OK, I think this should be my last post on Macs for a while. Here are the “must-have” applications I’ve downloaded for OS X on my MacBook so far:
- Of course the requisite browsers, Firefox and Opera.
- Adium for multi-protocol instant messaging, plus Skype, which I use only rarely
- Textwrangler for code and text editing.
- In the file transfer arena, Cyberduck for FTP and Fugu for SSH, though I more often just use command-line FTP or the FireFTP plugin.
- GMail Notifier for Mac puts a notification icon in the menu bar; I don’t use Mail.app at all.
- KisMAC for passive wireless network sniffing, though the current build seems a bit unstable on Leopard and has crashed several times.
- Zipeg for the odd unarchiving job.
- VLC for video playback, and I also upgraded QuickTime to Pro for the extra features.
- Second Life runs okay on Leopard with the Intel GMA X3100 integrated video but I have experienced more than a few crashes on exit.
- Just two custom dashboard widgets in addition to what was already installed: iStatPro for insightful system monitoring, and SlothCam for a quick look at the outside.
- For the “fun” category, I binged on Sudden Motion Sensor apps and games like Skip Checker, LiquidMac, MacSaber, Tunnel, Tilt Scream Pong, and SeisMac.
- I haven’t tried many free non-tilt games yet, but MicroBop and Armagetron have been pretty fun.
Graphics-wise, much to my dismay, my old licensed copy of Photoshop 7 does not work on Leopard, so I guess I’ll have to save up for a new copy of CS3. Or is Pixelmator any good?
Anything else I should be getting? I especially want to try more Sudden Motion Sensor apps. (And don’t say Bubblegym. Man, that was an annoying one.)
2 Comments
Here are some of my favorites:
Caffeine – http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/caffeine.html One click menu bar button that prevents your mac from dimming or going to sleep. Useful for when you are doing lots of reading.
AirRadar – http://www.koingosw.com/products/airradar.php Like kisMac.
The Unarchiver – http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/theunarchiver.html for RAR and other file formats.
Flip4Mac – http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv_download.htm to play WMV files in Quicktime.
Perian – http://www.dvguru.com/2006/09/29/play-almost-any-format-using-quicktime/ for everything else!
SmartSVN – http://www.syntevo.com/smartsvn/download.html;jsessionid=5C3C74665866946500C0664B62FB8D3C Same SVN client we use at work!
Burn – http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/ for burning discs.
I checked my Applications folder and came up with …
Zoom for text-based Interactive fiction.
Hahaha! :)