For those new to the mac [Archive]

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wastern

10-02-2006, 03:49 PM

I talk to more and more people these days that are new to the platform or interested in it. A big issue they have is knowing what programs to use, so I figured I'd start a thread to get people off the ground.

Feel free to add to it.

Office (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc):

MS Office -
The obvious one. Microsoft makes it, it will work flawlessly between Windows and OS X, probably the best choice for power users and those the often deal with multiple environments

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/office2004/office2004.aspx?pid=office2004

iWork -
This is Apple's first step into a modern office solution (Appleworks was looking really dated). It consists of Page and Keynote, a word processor and a Powerpoint type application. Keynote is great, but Pages as a slight learning curve on it, especially if you come from MS Office

http://www.apple.com/iwork/

iWork does not have a spreadsheet application. however if you are looking for on that fits with the iWork style, give Tables a look

http://www.x-tables.eu/more/overview.html

OpenOffice -
I'm sure you've all heard of it and know what it is. Its a good all around free solution, however as of now you need to have X11 installed (its easy to do and free, but kind of a pain and the app doesn't look quite native). Rumor has it the next version to be released for the Mac will be native, that will be amazing

http://www.openoffice.org/

NeoOffice -
This is just OpenOffice with out a need for X11. The last version was crap, but I think the new beta out is pretty decent. It will be interesting to see if there is further development after OO.o goes native

http://www.neooffice.org/

Audio/Video Players

iTunes -
Plays music and now videos. You already have it, you know it, I won't waste time here. Other full featured music players are hard to come by on the Mac because no one feels they can outdo iTunes, no ones sees a need and everything is already so well integrated with it

http://www.apple.com/itunes/

Quicktime -
The video (and audio) player for the Mac. with the right plugins you can make it do much more. More on that later. Upgrading to Quicktime Pro will give you a few nice editing features as well as a wide variety of output formats and settings, its good to have around

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/mac.html

Flip4Mac -
This is a Quicktime plugin that allows you to play Windows Media files. The new version works great. Microsoft stopped development of their player for the Mac and handed things over to the Flip4Mac people and they did a nice job

http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv_upgrades.htm

Divx -
Divx plugin for Quicktime, not much to say here

http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/

Perian -
The new kid on the block, you may have seen it posted on digg not long ago. This will add Divx, FLV, and other codecs you may want. I haven't installed yet. Really the only thing I can think I'd want out of it is the FLV support

http://www.perian.org/

VLC -
The play it all player. If it won't play in Quicktime give this guy a try.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Mplayer -
Not used too much, but sometimes it may come in handy. Similar to VLC

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html

Real Player -
You don't use this for much, but sometimes you need it. All I have to say about it is this -- It doesn't suck as bad as it does for Windows. Downloading it is still a pain though

http://www.real.com/

p2p

Acquisition -
This is the best looking, fastest, most useful P2P app I've ever come across. It uses the gnutella network, but also added support for torrents. However, if you don't pay the shareware fee is has some awful nagware, its a big turn off to most people that don't pay up front.

http://www.acquisitionp2p.com/

Acqlite -
A free open source version of Acquisition. It isn't quite as pretty of feature rich, but it gets the job done

http://acqlite.sourceforge.net/

Limewire -
If this is in your dock people will instantly know you're new to the Mac, but use it if you wish

http://www.limewire.com/

Xtorrent -
The newest torrent app out there for the mac, from the same guy that makes Acquisition. Its free for now while in beta. It brings the ease of standard P2P apps to the world of torrents. Its nice.

http://www.xtorrentp2p.com/

Azureus -
You know this one

http://azureus.sourceforge.net/

Some other torrent software
http://www.bitsonwheels.com/
http://sarwat.net/bittorrent/
http://transmission.m0k.org/
http://www.bitrocket.org/

Other P2P
http://www.igotcha.org/download.php
http://gottsilla.net/poisoned.php
http://cabos.sourceforge.jp/
http://www.frostwire.com/

Utilities

Disk Utility -
This is already on your system (/Applications/Utilities/). It will allow you to verify your disks, partition, create software raids, burn iso and dmg files to disk, repair permissions, etc. You can also (and sometimes need to) boot off your OS X install CD to run the app, it is located in the Utilities menu once the desktop boots from the CD

