Good mac software thoughts
Hanni Ross
I'm on the verge of purchasing a new ibook - 12" 1.5GB ram (from
crucial) with 100GB hard drive.
I've used a combination of windows/unix all my life and this is my first mac.
I'm a bit lost as to what the best apps to go for would be and I'm not
so keen on the idea of shelling out money for something only to be
told that there is a far better alternative.
I'm thinking of the usual suspects: photo editing, text editing,
coding, IM, browsing etc. etc., but the main reason I've asked here is
that I am interested in what you guys use as you're surely amongst the
most productivity conscious around. So what apps on OSX do you swear
by? What helps you with your email? What couldn't you live without?
I'd be grateful for any feedback.
Hanni
Dave Horan
Hanni,
I'm also a long time PC user, and I just purchased a 12" Powerbook to
round out the technology suite in my office. I'm trying to make the
switch and use the Mac as my main machine, but I'm in the same boat as
you: what is the best software for the money?
Dave
gtd2003
http://www.palm.com/us/support/macintosh/mac_desktop.html
Text Editor - Text Wrangler - Free
http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/index.shtml
Email - Thunderbird - Free
http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/
Web Browser - Firefox - Free
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
RSS Reader - NetNewswire - $24.95
http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/
Hope that helps.
Ken
eric Farris
> most productivity conscious around. So what apps on OSX do you swear
> by? What helps you with your email? What couldn't you live without?
>
slightly out-of-date) one is here:
http://eafarris.al.umces.edu/node/2
--
e
one inch frame: http://eafarris.al.umces.edu/
Giles Turnbull
On 3 Aug 2005, at 16:54, Hanni Ross wrote:
> What couldn't you live without?
has an opinion on this...
I can't live without:
SnapNDrag, screenshot util
http://www.yellowmug.com/snapndrag/
Camino, browser
http://www.caminobrowser.org
QuickImageCM, Finder plug-in for quick image manipulation
http://www.pixture.com/macosx.php
Oh, and BBEDit but that costs a fortune and there are many many
alternatives, several of which I expect will appear elsewhere in this
thread.
G
Simon Carr
Adium: an IM client, the best I've used personally.
http://www.adiumx.com
Fugu: an SFTP client.
http://rsug.itd.umich.edu/software/fugu/
SubEthaEdit: an amazing text editor.
http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/
If you like BBEdit take a good look at this.
(I wrote some stuff on why I like Fugu and SubEthaEdit here;
http://simoncarr.com/?newsoption=39)
VLC: a video player.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
OmniOutliner: A checklist to-do list thingee.
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/
It came bundled with my Powerbook. I'm consdering the move to
OmniOutliner Pro.
NeoOffice: a free MS Office replacement.
http://www.neooffice.org/
It may not replace all of your Office needs.
Project Timer Pro: a project timer.
http://www.scriptsoftware.com/projecttimer/
Great for consulting projects. Well, for me anyway.
As for mail and web, I use the built-ins; Apple Mail and Safari. I
use iCal to sync with my Clie (a PalmOS handheld) and for most of my
calendar functions.
simon...@gmail.com
Justin Lilly
to try it out)...
quicksilver
-justin
--
Justin Lilly
University of South Carolina
http://justinlilly.blogsome.com
Ken
the software I use on my PC desktop that wasn't already duplicated. I
bought MS Office 2004 because I live in the PC world (and I got a
student discount), and a couple of Adobe apps. Everything else are
little apps I've picked up along the way, but there's nothing I can't
LIVE without yet. You'll find that there's a LOT your mac will be able
to do out of the box, so much more so than a PC. It's a big plus, in
my opinion.
Dave Emmons
Safari
Preview
iChat
iPhoto
iMovie
QuickTime
iTunes
expose
iCal
Then some free ones:
Quicksilver
NetNewsWire Lite
Konfabulator (I'm on 10.3.9 so no Dashboard)
Text Wrangler
Acrobat Reader (normally use Preview though)
And the one you have to buy.
