When will the PC world ever get it? Mac’s are superior machines… period. Nothing makes this more apparent than the host of dashboard widgets available for your Mac. What is a widget you ask?

Widget (wij-it) a miniature computer application installed and executed on the desktop of a personal computer.

The cheaters over at Microsoft stole our widget idea for Window’s Vista (ya we all now how well THAT worked out). With a new OS come some even cooler widgets for the Mac world. Here’s a look at a few widgets I think you’ll love.

Currency Converter- Free widget for the world traveller, or for those of us who just like numbers. Converts over 200 world currencies.

WeatherBug Local Weather-Weather geeks will love this little gadget. Includes current local conditions, detailed forecasts and current radar along with severe weather alerts.

iStat Nano-Keep your thumb on your computers pulse with sleek system monitor. Stats include CPU, memory and storage usage along with internal temperatures.

Countdown X-Who needs an egg timer when you have this bad boy on your dashboard. Simple design with a small footprint and the price is right!

YouTube-Pretty much self explanatory. Put the hillarity of some of the funniest videos on the net at your fingertips.

College Football-Intercept the schedule of your favorite college football team and pass it to your dashboard for display. This widget is a touchdown for college football fanatics.

News-You’ll find just short of 300 widgets dedicated to feeding you news from all over the world. Mainstream to niche news you’ll find it easy to stay on top of current affairs.

Boredom Button-When you’re about to start climbing the walls of your home office, the Boredom Button comes to the rescue. BB gives you instant access to the web’s funniest content to help inspire you to greatness.

You’ll find more cool widgets at the Apple Store. Peruse the web and you’ll find an endless stream of widget flowing about. Enjoy!

Everyone who has had an iPod, iMac, or iPad for more than three seconds loves it—that’s a given. But when does love go to far? Is it ok to accessorize your device like it’s a perky pommarianian or rap artist in need of a better grill?

I don’t have a problem with a cool case that’s “Me” but some of the things people have come up with for our “iDevices” are a bit eccentric (and occasionally creepy). Here are a few such accessories for the “iFaithful”.

iWood-The name sounds like the punchline in a comedy routine but it’s manufactuerer, Holland based Miniot, isn’t joking. Carved from solid oak, cherry, padouk and more their iPhone accessories have a bit of elegance that look and smell like money ($95.00 a case). They claim their wooden accessories offer better grip and safer handling compared to other cases on the market. Coolness factor +7.

Phone Fingers-Are you kidding me? Really? Little baby condoms for your fingers so you don’t infect the glass on your iPod with body oils? Too lazy to grab the Windex and a cleaning cloth? Want to knock off the jewelry store in the mall? Pick up these bad boys and confound police as they dust for prints for days! If you’re buying them whip out your conversion calculator, got to have Euro’s to buy these gems. Coolness Factor -3, Dumbass Factor +10.

iPod Nano Thong-BDSM devouts will spank themselves silly with glee when they see this baby. Designed to look like a leather thong and double as an iPod Nano case, you’ll be sure to get that big promotion wearing it around the office. Its redeemable value is basically nil since it covers the device’s click wheel, making it pretty much impossible to manipulate your Nano. Coolness Factor 0, Creepiness Factor +8.

Call me old fashioned but I am sticking with thongs I can wear and wood wrapped in something other than an iPod (wink).

If you are a music lover, you have no doubt gotten a lot of mileage out of your Mac, iPod, iPhone or iPad. There are a lot of things Apple has gotten right with these sweet gadgets—not the least of which is the reach of their music players. iTunes opened up the world of music to us, Apple set us free.

Forget for a moment the iPod sitting on your desk or your iPhone tucked in its holster… did you know that idevices are influencing the DJ scene, as well?

Trip on down to any one of the thousands of today’s dance clubs and you’ll more than likely find a Mac at the heart of the beatbox. Programs like DJ-1800, UltraMixer and MegaSeg are making Mac’s mainstream in the digital underground.

The hottest new app on the street is DJay. Leading deejays and sound engineers hail it as the music tool for the next generation. Audiences of 500 to 50,000 have enjoyed their favorite bands via this futuristic musical platform.

DJay’s combination of powerful software and its VCI-100 controller have a very low learning curve, making this Mac friendly software one of the most exciting deejay software options out there.

Of course, Mac’s aren’t the only Apple products deejays have fallen in love with. iPods can be used to deejay, too. If a jock has two iPods and a mixer he can spin tracks all night, much to the delight of the club faithful.

There is even a deejaying app for Apple’s new iPad. Talk about convenience! Gone are the days of heavy metal mixers, turn tables and cd players. The Mac has transformed the landscape into one that’s easy and inviting for anyone.

Be it Macbook, Macbook Air, iPod, iPhone or iPad there are plenty of options for deejays of all skill sets. Have you seen the new iPod Nano? Imagine clipping one on each side of your jacket at the club and deejaying via bluetooth. Now THAT’d be something cool to see.