OynX -
This is a great all around utility. I can't even begin to go over all the funtions, it does system maintenance, interface tweaks, etc, etc. However, be care, it is very powerful and you can overdo it and mess things up if you aren't careful. There are scripts that run in the background on the Mac at 3am, if you computer is off they don't run, OnyX can run them manually to keep your system running smoothly

http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html

App Zapper -
The missing uninstaller. Now uninstalling an application isn't hard (just drag it to the trash), but if you want to get it all (which is normally just a small preference file or a folder) you can either use Spotlight, or do it the fun way with AppZapper. Just drag the app you want to get rid of onto it, it will find what needs to go and "zap" it. You'll be installing apps just to "zap" them

http://appzapper.com/

FontExplorerX -
If you are a pro, or just have a lot of fonts, you need this. Font Book that comes with the Mac kind of sucks for font management. Best of all, its free.

http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX

Quicksilver -
This is a hard one to explain. Think of it as part application launcher, part everything on your system rolled into one. It allows you to perform tasks with many of your apps without ever opening them. Its takes some time to learn, but once you do you'll work faster and easier then you ever though possible

http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/

Graphics

Photoshop -
Or I should actually mention the whole CS2 suite of apps. I don't think this needs a description

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/

Graphics Converter -
I don't use it, but many swear by it. Give it a look

http://www.lemkesoft.com/en/graphcon.htm

MacGimp -
The Gimp for OS X. If you're too cheep to buy Photoshop or are an open source fan this is the way to go.

http://www.macgimp.org/

Comic Life -
This is just fun. Make your own comics with simple drag and drop. Its a very interactive app with sound effects and all, its a joy to use and produces some really great results

http://plasq.com/

Browsers

Safari -
Comes with the mac. Its the fastest browser on the mac, bar none. Use it for a week, you'll fall in love

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/safari/

Firefox -
I shouldn't have to tell anyone here about this

you know where to get it

Camino -
The mozilla folks made a browser just for the mac. The story I heard was that this browser gave them the idea for Firefox. If you want gecko with more of a mac style, this is it. Still needs some work imo.

http://www.caminobrowser.org/

Opera -
Yet another cross platform browser, and the true innovators of the web browser

http://www.opera.com/

OmniWeb -
You can tell this one was made for the mac, drawers, thumbnail tabs, etc, etc.

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/

Shiira -
A Safari clone with lots and lots of extras. Its worth the download for the page turning effect alone. It never quite seems finished though

http://hmdt-web.net/shiira/en

iCab -
Yet another browser

http://www.icab.de/

Other Internet Stuff

NetNewsWire -
A nice full featured RSS reader with integrated web browser. You can catch up on everything without ever leaving this app.

http://www.newsgator.com/NGOLProduct.aspx?ProdID=NetNewsWire

NewsFire -
Another RSS reader for the minimalist. Very slick interface. Newsfire also adds support for audio and video feeds. I use this app to watch the Rev3 shows.

http://www.newsfirerss.com/

Vienna -
A free solution for your RSS needs.

http://www.opencommunity.co.uk/vienna2.php

Transmit -
The end all beat all of FTP clients. Widgets, drop zones, drop dock, server side editing (open stuff from Transmit right in Photoshop or your text editor and get live update on your site as you save). Anything you can think of with FTP this will probably do

http://www.panic.com/transmit/

Cyberduck -
Free FTP. A nice app that gets the job done. There is a widget out there for this one as well.

http://cyberduck.ch/

Theres more coming, but I need to take a break from typing for a while.

phatlip12

10-02-2006, 03:55 PM

Great thread, I'll make this a sticky. :)

wastern

10-02-2006, 04:00 PM

Great thread, I'll make this a sticky. :)

cool. thanks. Once my mind comes back together I'll get to more of the "fun" apps

rockstarlk

10-02-2006, 08:32 PM

Damn this topic is great..
Hope to see more kool appz!

