iChat is the fantastic app for instant messaging that comes free with every Mac. It ticks all the boxes: simple chat interface ✓ file exchange ✓ video conferencing ✓ tabbed chat ✓ multiple logins ✓ and even slideshow sharing ✓. It practically blows Windows Live Messenger on Windows out of the water.

However, it has a fundamental flaw that no update or upgrade can fix; its user base is incredibly small. The problem is no one uses AIM anymore. All my contacts use Facebook Chat, or MSN, or Yahoo. There must be a way to condense all these protocols into the simple interface of iChat right?

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Nciku, I know… I can’t pronounce it either, but don’t be put off. I found this site incredibly useful for a reference when learning mandarin chinese (汉语！). Today you’ll learn how to use Nciku to help you learn Mandarin Chinese and use your Mac to write Chinese characters.

(This lesson requires a reasonable knowledge of Chinese)

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After using Safari 4 for a while now, not only have I been deeply missing the tabs on top feature, but also I have noticed a slow down in speed when using multiple tabs in multiple spaces (on the Mac). Now I haven’t got a slow machine but what I do have is a heavy workflow, with about 2 tabs open on each space and 6 spaces. If your like me and can’t handle jagged scrolling, a possible fix is coming up after the break.

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Anyone here remember Dreamscene? It was apart of the ‘Windows Vista Ultimate Extras’, a long winded name for the extra bits and bobs you get for forking out an extra $60 for Windows Vista Ultimate (compared to Windows Vista Home Premium). For anyone doesn’t, it was basically an extra which allowed you to use a video as your desktop background as opposed to a still image; a pointless feature, but nonetheless at least it looks good and impresses the kids.

Now if you’ve upgraded to Windows 7 or your using a Mac and missing this feature, do not worry, as there are solutions for both to make your Desktop pretty again (and no it’s not Deskscapes which is just a rip off). Video and tutorials after the break… (continue reading…)

On the Mac, it’s a difficult process getting lyrics to songs and album art automatically. You PC users? Your lucky. Go get iArt, it’ll search through your entire library, either finding the album art or lyrics to each song.

But what about us Mac users eh? Well it used to be easy (or at least easier)…but now it’s just a pain in the —-! Basically, you go download one of three programs, GimmeSomeTune, Skeiron or Tune Lyrics (or Harmonic but that’s a dashboard widget). Now all of these three automatically find and add the lyrics from the internet for the song your currently playing. Now if you want to add the lyrics to your entire library, that’s a bit more time consuming.

For this, you’ll have to play every single song in your library. Now this isn’t too bad if you have a small library… but what if your like me with over 1600 songs? That would take me 277.7 days to get through! That’s almost a year! Most of us naturally don’t want to wait or leave our computers on for that long, so after the break I’ll give you guys the solution… and the problem with that solution

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