Google Earth for Mac has quietly been updated to 3.1.0617.0 beta, with a build date of February 9. A quick check of the release notes shows that the minimum configuration is now OS X 10.3.9, which should be good news for many Mac users.

The release notes are a trove of interesting workarounds, and are well worth the read. They will tell you how to get to password-protected content, for example, or how to associate .kml and .kmz files with Google Earth. No native Intel support yet, but the notes state that using Rosetta works fine.

Another new feature is that Microsoft Entourage is now supported as a mail client in the preferences, in addition to Apple Mail. In fact, such support was available before if you used Barry Wainwright’s hack from his Entourage User’s Weblog. Barry now writes it is his hack that made it into the latest Google Earth version, down to the same variable names, and that “It’s nice to be appreciated in this way. It would be nicer to be acknowledged as well.” (I haven’t verified this independently.) [14:20 UTC: The announcement on Google Earth Community mentions Barry’s contribution.]

(Via MacWorld, which continues its Google Earth review with a second installment, though again without focusing on network links, arguably Google Earth’s most interesting feature.)