5 App's you cant Live without.

jessy

Ok I New to mac's (just got my Mac mini last week ) and was just wondering if some people could list out maybe the top 5 app's that they cant live without, we had the same thread on the Windows board and it was/is very successful.
Thanks.

seagizmo

jessy wrote:

Ok I New to mac's (just got my Mac mini last week ) and was just wondering if some people could list out maybe the top 5 app's that they cant live without, we had the same thread on the Windows board and it was/is very successful.
Thanks.

Favourite App is Clutter. Order you music collection through iTunes by the Album cover.

Check it out

http://www.sprote.com/clutter/

SG

Gordon

Reason 2
Firefox
Illustrator
Photoshop
Pro-Tools

SteveFE

Five lifestyle ones:

iTunes (it's replaced my hifi and pile of CDs and records)
iPhoto (it's replaced my pile of photo albums)
Safari (it's replaced my TV )
Mail (it's replaced my pen and paper)
iChatAV (it hasn't replaced anything but I never had a way to talk to and see my dad in the States before)

If I'm allowed a further five creative ones:

Photoshop (couldn't live without it)
Illustrator (ditto)
Ableton Live (my band)
Terragen (landscape creator)
iMovie (thanks for the memories)

Clank

1/ Adium(MSN Messenger)
2/ Reason 2.5
3/ Photoshop CS
4/ Solarseek(p2p)
5/ VLC Player(plays almost all movie file types)

And of course Safari/ iTunes/ Mail/ Garageband but you should know that already

Shrimp

1/ Macromedia Fireworks
2/ A Media Player of some kind (Windows MP)
3/ MSN Messenger
4/ Mozilla
5/ SoulSeek or other P2P

Also here are a few more..

6/ Noroton Anti-Virus
7/ Lavasoft Anti-Adware/Spyware
8/ Adobe Photoshop
9/ Macromedia Dreamweaver
10/ Microsoft Office XP

These are in no particular order, but just are very handy app's. These are only a small amount of many I would chose.

kramxw

Apple Apps
iTunes
iPhoto
iSync
iMovie
Safari


3rd Party Apple Apps..................freeware @ www.macupdate.com
Clutter
Meteorologist
MenuMeters
WinSwitch
Menu Calendar
Onyx.....makes six !

deRanged

The terminal,
TexShop.


I do research and sys admin on my macs, those two are the reason I use macs.

uberwolf

Shrimp wrote:

6/ Noroton Anti-Virus
7/ Lavasoft Anti-Adware/Spyware
.

in my ignorance - I use anti-virus to protect the windoze users on my network. But anti spyware on a mac - is this an issue - I've been living in a world where firefox/safari on a mac was safe from this scourge?

also for my part I've found acquistion from versiontracker invaluable.

Jefferson Darcy

I use a lot of the following, list was pimped from vwvortex forums:


System Utilities
Desktop Manager - is one of the coolest virtual desktop pagers I've seen. If you have a Quartz Extreme capable video card, it'll do cool transitions while switching between desktops. And it's Freeware! - jerk

CodeTek Virtual Desktop - Excellent multiple-desktop utility for OS X. I don't know if I could live without multiple desktops anymore. - tulmad

Fruitmenu - Brings back the old, modifiable Apple Menu to OS X. - tulmad

FuzzyClock - New clock for the menu bar that tells time in "fuzzy" terms like "half past 5" or "10 till 3". - tulmad

Konfabulator - Desktop utility that allows you to park "widgets" all over your desktop. - VW Lou

LaunchBar - "It provides instant access to thousands of documents, folders, bookmarks and email addresses, applications and preference panes just by entering short abbreviations of the searched item's name." - ChrisMD

MacJanitor - Runs the system's 3 maintenance scripts (a must, unless you leave your comp on 24/7 without sleep mode, etc). - ilovethecure

MenuMeters - Resource meters for RAM, CPU, network, and Disk that sit in the menu bar. - tulmad