Office X (2004 is the current) Mainly for Word/Excel and Entourage
That's mostly what I use at home....though I dabble with anyting that
looks cool the list above are the ones I use most consistantly.
Plus I use the .Mac services.
Bill Nalen
-Proteus (paid) for IM
-TextMate (paid) for journals, todo lists, project lists, etc. I
write everything in plain text using markdown and keep all my GTD
like stuff in one project file
-Apple Mail
-Safari
-NetNewsWire (paid) for RSS
-Transit (paid) for FTP
-Other assorted built in applications (iPhoto, iDVD, iTunes, Address
Book, iLife came free with my Mac mini)
I bought iWork but haven't used Pages more than a few times and
haven't used Keynote at all.
I really haven't found a need for other applications yet. Since I
work from home a lot, I'm in front of the computer all day with
TextMate running constantly with my lists.
Sometimes I'll run VPC for my Windows development work, or use Remote
Desktop to access my XP box.
Bill
Jan Erik Moström
Dragthing
Complement the Dock in a very nice way, Dragthing is an application
that you forget you have ... until you don't have it. Have used it
for many years 5? 6? 7? <http://www.dragthing.com/>.
BBEdit
THE text editor, you want to do something with text? BBEdit can do
it. Can also be invoked from the command line.
<http://www.barebones.com/> If the cost is to high, check out the
free little brother Text Wrangler.
Mailsmith
Email program, very powerful filtering, good editor (and no HTML
display !! a big plus) <http://www.barebones.com/>
SpamSieve
Spam handling, 99.9% correct filtering. Comes with Mailsmith but
can also be used with other mail clients.
<http://www.c-command.com/>
Interarchy
FTP client <http://www.interarchy.com/>
Adium
Free IM client ICQ, AIM, MSN, etc <http://www.adiumx.com/>
NewNewsWatcher
Feed reader, one free and one pay version. <http://www.ranchero.com>
OmniWeb
Browser <http://www.omnigroup.com/>
OmniGraffle
Drawing program, perfect for making illustrations for lectures etc
(not a photo editing program). <http://www.omnigroup.com/>
LaTeX
Mac version <http://www.rna.nl/tex.html>
Bookends
Reference manager <http://www.sonnysoftware.com/>
Keynote
Presentation program (better than powerpoint)
<http://www.apple.com/>
iView MediaPro
Photo Manager (more capable than iPhoto)
<http://www.iview-multimedia.com/>
NovaMind
MindMapping <http://www.nova-mind.com/>
Web Confidental
Password manager, syncs with Palm <http://www.web-confidential.com/>
svnX
Free Subversion client.
<http://www.lachoseinteractive.net/en/community/subversion/svnx/>
iSvn
Free (at least now) Subversion client.
<http://www.einhugur.com/>
DEVONthink
Information storage (can't be described in a sentence, download and
try). <http://www.devon-technologies.com/>. The Pro version is
really nice.
NoteBook
Note keeper using a notebook metaphore,
<http://www.circusponies.com/>
OmniOutliner
well ... an outliner. <http://www.omnigroup.com/>
MathPad Easy to use "calculator"
<http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mwidholm/MathPad/>
--
Jan Erik Moström, mos...@gmail.com
Jan Erik Moström
Jeffrey Windsor
believe, that the average quality of Mac shareware is vastly better
than that of PC shareware. (There is, of course, some excellent PC
shareware. But the bucketloads of utter crap brings the average down.)
That's a useful thing to consider because it makes it possible to
simply download everything and give it a shot.
Looking for an RSS reader, there's about a dozen available, most of
which are excellent. Many people swear by NewsFire, which I can't
stand, but that doesn't make it a less excellent application. Does it
work for your style? I cannot tell; try it out yourself.
