Tunes - Tuneflow

Google has officially released their popular photo management application Picasa for Macs, after years of offering Picasa as a free Windows download. It's an exciting announcement for anyone who's looking for a good photo management app on OS X that isn't iPhoto or for anyone who's used and fallen in love with Picasa on Windows or Linux. This release still sports the beta tag, so you can expect a bug here or there, but overall it appears to boast most of the same features as its counterparts. That includes:

Mac OS X only: Free, open-source application GlimmerBlocker adds a new preference pane to your System Preferences that brings system-wide ad blocking to your Mac.

Time to hit Software Update on your Mac: the OS X 10.5.6 update is now available, and promises improved reliability and stability throughout. Listed as a 190MB download (on my MacBook Pro at least), here's the full rundown of what you get in 10.5.6. Update: Several people (myself included) are having trouble with the 10.5.6 update; mind was stuck at "Configuring installation" for over an hour.

Mac OS X only: The open-source utility that mounts network file systems on your Mac, MacFUSE, has now updated to version 2.0, which adds a sparse Preference pane that checks for program updates and several developer improvements and bug fixes. Got an FTP server, or network share available over SSH?

Mac OS X only: Using your Mac's iSight camera to detect the hand gestures you make in front of it, free utility FluidTunes controls your iTunes library playback based on those motions. File this under "really cool but not sure I'd actually use it every day": you swipe your hand back and forth in the air in front of your Mac to move through your iTunes library in Cover Flow mode, and then swipe at a button to play a selected album.

Mac OS X only: Back in May Google released a Google Earth plug-in that integrated Google's popular 3D mapping application in your Windows web browser, and today the Google Geo Developers blog announced that the Earth plug-in is now available for Macs.

Mac OS X only: Google announced CalDAV support in Google Calendar this summer, which meant that with a little know-how, you could sync iCal with Google Calendar.

Mac OS X only: If you've been waiting patiently for the popular BitTorrent application, uTorrent, to find its way to your Mac, your wait is finally over: uTorrent for the Mac is officially available.

Mac OS X only: If you've been waiting patiently for the popular BitTorrent application, uTorrent, to find its way to your Mac, your wait is finally over: uTorrent for the Mac is officially available.

Mac OS X only: Preference pane Visage lets you customize your Mac's desktop, login panel, and alerts. Set a custom login panel background image and logo with Visage, or enable a "desktop effect" that runs a screensaver (like the Word of the Day, RSS visualizer, or iTunes album art) as your wallpaper, behind your windows.