USB Overdrive - The USB driver for every mouse/gamepad/joystick. Has far more options that the standard Mouse control panel, or most manufacturer drivers for that matter. - tulmad

LittleSnitch
Extremely cool application that allows you to control connections out of your computer. Good for the extremely paranoid who like to know exactly what applications send data back home. - tulmad

Carbon Copy Cloner
Great app for saving your whole OS including home folder and settings, etc. Absolutley wonderful if you just got a new computer and want to have your exact old computer on it. I also use it as a backup, it can make a nice handy disk image. - Andrman

Fink
Bring the beauty of UNIX open source to your Mac with Darwin! Kind of confusing at first, if anyone needs help ask me because theres lots of cool free software to be had. It keeps everything in it's own folder on your disk so you can clean it all out at once if you want. I started out very confused but think it's really great now. Pair it with FinkCommander, below. Has put Terminal and X11 in my dock, if that says anything - Andrman

Ucontrol - Allows you to map keys differntly, and also allows your trackpad to scroll when you press a key (of your choice). Now supported in 10.3 Panther - Andrman


Web Apps
Transmit - Excellent FTP utility for those who don't like the command line. - CanuckPal

PithHelmet - Safari browser plugin, "PithHelmet adds some some basic but powerful content filtering to Apple's Safari browser. The basic purpose is to block ad images, but there are other potential uses as well (blocking Flash, Shockwave or horrible midi loops).". - ChrisMD

Smultron - I have been looking for a good HTML Editor for my iBook for a long time - I've used BBEdit, and I know how great it is, but I was convinced I could find something cheaper (or free) that met most of my needs. I tried nearly all of them, looking through my Apps folder: PageSpinner, SEEdit, skEdit, Taco HTML Edit, Tag, TextWrangler. Then today while looking at yet another on SourceForge (which I ended up not downloading), I found Smultron. It's awesome - if you've just been using TextEdit or one of the others I listed, then you need to try it out. - paskal


Graphic Tools
GraphicConverter - I'd be REALLY hard-pressed to find a graphics format that this program won't open/convert/edit/etc. With batch converts, slideshows, and lots of other cool features, this is one of those tools that everyone should have. - tulmad


Screen Savers
Fluid - Extremely cool liquid-like screensaver for OS X. - tulmad


Misc. Applications
Audio Hijack - Sweet program that will record sound from any application. Useful for lots of stuff, like ripping sound from mp3 streams. - tulmad

BBEdit - The ultimate text editor for MacOS (9 or X), if not really pricey ($179). - tulmad

Fire - Trillian-like IM client but doesn't allow multiple connections to same service. - ChrisMD

iPhoto Buddy - launches and creates multiple iphoto libraries. Slicker than SNOT! - Bixmen

Irssi - Console-based IRC client. Not really OS X specific, but the best IRC client I've ever used. Supports multiple windows/channels/servers, ssl, plugin support... - tulmad

MacPAR Deluxe - Finally a program that can actually handle PAR files from newsgroups well, unlike Stuffit that just chokes on them. - tulmad

Open Office - Fake Word, fake Excel and a fake Publisher type thing, umm might be a fake powerpoint thing too? - Trikes

Proteus - An easy to configure all-in-one chat client. Allows you to connect to AIM, Yahoo, IRC, etc. simultaneously. It also allows multiple connections of each, in the event you have multiple screen-names for each service. - passatrcr, update by egecko

Salling Clicker - Must-have utility for your bluetooth toys (PDA/cell phone). Supports quite a few models and it's cheap! - jerk

VLC Media Player - This is a great app for playing .avi and .wmv files. - maXor

CiphSafe
Password storage app, it encrypts the file so you don't have to worry. It's either free or donationware, but I prefer Web Confidential b/c there is a Palm verion for that too, so you can sync. - Andrman

