On the face of it, Sticky Notifications is a very simple application. It allows you to create your own "Sticky" notifications in Mountain Lion, or in Lion (using Growl). Want a quick reminder on screen, Just click on the menubar icon or use a keyboard shortcut to create it in a flash.

Sticky Notifications also has integration with many other aspects of your Mac such as Automator and System Services, as well a full URL scheme to enable integration with Alfred and Launchbar

This full tutorial includes sections on:

• Introduction
• Using Sticky Notifications
• Configuring Sticky Notifications
• Automator Integration
• System Service Integration
• URL Scheme
• Custom Searches

I've covered "tagging" files and folders before, but never managed to cover one of the most useful application - Leap.

So this week, I've asked Todd to take a look at Leap, and show some of the concepts behind this unique way of tagging, searching and organising your files and folders.

Whilst some of us prefer to keep a rigid structure to our files and folders, there are alternatives. Using tagging, you can organise your files and folders in a much more flexible way. Once tagged, it's easy to retrieve your files in multiple ways and use flexible search terms to find your documents.

Leap uses the Open MetaData standard to tag your files, folders and even applications, and contains the tools to help you tag and retrieve your data.

This full tutorial includes sections on:

• Installation
• Leap User Interface
• Tagging Files & Folders
• Tagging Applications
• The Tag Drawer
• Search Using the Crumb Trail
• Searching with the Tag Cloud
• Using the Bookmarks Bar
• Conclusion

Time for a Mac Montage show this week.

How to add a signature to your emails - One of the most requested topics! I've previously looked at using TextExpander but Mail within Lion allows you to do it all.

Markdown Services for OSX - Use Markdown? You need these essential services.

Podcasts App for iOS - Most Mac users also listen or watch podcasts on their iOS devices. This section takes you through the basics.

This full tutorial includes sections on:

• Creating Email Signatures
• Creating a Signature PNG file
• Using A TextExpander Snippet
• Using Mail's Built In Signatures
• Markdown Services for OSX
• Installing The Services
• Using The Services
• Podcasts App
• Playing Podcasts
• Top Stations
• Using The Catalog
• ScreencastsOnline Content

A new type of tutorial this week - an App Update show.

Invariably, the applications I cover on ScreenCastsOnline get updated over time. New features and new capabilities are regularly introduced by developers.

So this week's tutorial brings you up to speed on updates to three great applications - Aperture, TextExpander & Moom

This full tutorial includes sections on:

• Aperture 3.3 Update
  • Upgrading Libraries
  • Merging Libraries
  • PhotoStream Considerations
  • Aperture UI Changes
  • Changes to Adjustments
  • Other Changes
• TextExpander 4
  • New Fill In Snippets
  • Other Changes & Upgrading
• Moom 3

Move and Zoom your windows on your Mac, easily and quickly using your Mouse, Trackpad or Keyboard.

Moom is a great application that integrates seamlessly with OSX to give you complete mastery of your environment. Move and resize windows, move them out of the way or even send them to different monitors.

You can even create "Window Layout Snapshots" to allow you to postion your favourite application windows just as you like them, then store for future use. With a simple command, all your windows will reposition themselves exactly as you saved them. You can even set automatic triggers based on your screen resolution or available monitors.

This week's tutorial takes you through all the great features of Moom and demonstrates how you can take control of your Macs windows on OSX. The full tutorial covers:

• Introduction to Moom
• Moving and Zooming with Mouse
• Spacing Windows
• Accessing Custom Controls
• Move and Zoom Using the Keyboard
• Creating Custom Controls
• Window Layout Snapshots

In addition, I've included an extra section just finishing off the coverage of QuickTime - looking at using clips in QuickTime Player X

Now that iOS5 has a great notification service, isn't a pity that OSX doesn't! All is not lost, however, as you can add a system wide notification service into OSX, with the installation of Growl.

Even better, application events captured by Growl can now be forwarded to your iOS device using Prowl.

Growl - Growl has been around for a while as a free open-source Mac service. The original version has been supported by lots of the leading Mac applications and acts as a framework to collect, collate and display alerts from installed applications on your Mac. The latest version has recently been released in the Mac App Store, for the first time as a "paid" application. The new version is Lion enabled and contains many new and improved features such as support for sandboxed applications, some new networking support and a rather nifty "roll up" display. As it is a brand new version, some applications previously supporting the older version of Growl will not work with the new version, and will need updating. In the screencast, I demonstrate the install process and how to configure alerts and notifications on an application by application basis. I also demonstrate some typical scenarios using Twitter and iVi video encoder.

Prowl - Prowl is an inexpensive iOS universal application for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. In conjunction with a free plugin for Growl and a free web service, Growl is able to send alerts from your Mac directly to your iOS device, and have the alerts appear as notifications - very cool! The screencast demonstrates the installation of Prowl and it's plugin, along with the configuration of some simple alerts. I also take you through some of the other features of Prowl such as send alerts from any service using your own Prowl email address.

In addition to the main topics of the tutorial, I've also included a small section on how to search the ScreenCastsOnline website to track down previous tutorials.

This week, a greatly misunderstood, free utility to allow you to customise your OSX desktop - GeekTool

Create "Geeklets" to echo the contents of textual log files, display multiple images or even run Unix scripts, directly on your Desktop.

GeekTool is a great utility but it suffers in one area, and that’s in the documentation. It can do so much, but it’s a little bit impenetrable for most people!

That’s where this week’s ScreenCastsOnline tutorial comes in useful. I take you through the basics of GeekTool, now available via the Mac App Store.

In the tutorial I explain and demonstrate how to configure and use "Geeklets". These are the components that allow you to add different types of content to your desktop.

• File Geeklets - These allow you to display the contents of text files directly onto your desktop. Not just static files, but files being updated in real time. Want to keep an eye on a log file? Just create a File Geeklet and the contents of the file are echoed to your desktop as the file is updated. Full control of the frequency of when the file geeklet is refreshed, it's position and size and even the colour and font of it's display/
• Image Geeklets - Display images or sequences of images on your desktop. The images can be from your local filesystem or hosted somewhere out on the web. Again, full control of how the images are displayed.
• Shell Geeklets - Probably the most powerful of all the geeklets as these allow you to run anything from a simple Unix command to a full shell script. This section demonstrates some simple commands that can be run from Shell geeklets to build a dynamic calendar on your desktop.

As mentioned, there are lot's of example geeklets available on the web if you seek them out. Here are some links to help you:

MacOSX Tips

Mac AppStorm

Flickr