(Yes I was searching for ‘onion gravy’ to go with my sausages!)

Twitterrific is a small application for your mac which allows you to keep track of twitter updates.

What’s Twitter?

If you have no idea what Twitter is I’ll give you a quick overview. Essentially it’s a microblogging platform (they’re all the rage right now). So you’re supposed to write little updates like “I’m on the loo”, “I’m updating my blog” etc.

However, its real strength lies in the ability to interact with others in the industry or niche. You can follow interesting people and see what they’re up to as well.

To find out more about twitter check out the following link.

Back To Twitterrific

So anyway, Twitterrific is a simple little application that sits on your desktop and updates as and when other people update.

There are two versions, a free version, which includes the occasional advertisement in the twitter feed or you can pay $15 for an ad free version.

You can download it over at iconfactory.

So I recently purchased a classical guitar with the idea of teaching myself to play. I got home and I had my book, the guitar and two plectrums. Now the book included a track for tuning your guitar so I hadn’t bothered buying a proper tuner - big mistake…

It’s really difficult to tune a guitar by ear!

I was thinking I’d have to go and buy a proper tuner when a friend mentioned there were applications for the mac which did exactly that.

I downloaded a few and settled with a piece of software called gTuner. It’s a real class application. By using your mac’s inbuilt microphone it can pick up the tone of each note and visually show you whether it’s flat or sharp. This is hugely useful. Most of applications I tried just played intune notes to you.

It has two modes, automatic and manual. In automatic mode if you play a note or string it will figure out which string or note it is for you and then let you know whether it’s flat or sharp.

Manual mode is only really needed if a string is so far out of tune that it can’t work out which string is being played.

The software costs $7 which is an absolute bargain! I do sometimes find it hard to tune the odd string, because for some reason the needle will just fly all over the place but even if this does happen you can use relative tuning to tune up the last string!

To download a demo or find out more about gTuner head to iwascoding.

Speed Download is primarily a download manager for Mac. As well as this it is also an FTP client and a secure file sharing system. It is also fully integrated into iDisk.

Speed downloads greatest point is it’s ability to be pasted a load of URLs to files and for it to download all the files.

If you are downloading from a website that would usually require authentication you can add it to Speed Download’s preferences meaning you don’t have to worry about logging in.

You can also pause and resume downloads as needed.

One problem I had with it was that it hijacks FireFox a bit by default, which is not really necessary but it’s easy enough to change. For example, by default it opens up .torrent files in speed download, and as I’m sure you’re aware - they’re usually only a few kilobytes in size!

I also don’t really have any need for an FTP client as I use CyberDuck but some may find this feature useful and I admittedly haven’t tried out the secure file sharing or iDisk integration so I’m probably missing out on some added functionality.

Anyway, if you are someone who’s looking for a download manager for Mac you can’t really go wrong with Speed Download 5.

Retails for about $30 so it’s hardly going to break the bank.

*cough* It’s even better if you use RapidShare at all…*cough*

Editor Rating: 4/5

Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is the third game in the Black Hawk Down trilogies, based loosely on the film and book Black Hawk Down.

Set in Somalia, and roughly following the films storyline, you must complete a number of single player missions that see you as a Delta Force ranger fighting the militia and drug lords in urban areas as well as more rural settings.

Missions include driving in a Humvee through Mogadishu, manning the machine gun, and piloting a machine gun on a black hawk. This is not a realistic tactical shooter game, and if that’s what you’re looking for, be advised that Black Hawk Down will probably dissapoint.

If, however, all you’re looking for is a midly amusing shooter, that is not particularly difficult, you should find Delta Force: Black Hawk Down to be pleasant enough.

It feels quite arcade like as you endlessly shoot miltia from Humvees, choppers and with your trusty rifle. The AI is not particularly skillful either and unless you’ve never played an FPS before you’re unlikely to find it diffucult.

The enemy seem quite incabable of landing a hit on you and your team mates are not the most useful - it will mostly be down to you to save the day.

All in all, if you want a quick bit of fun, which is made more atmospheric by the setting, Delta Force: Black Hawkl Down is a reasonably pleasing game.

It retails for just under $30 and the spec requirements are quite low (PowerPC G3/G4/G5, 733 MHz or faster).

Editor Rating: 3/5

The update is supposed to fix several issues, which should improve the stability of MacBook Pros.

