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  • Favorite Mac Software

    What software do you use with your Mac?
    I'm always looking for things to try out.
    I found one list here ... bestmacsoftware.org ... but I want to know what others are using. I like handbrake so far. I watched a video about quicksilver but don't know if I'll use it. Basically I use iLife and Firefox.
    just started: mililaniblog.com

  • #2
    Re: Favorite Mac Software

    I'm going to type this list without links because I'm in kind of a hurry. Sorry.

    I use a school-issued MacBook, and I have to turn it in every so often, which means that every so often, I have to re-add the software I consider essential. Among the necessities:
    • Cyberduck (FTP client). I actually paid for Fetch, but that copy was stolen and I was going to write the company and try to negotiate a discount on a new license, but I think I like Cyberduck a lot better now. Fetch was good because it was the old standby and very familiar, but Cyberduck is just a lot more user-friendly.
    • JPEGDeaux (slideshow viewer). I was a huge fan of JPEGView, which was "postcardware." The author asked that you pay for the software, if you wanted, by sending him a postcard from where you lived. This thing is a fast, light, fairly flexible image viewer I use almost every day.
    • The eMusic downloader. This is extremely use-specific: It's the downloading client for eMusic.com, a service I subscribe to.
    • Flock (web browser). I'm not as enamored of Flock as I used to be, but I like what it's trying to do.
    • FireFox (web browser). Because two browsers are not enough.
    • KisMAC (WiFi detector).


    There are a few others, but they escape me at the moment.
    But I'm disturbed! I'm depressed! I'm inadequate! I GOT IT ALL! (George Costanza)
    GrouchyTeacher.com

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    • #3
      Re: Favorite Mac Software

      Wow. I should wait 'til I'm home at my Mac to answer this, but...
      • Growl. A utility for OSX that centralizes and... well, makes pretty assorted notifications for several applications. Sometimes when I'm looking for an odd app to do something, I'll start with apps that support Growl, just so I have only one unified set of alerts and windows to deal with.
      • Coda. A one-window all-in-one website code editor. I tend to shy away from all-in-one approaches to software, but the folks behind Coda, Panic, already created a lot of the laser-focused single-task apps I use regularly, so of course they did a fantastic job making one tool that does everything.
      • Transmit. A very nice, extensible, FTP client, by Panic. Don't use it as much since Coda does FTP, too, but... one of my first OSX software purchases.
      • Audio Hijack Pro. An all-around fantastic Swiss army knife for hacking audio on a Mac. Does plenty of things, but the trick that sold me was the ability to record and save anything coming through the audio card/port/whatever. Streaming internet radio, VOIP conversations, what have you.
      • Fission. By the same folks that gave us Audio Hijack Pro, a dead simple audio editor. Simple as in, cut, paste, delete. The trick? It's lossless. If I want to cut the middle out of an MP3, I can do so, without having to recompress and further degrade the audio in the process.
      • Quicksilver. The must-have utility for OSX that's so good and popular, everyone says Apple should just buy 'em and throw their stuff into the operating system. Thing is, I've barely scratched the surface with this. Basically, you can do everything you do on your Mac, faster. Keyboard shortcuts for everything. And I do love keyboard shortcuts.
      • Skitch. Simple screen captures. From the folks who brought you Comic Life (now included with Macs).
      • Snapz Pro X. Motion screen captures.
      • Adium. A cross-platform IM client. And yes, it supports Growl!
      • Handbrake. DVD to iPod. 'Nuff said.
      • iStumblr. Wi-Fi network detection.
      • Parallels. When you have to run Windows.
      • Adobe Photoshop. Oh, so vital. Oh so expensive.
      By the way, Mitchell... have you tried the free text editor Scrivener?

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      • #4
        Re: Favorite Mac Software

        Besides the standards....

