Come September next year, the Apple scene may be seeing the appearance of an OpenOffice office suite that will work natively with Mac OS X. That is, this new build won't require you to install the Unix windowing software called X11, which has been the source of headaches among Mac users.

This information we're picking is based on a presentation by Eric Bachard, who also noted that September 2008 may see OpenOffice v3.0 getting released. As it stands, OpenOffice most recent build is version 2.3.0. Eric is among the the lead developers of the Mac "Aqua" (the name for the MAC OS X GUI) port of OpenOffice.

At the moment, the most hassle-free OpenOffice port we've picked up is Planamesa Software's NeoOffice. This particular build reportedly works more seamlessly with Aqua since it doesn't require the X11 environment , although at the cost of higher memory usage. The latest build for NeoOffice at this point is v2.2.1, and is based on OpenOffice v2.2.1.

For Apple's old- and new-timers alike, it's always good to have people sharing their own little tips and tricks that help them around the OS. See, the thing about Mac's OS is that it's flexible and can allow modifications through various tools and utilities. By personalizing you Mac to your heart's content, it's hard to not get attached to your digital friend (my PowerBook's name is Scar; what's your's?).

And so, when someone comes up with their list of ways to "Trick Out" your Mac, you can't help but lend an ear. Michael from AppleGazette just came up with his 10 ways to "Trick Out" your Mac (although some of these are well-known among the aforesaid "old-timers").

Take for example, Pixel Press Icons. That's like everyone's neutral ground when looking for desktop icons (one time I changed my Adium duck icon to that of Chrono Trigger).

There are more ways to get down and dirty with your digital friend: the Apple Gazette article also listed the heaven-sent plugin Pimp My Safari as well as CenterStage, NeoOffice, and the underestimated Automator function. Follow the read link below to see the list.

A lot of great things has been said about Mac products: they're innovative, great, and all that. But a great product is useless if the user doesn't live up to his end of the bargain (such as not installing a decent anti-virus or cluttering your RAM with useless apps). Anyhow, we're deviating from the topic here, someone over at MadMac did a little investigative report on the top 10 Mac memory hoggers. Here are the apps that made that list:

1. Safari - 487.79Mb
2. Photoshop - 258.71Mb
3. GarageBand - 201.59Mb
4. NeoOffice - 154.96Mb
5. Pages - 144.88Mb
6. iMovie HD - 132.48Mb
7. Keynote - 128.52Mb
8. iWeb - 110.89Mb
9. iDVD - 92.11Mb
10. iPhoto - 91.87Mb

These are averages, so others who might snoop about it might get a different result. If you noticed, most of these applications are Apple's own apps. All of them are very powerful and useful products, but then again, power does come with a price and in this case, the price you have to pay is the massive memory space it'll occupy. This doesn't make the Mac bad because if you think of it, Photoshop on Windows would probably use up a lot of memory too. Maybe Apple should give more RAM with their new line of computers.

Feel like pimping your Mac? We don't mean just customizing your desktop or adding plug-ins and extensions for your Safari. It's tweaking almost every tiny function of your Apple computer so you get the best out of it! Thanks to Michael of My Tech Lists, we got a whole bunch of apps and downloads here (some are free, some are not) that you can use. Check them out:

Pixel Press Icons dishes out 120 of the most beautiful icons on ANY OS that you can download and use for any of your programs. You can download hundreds of Mac Desktop Images with MacDesktops. Now if you want to customize your toolbar in 80 different ways where you can include DiggUpdates and Del.icio.us bookmarks (to name just a few), get Super OS X Menubar Items.

To get things done the quickest way, you can use OS X Keyboard Shortcuts -- a site that gives a complete list of the keyboard shortcuts available in OS X. To make browsing with Safari a breeze, you can try looking at Pimp My Safari where more than 60 plugins and extensions for the default OS X browser are available.

Other sites can help you with advanced programs that needed to integrated well with your Mac. Some of them are NeoOffice, Automator World, and CenterStage. NeoOffice encompasses almost all office applications for the Mac OS X. Based on the OpenOffice.org office suite, it allows you to import, edit, and exchange files with other popular office programs such as Microsoft Office. Automator World, on the other hand, is a great resource for Automator Users. CenterStage allows you to let your digital media content connect seamlessly with your TV.

Some apps come with the features already bundled, while others are self-contained. Undercover allows you to see who's using your Mac with its advanced recovery software from Orbicule. Unsanity Apps is a collection of lots of really useful apps such as Application Enhancer Version 2.0.1, ClearDock Version 1.4.1, Dock Detox Version 1.2, Menu Extra Enabler Version 1.0.3, Paranoid Android Version 1.3, ShadowKiller Version 1.3, Smart Crash Reports Version 1.2, and the Cee Pee You Version 1.1.3 . All are ready for download in either freeware, shareware or OpenSource versions.

Things are getting really expensive nowadays - software, games, web-services, etc. That's why we actively support the homebrew scene, so in our eyes as long as it's original, and free for all, it's probably good.

Mac users looking for an open-source office software might like to check NeoOffice. Based on the OpenOffice.org office suite, NeoOffice is a fully-featured set of office applications for Mac OS X. What's nice about it is that it has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can freely import/edit files with other popular programs like MS Office.

This latest update was made to include all the new OpenOffice.org 2.0.3 features.

Download: [NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua Beta 3 -Intel]
Download: [NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua Beta 3 -PowerPC]