Fav/Essential Mac Programs

[FerraraZ]

List your favorite freeware or paid applications for your Macintosh. I'll start

Skype
Perian
Flip 4 Mac

Pretty weak huh? I've only had my macbook for a week :/

 

[mmntech]

OpenOffice.org - open source office suite
Final Cut Express - video editing
Firefox
Handbreak - Video conversion
Carbon Copy Cloner - HDD Cloning
VLC - Video player, has a 64-bit version for OS X now
Gimp - Open Source photo editor, similar to Photoshop
Remote Desktop Connection - Allows remote desktop control of Windows systems
MPlayer OSX Extended - Another media player, supports multicore
Generator - Genesis/Megadrive emulator
Air Mouse - iPhone App allows remote control of Mac or PC
Dr. DivX - Free, Open Source DivX conversion software
WinClone - Cloning of BootCamp partitions
Microsoft Windows - Run it though BootCamp or VMWare

 

[sourceninja]

I use

xcode - programing
textmate - scripting
cornerstone - SVN
ichat - google talk
openoffice - office
cyberduck - ftp
tweetDeck - twitter
firefox - browser for testing
VMware Fusion - to let me run IE for testing
Oracle SQL Developer - working with oracle
Terminal - terminal

 

[Kmax82]

1Password 3
Textmate
Adium/iChat (I go back and forth)
VMWare Fusion
Safari 4 (So much faster than Firefox, I can't switch)
Photoshop CS4
Lightroom 2
Tweetie
Omnifocus
Yojimbo 2
Transmit
SequelPro
Growl
Coldfusion 9
Default Folder X
Perian
USB Overdrive
Xmarks
iStat Menus

That's a long list, but I really love all these apps.

 

[dwell]

Quicksliver
Firefox/Firebug
Growl
TextMate
DropBox
iChat
Smultron
Spaces
Charles

 

[alfa147x]

iWork
Aperture
Photoshop
Adium
Tweet Deck
Hulu
and

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Safari 4 (So much faster than Firefox, I can't switch)

Growl
Toast Titanium
VMWare
Transmit
iStat Menus

 

[suklee]

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Safari 4 (So much faster than Firefox, I can't switch)

I'm getting a bit sick of Firefox's slowness... I mean even exiting it will take 30 seconds. I can't ditch FF completely because of Firebug, but I would like to give Safari 4 an extended trial as I never really used it before. Any tips or must have plugins? Is there something like Firebug for Safari available?

 

[dwell]

Originally posted by: Kai920
I'm getting a bit sick of Firefox's slowness... I mean even exiting it will take 30 seconds. I can't ditch FF completely because of Firebug, but I would like to give Safari 4 an extended trial as I never really used it before. Any tips or must have plugins? Is there something like Firebug for Safari available?

What are you guys running that FF is so slow? From my old MBP Core Duo (not Core 2) to my Quad Xeon FF maybe loads slow the first time, but renders, quits, etc very fast. Yeah, Webkit browsers load and render a lot faster, but FF is by no means intolerable.

 

[sourceninja]

Originally posted by: Kai920

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Safari 4 (So much faster than Firefox, I can't switch)

I'm getting a bit sick of Firefox's slowness... I mean even exiting it will take 30 seconds. I can't ditch FF completely because of Firebug, but I would like to give Safari 4 an extended trial as I never really used it before. Any tips or must have plugins? Is there something like Firebug for Safari available?

Have you tried the safari developer tools? I've found I can do almost everything I need with those.

 

[MagicConch]

delicious library 2 - don't use it much but i love the idea of bar code scanning via camera

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: Chris

What are you guys running that FF is so slow? From my old MBP Core Duo (not Core 2) to my Quad Xeon FF maybe loads slow the first time, but renders, quits, etc very fast. Yeah, Webkit browsers load and render a lot faster, but FF is by no means intolerable.

For me it's just the polish. I don't like the default FF view, and when I load up themes, they don't always render correctly right at first. Sometimes they take a second or so to pile themselves on top of the browser. Most JS heavy sites are slower, not by a lot, but enough that it's noticeable. Memory leaks... I have to Quit and relaunch FF multiple times during a day, as it's not unusual for it to hit 500MB or more of RAM. I also really like the Top Sites view in Safari 4.

Originally posted by: Kai920

I'm getting a bit sick of Firefox's slowness... I mean even exiting it will take 30 seconds. I can't ditch FF completely because of Firebug, but I would like to give Safari 4 an extended trial as I never really used it before. Any tips or must have plugins? Is there something like Firebug for Safari available?