Most of your list (photo editing, text editing, coding, IM, browsing)
are covered in Apple branded apps. Safari is an excellent browser,
iChat is good if you use the same protocols, Apple's development
environment (XCode) is plenty sufficient for most home work. How much
text editing do you do? There's a number of great, free editors --
many of which are mentioned above. Of course, there's the standard
Microsoft and Adobe apps, which you'll want if you ever do their kind
of work.
Two mentions deserve more attention, simply because there's no clear
analog in the PC world. Quicksilver is, obviously, amazing. It alone
is reason enough to switch. Also, DEVONthink is wonderful and amazing,
if you can grok it.
--jw
diego....@gmail.com
applications. Anyway, here's my list.
Email: Apple's Mail. In Tiger they added smart folders, which was my
only remaining gripe.
Image, music manipulation: iTunes, iPhoto
IM: Adium
Web browsing: I have used Firefox and Camino. With Tiger I switched to
Safari, added Sogudi for the search keywords, and find it very nice,
particularly for the...
RSS reading: Safari. I really like its RSS reading mode, where you can
condense multiple feeds into a single screen.
Terminal: iTerm
Editing: XEmacs (http://members.shaw.ca/akochoi-xemacs/index.html), but
that only works if you are an Emacs person (there are also plain Emacs
mac ports). I also use SubEthaEdit, mostly for the joint-editing
feature, it's really amazing.
Blog posting: Ecto
Presentations: Keynote
Coding: XEmacs or Xcode, depending on what I'm programming
Nostalgia: Power64 (Commodore 64 emulator :-)
Utilities:
Quicksilver! I couldn't live without Quicksilver. Before that, I was
using Butler, which is also very nice.
Buddy Pop (quick access to AddressBook entries)
SSHKeyChain (manager ssh keys, tunnels, etc.)
Desktop Manager (virtual desktops)
Romeo (Bluetooth application control - useful for presentations)
Enjoy your new Mac!
--Diego
MEP
> coding, IM, browsing etc. etc., but the main reason I've asked here is
> that I am interested in what you guys use as you're surely amongst the
> most productivity conscious around. So what apps on OSX do you swear
> by? What helps you with your email? What couldn't you live without?
good too. If you're used to Unix already, you could try the Gimp.
Text editing -- I use gvim (there is a carbon port for OS X). You could
also use the carbon emacs. Or you could grab the very excellent
SubEthaEdit. All are free.
Coding -- If you are coding for OS X, your new mac will come with
everything you could possible need or want in the form of XCode. If you
are coding non-cocoa code, use gvim/emacs (you're a unix user right?
you should already be using these :P ).
IM -- Adium is the only way to go. I hear Proteus is good too, but I
personally would only use Adium. Dump iChat as soon as you can. It's
free too btw.
Browsing -- Firefox and Safari. Which one becomes your primary browser
is up to you.
You must have Quicksilver. MUST. Free.
iTerm is a must have for serious command line users. Far superior to
the default Terminal app. Free.
RPG is a great random password generator for those security conscious
people out there.
What you keep your impossible to remember passwords in is up to you,
but I like using an encrypted page in VoodooPad (if anyone knows of a
simple text editor that supports strong encryption, please post).
Otherwise, VoodooPad is a good desktop wiki program (not quite free,
but nice).
Remind is a very cool calendaring program for command line users. I
would personally use this exclusively for my schedule if I could find a
way to sync it with my Palm.
You can find links to all of this stuff in the 43Folders wiki (with the
possible exception of RPG, just google for it). Most of the best
software on OS X is free or pretty cheap, so you shouldn't have to
break the bank to make your transition (the possible exception being
Office, but what are we gonna do?).
eric Farris
> iTerm is a must have for serious command line users. Far superior to
> the default Terminal app. Free.
so great? Not that I have any affection to Terminal.app, just curious.
Why should I switch?
> What you keep your impossible to remember passwords in is up to you,
> but I like using an encrypted page in VoodooPad (if anyone knows of a
> simple text editor that supports strong encryption, please post).
> Otherwise, VoodooPad is a good desktop wiki program (not quite free,
> but nice).
this. Keeps passwords, and has a "Secure Notes" feature too.
