I use NetNewsWire as my default RSS feeds reader on my Macbook. I find it simple and straightforward, proving a fair amount of features for the stuff I need. But I know many people still uses the web interface available at google.com/reader, which allows you to do some extra things like sharing and liking objects.

Today I was browsing Ember (also, be sure to follow me) and I stumbled upon some nice screenshots of what it seemed Google Reader running in a web browser, but with a custom style that looked like a Mac app. Userstyle, I said. I found the style, I posted a screenshot on Twitter and it turned out many of you guys liked it.

Here’s a brief guide on how to install the style.

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You probably already know that I like very much writing about cool modifications for Mac and iPhone. I usually find them on Ember, Iconpaper and MacThemes, three websites you should definitely check out if you’re into graphical customizations like me.

Today’s mod is called Inset (link to MacThemes post, link to author’s website) and it will install an alternate style for your dock (when in 2D), dock menus (right click on dock icons), exposè highlight, Stacks and Adium Contact List.

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Remember Itsy? The new, minimal Twitter client we reviewed a while ago here? I still think that Itsy it’s a very promising application, the best among all those Twitter clients that are rising for Mac (again) after Tweetie easily ascended the throne. The design of Itsy is nice, but it could be better.

Thank God this guy, katsu3477, created these two stunning themes for Itsy.

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If you’re a web designer / developer you should understand the importance of optimizing images for the web. Even saving a few kylobytes on each image could be a life saving practice when your website goes under an unexpected huge amount of traffic. But if you’re on a Mac, there aren’t many applications that let you do that: most of the tools I read about were just online services or Windows programs.

Fortunately, I stumbled upon these two apps, ImageOptim and PNGPress, that share the same purpose but are very different both in the execution and results. Let’s see what’s the best for you, and why you should consider start using one of them now.

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Mac OS X’s Aqua is a great user interface. In my opinion, Mac OS X has the best UI design ever seen until now, but you probably know this if you read MacStories. I always talk about applications that get the most out of Mac OS X interface, so there’s no doubt I deeply admire the work Apple has put into creating a beautiful and usable design - refined overtime. On the other hand, it’s very likely that you’ve grown tired of Mac OS X standard UI elements and you’d like to apply some modifications. You’ve also heard that it’s possible to install custom themes on OS X, so you would like to give it a try but you’ve scared of the whole process and you don’t want to mess up everything.

In this post I’ll guide through the necessary steps of installing Aqua Inspiriat for Snow Leopard, the theme I’m currently using and one of the finest examples of Mac customization and compromise between standard design elements and modifications.

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Some weeks ago I asked on Twitter whether there was a nice way to quickly create a new text documents in Finder, much like you can do on Windows. Jonas Wisser, one of my followers and  blogger over at Malum Elegans, created an Applescript app for that purpose called “New Text File Here” which you can drag into the Finder’s toolbar and creates a .txt file in the folder you’re in. The script got picked by Download Squad and Lifehacker.

I just received a reply by Jonas, regarding a “new, much cleaner version” of the script. Let’s call it “New Text File Here 2”. From the blog post:

“This version asks you for a filename (instead of creating new.txt) and subsequently opens it in your default .txt-handling application (the old version didn’t).”

It’s simply the best and most intuitive solution I’ve tried so far. Go download.

Ok, don’t get me wrong: everyone knows that you can take a screenshot of what’s happening on your iPhone by simply holding Power + Home. I wanted to talk about something different: what if you’re a developer / designer or even a blogger, and you want to insert some great iPhone screenshots on your webpage? Yeah, those screens with a standing iPhone showing the application in context, like this one. Ever wondered how you can actually achieve a similar result? I did. And I’ve come up with two easy and nice solutions I wanted to share with you, hoping to help you out with your next project or blog post.

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Today I’m very happy to announce a new series of posts on MacStories, called “Mac VideoStories”. The VideoStories will feature video tutorials about every tweak, hack or how-to you should know about your Mac. From beginners stuff to advanced tricks, both long and brief videos, I’ll try to cover every possible thing that will come in my mind.

Let’s start with the first screencast, a tutorial that shows how you can easily extract an application’s icon and convert it to a universal .png file.

Enjoy!

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Awesome tutorial over at MacLife, which includes MAMP, OpenFire and a little bit of patience. Very useful, anyway.