We’ve mentioned Path Finder, the full featured Finder alternative from Cocoatech, a number of times here on TUAW. I am sure there are a few of you that were upset because the latest version of Path Finder only works with OS X 10.4. The MacDevCenter sat down with Steve Gehrman and Neil Lee, the men behind the app, to talk about the decision to only support Tiger with Pathfinder 4.

They both make compelling arguments for Tiger only support (mostly they wanted to include the latest and greatest Cocoa features, and since there is only one guy coding it didn’t seem sensible to support two different versions of Path Fider, a Tiger specific version and a pre-Tiger version). Well worth a read, if you are interested in Mac development.

I’m a pretty boring guy when it comes to my OS UI. I don’t change the default icons, I don’t change the sounds, heck I hardly even change the desktop picture. Now, I know some other folks like to go crazy and if Mail.app’s defaults are too bland for you, this tutorial is the cure.

Apple also released Security Update 2006-003 today (which, if you’re counting, is the third such security update for this year). This update includes files for both server and client editions of OS X, as well as files for OS X 10.3.9 through OS X 10.4.6.

This fixes a host of security issues, so I won’t list them here but if you are interested check out the tech note.

Update: Brent points out, correctly, that there have been 9 security updates so far this year, however, I was correct in that this is the third OS specific update of the year. Don’t you just like it when everyone is right?

Reader
JP Dane-Castro wrote in to remind us that it was exactly one year ago today that Apple starting shipping the world’s
most advanced operating system, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

Take stroll down memory lane by reading Apple’s href="http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/apr/12tiger.html">press release. Now, when is Leopard shipping?

I’m
beginning to think that today is some kind of image editing holiday, as Image Tricks, the freeware image editor that
leverages Mac OS X Tiger’s Core Image features, has been updated to version 2. New features include ‘generators’ - the
ability to "randomly and manually generate images with mathematical algorithms," a fit-to-size option, PDF
export, file size adjustment when exporting to JPEG, and other minor fixes and improvements.

Image Tricks
has also been divided into Free and Pro versions. For a mere $9.95 the Pro version will give you six more generators
than the free version, and BeLight software has stated they have more generators they can add from their todo list if
enough customers show interest.

Check out BeLight Software’s  Image Tricks href="http://belightsoft.com/products/imagetricks/overview.php">product page for more details on its abilities, and
the downloads page for a copy of the upgradable Free version.

/>
If you’re still using Panther for one reason or another but drool when you hear the word ‘Spotlight,’ an app by
the name of Pocketlight can bring a little bit of Tiger to your Panther.
Pocketlight isn’t nearly as all-encompassing as Spotlight, but it can search Mail.app mailboxes, iCal events, Address
Book contacts and files in a specified folder. In an odd turn of events, Pocketlight is only available for Mac OS X
10.3; not 10.4.

Pocketlight is free, but the author states that it isn’t going to be updated or enhanced
from here on out, so grab it while you can.

[via href="http://www.hawkwings.net/2006/04/10/pocketlight-search-panther-mail-ical-address-book/">Hawk Wings]

The good
folks at Barefeats love them some benchmarking, so I am surprised it took them
so long to compare the performance of Windows XP versus OS X on a
MacBook Pro. They took a look at how applications that are available on both OSes (and are Universal) ran on the
MacBook Pro.

The results? XP wins when running games (for the most part) while everything else goes to OS X.
They did compare some apps running in Rosetta to the same apps running natively on XP and XP blew OS X out of the water,
as shown by the graph above (of course OS X running on a PowerPC would also blow Rosetta out of the water).
/>[via Paul Thurrot's
Internet Nexus]

When Apple
first released Mac OS 10.4.4 with its brand new
Dashboard widgets back in January, more than a few of you gave the updated calendar widget a big thumbs down. I
don’t mind it, but it seems I’m in the minority. This post is for you nay-sayers.

href="http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macosxhints/2006/02/calwidgetnav/index.php">Macworld is describing some great
tips for quickly navigating the calendar widget. You can use your right and left arrow keys to jump from month to
month, and the up and down arrows to move from year to year. To quickly return to the current month, just hit the home
key (or fn plus left arrow on a laptop).

Now don’t you love calendar just a little bit more?