My first pick is Plex, an awesome user interface freebie for Mac that provides instant access to your media – television shows, movies, music… even the weather looks fascinating on Plex. Based on the XBMC open-source media centre originally designed for the Xbox, Plex may just be the most useful infusion for any Mac owners who use their Macs as an entertainment hub. At our place, a Mac Mini hooked up to a frighteningly huge LCD screen serves as our ever-obedient media center, so Plex was a perfect fit. This beautiful behemoth of a media center is currently available only for OS X, which is really the only bummer I could spot, but hey, you didn’t need me to tell you that PC users are losing out, right?

A great (and again, FREE) alternative to Front Row (which I was using before), Plex has completely upgraded my home entertainment setup. Plex can play a wide range of video, audio and photo formats, but the real prize here are its dynamic library features, which allow you to catalog your media as a collection of versatile libraries, automatically retrieve metadata from the Internet, and display your libraries using one of the visually stunning skins. The skins are hypnotizing, really – I stared at a hi-res image of a tellie set thrown in a field of tall grass for about an hour before proceeding to click “Play” on my little Apple Remote. Plex includes a thoroughly customizable skinning engine that enables users to alter its entire user interface. Colors, controls, navigation, positioning of elements, animation, and even added functionality can all be achieved with a skin, which also makes Plex a great display for the easily bored and interface-picky.

The icing on the cake? With Plex, you can now automatically download movie and TV show artwork, fan-art, plot and episode information for your movies and television shows, as well as artwork, artist and album information for your music files. How awesome is that? My secret infatuation with Gossip Girl is now out of the closet thanks to Plex’s beautiful features, which I just couldn’t bear to hide away from house guests… Darned be Plex! Watch out, Upper East Siders – here I come!

But seriously, if you own a Mac, you absolutely need to be using Plex.
For more handy Mac tips and tricks, check out 5min’s Tech Files.