Essential OS X Applications
15th Mar 2009, 08:26:33
I don't have to do a Mac OS install too often, but last week we finally retired the old G4 iMac, to be replaced by a nice new Early 2009 Mac mini. I thought this would be a good time to do one of those really lame 'Essential software for your Mac' articles.
In no particular order:
- TextWrangler. The replacement for BBEdit lite, this is the best free text editor for the Mac OS and possibly the best full stop.
- VMWare Fusion. Not free, but for £40.00, it's the easiest way to get Windows on your Mac for those annoying little jobs that require it. I'm looking at you, Cisco.
- JBidwatcher. An eBay auction sniper/tracker.
-
MacPorts. A very easy way to get UNIX software installed on your Mac. OpenVPN is just
a
sudo port install openvpn2away. - Transmission. An excellent BitTorrent client for downloading completely legal, fully licenced music and films.
- Perian. A really easy to install collection of QuickTime video codecs to play back the videos downloaded with Transmission. Got a DivX with no audio? This is your fix.
- Adium. Best IM client ever. Includes Growl, a superb alerting system - good fun to play about with.
- globalSAN iSCSI initiator. Not that exciting I guess, but I find it essential.
- Flip4Mac. Play those .wmv files your Dad emails to you.
- Caffiene. Is your Mac's display blanking while you're watching the iPlayer? Help is at hand.
- Carbon Copy Cloner. Create a complete, bootable copy of your Mac's hard disk.
- Chicken of the VNC. VNC Client, essential if you do remote support.
- Vine Server. VNC server.
- Cyberduck. Great little (S)FTP client.
- Handbrake. Shrink DVDs so they play on your Mobile phone and stuff.
- KisMAC-NG. Very powerful wireless stumbler/sniffer/cracker.
- Mactracker. When your Uncle phones and needs to know what kind of RAM to buy for his eMac.
- On My Command. Create your own context menus.
- OmniGraffle. Great diagramming application, also imports Microsoft Visio files. This is a pay for app, but worth it.
- Sequel Pro. Nice GUI for MySQL databases.
- Sidenote. Gives a persistent, collapsable tray for making notes in.
1 Archived Comment
29th Apr 2009, 10:48:00 by Karen
Versions is a great SVN client: http://versionsapp.com/