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These days Instant Messaging is a ubiquitous part of computer life.  There are dozens of options: iChat, MSN Messenger, AIM, ICQ, Facebook Chat, MySpace Chat, Google Talk, Jabber, and Yahoo Messenger, just to name a few.  So what if you don’t want to install and run all of these programs?  Enter Adium, your OS X instant messaging hub.

Adium connects to all of your IM services simultaneously, allowing you to make custom sorting lists for all of your contacts.  You can even connect to IRC and Twitter.  My favorite thing about Adium, however, is it’s customizability.  You can customize the way literally everything looks and create custom soundsets for different accounts or even specific contacts.  Adium also houses a pretty powerful plugin engine, and hosts thousands of downloadable add-ons on their site.

Adium is free to download. The current version requires OS X 10.4 or later, though earlier releases are also available for download.

Following the pattern of the iPhone before it, Apple's forthcoming iPad's TV ad campaign kicked off Sunday during the Oscars.  It's a pretty standard ad for Apple -- a montage of different apps and capabilities set to a catchy tune.

Watch the ad here.

Years ago, when spellcheck was introduced to the major word processing programs, students, businessmen and women, educators, writers, journalists -- pretty much everyone -- felt the joy that can only be brought by technological automations of what was once our our own work.  You've probably noticed by now that OS X extends this feature to virtually any typing space in any app via the built-in Dictionary.

Right-clicking (or control-clicking) any word brings up a contextual menu containing spelling corrections, as well as a quick way to look up definitions and search for synonyms and whatnot in a thesaurus.  Does your computer not recognize a word?  Right-click the word in question and click "Learn Spelling". Computer learned the wrong spelling?  Right-click again and "Unlearn Spelling" becomes an option.

Rumors should always be taken with a grain of salt, but this one makes sense on a few levels: Apple may be bringing the hi-definition standard HDMI port to a Mac near you.  While it would likely eventually be available in all next-gen Macs, the Mac Mini is expected to be the first to benefit from the addition.

Replacing the Mac Mini's current full-sized DVI port, the addition of an HDMI port would allow for plug-and-play compatibility with all monitors and HDTVs that use the industry standard.  It would also add the capability to run HD video/images and HD sound (5.1 or 7.1 surround sound standards) via one cable.

If you’ve been anywhere near the internet lately as an Apple fan, you’ve seen the heated discussions going on regarding the disclusion of Flash on the iPhone and, most recently, the upcoming iPad.  Adobe, the owner of Flash technology, would have you believe that Apple is ignoring an internet standard at the expense of “almost all of the internet’s multimedia.”  Apple would have you believe this is done for security and stability reasons, citing Flash as the number one source for browser crashes in OS X.  Who are we to believe?

Adobe’s Flash is now used to deploy the majority of the video content we see on the internet.  Everything from YouTube to Hulu use flash (though YouTube recently gave Safari users the option of switching to HTML5 Video integration), so their argument that leaving out flash severely limits a platforms capability to access the web’s video content definitely sounds valid.  YouTube has an iPhone/iPad app, however, and reports say that Hulu’s developers are working on a flash-free version of their content specifically for the upcoming Apple tablet, which, if it’s true, would negate much of the outrage of angry Apple users.

In a closed-doors company meeting a few weeks ago, Apple’s CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs is reported to have said that most Mac crashes are due to Flash, and that “the world is moving to [flash alternative] HTML5.”  Adobe’s Flash is currently the only global web standard that is privately owned, and this likely is a big turn-off to Apple, who have always pushed for business models in which they are in control of their own assets.  Apple executives (among others) have disparaged Flash for it’s relative instability on many platforms, which lead to customer dissatisfaction.  If Flash was included and enabled in the iPhone OS, for example, and the overall experience suffered greatly from it, would people blame Flash specifically, or just become discontented with the iPhone and the company behind it?

How will the Flash Wars, as many are dubbing the situation, play out?  Will Flash end up on the iPhone and iPad?  Will a more-stable alternative rise up and take over Flash’s ubiquity?  At this point, only time will tell.

Skitch is an incredibly intuitive screenshot utility from the makers of the popular Comic Life application. OS X already has screenshot capabilities built in, you say? Not like this, it doesn't.