[geeks] Apple software: the stuff you "gotta have"

[N. Miller]

On Oct 9, 2007, at 3:24 PM, Shannon Hendrix wrote:

> For all you mac-heads on the list, how about a list of the software
> that you "just gotta have".

* X-Chat Aqua for IRC, going against the grain :-)
* Adium for IM
* JBidWatcher for eBay sniping
* Space for virtual desktops (will be obsolete with 10.5 as I  
understand it)
* TextMate for script/programming for the syntax coloring and auto- 
indent.  I like it better than BBEdit and TextWrangler.  Emacs @ the  
command line otherwise.  I might prefer TextWrangler if regex was  
more important to me, as my understanding is that TextWrangler is top  
dog there.
* CSSedit for CSS hackery (some swear by Coda and/or Xyle Scope, but  
those seemed too heavy for me.  I might try again when I can upgrade  
the Mac).  "X-Ray", which allows you to click web page elements and  
get a bread crumb trail of inheritance has been a great learning tool  
for me as I fumble my way around learning this stuff.
* MAMP for *painless* Apache2+MySQL stack
* fink for all the *nixy goodness--macports is stillborn IMO--many  
ports without maintainers, etc.
* Amarok *can* be built on the Mac, it just takes a bit of work.   
Anyone with a decent understanding of build dependencies can do it.   
Caveat, I last built it about a year ago. It was too beefy for my  
Quicksilver to handle and haven't gone back to using it.
* Flip4Mac for Windows Media in Quicktime.
* VLC, of course.
* iGTD for task management/"GTD" (at least the illusion thereof...  :-)
* NeoOffice.
* Seashore, ImageWell, and the Gimp for graphics, if you don't want  
to pony up for Photoshop.
* MacFUSE and sshfs.
* VueScan, best damn consumer scanner program.
* the Unarchiver for everything BOMArchive can't handle.
* NetHack :-)
* Carbon Copy Cloner (thirded, I guess :-)
* Camino, Safari, Opera, Firefox (in that order)


I use Mail.app for Mail, I just can't get over the learning curve  
hurdle to use mutt thanks to pine being so ingrained in my curses- 
based email brain.  And pine+IMAP == loss of sanity points.

What are people using for RSS feeds?

I don't grok QuickSilver myself.  Can someone please explain it?   
I've been to the web site, read the various ravings of how great it  
is, but I just don't see the practical value myself. (Serious  
question.)  Launcher? I have a terminal open all the time.  Aliases  
for frequently used apps are a no-brainer, since you can use "open"  
on the command line to launch apps.  What am I missing that makes QS  
so special?

Notebook alternatives--DEVONthink + DEVONagent (on my "to purchase
list", can't afford at the moment), Circus Ponies, Voodoo Pad, AquaMinds
NoteTaker.  There's a bunch of this kind of thing on the Mac.

I recently found this web site, <http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/>,  
which is a
very complete listing of Mac OS X (and Classic) softwares.

I also found this list <http://rangit.com/operating-systems/top-40- 
most-useful-free-mac-os-x-softwares/>, of which I am trying out  
Sharepoints <http://www.hornware.com/sharepoints/> and Skim <http:// 
skim-app.sourceforge.net/index.html>.  I'm hoping the latter will  
support pdf files with layers (Acrobat on OS X sucks rocks).

=Nadine=