jdhore

10-02-2006, 08:44 PM

yeah, this topic is REALLY useful...i wish something like this was around when i started with Mac like a year ago

wastern

10-02-2006, 09:35 PM

Other internet Continued

RBrowser Lite -
Yet another FTP client to play with

http://www.rbrowser.com/

KisMAC -
Feeling like doing some wardriving or cracking your neighbors WEP key (not that would would of course), This is your app. Although not all internal Airport cards are supported at the current time, check the site for more info

http://kismac.de/

Chicken of the VNC -
A nice little open source VNC viewer of the Mac. Easy to use and it supports Bonjour which make VNC on your home network, or even over a VPN a breeze.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc/

OSXvnc -
To go along with Chicken of the VNC. OSXvnc is a VNC server you can run on your Mac. Yes, yes, I know OS X can do this out of the box, but this makes it a little nicer and easier.

http://www.redstonesoftware.com/products/vine/vineosx/

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some Unsorted

Stuffit Expander -
You'll need this without question. It will allow you to open up just about any archive file (.sitx, .tgs, .zip, .rar, .bin, .sit, .tar, etc). OS X handles Zip files and the standard unix stuff, Stuffit does the rest. You don't want the full version of stuffit, it sucks and breaks things. The Expander version is free and works great though.

http://www.stuffit.com/mac/expander/

UnRarX -
This app is made just for Rar files. 99% of your stuff will work with Stuffit, but if you have a stubborn one, give this little guy a try

http://unrarx.sourceforge.net/

CDFinder -
If you ever archive data on to CDs or DVDs you need this. Burn a disc and CDFinder reads the disk and catalogs all the file names and structure. So you can do a search of all your burnt discs and know exactly which one to grab and where to look on the disc.

http://www.cdfinder.de/

Delicious Library -
Catalog all your DVDs, Games, Books, and Music. The best part about this application is the use of the iSight camera as a UPC (barcode) scanner, it makes importing things really fun. The interface is also very appealing. As for function, it makes it easy to see what you have, it links with Amazon for info about the movie/book/etc and you can track media that you loaned out to people which can be handy.

http://www.delicious-monster.com/

Djay -
Two turn tables and a microphone. Drag tracks from your iTunes Library onto the turn tables and have a blast with it. This is one you really need to check out.

http://www.algoriddim.net/

iAlertU -
An alarm for your laptop. Use your Front Row remote to activate the alarm, then any movement or messing about will set off the alarm. They are also working the iSight into the mix to grab a quick picture of the perp. This is both functional and fun.

http://www.slappingturtle.com/home/

iClip -
Remember the old notepad style clipboard of MacOS's past, well, this is it, but with a new look, more function and all around better. If you do a lot of copy and paste, this can help you out a lot.

http://inventive.us/iClip/

MacLibre -
Still early in development, but showing a lot of potential. For the Linux folks out there, think apt-get for open source mac software.

http://www.maclibre.com/

Paparazzi! -
Save full webpages as since images. I can't tell you how much I use this. Great for archiving, doing website reviews in a blog or such, and much more. Have it around, you'll find a use for it

http://www.derailer.org/paparazzi/

Rapidweaver -
Template based, zero coding web design that doesn't suck. This is head and shoulders about iWeb, though it does have a very tiny learning curve. I'll tell you the secret though, use the Inspectors.

http://www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/

TextWrangler -
Face it, BBedit it too much money and you'll never use all the features unless you code for a living, and even then you still might not. Enter TextWrangler, BBedits more then capable little brother. And its free, can't beat that. TextEdit (OS X's text editor is good and all, but if you want raw text its no so good, it likes to save things as rtf files or html)

http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/

Nestopia -
The king of NES emulators on the Mac

http://www.bannister.org/software/nestopia.htm

HJsplit -
If you need to break up a file to upload somewhere this is good. Its also made for every OS on earth going back to DOS, so anyone can put it back together. In OS X you'll want to get the .jar file

http://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit/

Video Encoding

MacTheRipper -
Get a DVD onto your hard drive and strip out the DRM. Does what it says and it does it well

http://www.mactheripper.org/

Handbrake -
If you rip DIVX or H.264 movies this one app is reason enough to buy a Mac. 1 click rip and encode. It couldn't be easier. My MacBook Pro will encode to h.264 in real time just to give you an idea of the speed

http://handbrake.m0k.org/

DVD2oneX -
Shrink a movie down to fit on a single layer disk. (if you use MacTheRipper right sometimes you don't even need this)

http://www.dvd2one.com/

FFmpegX -
Encode anything to anything. Need I say more?