To update the firmware follow the instuctions in /Applications/Utilities/MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update.app.

Essentially a company, Psystar, were talking about selling a pre-installed Hackintosh. There’s been much debate over whether this company is legit, how long until Apple’s lawyers shut them down etc. etc.

Anyway, it’s been covered every where but here’s a few links.

There was an update to Safari this week, which “includes improvements to stability, compatibility and security.”

Macs have been dropped from roll out in NY city schools due to concerns regarding connecting to the networks.

Apparantly Macs are better at Vista than PCs.

Apple’s market share is increasing, along with Dells’.

Finally, a longtime Mac modder released a new mac mod.

All these wallpapers and more are available at HD Wallpapers.

Here’s links to the full story anyway.

Ever seen those posts on Digg with pictures of gorgeous mac home office setups? Ever wanted your shot at this Digg fame?

Well by following this short guide you’ll be able to unlock the secret and win the heart and mind of Apple fanboys everywhere; Digg fame will shortly follow!

Step 1: The Computer

To win the heart and mind of an Apple fanboy you need either the latest kit they can droll over or something really bizarre they’ve never seen before.

You want at least a MacBook Pro but ideally you want three of four MacBook Pros and an iMac and a Mac Pro. These fanboys are not going to be impressed with your measly MacBook. If you’re feeling a bit risqué you can even through in a PC for good measure!

Here’s a classic example of a pointlessly huge amount of Macs in one office:

Step 2: Peripherals

You need at least one Apple Cinema Display, preferably three of four if you want to win the heart and mind of an Apple fanboy. Though you can get away with three Dell monitors if your feeling a bit cheap!

You’ll also want a wireless keyboard and Mighty Mouse, gotta support the team remember? These die hard mac fans have no mercy. A pair of expensive looking speakers will also do you well. And maybe some cameras or a guitar or anything else you can think of to try up your ‘cool factor’.

iPods and iPhones are also a welcome addition.

These would be a good start:

Step 3: Snap And Upload To Flickr

Mac fanboys don’t visit porn.com they go to Flickr and search for mac porn! Wait till your set up is bathed in a warm light and take the greatest picture you could possibly take. Then upload to flickr.

Something like this would be good:

Step 4: Wait For The Money And Girls To Roll In

Once you’ve uploaded your picture to Flickr, all you need do is sit back and relax. Next time the fanboy is looking for his daily fix of mac porn he will find your picture and think to himself

“zomg this picture is pwnage; I must blog this…”

Then the fanboys on digg will love it and your five minutes of fame shall have arrived.

Shortly after, money and chicks are guaranteed!

Credit

QuickSilver is a program launching application (similar to Spotlight) and more, designed to help you get things done quickly, and to have a faster more efficient work flow. Think: spotlight on steroids.

With a simple press of cmd+space, or whatever you assign as your shortcut keys a menu will pop up allowing you to open any program by typing a few letters of its name: I hardly ever use my dock - I just launch programs via QuickSilver.

Installing QuickSilver

QuickSilver has been created by the clever folks over at Blacktree and can be downloaded here. For detailed installation instructions check out this guide.

Unclutter Your Dock; Launching Programs with Quicksilver

QuickSilver almost eliminates the need for a the dock, as you can launch programs very easily with it.

If you look in preferences you can set the hot key to bring up the QuickSilver prompt window, I have mine set as cmd+space:

Then all you need to do is enter a few letters of the name of the program you want to launch and it will start to bring up any matching programs that you are able to select and launch. It also has intelligent learning, whereby if you type ‘ff’ and select firefox, next time you type ff, firefox will appear as the default application to launch.

Do More Than Just Launch Programs With QuickSilver

Credit

As well as launching programs you can perform actions, so if you type the name of a program and then hit tab you can scroll through a list of other options to perform, for example copying or deleting files.

QuickSilver is expandable with third party modules that add extra functionality. For example, there is an iTunes module that allows you to play any of your playlists through QuickSilver. There are also FireFox/Safari modules that import your favorites and allow you to launch any website in from your favorites.

You can install extra modules by selecting the plugins menu and selecting any that take your fancy.

For further reading, check out this detailed guide by the lifehacker crew.

If you have any other productivity tips involving QuickSilver, be sure to leave them in the comments.