Jeffrey Windsor
>
> On 8/5/05, MEP <mpo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > iTerm is a must have for serious command line users. Far superior to
> > the default Terminal app. Free.
>
> I consider myself a very serious command line user... what makes iTerm
> so great? Not that I have any affection to Terminal.app, just curious.
> Why should I switch?
works, sure, and I'd use it if it's the only thing installed, but it
lacks many of the features which make iTerm so much better.
The big reason for me: tabbed term sessions. Instead of windows
littered around, I get tabs, just like in Firefox and Safari. And once
you've done tabs, baby, you never go back.
0.02.
--jw
Samuel DeVore
Jay Goodman Tamboli
> > iTerm is a must have for serious command line users. Far superior to
> > the default Terminal app. Free.
>
> I consider myself a very serious command line user... what makes iTerm
> so great? Not that I have any affection to Terminal.app, just curious.
> Why should I switch?
Terminal.app. iTerm is very slow on my machine (1.2GHz iBook), and
none of the extra features are things I use.
In a similar vein, many people have said how great Adium is. I agree,
it has many features, but I find that iChat just works. iChat's
handling of group chats is much better, and with the "balloons" and
buddy icons turned off, it's much easier to read than even the most
minimal of Adium's styles.
That said, I know it's a matter of personal preference. I'd suggest to
readers that they give different options a try, and stick with what
works best for you.
/jgt
MEP
emulation than Terminal does. I've heard that some of the problems hav
been addressed in Tiger, but Panther's Terminal app does a lousy job of
providing a VT100 terminal. It does the job for most applications, but
if you want to use some of the more advanced ANSI extensions (or if you
play NetHack like me, I'll admit I'm not trying to do something useful
with it), iTerm just does a better job of emulating a VT100 terminal. I
find that it runs pretty snappy too (on a 800mhz G3 iBook) so I don't
know why some people have experienced slowdown when they tried it. The
tabs are nice too though I rarely need them.
I know about the Notes feature in Keychain, but I don't really like it
very much. The interface window is so small and minimal and accessing
records requires that you enter your password for every record even if
the keychain is unlocked. I'm thinking about using it, but trying to
avoid it really. I'm actually wondering if I should just set up GPG
through gvim and go that route.
eric Farris
> emulation than Terminal does. I've heard that some of the problems hav
> been addressed in Tiger, but Panther's Terminal app does a lousy job of
> providing a VT100 terminal. It does the job for most applications, but
> if you want to use some of the more advanced ANSI extensions (or if you
> play NetHack like me, I'll admit I'm not trying to do something useful
> with it), iTerm just does a better job of emulating a VT100 terminal. I
> find that it runs pretty snappy too (on a 800mhz G3 iBook) so I don't
> know why some people have experienced slowdown when they tried it. The
> tabs are nice too though I rarely need them.
terminals, so I have no need of tabs, but better terminal emulation is
always welcome.
leftymacguy
it more every week.
Here are two articles I found helpful when looking at OS X software:
My OS X software inventory:
http://bradchoate.com/weblog/2004/04/14/inventory
AskTog: Make your Mac a monster machine:
http://www.asktog.com/columns/060MonsterMac.html
To which I'll add:
Audio Hijack - great for capturing any audio stream on your mac to a
file (e.g. you can record streaming-only audio, capture the audio
tracks of video files, etc.)
Azureus - Great bittorrent client in Java
Captain FTP - best file transfer I've seen for OS X, but not free, so I
didn't shell out. I've been using CyberDuck, which handles my needs
well (SFTP) and is free.
Clutter - Organize your iTunes library with actual CD cases on your
desktop.
Delicious Library - Maybe the all-time coolest app for OS X - manage a
library of your books, CDs, and DVDs. You'll want to buy it even if you
don't need it.
Disk Inventory X - graphically shows what is taking up all your disk
space.
Software development - currently mostly using PHP and MySQL.
