Snow Leopard is going to be uber cheap, so there's not really any reason to not pick it up -- if you make good, regular use of your Mac, odds are that you'll also make enough use of a copy to justify the value. But even if you're not taking the $30 plunge, Macenstein has the most important part of the OS upgrade covered: the wallpaper. Just like the OS itself, Snow Leopard's wallpaper is only an incremental update from the current version (Macenstein says it looks "faster," and we can see what he means), but just in case you want to at least make your old G5's look like they're all upgraded, just "Set as Desktop Background" and there you go.

Rumors that the wallpaper will actually make your computer faster (or give you back that 6GB of hard drive space that the actual upgrade will give you) are unfounded, and probably shouldn't be trusted. But then again, you never know.

Here's the question: what day of the month does next Friday land on? You pull out your iPhone, turn it on, unlock it, navigate to the Calendar and switch to Month view. Got it. March 20th. Of course, being the self-proclaimed efficiency expert that you are (isn't everybody?), you quickly decide that was way too many steps for such a simple task. If you regularly need this particular type of information, you're going to have to find an easier way. You could (A) carry around a printout of the calendar for the month, or (B) check out MyCal.

MyCal is a single-purpose app from Chillix, the same developers to whom our faithful readers offered their offbeat to-do lists a while back. It allows you to pick a background -- from a wide variety of built-in images or from your own collection -- select a calendar style and set transparency levels. When you're done, it outputs a wallpaper image you can use to get a quick view of the month without even unlocking your phone. To be clear, it won't show you any appointments or tasks, just a good-looking calendar that's readily accessible. A recent update to the application fixed some issues with blurriness, and I give it two thumbs up for simplicity and usefulness. If you fit into the description in the first paragraph, you might just want to check it out. The user's guide offers a comprehensive preview, and it's available in the App Store for 99 cents (US). Chillix has built up a fairly extensive collection of iPhone apps; check out their website for some other gems.

Whether you've got a new Mac and you're looking to replace the tired "Aurora" background, or perhaps you just want to spice up your desktop with something a little Apple-flavored, this site's for you! Francesco Mugnai has up at his blog over 60 different Apple-focused wallpapers that he has found at various and sundry locales from around the web.

Many of the wallpapers are from DeviantArt and Flickr, so if you have spent any length of time perusing Apple wallpapers from either site, then you have likely run into a couple of them. Some of these I have seen a few times before and some of these are a new take on an old favorite; but many are completely new to me. In other words they are all worth checking out and possibly adding in to the desktop wallpaper rotation.

What about you, dear friends? Do you have any stand-out, Apple-related desktop imagery that you've created or found which you would like to share with others? Post some link love in the comments and pay it forward; after all, everyone loves finding new Apple stuff! My personal favorite, you ask? I suppose you will have to click through to find out.

The iPhone can certainly make life easier on a number of levels, and that has greatly increased with the advent of the App Store. There are thousands of selections for every taste, even bad taste. In 2007 Steve Jobs told us web based apps would do the trick, but he finally relented and we all benefited from the tremendous success and variety of the App Store.

So, without further ado, here are some little apps you may have missed that have made my i-life better.

• Backgrounds [App Store link] A nice little app that points you to large collections of wallpaper for your iPhone or iPod touch. You can select a category such as Movies or Nature, and browse away till you find something you like. When you are happy, download the image and it will show up in your camera roll. Do the usual tap, and select it as wallpaper and you are ready to go. The pictures are generally of very high quality, and are sourced from Flickr. The developers claim about 50,000 images are there for the downloading. The app is free, although some unobtrusive ads do show up on the margins of the images. There are a lot of other ways to find iPhone wallpaper, but this is quick, easy and free. I like it.
• Open Table [App Store link] Using your GPS (if your iPhone has one), or simply by giving your location, find the nearest restaurants that have, you guessed it, open tables. Then click on the time you want, and you have a reservation. It doesn't get any easier than that. It works in many U.S. cities, and in London, Toronto and Vancouver B.C. I gave it a go here in Southern Arizona, and found many restaurants with tables available You can set up an account at the Open Table website, but it is not required. Without an account you can select the restaurant, the time you want, and give your name, email, and phone number. Then click on 'confirm' and you are good to go. If you do sign up for a free account with Open Table, you can collect 'Dining Reward Points' when you book a meal at a member restaurant. Collect enough points and you can get some hefty discounts off your next dinner. Open Table also works on the iPod touch. Things that should be added are search by type of cuisine, and I think there should be a direct link to restaurant websites. Open Table is free.
  
