I was reading about animals on the internet, as I am wont to do, when I came across this amazing photograph:

If you happen to check for software updates on your Mac now, you should find that the Mac OS X 10.6.5 update is available for download. It appears to be a lovely update with plenty of bug fixes, performance improvements, and stability enhancements:

Apple is discontinuing their Xserve line of server computers—they'll stop selling them on Jan. 31. Folks looking for an Apple server have two options: a Mac Pro or Mac mini configured as servers with OS X Snow Leopard Server.

It took National Geographic photographer Steven Winter seven months to capture his serene photographs of snow leopards—of which there are fewer than 3,500 still alive—almost as long as it did for Apple to make the OS. [NPR]

Mac OS X 10.6.4 is currently sitting pretty in your Software Update and brings Safari 5, if you haven't already jumped on the train, and what looks to be a ton of bug fixes with it. Our update weighs in at 640MB but we've seen some as low as 300MB. Guess we need the fixin'.

Snow Leopard 10.6.3 is waiting for you to grab it via Software Update—it fixes lots of things, from QuickTime X to OpenGL to "reliability of 3rd party USB devices." If it does anything else magical, we'll let you know.

You got a new Mac for Christmas? Awesome. But don't let Justin Long's smarmy face fool you, it doesn't just give you a warm hug and set itself up. Here are 10 things you need to do pronto:

You will never find this snow leopard in any Apple promotional shot. Why? Because there's a naked woman in there. And a very sexy one at that. Can't you see her? She's right there, completely nude. Not yet? Look closer:

Networking is stupid. You'd think it'd be real darn easy to share stuff between PCs and Macs, but it's not as nearly simple as it should be. So, here's how to make 'em talk and share stuff like best friends.

I've definitely wanted to Force Quit some conversations in my time, so a real life spinning beach ball of death would be the perfect excuse. Watch:

High-Def Flash video is a stretch on some hacktintosh netbooks, but Flash 10.1 brings it into the realm of possibility. I just installed it on my MSI Wind running Leopard, and damn: HD YouTube and Vimeo videos were almost watchable.

When Apple killed Atom processor support in the Snow Leopard 10.6.2 update, it was one of the first times they'd actively tried to stop hobbyist hackintoshing. It was also sort of a dick move! Luckily, it's not going to stick.

Enough with the back and forth already, Apple. If you're going to kill Atom support then just kill it. Don't toy with us, taking and giving like some sort of merciless god.

Screencap formats, secret dock animations, previously unseen menu shortcuts, login screen backgrounds: These are the hidden settings the Apple doesn't want you to see (or just forgot about) and that Secrets, a free, super-simple app, helpfully wrangles into one place.

Windows 7 rolls past Snow Leopard in just a week, almost everyone still runs XP, and Vista, which didn't even crack 1/3rd of its predecessor's install base, is doomed to be forgotten. This is the world outside Gizmodo, people. [Ars]

It appears that Atom support has resurfaced in the latest developer build (10C535), so users running OS X on Atom netbooks are safe, for now. Although, anything can happen between now and the final build. [Stell via 9to5Mac via Crunchgear]

It's a virtual war: VMWare Fusion 3 for Snow Kitty and Win7 popped out last week, and now here's Parallels 5. It's also fully 64-bit, with Windows apps that behave like native ones, including full multitouch gestures, and more zoomzoom.