http://homepage.mac.com/major4/

Podtube and Tubesock-
Rip movies from youtube

http://djodjodesign.free.fr/rightEN.html
http://stinkbot.com/Tubesock/

Casework

10-02-2006, 09:38 PM

g33k0ft3ch

10-02-2006, 09:53 PM

Holy crap, I use about 90% of those apps. And I've been using 80% since they launched. But great thread for anyone new to the Mac platform.

wastern

10-02-2006, 10:01 PM

Great post, thanks for this man.

Might I suggest, since there are so many links and so much information, to maybe break it up into separate posts a bit more? Not to give you more work, it's just the amount of information is overwhelming, especially if you're just trying to browse for a cool application.

I was going to do that from the start, but I'd end up doing a full review of each app :)

plus I thought with people posting in the thread as well it might be easier to see the big posts. I needs more formatting and color. I'll go back through maybe tomorrow and "pretty it up"

wastern

10-02-2006, 10:06 PM

Holy crap, I use about 90% of those apps. And I've been using 80% since they launched. But great thread for anyone new to the Mac platform.

Yeah, thats why I said it was for new people to the platform :)

I've tested about 99% of those sometime in the last 4 years. It makes sense to get the basics out of the way first and lay the foundation, then build off of that to the other stuff

This would be easier with my old system though, I only have 79 apps installed on this machine, I think I used to have up around 160 or so.

feel free to add stuff that you see fit

jkant

10-03-2006, 08:01 AM

Here's another two app's to add to the P2P section.

SolarSeek (This is the client I develop with a few others) It is a native mac client for the Soulseek network.
http://solarseek.sourceforge.net

SoulseeX - Another native Soulseek client for Mac.
http://chris.schleifer.net/ssX/

Jordanddunn

10-05-2006, 04:03 PM

Great thread, was looking for a place with all the links to all the great programs out there, so when I get my other macbook pro I don't have to search and try to remember everything. Great job!

rowlodge

10-18-2006, 02:32 AM

wastern

10-18-2006, 07:23 AM

is'nt that the best p2p? it was something kevin said one day and it works good but the latest version only works on "tiger"..i have the download for "Tiger" but not the disk i'm not dumb with apple computers i just can't understand how to insatll it. like one thing that confuses me copying it to disk utility then i go blank.

I tried the app long ago, it didn't turn up any results, and in turn didn't work. I know some people use it though

I think Acquisition is the best personally. I've been using it for 3 years now. I remember Kevin mentioning it (Acquisition) to Alex when he first got the MacBook Pro. It isn't a free app though.. The free version of it isn't quite as good, but its called AcqLite and worth a look if you don't mind missing a few bells and whistles and not looking as pretty.

If you have the disk image of Tiger open it with the Disk Utility. Then click the Burn button in the upper left. Insert a DVD and it'll burn it.

After the burn, stick the DVD back in and open it up. There is an icon on the disk that says Install. Double click it. Your system will reboot and boot up from the DVD. After that just follow along.....

You can also just boot up your system holding down the "C" key if you don't want to click the install icon from the disk on your desktop.

Just a note. There are 3 install options. There is a button for "advanced"(?) on one of the first install screens, I think the 2nd one, but its been a while. Click that to choose between wiping the drive clean and installing, upgrading, or Archive and Install.