MySQL managers - I am currently comparing CocoaMySQL (free), Navicat
($99), dbVisualizer($99) I use Access on Windows heavily and am
looking for something as rapid and intuitive for OS X/MySQL - we'll
see...
For a progammer's editor TextWrangler works fine for me so far.
Amazingly feature-rich for a free program! I've also dabbled with
Eclipse - powerful, extensible, java-based, and free. Some people like
jEdit as well.
For HTML and site management I use Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 -
among its many features are unique and superior tools for working with
CSS. Unfortunately, the OS X version is not as polished as the Windows
version (mostly interface quirks) - one of the very few times I
actually prefer the Windows version of an app.
Growl - notification framework
Fink - brings most UNIX software to your OS X Mac.
NoteTaker is an interesting notebook/outlining app - $69 I believe
I used LaunchBar which I thought was unbeatable until I discovered
QuickSilver...
I use Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection (free) to manage several
Windows servers from my PowerBook - it's very fast and seamless, a
better overall experience than VNC.
I use MenuMeters constantly to monitor at a glance network activity,
CPU and memory usage.
Saft is a supercharged enhancement for Safari that provides full-screen
mode, many more search-bar options, type-ahead page search (like
Firefox) and much more, so seamless you don't even realize it's an
add-in. I think it's $6.
Ecto is a great blog-posting tool, Gallery Remote for uploading pics to
my website, Toast Titanium for burning CDs and DVDs, Cocktail is nice
for automating housecleaning and maintenance.
I also use Apple Mail, iCal, iTunes, iPhoto, GarageBand.
Briefly on hardware:
I was given an iPod photo as a birthday present, and of course it plays
well with the PowerBook, as well as being a nice 60GB external drive
for backups and such.
I use a Sony Ericsson T616 bluetooth phone which works great with the
PowerBook and iSync - a $10 sharweware called Salling Clicker lets you
use the phone as a remote control for the PowerBook: control PowerPoint
or Keynote presentations (and see the slide notes on the phone
screen!), works as a remote for iTunes and DVD Player, automatically
pausing when a call comes in, displays the incoming phone # in large
type on-screen, etc.
Enjoy your PowerBook, an amazing machine that will make you more
productive and give you a lot of fun as well!
neilio
on the 43 Folders wiki:
<http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/OS_X_Inventories>
But, to quickly summarize here, there's are the "always running"
applications that *are not* made by the fruit:
Path Finder: File browser that I'd like to think is pretty great.* :)
<http://www.cocoatech.com/pf.php>
* Disclosure: I help the company that makes Path Finder with design and
marketing
Spell Catcher: System-wide spell checking, thesaurus, shorthand text
expansions, and tons more
<http://www.rainmakerinc.com/>
NetNewsWire: The Mother of all newsreaders
<http://www.ranchero.com/netnewswire/>
DevonThink Pro: powerful freeform database for, er, stuff
<http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/devonthink/>
WeatherMenu : weather in the menubar
<http://www.afterten.com/products/weathermenu/>
MenuCalendarClock: really nice menu-based calendar / clock
<http://www.objectpark.net/mcc.html>
And check out my OS X software inventory page (a bit outdated, but
still valid) for more:
<http://www.beatnikpad.com/archives/2004/04/25/mac_os_x_software_inventory>
Guillaume Boudreau
- jIRCii for IRC
- Adium for IM
- iCal for Calendar & reminder with phpicalendar on my webserver to be
able to see my calendar remotely
- Mail.app 2.0 for email
- Safari 2.0 fro web & RSS
- Dashboard for weather, calculator, Post-It, easy address book access,
server monitoring (phpsyninfo widget)
- iWannaSleep to put my mac to sleep after x minutes, for example when
downloading something and i know it will be done in 30 mins, i just
set 40 minutes in iWannaSleep and go to sleep myself!
- Preview for PDF viewing
- Adobe Photoshop CS for photo editing
- Chicken of the VNC as VNC client
- OSXVNC as VNC server
- Delicious Library for future insurance reclamations!