• Distant Suns [App Store link] I love to star gaze, and here in Arizona we get about 300 clear nights a year. There are several nice star map programs for the iPhone, but I am very partial to Distant Suns written by Mike Smithwick. This program goes way back to a PC version in 1985, and there have been Mac ports for OS9 and now there is an OS X version. The iPhone/ iPod touch version is scaled down from the big computer versions, but has excellent graphics, location awareness, and does the math to tell you what is visible at the moment and what is not. It is an impressive way to explore the universe above you. Distant Suns is $5.99 and well worth it.

Looks like Snoop Dogg wants you to have some Apple goodness. Crestock is hosting a wallpaper design competition with the Dre protégé where the prizes over four rounds are, respectively: an iPod classic 80GB, an iPod touch 16GB, an iPod touch 32GB and a MacBook Air. The top three entries in each round also get placement on snoopdogg.com (and his mySpace page... in case anyone with enough taste to hire you actually goes to mySpace) and a load of Snoop Dogg merchandise with a street value of $500+.

With or without the d-o-double-g action, it's a chance for the design-inclined to get some work out there and score an iPod or an Air. Of course, it's essentially on spec, which might get you some flak, but you're not competing for a job. You're competing for internet glory and a MacBook Air, so it's really just good clean fun(izzle).

Visit the contest homepage for more information. The contest is running now, so if you're interested you should scoot.

My personal favorite desktop wallpaper app, the echo-named Desktoptopia, sent us a tip with a great announcement today: not only have they released version 1.5, and not only have they released a PC version (for your work computer to use, I guess), but Desktoptopia is now a completely free app.

Now, I don't know if this is new or not, but their FAQ page says that the reason they're now free is that some of the wallpapers that will show up on your desktop (the app periodically changes your wallpaper for you, as often as you'd like) are "beautiful desktops that reflect a brand." I haven't yet seen any obvious ones pop up in the old version, and I haven't started using the new version yet, but I guess there's a chance that you could have, say, a Wal-mart desktop show up. That would probably give me reason to uninstall the software right there, but of course that's up to you -- if you don't like it, you could always try Desktopia, or just do it yourself with Automator.

I haven't had that problem yet, though -- in my experience, Desktoptopia has provided some great wallpapers (with no brands I could notice) as regularly as I'd like with no fuss at all. If you want some change to come regularly to your desktop wallpaper, but don't want to go hunting around for the right pics, Desktoptopia is a great solution that is now completely free. Great to hear.

While checking out yesterday's beautiful iPhone mod, we though about wallpaper that would compliment an all-black iPhone. In the process we compiled a list of our favorite resources for iPhone (and iPod touch) wallpaper.

• Poolga
• The Iconfactory
• Pixelgirl Presents
• iPhone wallpaper group on Flickr
• Sciphone
• Deviant Art

Have you got a favorite that we've missed? Let us know in the comments.

While we're at it, check out more details on that iPhone mod, including pictures of the complex machine that gets the job done.

A little while back we linked to ByteCellar's Apple //c terminal, and now he's gone and put a Newton online. You can check out the whole setup in the gallery, but the short story seems to be that he hooked up the eMate 300 to a serial-to-USB terminal, and then ran it through his Mini. Pretty easy, he says, since he'd already done it with the Apple //c, and apparently it's just an experiment-- while he could easily keep it around for IRC, he says the eMate is bound to its eFate as a paperWate.

And if getting the Newton hooked up as a terminal revs your engine, I was surprised to find out that TUAW houses the original Newton serial connector. Very impressive-- even in 1993, Sadun was doing stuff with Apple hardware that makes my head spin. Figgles, apparently, is her Newton.

And finally, if you don't have the knowhow or the patience to hook your Newton up to a serial internet connection, you could always just pull an Ihnatko and fake it. How long has he had that sticker sitting around? If you're not up for actually stickering your iPhone, Jer Wood's wallpaper might be more your speed.

[ via MacBytes ]

There are tons of iPhone wallpapers out there by now, but this set is extra special-- it's a set of satirical wallpapers, designed, says Josh, to "show off the true power of the iPhone" by replacing the standard loading screen with one of your own. Did you know your iPhone could attract total strangers, create Universal Healthcare, or even resolve global warming? It can-- just as soon as the loading bar completes.

I think my favorite is the one shown here, though. Sure, since it's just a picture, you could say that the bar will never finish, so the iPhone will never be obsolete. But as one of the people waiting for v2.0 to buy an iPhone, seeing the bar past halfway at least inspires a little hope that we're almost there.

