comes with your Mac.

Pac the Man X
Pac-Man and Mrs. Pac-Man clone

Probably one of the best clones of a classic game, Pac the Man X gives the classic Pac-Man and Mrs. Pac-Man games a retro, and yet new feel at the same time. Somehow, this game brings back memories that I’m too young to have, memories of playing this game in an arcade when I was 8. It’s that good.

Mine Swept
Minesweeper clone

Mine Swept is an almost perfect Minesweeper clone. It plays just like the original game, although it brings the addition of sound effects and a slightly enhanced interface. Still, Minesweeper is probably the most boring “classic” game so there’s not much really going on here. For something a little bit more interesting, be sure to check out Minesweeper: The Movie.

Solitaire XL
Solitaire clone

Solitaire XL brings Solitaire to the Mac with style and an integrated Mac look. The cards don’t appear in a window, but instead float above your desktop. But beware, you’ll have a hard time seeing the cards clearly if you have any other open windows behind it. For more, see Gerald’s post on Solitaire XL.

Maelstrom
Asteroids clone

Maelstrom plays just like the original Asteroids – only in color. The gameplay feels exactly the same as the original, though; from the cringe you feel when your ship slides off screen, to the satisfaction when you blow up the aliens. The only downside is that it’s not a Universal Binary, so it won’t be running at its best on Intel Macs.

LBreakout 2
Breakout clone

Simple ‘n basic breakout game. Use your keyboard or your mouse. The game plays as you would expect, but the graphics could use some tweaking. They’re a little overdone, and not incredibly eye-pleasing. This is a solid game, nonetheless. Not a Universal Binary.

Quinn
Tetris clone

There was no way I could leave this one out. Quinn is well known as the best Tetris clone for the Mac. It integrates extremely well with OS X, it’s graphics are beautiful, and the game is addicting. It’s the best take on Tetris I’ve played. For more, see Henry’s previous post.

Otis
SameGame clone

Otis is a modern take on the original “SameGame.” In it, the player clicks on groups of same-colored blocks or circles, therefore vaporizing them to make room for the others. The objective is to end up with zero blocks, having successfully grouped each color together long enough to vaporize them.

Alien Abduction
Defender clone

Alien Abduction is a loose clone of the classic Defender side-scrolling game, which I guess is retro Arcade game, but here it is anyways. It’s been duplicated many times but Alien Abduction paces out everything very well so that you never get too bored or overwhelmed. Also not a Universal Binary.

Shooter in the Abstract
Oddly addictive game

Alright, this one isn’t a classic, but it’s up there with Pac-Man and Tetris in fun-ness. The premise is simple: Your mouse controls a triangle that periodically shoots out towards the floating baddies around you. The only thing is, you can’t crash into the baddies. Fun power-ups and solid pacing make up for the lackluster graphics.

That wraps up my list of 10 classic games for the Mac. I purposefully stuck to freeware for this post because I really don’t expect for people to pay money for such small games. But they’re still solid, fun games that are always a great time to play. Do you know of any others that I left out? What are they?

Turn to the free games, of course! Of all the ones I’ve tried, the cross-platform OpenArena is my clear favorite. Based on Quake 3 Arena’s source code by the legendary John Carmack, Open Arena is a simple yet addictive first person shooter. You shoot at people. They shoot at you. They gib in a splatter of blood. The more frags you get, the better your score.

I’ve tried many of the free and open source games available for the Mac, but none of them match OpenArena. The graphics aren’t up to par with the new games coming out for the PC, Xbox 360 or PS3, but they certainly match (at full quality) some of the earlier games on previous video game systems. When you consider this is free, it’s actually a pretty darn good looking game as you can see below.

Still, any gamer will tell you that graphics don’t matter as long as the gameplay is good – and it is. Whether you do multiplayer or singleplayer, the game is a fun ride even though there’s no real need for depth to it. While there aren’t any real objectives or strategies, there is a Capture the Flag mode that is particularly fun, and takes the game a little bit beyond running around and killing as many people as possible.

Although it doesn’t have the advanced AI and strategic aspects of many newer games these days, OpenArena is my favorite game to come home to after a long day. Who doesn’t like shooting bad guys or their friends? OpenArena is free, open source and available for download at OpenArena.ws for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It’s still in development, and every new release pushes out a ton of great maps and better features. I think that OpenArena is going to be the best free game on the Mac once it hits 1.0. What do the other Mac gamers out there think?

That’s where Genius comes in. Genius is designed as an alternative to flash cards. Its purpose is to teach you the vocabulary quickly and efficiently by feeding you the words using fancy mind techniques, which may actually make you remember them.

Most people are probably screaming “iFlash!” at their computer right now. Sure, iFlash (which has been mentioned previously) is a great application to help you study, but its features are (in my opinion) overkill. Who really needs to record audio and attach pictures to their flash cards, and then sync it with their iPod? Who, of all the iPod owners in the world, would decide to study instead of watching the newest episode of Lost on their iPod? Not to mention iFlash will find your wallet $15 lighter after the 15-day trial expires.

Genius, on the other hand is a simple, free program (you’ll soon find out that this is the most important aspect for me). It shares the same basic features as iFlash, just without all the extra meat. You enter your words and their answers or translations into the list. Then click “Study.”

First, it tells you how to best get into the “alpha” mental state, which (as Genius has told me), is the mental state most conducive to learning. Then, your desktop darkens and you’re told the word and its meaning/translation. You press enter. Then, it asks you what the meaning of the word you just learned is. You type it. The next time you see the question, the answer is not shown, instead leaving the answer area blank. This process repeats, gradually feeding you new words as time goes by, but always going back to all of the words to make sure you don’t forget it.

It’s obviously done in such a way so that you remember the words better. And it works. Once you correctly know the meaning of a word 5 or 6 times, you get a nice green circle next to the word, indicating that you “know” the word. Genius has helped me through many Spanish tests this year, and the fact that it’s freeware makes it all the better. JCR Software’s website doesn’t have much going in design, but the developers behind this great software gem obviously know what they’re talking about when it comes to memorization. This is what I show people who say Macs are just for fun and play.

Genius costs $0 from jcr Software. There are also “packs” of vocabulary and other useful information available for download in the .genius file format online. Genius’s “official” community can be found in the “genius-talk” group on Yahoo Groups.