- ffmpegX for video encoding (H.264 mainly)
- FinderCleaner to eject my USB stick and clean all Mac-only files from
it before doing so
- iBackup for backups
- iPhoto for photo management
- iTunes for music play / download
- MPlayer to play videos that Quicktime Player can't
- Quicktime Players to play videos it can play!
- Quicksilver (i don't see why anybody wouldn't use that)
- Remote Desktop Connection for windows remote administration
- Roxio Toast for CD & DVD burning
- X Resource Graph, for fun
- Yummy FTP for FTP & SFTP
Switcher tips:
- In terminal: Cmd-A to go to start of line, Cmd-E to go to end of
line. Didn't find any way to scroll between words on a single line
yet...
- System Preferences > Keyboard Shorcuts to know what are the very
complicated shortcuts to take screenshots.
- Do NOT overwrite a directory thinking the files from the old
directory and the new directory will be merged as in Windows!!!
/folder1/patate/something
/folder2/patate/other
If you Cmd-C /folder2/patate in Finder, and Cmd-V it in /folder1, and
answer yes when it ask you if you want to overwrite, you'll end up with
only' other' in /folder1/patate, not both something and other like ou
would in Windows.
That's something you really need to keep in mind if you do a lot of
file / dir moving.
- Cmd= Apple key
- Cmd-Right (or Ctrl-Right) arrow = go to end of line
Cmd-Left (or Ctrl-Left) arrow = go to start of line
Option-Right arrow (Option = Alt key, also called the modifier key) =
skip one work to the right
Option-Left arrow = skip one work to the left
Shift to select, like in Windows.... So Shift-Alt-Left will select the
word to the left of your cursor.
- Home, End, PgUp & PgDn will scroll the document, but won't move the
cursor. You need to click with the mouse once you found the place you
want it to be.
There's probably others, but that's all that come to mind atm.
David Douthitt
> I'm thinking of the usual suspects: photo editing, text editing,
> coding, IM, browsing etc. etc., but the main reason I've asked here is
> that I am interested in what you guys use as you're surely amongst the
> most productivity conscious around. So what apps on OSX do you swear
> by? What helps you with your email? What couldn't you live without?
IM:
I don't. :-O
Browsing:
Camino, otherwise Firefox. Firefox is more full-featured currently.
Text Editing:
vim (an enhanced vi clone) - of course :-)
Terminal:
iTerm + screen
RSS:
NetNewsWire
Audio:
iTunes, Audacity, Wiretap Pro
Launcher:
LaunchBar (NOT QuickSilver :P )
Email:
Thunderbird
Mindmapping:
Novamind
Word processing/office:
NeoOffice/J, AppleWorks[1], Abiword, Lyx - okay, okay,
so I haven't picked one - but they're all free or
included... I lean towards NeoOffice for heavy jobs and
Abiword for lighter (every day) ones...
VNC:
OSXVNC (server side); VNCThing (mostly) - (client)
Contact Manger/Calendar:
Now Up-to-Date
System Status:
iPulse
Cache:
SquidMan (includes Squid) [2]
Timer:
Miniteur (fantastic!!)
Information Container:
Stickybrain
Contribution to Society:
Folding@Home
That should be enough, right? One thing - I tend to avoid software
that REQUIRES MacOS X 10.3 or 10.4 - since I still have a MacOS X 10.2
machine, but also as a matter of principle. I'm a strong believer in
making things work in the most systems possible - portability! Why
should one be shut out for using a program that was current only two
years ago? Grrr....
To find many of these, I would go to
http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/ and search for them. Also scan
through the Freeware column for other freeware.
[1] I can't think of it as AppleWorks (gak!) - AppleWorks was
the Apple II office suite (nice one, too, for its time)
[2] I don't go anywhere without a cache - its browser independent,
shareable within a network, and speeds up access. It can be
ESPECIALLY useful if you utilize high-speed connections first,
then use dial-up later...