With the Archive and Install it will make a backup of your 10.3 system directory and throw in a 10.4 one. Its like an upgrade with a safty net. This is nice because if something doesn't work you can easily go back. If everything works well you can just delete the 10.3 system folder. Make sure you have the room on your hdd if you are going to use this method

rowlodge

10-18-2006, 07:49 AM

wastern

10-18-2006, 08:12 AM

i'll try it and see, yea acquisition was my previous p2p but heard it did'nt get all the same kazaa stuff with it, long time ago, i know it's all different now anyway. just wanna stick with what works for me.

the kazaa network is crap now. its all corrupt

acquisition uses Gnetella...same as limewire. but with a lot of filters to block out the crap on the network

noonebutme

10-19-2006, 12:59 AM

Use Bittorrent and Usenet. Azureus and Unison. All ya will need. On usenet, follow a.b.mac.apps and a.b.mac.osx.apps or something. search groups for 'mac' and those will be the top two. for Bittorrent, follow Demonoid, Oink, and mTKA and your set :)

and Aquisition's 'trialware' a la winrar or winzip - it'll never prevent you from using anything, will just have the annoying 'buy me' at the open and close of Aquisition. But yeah, Gnutella sucks - so Aquisition's something to avoid.

Vulgar

10-19-2006, 03:49 AM

Hey man, thanks for this topic, I'm really new to my Mac and you were a really great help.

wastern

10-19-2006, 06:01 AM

But yeah, Gnutella sucks - so Aquisition's something to avoid.

Acq also does BT. I haven't had an issue with the P2P network though. The dev builds in a lot of filters and there are user filters to bring out the good results

However if you aren't going to pay I'd stay away. Its some of the worst nagware out there

matt

10-19-2006, 08:03 PM

wastern

10-19-2006, 11:19 PM

Hey, upgraded to a 20" iMac today.. absolutely amazing a real breath of fresh air after a decade of windows. Any way everything is working fine except Adium, consistently crashing every now and then. Every time when I'm not even looking at the window. It's not even 5 hours old, can anyone shed any light?

Thanks
Matt

This is the kind of thing you'd want to make a new thread for (I don't know if a mod wants to break if off or not)

anyway...I haven't heard of that, but then again I'm not a big fan of adium

try deleting your plist file and reopen it, see if that helps. the plist files are where the prefs are stored for the app

The easiest way to find it is to use Spotlight (option+apple+space will bring it up). Type in 'adium'. You should see a file that looks like 'com.something.adium.plist'

take that and drag it on to your desktop. (adium should be closed for this). Then launch the app again. You'll have to go through the setup again. See if the issue is still there

matt

10-19-2006, 11:36 PM

Thanks man, sorry about the thread thing if i offended anyone, that advice seems to have worked so far, fingers crossed. Thanks for the advice. I'm off to enjoy the mac experience :D

Cheers
Matt.

*edit* and the bloody thing just crashed AGAIN. Anyone got any decent alternatives, all i need basically is MSN messenger and google talk support.

Casework

10-20-2006, 12:04 AM

In my experiences, Adium isn't very good, but it's definitely the best(as far as AIM goes, at least).

At first, it crashed on me a few times here and there, but it hasn't crashed in months now. So, I'm not sure what to tell you, because I didn't do anything to fix it, and I haven't found any other alternatives really worth mentioning.

kyro

10-20-2006, 03:57 AM

Another one hooked on the sweet rock cocaine that is Apple.

Welcome.

wastern

10-20-2006, 04:30 AM

matt

10-20-2006, 08:52 AM

Something has to be wrong 5 minutes into Fire and that has unexpectedly quit, is there something wrong with config or something O_o :/

wastern

10-20-2006, 09:00 AM

Something has to be wrong 5 minutes into Fire and that has unexpectedly quit, is there something wrong with config or something O_o :/

do all apps do it or just the IM apps? Does iChat quit on you like that?

That is really strange. You didn't mess with anything you shouldn't have when you first got it did you ?

matt

10-20-2006, 01:42 PM

no i didnt mess anything up. I posted a thread on the adium forums and they advised me to download the most reason BETA version which i did. Sorted straight, hasn't crashed yet so I'm happy :). Apparently MSN have been messing with their servers causing many IMs to crash every so often.

Thanks for your help guys.
Matt

Vulgar

10-26-2006, 04:02 AM

Dude, awesome apps....got anymore that are helpful? perhaps some 'fun' ones?

jeffchan

01-13-2007, 07:50 AM

I recommend PathFinder, an awesome application to let you explore your things easier.

