Essential Mac Apps
I’m trying to stay in the habit of taking notes as I make changes to my machines. I thought I would post a list of the most useful Mac apps for anyone looking for suggestions:
- uControl 1.3.7 - A must for turning Caps-Lock into another Control key. There’s also a great new “Virtual Scroll Wheel” feature for us laptop users.
- SSHKeychain 0.4 - I like the interface better than SSHAgent.
- LaunchBar 3.3b2 - Still the best $20 tool I’ve ever bought.
- Fink 0.6.2 - Debian packages for OSX, huzzah!
- Fire 0.32.h - Best multi-protocol IM client I’ve found (it still has connection issues though).
- NetNewsWire 1.0.6 - RSS feed reader (and blogging client) extrodanaire.
- Palm Desktop 4.1 - Looks a lot better than the default 4.0 which shipped with my Tungsten T.
- iSync Palm Conduit 1.2 - Go go gadget iSync!
- Mozilla 1.6a - I do all my offline mail with Mozilla. 1.4 was pretty good. 1.5 added some nice features but was unstable as all heck. I can’t complain about 1.6a so far. I have switched to Safari for a majority of my web browsing though (it’s so damn fast!)
- OmniOutliner 2.2.6 - Great simple outlining tool.
- OmniGraffle 3.0.2 - ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC DIAGRAMMING TOOL!
- Office vX + 10.1.2, 10.1.4, 10.1.5 Updates - Say what you want about it, Word works pretty well for what I need it for.
- MeetingMaker 7.3 - Corporate standard, although I’m not sure if 7.3, 7.5, or 8.0 is the most current one compatible with our server.
- Quicken 2003 - Different interface than Windows, but works all right. Amazon reviews the 2004 version as buggy as hell…a continuing trend in Intuit software…
- Photoshop Elements - $99 for everything I ever used in Photoshop in college, how can you go wrong!
- MacMAME 0.74u2 - Everyone needs a Ms. PacMan emulator!
In addition to these, I’ve become a big fan of the following built-in tools:
- iPhoto - Brainlessly easy.
- Address Book - The Bluetooth integration with my phone is very useful in meetings.
- iCal - I look forward to doing more Publish/Subscribe with people.
- iTunes - Of course.
- Safari - Enough little niceties to keep me around.
On this new system I have specifically not installed WindowShadeX (I’m convinced that it’s “APE” API led to a massive slowdown on my old install. Also, as I said earlier, I’m avoiding CodeWeaver’s VirtDestkop; even though it’s reasonably solid, I’m trying things STEVES WAY.
I hope you find some useful items here.