When it comes to thumping the club and keeping it jumping, Apple is still the Mac Daddy.

So, I was chitchatting with someone at the office today, and he asked me if I thought my Mac was cooler than a PC. My answer? DUH!

What makes a Mac cooler than a PC? How about, umm, everything?

First and foremost, the exterior of a Mac looks just plain sexy. Have you seen the box the latest PC’s come wrapped in? They look more like alien spacecraft than a sleek computer with all their buttons and lights. When is the last time you saw a Mac keyboard with 30 extra buttons on it? What are all of those doohickeys for anyway?
Apparently, they’re for everything from opening your email (I thought that’s what the mouse was for) to listening to your music library and looking at pictures. Macs, on the other hand keep things pretty simple. In the world of Apple, less is more.

Oh, and how about a touch of speed? After all, that is one of the main reasons we all get turned on by our Macs, right? The Mac OS X boot time? A cool 25 seconds. The boot time for a PC these days? A pedestrian 45 plus seconds.

And once you get logged on to your MAC you’ll find an abundance of useful applications that come standard with a MAC like iphoto, stickies and iCal (which I think looks freaking awesome in comparison to MS Outlook).

Mac users also have a much different experience when they crank up their electronic friend for the first time. Take notice of the lack of add-on junk that PC users are bombarded with as soon as they reach their desktops for the first time. No more offers to “try this and try that”. Mac offers real plug and play.

So, yeah… Macs are just plain cooler.

If you have had your iPhone, itouch or iPad for any length of time you have no doubt made many trips to Apple’s App Store on your device. The store is crammed with loads of great apps. And, if you are anything like me, you have probably spent a small fortune already at that store.

Is there a way to stay active and entertained without sending yourself to the poorhouse? Luckily, yes! Here’s a look at some of my favorite free apps right now:

Productivity- With today’s rush-rush lifestyle, business professionals are demanding more from their apps. Happily, mBox Fax & Voice brings your office to you. Never again will you have to miss an important fax. This app can have your faxes sent to your iPhone. You can also retrieve voicemail with mBox.

Education- Popular with high school students bound for college, iPhones can now help them prepare for the SAT. Vocab Lab Lite gives them a taste of what’s instore in the full version. Lite quizzes them on 30 words found on the SAT and ACT. The full version boasts 5,000 words. Great beginner’s app!

Entertainment- Movie goers will love the simplicity of Showtimes. The app can quickly find the location and showtimes of your favorite flicks. You get a full description of the movie, local theaters where it is playing and a critic’s rating so you can feel confident you are not on your way to a dud.

Consider this just a sample. Scanning the web will net you tons of free apps for the idevice of your choice

Adobe has made another big splash with its Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac. With two years passing since Adobe’s initial Mac release (PSE6) this latest edition makes a nice addition to Adobe’s creative suite of products. It’s a program packed with power for the beginner or advanced photographer in all of us.

So what’s the draw to PSE8? How about professional quality images, for starters.

This version of the program allows for resizing of the program window as opposed to the locked single fullscreen mode in previous editions. This comes as quite the pleasant surprise for most users. The casual user will also find an increased ease of use, making the program seem less intimidating than in versions past.

The quicker edit tools and addition of guided edit make all editing actions much simpler. Also, users can now take advantage of thumbnail previews in quick edit mode.

If you are a power user you’ll be excited when you notice the reset toolbars option. No more having a desktop cluttered with toolboxes or wasting time searching for them.

The editor now appears almost identical for both PC and Mac users. This will no doubt make finding a tutorial thatyou can use a bit easier. The overall functionality of the program is similar across platforms.

One drawback to the latest edition is that it still has a tendency to crash on startup if you have many programs running at the same time. I increased the amount memory available and it seemed to fix most of the issues.

All in all, current users of Photoshop Elements 6 and newcomers to Elements alike should really enjoy what Adobe has hidden inside the box.

Ok, friends, it’s time for you guys to talk to me.

After all, every few days, I hop onto my trusty Macbook and tell you guys why I love all things Mac. I share the latest and greatest in the world of Apple. I strut my stuff and try to bond with you.

So, now it’s your turn. To channel Tom Cruise in one of my all time favorite flicks, “talk to me, Goose!”

You guys know why I think a Mac kicks a PC’s motherboard any day. But now I want to know why YOU love yourself a Mac. Are you a newly converted Macintosh aficionado? Or have you been Apple faithful from way back?

What’s more, I’d love to know what widgets and apps you couldn’t live without right now. What’s your favorite part about booting up your little Apple universe every day? Is it making a phone call on your iPhone 4 and video chatting with your best friend across the country? Hitting the iTouch for a round of scrabble against your know it all little sister? (Oh the taste of victory!) Or maybe it’s sitting down to work from your home office with the smug satisfaction of knowing that you shall never have to deal with the drama of an antivirus scan or seemingly endless software updates?

Come on, now… don’t be shy! I can’t wait to hear from you guys!