PolarJammy

01-18-2007, 12:39 AM

One app I like a whole lot is Democracy Player (http://www.getdemocracy.com/). I use it to watch some Revision3 shows. It allows you to subscribe to shows and get the latest episodes for them. I like it a whole lot.

jynxx

01-22-2007, 07:15 PM

what a dream come true! i've been from forum to forums looking for some great sources for my switch-over. i'm going to get the mac book pro in a few weeks and really didn't all i needed to do so. the perfection of this thread is it's simplicity to understand all that encompasses such a major switch. thank you...i can finally rest without worry. i would tell anyone making the switch to sticky this! :p

Konstantino

01-31-2007, 08:26 PM

I already know pretty much all of these apps, but there's a section that is missing (and is very important to pretty much everyone) -- an instant messaging client. iChat is extremely limited -- I recommend Adium to anyone (especially if they have a bunch of different types of accounts.) When I switched to Adium, I had MSN, GTalk, YIM, AIM, and the whole gang.

www.adiumx.com (http://www.adiumx.com)

wastern

07-11-2007, 07:37 AM

Well, its been a year and a half.....I told you I'd get to it sometime. haha

I don't really remember whats been posted, so there might be a dupe here and there. Deal with it.

Nocturne
If you haven't done so before press Control+Option+Apple+8. Neat huh? This app takes that and tweaks the hell out of it. Monochrome, color tints, etc, etc. Kind of fun to play with and can give your system a cool look

http://docs.blacktree.com/nocturne/nocturne

RapidoWrite
Some of you may remember TextPander..now TextExpander. You have to pay for it now, that sucks. RapidoWrite does the same thing, but its free. Basically you make aliases for text. Say you type html code for inserting images into your block a lot, you can just make a alias, say, iimg, and it'll throw the whole chunk of code in you want

http://www.app4mac.com/rapidowrite.html

Switch
Audio conversion app. Convert those wma files and crap you may come across. Be glad I'm giving you the link, its a pain to find. Try typing "switch os x" into google and see what you get.....

http://www.nch.com.au/switch/

Notebook
A pretty decent note taking app. There are a lot of features packed in there. I don't use it, but it might be good for someone in school

http://www.circusponies.com/

Path Finder
Someone mentioned this, but its for all those that think the Finder is too dumbed down and want insane amount of power in their file browser. This is for the power user

http://www.cocoatech.com/

iShowU
Screen capture software

http://www.shinywhitebox.com/

Skitch
This is an amazing little application, its insanely useful. Watch the video on the page. It is in beta and invite only as of this post, but look around the right circles and I'm sure you can find someone to invite you

http://plasq.com/skitch

Geekbench
Benchmarking software so you can tell people how much faster your computer is then theirs. Because in the end, thats all that really matters

http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/

MacFusion
This is a GUI for MacFuse. Basically it lets you mount FTP and SSH shares in Finder just like your iDisk or any other network drive. MacFuse also shows a lot of promise for NTFS read/write support as well as some other cool things, read up on it

http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/08/mgorbach/MacFusionWeb/

gSpell
OS X has spell checking built in, but sometimes you are so far off only google knows what your talking about. This may not be alive anymore, I'll throw the link up though, maybe their server is just f'd up today

http://nspindel.com/gspell/
Here is the google cache
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:e6sn76OP4zAJ:nspindel.com/gspell/+gspell&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us&client=firefox-a

LotsaWater Screensaver
This makes everyones jaw drop when they see it

http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/lotsablankers/lotsawater.html

Fenêtres Volantes Screensaver
Another great screensaver. Takes all your windows and sends them floating in a 3D space

http://www.objective-cocoa.org/fenetresvolantes/en/index_en.html

MenuShade
Make your menubar dim or completely hidden...until you want it shown

http://www.nullriver.com/index/products/

Backdrop
Fills your screen with a blank window. Good for hiding thing while taking a screenshot or minimizing distractions

http://johnhaney.com/backdrop

Spirited Away
Auto-hide apps you aren't currently using to get them out of your way without actually having to do anything

