It's easy to install a new hard drive in your desktop computer, but laptops can be a whole other ball of wax, because the drive is usually wedged deep into the notebook's innards and it takes a lot more elbow grease to swap out. MacBook owner Dwight Silverman took the plunge when he filled up his drive and doubled his available gigabytage. This process varies from notebook to notebook, so if you've successfully installed a bigger hard drive in your laptop, tell us how it went in the comments.

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Windows/Mac/Linux: Free ebook converter GutenMark takes plain ebooks from the Project Gutenberg site and converts them into chapter-separated HTML files, italicizes words in foreign languages, removes all-caps instances, and much, much more. One of the main uses of GutenMark is to make ebooks much easier to read on mobile screens, removing hard line breaks and other annoyances that come with some straight-up Gutenberg text downloads. As its own home page describes it, GutenMark is a "prettifier" for Gutenberg texts, and a pretty good one, at that. GutenMark is a free download for WIndows, Linux, and (with more complications) Mac OS X.

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Mac only: Leopard's built-in Airport utility doesn't do much except show you what Wi-Fi networks are nearby, and which require a password—but free utility AirRadar does much more. AirRadar detects available Wi-Fi networks (in my case, more networks showed up in AirRadar's list than in Leopard's default menubar drop-down), and displays more information like signal strength, last seen timestamp, channel, signal average, max, and min. Disconnect from networks without turning off your Airport card, get Growl notifications, and set the scan interval with AirRadar too. You can even save networks as favourites, instead of just hopping onto any old open network by default. If you've got a spotty signal you'll appreciate AirRadar's signal to noise line graphs, too. AirRadar is a free download for Mac only. For more Wi-Fi know-how, see our top 10 Wi-Fi boosts, tweaks and apps.

Mac users rockin' Firefox 3 who like to see web site icons on their bookmark toolbar already know that the previously mentioned Mac Favicon extension isn't Firefox-3 ready yet. But a user style can give you back those pretty icons instead. You'll need Stylish to install the Mac bookmark toolbar favicons user style, but it'll get your toolbar looking as good as the Windows version.

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Apart from being the most useful application on my Mac, Quicksilver is also one of the most attractive. But that doesn't mean it can't be improved, either, and weblog MacApper has rounded up a few of the sexiest Quicksilver interfaces on the block. Aside from the eye candy, the other great thing about alternate interfaces is that many of them change the way you interact with Quicksilver—meaning that if you've never quite gotten the hang of Quicksilver, a new interface may be just the ticket. If you've got a favourite Quicksilver interface that you've been using, let's hear about it in the comments. If a new interface has you aching to dive into Quicksilver, check out our beginner's guide along with our many other Quicksilver guides.

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Development on the Xbox Media Centre Mac port continues apace, with the new beta 3 which dropped today. Grab the update to get more fixes and additions from the Linux version, and see how XBMC turns your Mac into a better media center.

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Macs may be more expensive, and Mac users more elitist (ahem), but blind Apple loyalty aside, there are a number of neat features bundled into your Mac that make it super useful and fun. We've covered dozens of Mac tips over the years in these pages, but today we're highlighting 10 lesser-known Mac tricks that come baked into Leopard. From pure eye candy to outright productivity-boosters, read on to get reminded of some of the more obscure things you can do with your Mac, fresh out of the box.

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Mac OS X only: Freeware application iTunesVolume is an attractive iTunes controller for your Mac desktop. Like many before it, iTunesVolume offers playback control and displays album artwork (and it looks great doing it), but iTunesVolume sets itself apart with a very simple always-on-top control: a volume slider. Through this simple slider, you can access and control everything else the app does, which is virtually everything you can do in iTunes. iTunesVolume takes a little time to wrap your head around, but once you do, it offers a really nice way to interact with your music. iTunesVolume is freeware, Mac OS X only.

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Mac OS X only: Free, open source application PandoraBoy pulls the popular streaming internet radio site Pandora out of your browser and integrates it with your Mac desktop. With features like global hotkeys, support for your Apple Remote, and even integration with Growl, PandoraBoy looks to be the ultimate Pandora companion for OS X. PandoraBoy is free, Mac OS X only. Windows users looking for a similar solution, check out PandoraBrowse or our bevy of other ways to get more from Pandora.

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Mac OS X only: Browse your Del.icio.us bookmarks like never before with freeware beta application Delish. URLs weren't mean to be viewed as text, according to the minds behind Delish, so the software provides a visual interface for your bookmarks by creating thumbnail snapshots of all the links, which it displays in an attractive, easy-to-use interface. Delish even supports multi-touch pinch and scroll gestures for owners of new MacBook Pros and Airs—though unfortunately you can't create a new bookmark with it. Delish is currently freeware, Mac OS X only.

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