Thanks, Josh!

Desktoptopia (not to be confused with Desktopia) is a program that automagically delivers the latest and greatest in wallpaper right to your desktop-- just press go, and the app will drop a new desktop on you as often as you want, from any categories that you want, rated however you want. For people who love seeing a brand new desktop, but don't want to take the time hunting around to find one all the time, it's the best. The best, Jerry, the best!

And now it's even better, because they've posted a coupon code on his site that drops the normally $20 shareware application down to just $10. Enter "luckyme" at checkout, and you'll be wallpaper browsing and changing in no time. More desktops, no worries-- sounds great to me.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

iPhone tweaker Justin Schwalbe has managed to work over a few tricks we've published and create something actually useful: a one-click wallpaper changer for the iPhone, no iTunes sync or other tethering needed: just load up the image in Safari on the iPhone and you're rolling.

Now, of course, it's not all that simple: first you need SSH and curl running on your iPhone, and you've got to swap out the instance of DemoApp on your phone with Justin's script. Nevertheless, if you're a frequent wallpaper switcher, it might be worth checking out the rundown on Justin's blog and giving it a go.

Thanks Erica & Justin

iPhone eye candy (or should that be iCa... oh never mind) is starting to roll in.

Wes (thanks!) dropped us this "very nice selection" of specially sized wallpaper. Most of it seems to be about birds, but there are a few cool non-bird shots included as well. And Sarah from SuicideGirls says she's a fan of TUAW (hawt!) and pointed out their iPhone wallpaper packs-- one is supposedly a pack of "PG13" desktops (they say it's work safe, but not if you work in a monastery), and there's a pack of R-rated desktops as well as a pack of SG logos which also, upon inspection, turn out to be R-rated. But they all look pretty good (if you like looking at geeky cool chicks), and of course they're all fitted for the iPhone.

Also SG and iPhone related, Sarah mentioned that Rob Corddry (of the Daily Show and Frank Wrench fame) has also written a short piece for their site about his experience buying an iPhone, which turns out to be very NSFW as well. But hey, it's the holiday-- kick back and enjoy a little iPhone-related adult humor.

Last week, we pointed out the good news that The Iconfactory had resized their entire collection of desktop images for use with the iPhone (how cool does Nibbler look on my iPhone at right? Very cool). The problem is that it's kind of a pain to get them onto your iPhone.

The method I came up with is the same process that's described on Gedblog:

• Download the image to your desktop computer
• Drop it into iPhoto
• Sync your iPhone, making sure that it's going to synchronize pictures, including your new desktops
• On the iPhone, go to Settings > Wallpaper. Select your library of images
• Navigate to the image you're after and select "Set as wallpaper."

It's not the most difficult procedure in the world, but it would be nice to grab the image from Safari on the phone itself.

Update - Reader Michael writes, "...right click on the image in Safari and then select 'Add image to iPhoto library.'" Thanks, Michael!

Now that you know how, why not check out the iPhone Wallpapers Flickr group?

While you're waiting to get your hands on an iPhone, why not head on over to the Iconfactory? They just announced iPhone versions of each of their free, high quality, wallpaper images. The pixel pushers over there took the time to artfully crop each image into an iPhone worthy piece of art. At least this way you'll be able to find your iPhone in a pile of the little wonders.

This week's TUAW Desktop is a bit on the dark side ladies and gents; dark and interesting. Titled Blackness and Hailing from Flickr user Matt Lew (who *ahem* failed to include any details of what he has going on here), the primary ingredient here is the Ecto Wallpaper Pack which can be had at deviantART. I'm also seeing some text-based icon replacements in the right-aligned Dock (which I know I've seen before but I can't find a link), a minimal Adium theme and what looks like iTunes controls in the menubar which I believe are provided by Synergy. Of course, there's also a ShapeShifter theme going on here, though I'm not quite sure which one. All in all, Matt did a nice job of putting together an all-over black aesthetic using a wide variety of tools and tweaks.

If you'd like to see your unique, functional or otherwise interesting desktop featured in our TUAW Desktops of the Week series, check out past featured desktops as well as the original post for the rules and to get an idea of what we're looking for. Then, upload your desktop screenshot to our TUAW Desktops Flickr group. We'll feature one or more desktops each weekend, giving credit to the desktop owner, wallpaper creator and any apps featured in the screenshot (if available). Keep those desktops rolling in!