Safari AdBlock or GlimmerBlocker
Xmarks (syncs between Safari, FF and IE)
ClickToFlash
Glims


That's really all I use.. I agree with sourceninja.. Safari Developer Tools is pretty darn good.

 

[dwell]

Originally posted by: Kmax82
For me it's just the polish. I don't like the default FF view, and when I load up themes, they don't always render correctly right at first. Sometimes they take a second or so to pile themselves on top of the browser. Most JS heavy sites are slower, not by a lot, but enough that it's noticeable. Memory leaks... I have to Quit and relaunch FF multiple times during a day, as it's not unusual for it to hit 500MB or more of RAM. I also really like the Top Sites view in Safari 4.

First thing I do on a fresh FF is install the GrApple theme:

http://www.takebacktheweb.org/

Gives FF a native look.

I'll try those adblock and xmarks on Safari. Those are the only two addons I use in FF (aside from Firebug).

 

[mmntech]

Originally posted by: Kai920

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Safari 4 (So much faster than Firefox, I can't switch)

I'm getting a bit sick of Firefox's slowness... I mean even exiting it will take 30 seconds. I can't ditch FF completely because of Firebug, but I would like to give Safari 4 an extended trial as I never really used it before. Any tips or must have plugins? Is there something like Firebug for Safari available?

Do you have pipelining turned on?
http://egonitron.com/2007/05/2...efox-pipelining-trick/

Anybody tried Arora yet? I'm just downloading it now. Supposedly has built in ad blocking and runs on the same engine as Safari and Chrome.
http://code.google.com/p/arora/

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: Chris

First thing I do on a fresh FF is install the GrApple theme:

http://www.takebacktheweb.org/

Gives FF a native look.

I'll try those adblock and xmarks on Safari. Those are the only two addons I use in FF (aside from Firebug).

Yea, I use those themes as well. They look great, but they don't always load right away. I know I'm nitpicking, but it just annoys me..

Originally posted by: mmntech

Do you have pipelining turned on?
http://egonitron.com/2007/05/2...efox-pipelining-trick/

Anybody tried Arora yet? I'm just downloading it now. Supposedly has built in ad blocking and runs on the same engine as Safari and Chrome.
http://code.google.com/p/arora/

I had that turned on on a previous install, but never used FF much to test it.. I'll give it a shot again.

Also, don't get me wrong, I'm not a FF hater, I just prefer Safari most of the time.

 

[TheBiggmann]

I'm gonna acknowledge myself as being in the minority with this right away, but i don't like the Safari GUI. I run FF with the Noia extreme skin, and I love it. Give it a shot.

 

[suklee]

Originally posted by: mmntech
Do you have pipelining turned on?
http://egonitron.com/2007/05/2...efox-pipelining-trick/

No I don't - from what I can see it allows me to load pages faster? That's not as much of an issue as starting/exiting Firefox. When I exit FF I'll just get the beachball for a good 20 or 30 seconds before it finally shuts down. (I can cmd-tab to other apps while this happens - os x is not frozen while FF exits... it's just that FF takes a long time to shut down)

 

[secretanchitman]

acorn (easy to use image editor/maker, free to use after trial expires)
adium (all-in-one chat client...incredibly customizable)
cyberduck (ftp client)
transmission (bittorrent client)
vlc (open source video player, plays almost any format)
dropbox (lets you drop files so you can access it anywhere online)
camino (another browser, mozilla based)
firefox (web browser)
frostwire (limewire/p2p client, but open-source and free)
remote desktop connection (lets you rdp into windows machines)
skype (lets you chat/video chat with anyone who has skype for free)
flip4mac (plugin that lets you play .wmv)
podworks (essential for copying back music from your ipod/iphone/touch to your computer)
synergy (popup that displays what song you are going to next on itunes)
caffeine (makes screen not go to screen saver or dim - handy when watching videos)
smartreporter (smart hdd status)
menu meters (puts memory/cpu/hdd/network status on menu bar)
the unarchiver (equivalent to winzip/winrar/7zip)
glimmer blocker (free plugin that blocks ads)
growl (notification system - lets you have info whenever/wherever/whatever you want)
perian (free plugin that lets quicktime play several formats)
microsoft mouse (need my forward/back)
connect360 (streams my music, movies, pictures to my xbox 360 flawlessly)
medialink (streams my music, movies, pictures to my ps3 flawlessly)
handbrake (converts my videos to whatever format i want)
toast titanium (all in one cd/dvd burner)
appzapper (lets me get rid of applications easily, along with their extra/hidden files)

updated so people dont have to google

edit: added more programs i missed!

