I’ll be honest, I was once a huge fan of America Online. In 1992 and with my 14.4kbs modem it was one of the most efficient ways to connect to the internet. AOL was one of the first dial up services to offer world wide web support and while it was nothing compared to Google, AOL’s web Spider search engine was great.

Unfortunately for AOL time hasn’t been kind to them. They desperately were late to offering home users broadband internet connection and failed to optimize on their exclusive content.

Additionally, the software they provided to connect to their network and internet was labeled as malware and spyware. It often took over your entire computer and caused more problems than solutions it provided. In fact, it was the number 1 piece of software I instructed people never to install. But, it looks like AOL may have learned from all their mistakes.

Catching Up With The Times

Recently AOL released a new desktop application for the Mac. And unlike their previous software versions it appears that AOL has finally caught on. AOL Desktop For Mac version 1.0 is a small and simple application. Installed it is only 32mb and the application itself is very lightweight.

The application launches quickly uses webkit as the base for its own web browser. Additionally, most of all of AOL’s exclusive content has been moved to the web, so the icons and keyword links launch web content instead of custom AOL content.

So, despite the previous AOL track record and being considerably late in offering a modern solution to internet content, the new AOL Desktop For Mac is worth trying out… for those of you that still have your AOL accounts and miss out on all the Favorites they saved to their account back in the 90s.

Now that you’ve spent all your money on a nice new Mac, iPhone, Apple TV etc., your budget is starting to get very tight. But you still want to run Windows without Bootcamp, or check out that ubuntu thing that your geek friends talk about without spending any more cash. Well, fortunately you’re still in luck with VirtualBox. VirtualBox is a free virtual machine from sun microsystems. While it may not have all the bells and whistles that Parallels or VMWare Fusion offer, its price tag makes VirtualBox an attractive alternative. In fact, VirtualBox can install certain operating systems that Parallels currently does not support (such as the latest version of Ubuntu Linux). If you want to check out VirtualBox keep in mind the following:

• Memory - You’re going to need at least 512MB of ram for the guest OS. That means you will need at least 1GB of ram for your Mac, preferably more, in order to run comfortably. Otherwise, running a virtual machine will be an exercise in slowwwww.
• Intel Mac - You’re gonna need one to run VirtualBox
• Drive Space - If you have a MacBook Air with a 60Gb or 80Gb drive, keep in mind that a guest OS will take up Gigabytes of space. Running out can be painful.
• Patience - VirtualBox runs on many platforms but it is still in Beta for the Mac. Things may not work out the first or second time. Most virtual machines will add additional modules to the Operating System (called kernel modules). Kernel modules can bring the whole system down. But with a little patience you can still have an enjoyable experience.

So if you want try a virtual machine on the cheap, VirtualBox is for you.

Our previous article discussed a convenient way to share photos on your Mac using iPhoto and the Picasa Web Albums plugin. But Picasa Web albums isn’t for everyone.

Flickr is one of the most popular websites for hosting and sharing your photos with friends, family, and the world. A new application, Flickery, aims at moving your photos to the web quick and easy.

Flickery: Main Features

Flickery’s main focus is to make adding photos to your Flickr account quick and easy. It shines its ability to resemble the features that Flickr users have grown accustomed to while adding photos using the web client.

When first loading Flickery, the application will ask you to Authorize your account with Flickr. This process was quick and easy and I really appreciate the Flickery developers adding a clear explanation of what I was doing when I authorized my Flickr account to work with the desktop application.

After logging into my Flickr account, Flickery quickly pulled forward a search of random recently added photos to Flickr from various random users. While a small feature, it quickly left an impression that the application was quick and capable.

I was a bit disappointed that Flickery wasn’t capable of integrating in my iLife media. I think that the ability to drag and drop Events from iPhoto would be a wonderful addition to the Flickery Application. At this time however, you can only add pictures by selecting upload and then dragging and dropping from iPhoto or a saved photo directory. Access the iPhoto package in your Photo folder is not currently supported.

Although adding pictures to upload to Flickr wasn’t as easy as I hoped, the ability to edit file photo names, descriptions, and add tags worked very efficiently.

Once I had described my photos I started the upload process. At the same time I launched Safari and navigated to my Flickr account page. As each photo finished uploading from Flickery, it appeared instantly in my Flickr account.

The only problem I had was grouping the photos I selected into a set before uploading… Once the photos had all been uploaded, adding them to a set worked perfectly.

Still in Beta

As I mentioned earlier, the application seemed to be messing some powerful features but I must remember the application is still in beta. In fact, the beta ends June 30, 2008. I imagine the little bugs that are still present in the system will work themselves out before the applications reaches v1.0

iPhoto is a great application for managing your digital photos. The update to the latest version of iPhoto including Events has only made the application more enticing to potential Mac users. The ability to quickly add and share photos with other applications and other users has been a strong point of iPhoto.

But if you don’t have your own .Mac account or iWeb site sharing your photo’s from iPhoto to friends and family may require a bit of outside assistance. One option to quickly share photo albums with others is through using Google’s free Picasa Web Albums.

Picasa Web Albums is available to anyone with a Google Account. Once your account has been setup, you can upload your photos and share the album urls with others.

To make this process a bit easier, Google has provided a plugin to iPhoto to make exporting photo albums that much easier. After downloading and installing Picasa Web Albums Uploader for your Mac open iPhoto, select the photos or album you’d like to share and then click File, followed by Export.

Once the export window has opened, click the Picasa Web tab. From here you can name the Album you’re uploading, write a brief description, and decide if the album is one you’d like to share with the public or keep private to just those you select to share with.

After defining the options for you soon to be shared album, click export and enter your Google Account credentials. The photos will then be uploaded to your free Google Picasa Web Album site and allow others to view and download the pictures you’ve shared.

Picasa Web Albums + iPhoto is a great way to share photos with friends and family. Additionally, Picasa Web Albums look great on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

May has already been a great month here at Maciverse. We’ve appreciated everyone’s comments on the articles we’ve posted and the feedback we receive. Below are some of the more interesting articles at Maciverse over the past few weeks. If you haven’t already read some of these articles now is your chance to check them out.

1. Add Forms to iWeb Pages - If you’ve wanted to get feedback from users or allow visitors to your site to provide data and you’re an iWeb user, this article describes how to gain that functionality for free.
2. Restore Safari with Time Machine - If you ever need to look back on your browsing history after you’ve reset Safari or cleared out your history then use Time Machine to restore your Safari history.
3. Trackpad Gestures for Other Applications - New Macbook Pro and Macbook Air users are really enjoying the trackpad gestures with the standard Apple applications. Now you can add these gestures to all your other applications.
4. Control your Mac with Twitter - Twitter.com has really started to gain in popularity. In addition to providing up to date information to your followers about your activities or websites, you can now also control your Mac with twitter messages.
5. Adium: 5 Must have extras - Adium may be the best IM client on the Mac. These 5 must have extras make your IM experience that much more enjoyable.

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