Cool Mac stuff

last updated 12/30/07

These are some of my favorite Mac programs. Some are free; the ones that aren’t are, in my opinion, well worth the money.

  • Adium: A multi-protocol instant messaging program. Works with any IM service you can think of, from AOL to Yahoo to Google. If you aren’t using audio or video chat, there’s nothing better. Free.
  • Audacity: Cross-platform sound editor. Very handy if you need to record and manipulate sound and don’t want to deal with GarageBand. Free.
  • AppZapper: Deletes preferences and caches normally left behind when you uninstall applications. $12.95.
  • Audio Hijack Pro: Captures the audio from any program and saves it to disk in the format of your choice. Great for recording internet radio streams. You can even set recording schedules. $32.
  • Camino: OS X web browser from Mozilla. Faster than Firefox and with a more Apple-like user interface. Free.
  • Colloquy: The Adium of IRC clients. Intuitive and customizable. Free.
  • Cyberduck: FTP client. Not as fancy as Transmit, but infinitely less expensive. Free.
  • Delicious Library: Cataloging software for your books, movies, music, and games. You can scan barcodes with your webcam. Enough said. $40.
  • ecto: Blogging client that works with all major weblog software. Easier to manage things here than in a web control panel. $17.95.
  • Handbrake: Convert DVDs to MPEGs. Free.
  • Logic: Apple’s digital audio workstation. Phenomenal bit of software — for most users, even Express can hold its own against Digital Performer and Pro Tools. $499 for Logic Studio, $199 for Logic Express.
  • NetNewsWire: I’ve tried five or six different RSS readers, and this one is still my favorite. The three-panel view is perfect, and the keyboard shortcuts are easy and intuitive. $29.95, with a free Lite version.
  • OpaqueMenuBar: Fixes the ugly-as-balls translucent menu bar in Leopard. Free.
  • Quicksilver: A bit hard to explain — ostensibly, it’s an application launcher, but it can launch and manipulate all sorts of files. Similar to Spotlight, you assign it a key combo, and upon invoking it you type what you’re looking for into a search box. QS integrates with bookmarks, IM contacts, applications, and much more. Download it and give it a chance; your productivity will go through the roof. Free.
  • Parallels Desktop: Runs Windows and OS X simultaneously. It even works with your Boot Camp partition. Not recommended for gaming. $79.99.
  • Quinn: “Quinn is an implementation of a popular falling-blocks game which, according to the Tetris Company, must not be named here.” Great graphics and interface, customizable, and even includes network play. Free.
  • SuperDuper!: Creates a bootable backup of your hard drive. Note that they’re still working on making it Leopard-compatible. $27.95.
  • Remote Buddy: Free your Apple Remote from the shackles of Front Row, and use it to do pretty much whatever you want. Compatible with third-party hardware, including — joy of joys — the Nintendo Wii Remote. €19.99.
  • Taco HTML Edit: Nifty program for editing HTML. Features a tag wizard, color coding, and more. Free.
  • TextMate: The gold standard in Mac text editors. If you do any kind of coding, you’ll want this. €39.
  • VLC: Probably the only media player you’ll ever need. Supports a staggering number of audio and video formats. Free.
  • VoodooPad: A wiki that lives on your hard drive. Create a bunch of intertwined documents that link to each other automatically. Great for note-taking. $29.95.
  • WhatSize: Utility that measures how much space all of your folders are taking up. Invaluable for cleaning your hard drive. Free, or $12.99 for “System Administrator functionality.”
  • Xtorrent: Makes searching for and downloading files via BitTorrent painless and stupidly easy. Even with great clients like Azureus around, it’s worth paying for. $24.