Growl recently roared its way onto the Mac App Store. This historically free utility now costs $1.99, but we think that it's such a small price to pay for such a wonderful utility -- especially one that has been used day-in and day-out by most all Mac users over the years.

Growl provides pop-up notifications for various applications on your Mac desktop. For instance, if you were to receive a direct message in the Twitter for Mac application, you could set a Growl notification to alert you. Notifications can be themed, and can take on many different shapes, sizes, and styles.

1. Install Growl

Installing Growl for the first time is easier with the Mac App Store version.

Because Growl is now a part of the Mac App Store, you can simply purchase and install Growl just as you would with any other app.

After downloading Growl from the Mac App Store, click on its icon in the Applications folder on your Mac, or from Launchpad in Lion. The installer will walk you through setting up Growl for the first time. This part is self-explanatory, and help is available from within the Growl setup assistant.

2. Using Growl History

New to Growl 1.3 is the ability to view old Growl notifications, as well as notifications that you miss while you step away from your computer. To set up Growl notifications, open the Growl app in the menu bar, and then navigate to Growl Preferences > History.

From this screen, you can also clear all of your old Growl notifications with one click.

Once there, ensure that the “Enable History” button is turned ON, and then set the amount of notifications that you wish Growl to keep in history, as well as the number of days you wish to keep old notifications.

You can also select to either “Rollup” all notes, or “Rollup” only logged notes.

After configuring the history, click the General tab, and select the number of seconds in the “seconds of inactivity” section. This will determine how many seconds after you step away from your computer that Growl will begin showing notifications on the screen in a history “Rollup” window.

Double-click on the notification to be taken to the application that sent the notification.

Now, whenever the seconds of inactivity passes, you will get a popup window that will display all of the notifications that have been passed to Growl during that time. In this window, you can dismiss all of the notifications by tapping on the “X” button, or you can double-click a notification to be taken to the application that sent the notification.

3. Network Your Notifications

With Growl, you can send notifications originating from one computer to another computer on your local network. Doing this requires Growl being installed on both systems. Once you have Growl installed, head over to Growl Preferences > Network.

 If a password is not required, just leave that field blank.

For the Macs that will accept incoming notifications, check the box labeled “Listen for incoming notifications,” and then optionally specify a Server Password.

Macs using Growl 1.3 or later will automatically be discovered on your network and placed in the computer list.

For the Macs that will be sending notifications to a listening computer, check the “Forward notifications to other computers” checkbox, and then check one of the bonjour-configured Macs in the computer list (note that Growl 1.3 will automatically detect computers using Bonjour and place them in this list). If a server requires a password, you can double-click in the password field for that computer to type the password.

Now whenever the sending computer receives a Growl notification, it will be displayed on the listening computer as well. Note that you can set up a Mac to both listen and send notifications, or any other combination.

Follow this article's author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.