 

[scootermaster]

No one has mentioned pandorajam (stand alone pandora thingee)
transmit (best FTP client, great for remote editing files that on systems with public-key SSH access but no SFTP)
textwrangler (like BBEdit but simpler, free)
transmission (torrents)
cyberduck (FTP for normal usage/websites)
terminal (terminal)
jaikoz (mp3 tagger, not perfect, but does save some effort)
growl[tunes]

There's a couple on the list that I don't know about...iStat Menus? Charles? Yojimbo? Synergy? Dropbox? Menu meters?

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: scootermaster
No one has mentioned pandorajam (stand alone pandora thingee)
transmit (best FTP client, great for remote editing files that on systems with public-key SSH access but no SFTP)
textwrangler (like BBEdit but simpler, free)
transmission (torrents)
cyberduck (FTP for normal usage/websites)
terminal (terminal)
jaikoz (mp3 tagger, not perfect, but does save some effort)
growl[tunes]

There's a couple on the list that I don't know about...iStat Menus? Charles? Yojimbo? Synergy? Dropbox? Menu meters?

iStat Menus: Made by iSlayer, this will put information in your Menubar. Things like RAM usage, HDD usage, Temps, CPU %, Network stuff... lots of stuff.
Charles: No idea
Yojimbo: Sort of like Evernote I think, seems to be a sort of quick note organizer thing
Synergy: I think this is where you have VNC on 2 machines and you can use them both at the same time with one set of keyboard/mouse
Dropbox: Free 2GB online storage. I use it for some of my pictures.
MenuMeters: See iStat Menus, but different maker, and I am not as fond of it.

 

[dwell]

Originally posted by: TheStu
Charles: No idea

Charles is a debugging proxy. Sort of like Firebug but with more features for net call debugging, like ssl, saving sessions, etc.

 

[MotionMan]

Other than the built-ins (Mail, Safari, iChat, iPhoto, iCal, iTunes), on my laptop I have:

Cyberduck
Handbrake
LogMeIn
Microsoft Office
NeoOffice
Parallels (with Windows XP (for work))
RightZoom
SplashID
VLC
Yahoo! Messenger

(I believe have a few others only on my Mini at home. I may edit this post when I get home.)

MotionMan

 

[MovingTarget]

Other than the usual programs that come preinstalled with OSX, I use:

Firefox
Colloquy
Adium
Caffiene
BOINC
MS Office (got cheap at university)
TeXshop
Chicken Of The VNC
Geektool

 

[scootermaster]

Some others, since people stopped describing what they do:

SequelPro
Default Folder X
USB Overdrive
Xmarks
USB Overdrive
Xmarks
Acorn
frostwire
glimmer blocker
Colloquy
BOINC
TexShop (I'm guessing this is a LaTeX tool...if it's a GOOD latex tool -- which are impossible to find -- it may be a lifesaver)
geektool

I have a hack, so many of those monitoring tools don't seem to work, unless people have any experience with ones that do.

 

[MovingTarget]

Originally posted by: scootermaster
Some others, since people stopped describing what they do:

SequelPro
Default Folder X
USB Overdrive
Xmarks
USB Overdrive
Xmarks
Acorn
frostwire
glimmer blocker
Colloquy
BOINC
TexShop (I'm guessing this is a LaTeX tool...if it's a GOOD latex tool -- which are impossible to find -- it may be a lifesaver)
geektool

I have a hack, so many of those monitoring tools don't seem to work, unless people have any experience with ones that do.

TeXshop is indeed a LaTeX tool. Honestly, it is the best I've ever used...on any platform (as I am also a heavy Linux user).

http://sourceforge.net/projects/texshop/

 

[suklee]

Few others that are *essential*, and sitting on my top menu bar:

Little Snitch - software firewall http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch

UTC Global Clock - has timers, stopwatches, calendars, you name it - basically everything related to time. Plus the developer has amazing support - http://www.aquiladigital.us/UTC/

Dropbox - besides the free 2gb online storage, the key feature is that it automatically syncs all the files in the DB folder to any and all computers (PC, Mac, Linux) that you have the client installed on. http://www.getdropbox.com (plus if you sign up with a referral link, you get an extra 250MB space I think? I'm up to 3.5GB free storage)

SizeUp - quickly resize windows, move them across spaces/monitors. http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/

Adium - decent chat program. (I wish Digsby would come out with a version, but this signup page has been up forever. Anyone hear any news about a Mac Digsby?)

smcFanControl - shows me my MBP's CPU temp + fan RPMs. http://www.eidac.de/?p=134