Clutter
Simply cool app that makes virtual CDs for iTunes. You can place the CDs on your desktop and just double click them to play in iTunes. Makes you anal about getting the album art for all your songs though - Andrman

MPlayer OS X 2
Plays DIVX AVIs, Windows Media Files, pretty much everything. I only use it for what QT player doesn't like. - Andrman

Web Confidential - 30 Day Trial -
The best password storage app I've found so far. Simple as that Is keychain-savvy, so I have it import from my keychain every once in a while (it won't duplicate old entries, it just adds new ones). Once my 30 day trial is up I'm totally buying it. - Andrman

VideoLAN - Free Software and Open Source video streaming solution for every OS! DVD play back without decoder card. - Ryuujin

Phone Agent - Manage your phonebook, create/edit/receive SMS messages, create/edit MMS messages, exchange files, manage WAP bookmarks, write notes, and create/edit themes. - VW Lou

Delicious Library - by Delicious Monster for OS X. this app rocks. It catalogs your DVD, game, CD, and book library for you. you can use a DV Camera (iSight, camcorder, etc) to scan the bar codes in and the program will try to lookup all the info on amazon. It gets the cover art, synopsis, director/author, etc. Also keeps track of who has your stuff with a "checkout" card system. You can import contact info from AddressBook. Very cool program. $40 for the full version, but totally worth it. - JediCorrado

iTunes Publisher - iTunes Publisher 4 exports playlists from iTunes into the following formats: HTML, Tabbed-Text, Quicktime Streaming Server and M3U. - phishingls

Abyss - Abyss Web Server is a free personal web server for Windows, MacOS X, Linux, and FreeBSD. Despite its tiny footprint (the executable file size is less than 112 KB); it supports HTTP/1.1, dynamic content generation through CGI/1.1 scripts, SSI, custom error pages, and access control. It features also a remote web management interface that makes its configuration as easy as browsing a web site.

jessy

Excellent guys, some real good starting points here.
Now does anyone know a good free DVD ripper?

Scottish

Think someone may already have mentioned this but here is the link:

http://acquisitionx.com/

invaluable P2P. Best interface I've seen.

I would definitely agree with all the clutter comments, an excellent app.

Audioscrobbler isn't OSX exclusive, but get the iTunes plug in if you have a play a lot of music. It Automatically generates recommendations for you based on what you have played (ipod too), and gives you links to other users with similar tastes. you can then stream their personal radios. Great way to get to hear new music, and it works very well with iTunes.

Clank

Best DVD ripper is Popcorn, made by Roxio(Toast)
I used to use MactheRipper and DVD2oneX but Popcorn is much better.

Hugh_C

FCP (video editing)
Newswatcher (I'm an inveterate Usenet junkie)
Avid Media Composer (professional film / video editing)
X11 and Fink (vast amounts of *nix free / share / donateware)
Dreamweaver (html editor)

JimiMac

Sorry,
I don't have anything to add- only new to mac myself.
There have been some good suggestions but surely there must be more out there?

Clank

Well what do you want to do??
Theres loads but surely you only want the best program at doing that specific thing.
The mac software world is not like windows with e.g. 1,000 possible DVD burning apps, macs have about 10 and at least half of them are good, then theres the best, Popcorn.
Heck if your just burning data you can do it through Finder.

[nicK]

hey, i've been toying with the idea of selling my current laptop and ugrading to a 12inch powerbook for some time now. the only thing holding me back atm, is that i'll miss my online gaming.
i don't play many games but would still like to have the odd wee dabble at them now and again if i upgraded.
is this at all possible with macs?
how do they handle gaming or is it even possible to run a "windows" game on a mac?

on a side note: how do they handle torrents?

digitalninja

just ordered my powerbook:)
great useful thread...
anyone else?
I'm very interested in the fink thing because i'm a linux user, does it support anything compilable under linux?

