It’s a competitive world out there, and in the world of web browsers the phrase would be “extermely competitive”. Remember the good ol’ days of browser war back in the 90s? While there’s no more IE in the Mac universe, the competition is still very stiff. The not-so-famous names try so hard to get their brands out to the masses.

Most Mac users I know use either Safari or Firefox. But there are other good browsers out there that deserve a decent attention. Even though at the end you’ll get back to your old love, there’s nothing wrong on giving these alternative a try.

Being the chosen platform for creative high-level graphic artist and such, or so everybody say, Mac has many options of heavy-duty graphic softwares. But not everybody needs Photoshop-level applications. Sometimes you’ll only need to do simple and quick drawing.

Believe it or not, one of the Windows softwares that I missed most when I first moved to Mac, aside from Minesweeper and Freecell, is MS Paint. So, for the nostalgia sake, I compile a small list of simple drawing application for Mac.

With MorphX you can create great image transitions and save them as QuickTime movies. All you have to do is drag lines indicating the similar areas of the pictures and MorphX does the rest. When you’re done, tie the videos together and you have your unique and totally customized slideshow. Let’s see this small and handy software in detail.

Most of the Mac people that I know don’t go out looking for a movie player because Mac OS X bundled with one of the best out there – QuickTime. You can make QuickTime more irreplaceable by perfecting it as described in this article.

But that doesn’t mean that there are no alternatives. But there is only one name that keeps popping up is VLC. The two – QuickTime and VLC – shade other Mac movie players for none of the rest could keep up.

Until now.

The Internet is like a coin with the good on one side and the bad on the other. It makes our life easier by providing us with tons of information and acts as the medium to connect to the world, but at the same time it often distract us from the immediate task at hand.

How many of you who never peek at your chat windows, check your mail inbox or keep your Facebook page open while you work? I’m sure the number is low – if any.

I personally think it’s OK to refresh your mind once in a while. The problem is sometimes we don’t have the luxury of spare time due to the deadlines, and yet most of the time our will power is not strong enough to resist the temptation.

We could use some help.

The ISO file format is pretty much entranched in the PC world as THE format to use for CD/DVD disk images. The advantages of this format are plenty – It is a standard open format and tools to work with it are readily available for all operating systems, Windows, Unix/Linux and OS X.

While Mac users can use the ISO format on their machines, Most software on OS X is distributed as a DMG file. The DMG file format has a couple of arguable advantages over the ISO format like encryption, compression etc., but the truth is that the rest of the world uses ISO and there is no way easy way to use DMG files in the PC world.

Back in March 2005, Apple introduced a new feature to its laptops line called the Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS) to protect hard drive with the data inside it. This feature utilizes an accelerometer to detect a sudden movement (such as falling or heavy bumping) and then quickly lock the hard drive’s head if such condition is present.

But the geeks see this feature from different point of view – fun. Few “unordinary” SMS-based applications came to life. One of the favorites is Smackbook Pro which function is to switch virtual desktop every time user “lightly smack” the side of laptop’s monitor.

In terms of browser choice, I love Firefox on my Windows. For Mac, nothing beats Safari. When Safari 4 beta comes out, I downloaded it and upgraded my Safari 3 in no time. But lo and behold, there are many changes – supposed to be for the better – that are not to my personal preferences.

I surely wouldn’t complain about the speed. To me it feels faster. Recent test showed that Safari 4 beta is the fastest among other browsers. It was done by Apple so it’s a subject of bias. But so far there’s no objection to the test result from other browser makers

After reading my recent article about screen-capture utilities for Windows, my friend asked my recommendation of the similar tool(s) in Mac and where can he download it/them. As unbelievable as it might sound, there are many Mac users who do not know that, unlike Windows, Mac OS X comes with built in screen capture utilities.

Here’s how to use them.

In my recent article about Fresh, I mentioned a a little about a site where Mac users could get several good paid-softwares for free. The site is MacHeist, and I think it deserves a stand alone coverage. So, here it goes.

I know the site from a friend in a mailing list, around the time when MacHeist had the 2008 Christmas bundle. The site started in 2006 with MacHeist I and now has just started with MacHeist III. The story behind MacHeist itself is quite interesting and you can read it in MacHeist’s page in Wikipedia. Anyway, let’s go through the process and see what Mac applications you can get here for free.