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/24877

Think
This pretty much takes the place of the last 3 apps if you were using them as a combo. Shows 1 app at a time so you can focus on what you're doing

http://www.freeverse.com/think/

Witch
A better Apple+Tab. See all your windows, not just all your apps

http://www.manytricks.com/witch/

Service Scrubber
Clean up that services menu. Many people don't know its there, most that do don't use it. Clean that thing up so things are easy to find and faster to use. For those that don't know go to any app, click on that apps name in the menubar and go to Services. If a lot of stuff is grey, just highlight some text and go back, thats when it comes to life

http://www.manytricks.com/servicescrubber/

WriteRoom
The coolest way to write a paper

http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/projects/writeroom

JDarkRoom
Free Java version of WriteRoom

http://www.codealchemists.com/jdarkroom/

Spanning Sync
Sync iCal with google calendar

http://spanningsync.com/

Mozy
2Gb of free online backup. Pay for more

http://mozy.com/

OmniFocus
A great GTD app. Still in alpha, but you can sign up and get an invite from them if you don't mind waiting a little while. Its shaping up to be really nice

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/

The Unarchiver
Forget Stuffit and UnrarX. The Unarchiver supports file formats Zip, Tar-GZip, Tar-BZip2, Rar, 7-zip, LhA, StuffIt and many other more or less obscure formats

http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html

Fan Control
For those that are just convinced that their MacBook is running too hot you can get this and screw with your fan speeds

http://www.lobotomo.com/products/FanControl/

Disk Inventory X
Shows you a visual representation what is taking up how much space on your drive

http://www.derlien.com/

Growl
System wide notification system for your Mac. Many themes and things. I always thought it was stupid until I used it for a week, now its pretty cool.

http://growl******/ <---not sure whats up there. its http://growl<dot>info not sure why I can't post that link

Ok....I'm done for now. My TV shows are done downloading

wastern

07-11-2007, 07:54 AM

Apparently I left out burning apps

Burn
Open source burning app, does most of what anyone needs. Data, audio, video, disk images

http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/

Disco
Part of the "delicious generation", this is the "fun" and pretty disk burning utility. It makes smoke or fire you can play with while it burns and its impossibly easy to use. I bought it for $5 back before anyone knew what it was supposed to do. Turned out to be a good buy, its more now. There is also a discography feature where it keeps a searchable index of what you've burned for later reference....like CDFinder I mentioned in the first post. Multi-session support and multiple disc spanning is also supported which is nice.

http://www.discoapp.com/

Toast
This is the big old commercial app made my Roxio. I've always hated it, it gave me nothing but grief and coasters over the years. I hear the new version is pretty good though, but I've given up on them.

http://www.roxio.com/

BurnAgain DVD
Multisession DVD burning app

http://freeridecoding.com/burnagaindvd/

FireStarter FX
Supports Bin/Cue, overburning, VCD, SVCD, multi-session, etc, etc, etc

http://www.projectomega.org/subcat.php?lg=en&php=products_firestarter

I should also note, this apps aren't really needed by most. I only use Disco when I want to play with the smoke or 'show off'

Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/)
This will burn images for you. Drag an image in the left side. Select it, click burn.

For Data
Burn folders. Right click in finder > New Burn Folder. You can keep this around if you burn the same stuff every week or something. Also when you stick a disk in, open it with Finder. The disk will look like a burn folder

Music
iTunes of course. Make a playlist, click burn. Just make sure your preference are set up right for Data, MP3, or Music

DVDs
iDVD will burn all Quicktime supported formats. You can go to the tree view to stick something above the menu so it just plays what you want without all the production. It will also make nice slideshows and things on its own or in conjucntion with iPhoto

How do to multisession disks with OS X
http://docs******.apple.com/article.html?path=DiskUtility/10.5/en/duh1749.html <--- change all those starts to <dot>info

deegraww

07-13-2007, 06:52 PM

wastern

07-13-2007, 10:45 PM

So I tried to use iDVD to burn a divx video file to a blank DVD and I can't get it to work. What would you guys recommend? Looks like some are listed above but I'm looking for Free and with ease of use. I know that might be a long order but any help would be great.