Clank

[nicK] wrote:

hey, i've been toying with the idea of selling my current laptop and ugrading to a 12inch powerbook for some time now. the only thing holding me back atm, is that i'll miss my online gaming.
i don't play many games but would still like to have the odd wee dabble at them now and again if i upgraded.
is this at all possible with macs?
how do they handle gaming or is it even possible to run a "windows" game on a mac?

on a side note: how do they handle torrents?

Well ive got the 12" 1.33Ghz model with 1.25GB of RAM and I can quite easily play Quake 3 or Halo on almost full detail(and Starcraft!)I dont game much(ive xbox live for that) but when I do its grand.

Torrents are ok, theres about 4/5 clients out there, I use the official one(dont use torrents much)

Jefferson Darcy

Hey guys,

Someone PM'd me to ask where to obtain the apps I mentioned in my thread above. Versiontracker.com is a good resource but if you go to the cool app thread on VW Vortex at following link, it contains direct links for each app:

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=969955

su_dios

adiumx - best chat client for the mac.highly customizable
xfactor - great p2p program but i find limewire has the fastest speeds
bytecontroller - customizable itunes remote in the toolbar
shapeshifter - change the mac look to suit yourself..the new "one" theme looks great
soap - change ur icons on mac osx

everything else is standard stuff...itunes,iphoto..mail etc

safari icon is good for skinning your browser.

Camino is a better choice than safari though.
Any one know what app this guy is using to make the dock look like this?

Hugh_C

su_dios wrote:

Any one know what app this guy is using to make the dock look like this?

Konfabulator?

kramxw

su_dios wrote:

adiumx - best chat client for the mac.highly customizable
xfactor - great p2p program but i find limewire has the fastest speeds
bytecontroller - customizable itunes remote in the toolbar
shapeshifter - change the mac look to suit yourself..the new "one" theme looks great
soap - change ur icons on mac osx

everything else is standard stuff...itunes,iphoto..mail etc

safari icon is good for skinning your browser.

Camino is a better choice than safari though.
Any one know what app this guy is using to make the dock look like this?

Wonder where he got the desktop background ?

su_dios

Theres a similar one somewhere at Pixel Girl. Does confabulator affect the dock?

Clank

Use this http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/8808 .
If you leave the checkbox 'colorize the background' unchecked, it leaves it clear(the way I have mine )

tman

my most frequently used 5;

Winamp - Always the first app i run after booting up, and the last i close
Firefox 1.0 - People started getting pissed off with me in work for setting this as the default browser
Getright - best download manager i've ever used
Zonealarm - great for stopping pesky apps from accessing the internet. screws up windows network shares though...
Daemon Tools - Alcohol's built in virtual drive is good. i just prefer using this baby though

Clank

tman wrote:

my most frequently used 5;

Winamp - Always the first app i run after booting up, and the last i close
Firefox 1.0 - People started getting pissed off with me in work for setting this as the default browser
Getright - best download manager i've ever used
Zonealarm - great for stopping pesky apps from accessing the internet. screws up windows network shares though...
Daemon Tools - Alcohol's built in virtual drive is good. i just prefer using this baby though

This is for macs :rolleyes:

tman

pfft. get a windows emulator or something














i feel like such a tit right now

Maoltuile

jessy wrote:

Ok I New to mac's (just got my Mac mini last week ) and was just wondering if some people could list out maybe the top 5 app's that they cant live without, we had the same thread on the Windows board and it was/is very successful.
Thanks.

1) iTunes
2) DVD Studio Pro
3) Thunderbird
4) Toast
5) Word

6) Star Wars:KotOR
7) iPhoto
8) VLC
9) FCP
10) Quicktime Pro
11) Limewire
12) Safari
13) Firefox (multiple tabs as homepage!)

ciaranr

How about making DivX? Currently use:

MactheRipper

ffmpegX to convert to xvid

Explicit - a little app to split large vids into cd sized parts

This seems an awful long way round, is there a better way? All the apps above are excellent at what they do though, just something free and integrated would be better

Oriel

uberwolf wrote:

in my ignorance - I use anti-virus to protect the windoze users on my network. But anti spyware on a mac - is this an issue - I've been living in a world where firefox/safari on a mac was safe from this scourge?

also for my part I've found acquistion from versiontracker invaluable.