        Music - ProTools, Amadeus
        Video - Final Cut Pro
        Photos - Adobe Photoshop

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        • #5
          Re: Favorite Mac Software

          It's good to read about software out there on the Mac. There is so much that i mostly just read about great little progs from magazines like MacWorld and MacLife. I always like finding cool little gems... in addition to the ones already listed heres a few

          seems like we all have a different favorite FTP program mine is:
          • Yummy - I switched to yummy after using CyberDuck. CB would timeout ever so often and i had to redo. yummy will keep trying, so you don't have to watch it
          • ImageWell - Taken from their website:
            ImageWell is a small, but powerful, image editing application that lets you quickly
            resize, crop, watermark, edit your images, take screenshots and then upload them
            to the web, save to your computer or email them to a friend. ImageWell also lets
            you annotate your images with text, shapes, arrows and lines, quickly and
            easily. And it doesn't stop there - add a drop shadow, a shaped border, flip or rotate
            your image, plus so much more
          • Alarm Clock - Wake up to any song, playlist or podcast in your iTunes libaray! Wake up peacefully with "easy wake" - a configurable option that slowly increases the volume of your alarm over time. Can wake your computer from sleep. You can even hit snooze with your apple remote!
          • Posterino - Let's you make posters with your images. Very cool.
          • LaunchBar - is a utility that provides instant access to your applications, documents, contacts and bookmarks, to your iTunes library, to search engines and more, just by entering short abbreviations of the searched item's name
          website - http://www.brianhancock.com
          blog - http://blog.brianhancock.com

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          • #6
            Re: Favorite Mac Software

            I found another list .. this one mentions a tool called scrivener ...

            http://freelanceswitch.com/working/3...tial-mac-apps/
            just started: mililaniblog.com

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            • #7
              Re: Favorite Mac Software

              I love TubeSock!

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              • #8
                Re: Favorite Mac Software

                LOGIC PRO :

                I have a love/hate relationship with this program. Too many loves and hates to list, but it's the most used program on my MAC. (besides Safari, of course)

                REASON :

                Very littel hate for this one...mostly love. Great program, amazing.

                PHOTOSHOP :

                no explanation necessary
                http://tikiyakiorchestra.com
                Need a place to stay in Hilo ?
                Cue Factory - Music for your Vision

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                • #9
                  Re: Favorite Mac Software

                  My favorite OSX software (I am not going to link these):

                  Firefox - I like this browser better than Safari, though I use that and Camino too.

                  iTunes - probably my most used app since I have the darn thing on almost all the time my Mac is on listening to music and stuff.

                  Audio Hijack Pro - ditto on what PZ said, great for saving tracks to AIFF format from places such as MySpace.com.

                  Final Vinyl - I think this is available only to people who bought Griffin's iMic device. Allows me to rip external audio sources to AIFF or MP3. Use for converting 45s and LPs to digital.

                  Disc Warrior - great utility to use when your hard drive acts up.

                  Fetch - I'm old school and I still use this old FTP client.

                  Quicktime Pro - for when I record "Lost" and other shows. Comes in handy when I have to cut out all the commercials afterward.

                  AppleWorks 6.2 - Hey its a jack of all trades app, old but works in OSX. Plus it opens all of my old ClarisWorks files.

                  Snap N Drag - out of print screen capture utility that I got from my old OSX 10.2 days that saves screen captures as JPG, PNG or TIF.

                  PageSpinner - Old school HTML editor that I use because it was and still is cheap. OSX compliant. Been using various versions of this since System 7.6 days. Published by Optima Systems.

                  Card Raider - Little utility that saved my ass after a compact flash card got corrupted with the only photos I had of Dog Chapman on it.

                  MacStumbler - I only use this in my iBook 700 to find wifi hotspots.

                  Image Capture - I prefer to use this app over iPhoto to download my photos from memory cards to my external photos hard drive.

                  miniVMac - This little emulator program allows me to run all of my old Mac Plus System 6 programs and files on my OSX computer. It launches a little window that allows you to use everything you had on a Mac Plus with System 6 as if you were on a real Plus. Mac Plus ROM image required. And yes, I still have a working Mac Plus... I was going to give it way but nobody wanted it, so I ended up keeping it.

                  DOSBox - goofy program emulator that allows you to run DOS in a Mac OSX window. Actually I think this is DOS and I use it to run a few old, old games from the DOS days of yore.


