Cool Software for Mac OS X
When I first got my Mac, I made a list of the software that I was using …
of course, that list is old as some of the software just didn't make the grade
over time. So maybe it is time for me to revise my list.
Dunno about you, but when I'm handed a Windows laptop at work, the first thing I do is spend an hour trying to remove all the "added" crap… but I like the extra software on my Mac
Keep in mind that this list is my list of non-Apple programs for you to
download. I use most of the programs supplied by Apple, especially the
iLife suite.
QuickSilver … If there is one program that I wish would get migrated
from the Mac to the PC or Linux, it is a quick launcher. Basically, by
just typing a few keystrokes I can launch an app with an initial document to
load. This article first convinced me to try QuickSilver, and now I'm
a believer. I thought that Apple's Spotlight would make this app
irrelevant, but I use both since they each have their purpose††Note convinced? See this guy's commentary .
(BTW: There are a couple of other contenders in this market, so you might
want to try out Butler and LaunchBar).
Growl … This program is another program that I wish could get
ported over to Windows/Linux‡‡There is now GNotify and KNotify . It allows other programs that run in the
background as services to register and then send their messages to Growl.
Growl then temporarily displays the message in a small, unobtrusive but noticeable
translucent box.
You'd be surprised at how nice this is. The song track information from iTunes, new
mail messages (from Apple's Mail program), updates to web sites (via RSS Menu),
and alerts of new messages from my instant messaging programs can get displayed
through it. My backgrounded backup scripts also use it. Its pretty slick.
Ecto … If you blog, you must have this as it is simply the best
blogging tool available. Once upon a time, I wished that Ado would integrate
an HTML composition tool (like Mozilla's), and he did.
Adium … a pretty, multi-protocol instant messenging agent.
Since I log into multiple IM services, the last thing I want is half-dozen
apps for each one. The biggest problem with this is that it doesn't do
video conferences, and now that I have an iSight, I sometimes stop
it to run iChat or Skype.
I have kept my eye on Fire, but its better features haven't been
compelling enough to make the switch.
Also Skype for the Mac now does video conferencing, and does it pretty
well††Skype is better at video conferencing than doing iChat to PC users running AIM .
WeatherPop … nicely informative weather reporter that
unobtrusively sits in the menu bar.
RSS Menu … I use Google's home page for most of my RSS feeding,
but for the really important blogs (like my sister's Convivial), I use
RSS Menu, since it is unobtrusive and is always running for me. It
uses Growl, so new items are quickly mentioned to me.
If I had more time to keep up with lots of sites, I'd probably go back to
using Shrook, or NetNewsWire.
iTerm … a Terminal replacement that puts multiple shell sessions
in one window with multiple tabs. I also set up a list of SSH sessions on
its pulldown menus, so logging into my servers is a snap.
1Password … a program that acquires and protects all your
passwords to web sites and things. It then has plugins for both
Firefox and Safari to allow you to log into sites
automatically. This one was worth the price.
Acquisition … a P2P file sharing program. While I don't use
it very often, I've settled on this Gnutella program for getting my Phish boots.
Fugu … a file transfer program that allows you to transfer using
secure FTP and SCP. Granted, I mostly just type "scp" in my Terminal program.
Cyberduck is a good standard FTP program.
WireTap … This takes the audio from any program and writes it
to disk. I primarily use this for transferring the RealAudio transcripts of
Philosophy Talk to a format that I can put on my iPod.
Twitterific … Most of your favorite web apps or social
network doo-hickeys all come with Mac versions, including:
Oh, and this Chess Puzzle is the only
dashboard widget that I run.
StarfishX … an abstract desktop pattern generator that I run
from crontab each day.
If I missed your favorite, let me know.
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