Shrimp the Gimp is a Windows user.

deevey

1. Livid BEU > video file batch convertor, really fast and FREE!!!!

2. Neuromixer > free Live video / audio mixer and video sampler

3. Fire > Multiple protocol IM program.

4. Istumbler > For when i need to send mail in a hurry

5. MorphX - free morphing program

Dave!

Good thread, worthy of a bump

What's the best video player for the Mac? eg. on my PC I have Windows Media Player and it plays everything for me, including DVDs.

I just want a simple (free) program to play videos and movies on.

Quicktime wants me to install Pro to be able to watch movies full-screen

limey_tank

VLC will play most videos nicely. It's not the best, but steadily improving.
http://www.videolan.org

Dont be at yourself

http://www.iusethis.com is a great site to keep tabs on mac software.

440Hz

Indeed, this is a good thread... in no paricular order my top 5 are:
Camino, iTunes, Photoshop CS2, ProTools, Sibelius

Other apps I cant live without:
Wiretap Pro, QuickTime, Toast, Proteus, Graphic Converter, Illustrator, Interarchy, Toucan

limey_tank

Mine are;
NeoOffice,TeXShop, BibDesk, Mail and Inkscape

Redhairedguy

1) Final Cut Pro as my numero uno!
2)iTunes
3)Microsoft Word
4)Safari
5)MacSaber

sturgo

Soundtrack Pro
Ableton Live
Reason 3
ffmpeg X
Audio Hijack

I hate to say it, but apple really lacks a good all-round media player. For functionality, Winamp and even Windows Media player pisses all over iTunes and VLC.

Hugh_C

Dunno if any of you use eBay much, but there are two tools I use a lot

JBidWatcher

and

AuctionSieve

both Java based I think. JBidWatcher keeps a track of your current auctions and can be used for sniping (yay!). AuctionSieve is a sophisticated search function which allows you easily refine your search to exclude certain keywords and sellers etc etc.

Not specifically Mac, available for all platforms.

Baud

coverflow is the bomb. Like clutter but so much better.

text wrangler is the text editor part of bbedit, and replaces text edit on any mac I use

And VLC for anything quicktime gets upset about (actually, VLC in general )

Nature Boy

Quicksilver (an application launcher (does more than just launch apps though))
Flip4Mac (Plays windows media in Quicktime)
Firefox
Handbrake/Instant handbrake (Rips DVDs to mpeg)
Adium (Chat client)

Urban Weigl

Yojimbo: essential note-keeping and information management
Nisus Writer Express: slick, fast word processor that is compatible with Word
Skype: VoIP, instant messaging and file transfers that just work
Transmit: the world's best FTP client, seriously
Transmission: lightweight BitTorrent client
LaunchBar: my application launcher of choice, though you may prefer QuickSilver (it's more full featured)

Obviously, there are many more. I tried keeping it down to 5 or 6.

You can find all of these and more at www.macupdate.com

Chardee MacDennis

1. Firefox
2. iTunes
3. VLC
4. iPhoto
5. Handbrake - DVD Ripper

Also
iSquint - converting to iPod format
iDVD - just started using this, its great
Instant Handbrake - converting from DVD to iPod format
Thunderbird
Chicken of the VLC - access to my G4 which i run w/o a monitor
snes9x - snes emulator

Hugh_C

Urban Weigl wrote:

Transmit: the world's best FTP client, seriously

Seconded. Forget about anything else for FTP.

macattack

best site for free apps that I use all the time is:

www.freemacware.com