                  Classic Mac Applications
                  (OS 9 or earlier run in classic mode):

                  Adobe Photoshop - hell it still works so why upgrade? Plus I need it when I have to scan anything in since my scanner is so old and doesn't recognize anything from OSX.

                  Write Now 4.0 - my favorite word processor of all time, though I use it mainly on my old Powerbook 3400 with OS 8.6. Can save to RTF which allows manipulation of files in apps that can run on OSX.

                  Adobe Pagemaker 6.5 - my favorite DTP program of all time.
                  I'm still here. Are you?

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                  • #10
                    Re: Favorite Mac Software

                    Originally posted by pzarquon View Post
                    [*]Adobe Photoshop. Oh, so vital. Oh so expensive.[/LIST][/URL]?
                    I saw Photoshop in a Hong Kong back alley software shop selling for $4 US a few years back. No box, just a plastic sleeve. I suspected it may be pirated.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Favorite Mac Software

                      Once in a while pirated copies also surface on Craigslist and other sites. Keep away. You don't know what you are going to get.
                      I'm still here. Are you?

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                      • #12
                        Re: Favorite Mac Software

                        My most often used apps are:

                        ACDSee 2.4.2 (Windows) - still my favorite image manager
                        AutoStitch (Windows) - panoramic image stitcher
                        Azureus - my favorite bittorrent client
                        Bean - a small quick Word-compatible editor
                        Caffeine - to keep my Mac awake
                        CrossOver Mac - Windows API emulation for the few non-OS X programs I still use
                        Finder - yes it's part of the OS, but it really is the most used program of all!
                        Firefox - my primary browser - but I also use Safari, Camino, and SeaMonkey
                        GIMP - for heavy Photoshop-class work
                        Google Desktop - finds anything!
                        Google Earth - for all my hike planning and post-hike documentation
                        Handbrake - DVD ripping
                        iCal - my at-home calendar
                        iSquint - for re-encoding videos for iPod viewing
                        iStumbler - Wifi monitoring
                        iSync - for syncing my Palm and my Razr
                        iTunes - for tunes, and podcasts, and even video podcasts
                        NeoOffice - OS X version of OpenOffice
                        Preview - for viewing photos and PDFs, and occasional photo cropping
                        Seashore - a lite subset of GIMP
                        Super Duper! - super easy backup
                        TV Shows - torrents new TV episodes as soon as they appear
                        VLC - all-around media player
                        WhatSize - filesize utility, very handy when housecleaning

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Favorite Mac Software

                          Interesting to see all these little software programs.

                          I have a question for all you Mac users. I know they say that Macs don't get viruses, but do any of you use any anti-virus programs? Or programs like AdAware? etc.

                          I have an old iMac (OS 9.1) and I have never used an anti-virus program with it. I also have a PC, and I wouldn't think of going without one (or two).

                          The reason I ask is that I'm thinking of getting a new Mac (maybe MacBook Pro) soon.

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                          • #14
                            Re: Favorite Mac Software

                            Originally posted by Honoruru View Post
                            I have a question for all you Mac users. I know they say that Macs don't get viruses, but do any of you use any anti-virus programs? Or programs like AdAware? etc.

                            I have an old iMac (OS 9.1) and I have never used an anti-virus program with it. I also have a PC, and I wouldn't think of going without one (or two).

                            The reason I ask is that I'm thinking of getting a new Mac (maybe MacBook Pro) soon.
                            no to be smug in any way, but i've been running Macs for 6yrs with no virus software and NEVER had a problem. There's been "proof of concept" viri but nothing that's actually propagated in the real world in OSX. Also i don't even think adware or spyware exist on a Mac.
                            website - http://www.brianhancock.com
                            blog - http://blog.brianhancock.com

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                            • #15
                              Re: Favorite Mac Software

                              Originally posted by AlohaKine View Post
                              I saw Photoshop in a Hong Kong back alley software shop selling for $4 US a few years back. No box, just a plastic sleeve. I suspected it may be pirated.
                              Gee...ya think ?
                              http://tikiyakiorchestra.com
                              Need a place to stay in Hilo ?
                              Cue Factory - Music for your Vision

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