For those new to the mac

[polarjammy]

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]

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!

[konstantino]

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

[wastern]

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.../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...ient=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/fenet.../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]

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.p...ts_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....n/duh1749.html <--- change all those starts to <dot>info

[deegraww]

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.

[wastern]

Originally Posted by deegraww

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]

Anybody have Skitch invites?

[wastern]

Originally Posted by Crzy8sal

Anybody have Skitch invites?

Check your PMs

[deegraww]

Originally Posted by Crzy8sal

Anybody have Skitch invites?

What's Skitch??