DivX isn't a quicktime supported filetype. It will play in Quicktime with the codec, but thats doesn't transfer over to allow burning in iDVD

I have a DVD player that supports DivX, so I can just put the data file on a CD and play it so I haven't had to worry about it much

You can get an app to convert the file to a filetype that iDVD supports then burn it. VisualHub, or the free iSquint will do that, but iSquint may lower the qulaity....not sure, the AppleTV setting will probably be fine. Quicktime Pro may be able to do it as well if you have it.

Toast or Popcorn might be able to go directly from DivX to disk, I haven't tried...read up on it

Crzy8sal

07-18-2007, 10:31 PM

Anybody have Skitch invites?:D

wastern

07-19-2007, 12:02 AM

Anybody have Skitch invites?:D

Check your PMs

deegraww

07-19-2007, 12:19 AM

Anybody have Skitch invites?:D

What's Skitch??

wastern

07-19-2007, 12:36 AM

What's Skitch??

This

http://plasq.com/skitch

There is a video at the bottom that would do more to explain it then I could

Crzy8sal

07-20-2007, 07:40 PM

Thanks again for the Skitch invite wastern!

I've got 2 invites, so if anybody else wants to try it drop me a PM.:D

http://myskitch.com/dasal/myskitch___invites-20070720-203627.jpg

^^ Skitch'd ^^ :)

brantcollins

08-14-2007, 12:12 AM

Don't know if you already listed.

http://www.nullriver.com/index/products/connect360

Connects your Mac to the Xbox 360

bayareaking510

09-18-2007, 07:05 AM

Does anyone use LaunchBar? It's just like Quicksilver, but IMO, much better. It slides down from the top when you need it, and slides up, when you're done. You can do some cool stuff like type in: IMDB and be able to search what you want and it'll open it in Safari. It also has a calculator built in you can just begin typing numbers, and it'll know you want to calculate something. Give it a try.

recover82

10-23-2007, 05:23 PM

shadyrocker

01-14-2008, 10:39 AM

awesome thread man... :)
I've been a Mac fan for quite a while...never used...but news about the bugs and issues kinda resisted me. Now again i'm feeling tempted to use it again :D

jrkac4

02-28-2008, 12:55 AM

I'm one of those new to Mac, I bought my iphone on day one and an iMac soon followed. One thing I'm still struggling with is how to convert my Windows keyboard actions. For example, i missed spelled some words (No big surprise, trust me). i arrowed back, corrected them and in Windows I would hit the end key to go to the end of the line. Now that takes me to the bottom of the page. Another is how do I select multiple files in finder that are not together. In windows I would hold down the cntrl key as I clicked them. Can someone point me to a site where I can find this type of conversion information.

Thanks!!!

acidburn

02-28-2008, 01:16 AM

In a lot of cases the command key takes the place of the functionality of the control and alt keys on a pc.

For example on the PC where Alt+tab would flip between window. On a Mac command + tab does pretty much the same thing. In case you don't know the name, the command key is the one with the Apple symbol and the odd looking character on it. ;)

To select multiple flies there are two ways depending on where they are in relation to each other.

If they are all next to each other in a say a list in the finder, use Shift+Mouse Click to select the first one and then move the pointer to the last one and do the same and you'll select the whole group.

But if you only want a few out of a list then hold the Command key and click each item you want to select individually so you can select multiples.

Try this page on the apple site. It gives corresponding actions and keyboard shortcuts for PC to Mac switchers: http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/switcher/2/

renehasp

03-16-2008, 01:56 AM

I am new to the mac world and I love this thread. Thanks so much for all the great software.

-Rene

whoisscott

09-14-2008, 09:27 PM

just downloaded .rar file. I've used them on pc. um... what do I use on a mac

also is it possible for me to use my autocad 07 on a mac?

ranron

11-28-2008, 09:58 PM

just downloaded .rar file. I've used them on pc. um... what do I use on a mac

Download a program called The Unarchiver (http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html)

also is it possible for me to use my autocad 07 on a mac?

A half yes. If you have an Intel Mac, then you can install Windows in Bootcamp and then install AutoCAD.

scoobydiesel

12-16-2008, 12:03 PM

I really think this needs to be updated/refreshed or something.