Google Picasa 3 [ Mac ]

iPhoto haters rejoice! Google recently released their popular photo management and editing program, Picasa, for Mac OS X. In my early testing, it didn't crash or seem sluggish, but like many Google offerings, this version still bears the "Beta" designation.

Picasa integrates nicely with Google's online photo-hosting service, Picasa Web Albums, by allowing album syncing, uploading, and access control. Album syncing allows you to change a photo (by retouching, changing the caption, cropping, etc.) and have the changed photo appear in seconds on your web album.

Your iPhoto library can be viewed in Picasa in "read-only" form. If you want to make edits to photos in your iPhoto library, you'll have to let Picasa make a copy of the photo and then edit it. Picasa also lets you upload photos to Blogger, create videos of your photos, and create a collage.

It's nice to have a solid option aside from iPhoto to manage our photo collections locally and on the web. LINK 2 DOWNLOAD :
Picasa is a free 17MB download.

City of Heroes [ MacOS ]

Along with EVE Online and World of Warcraft, Mac users have another popular MMO to play with. It took a while, but NCsoft has finally brought their superhero massively multiplayer online game, City of Heroes, to OS X. When we heard the game was ported over by TransGaming, we flinched a bit, but NCsoft has assured us that there is no funny DRM on the release, and our colleagues over at Massively have tried out the client early, and put to rest any major questions about the quality of the port, saying that it runs well, save for a few bumps when the action gets crowded on screen.

As promised, the Mac "Special Edition" is a digital release, and comes with both the City of Heroes and the City of Villians expansion, as well as a month of game time (after that there's a subscription fee to play along), and two exclusive items: a Mission Teleporter power, to get you directly into missions, and a special "Valkyrie" costume set. The game is available for $19.99 over on NCsoft's site right now, so if you've been waiting to get some superhero MMO action underway, now's your chance.

Boxee opens up alpha, adds iPlayer support for UK users

It isn't just about Macworld; shockingly there is some other tech news happening this week as well. Our pals over at boxee have just announced a new version, some love for UK users and some great news: no more invites needed!

Instead of hounding me (I kid, I never minded) for a boxee invite, you can sign-up yourself at boxee.tv/join and get downloads for the Mac, Apple TV and Ubuntu. The Windows alphas are still in closed testing, but progress is moving quickly.

Here's a run-down on what's new and improved:

• iPlayer support for UK users -- no more crying over the lack of overseas Hulu; you can now get the iPlayer via boxee
• Joost support
• MTV Music support
• dual-screen support
• Netflix improvements
• search in Hulu
• updates to the SMB library

Netflix is still only working on the Mac and not on the Apple TV, but this is a great update. I've been seeing some of the private builds and the improvements are nice. A reminder, boxee is still in alpha, but the development process is on a tear!