My Top Mac Apps
I’ve be challenged by Andy Moloney in a meme like post to list off my favourite Mac apps, being a relatively new user. There are some really great apps out there for OS X, and this is one of the many places where it beats Windows, at least in my opinion.
- Coda - One window web development is really cool thing. Its bundled up with Panic’s (creator) FTP app which makes it keeping alone. Not to mention the UI is awesome.
- Bean - An open source word processor with some cool features, but nothing fancy to keep you focused on what you’re writing. However, as soon as I can get my hands on a copy of Office 2007 for Mac, Bean goes out the window!
- Twitterific - A cool little app that lets you see everything going on in your Twitter stream without opening up your browser. You can tell it what you’re doing to, to update your Twitter.
- Firefox - I’ve opened Safari one time. It was to go to Mozilla and get the superior browser
- Tomato Torrent - There are other torrent apps out there,but Tomato is so non obtrusive and easy to use. It only does one thing at a time, but that just makes things go faster for me.
- Stuffit Expander - Many don’t even realize how awesome this thing really is. My favourite part about it how you can download a zip file and it turns straight into a folder on your desktop (or where ever you put it).
- ThunderBird - I had this on Windows but it just looks so much nicer comparatively. The little number of new unread emails on the icon in the dock is cool too.
On the other hand, there are some apps that really just don’t do it for me.
- MSN for Mac - It’s the IE4 of IM clients.
- Office 2004 for Mac - Not as bad, but it’s still the IE6 of Office Suites.
- FileZilla - I was desperate for a FTP client and couldn’t find anything, so I downloaded FZ. Definitely no comparison to Transmit.
I’m not really obligated to continue this by challenging more people, but if you’re a long time Mac user, or even new like me, post up some of your favourite things so we can all enjoy some new things.
Leave a comment
Goob
June 16th, 2007 at 1:25 PM
I’m a fairly new user as well (about two months now), but I’ve already found a few apps that I couldn’t live without:
Firefox, duh.
Adium - It’s like Trillian, only 9 million times better. The GUI is gorgeous and it just works well, no matter if you just want to chat or use the video chat feature.
Vienna - Awesome RSS reader
NeoOffice - I think this is an open source word processor as well. It can read excel files, powerpoint, etc.
Taco HTML Edit - Just a basic notepad-style program that colors the HTML or PHP or whatever you’re editing.
Those are the only ones I use so far on an every day basis.
Connor Wilson
June 16th, 2007 at 1:54 PM
Thanks Goob, I just got Adium and it’s great!
Andy
June 16th, 2007 at 4:34 PM
Nice post Connor. I like your comparison of MSN for Macs :p Saw it earlier and it was pretty poor in comparison to Adium!
I can’t see if Adium supports adding/sending custom emotions though.
I saw Bean about, it does look rather snazzy. Thunderbird I’ll look at too - I tried it on windows and wasn’t so keen.. Still not sure if I want to use a desktop app to handle my mail. I like using them more than the Gmail interface, but it doesn’t save sent mail online?
Andy
L3ggy
June 16th, 2007 at 4:43 PM
Adium rules. It’s the best IM out there. I love the muliti accounts feature. I’m on my 2 MSN’s and my AIM at one time :P.
I dunno about firefox. I prefer it because of its features, but if safari had firefox’s features then i would go for safari.
I don’t use bean, its nice but i have iWork ‘06
much better.
You don’t need an FTP with Coda, It’s insane. I love it, if anyone wants the Dreamweaver xHtml and PHP colours then ask me i have them in an easy to install file. me at henrylegge.co.uk ;).
Opera is the standered Torrent downloader, It sucks! Tomato Torrent is awosme, so easy to use :D.
Stuffit is downloading now…its awsome
thats Connor.
Over all you just have to love mac!
Andy
June 16th, 2007 at 5:27 PM
I was looking at IWork and MS Office as they came with trial versions on my MacBook. Both seemed quite nice but ultimately I was more keen on a free alternative :p
Is Stuffit the program that comes built into Macs to handle zip files? It sounds alot like it.
Andy
L3ggy
June 16th, 2007 at 7:12 PM
Yeah it’s like it so i’m not sure, I got iWork’06 for free, Look around the internet ;).
Randall Cornett
June 16th, 2007 at 7:42 PM
Being a Mac owner this post was really helpful. You see, the programs on Macs all seem to function much better then on windows. Also, Bean is not that common but I personally think it’s better then word.
I’m relativley new to the blogging scene, and your blog. I just recently stumbled on your blog. Anyways, I’m trying my hardest to make my blog successful and market myself. So if you don’t mind dropping by http://www.randlife.com and just check some things out. I’ve subscribed to your feed, hopefully you will do the same. Keep up the great work! I’m going to be coming back alot!
Will Morgan
June 17th, 2007 at 11:04 AM
Filezilla’s pretty bad for Windows too. Although it supports good old drag ‘n’ drop FTP, it doesn’t mirror the directory structures. That’s one more thing you’re going to have to do manually.
L3ggy
June 17th, 2007 at 11:08 AM
Mac’s are great arn’t they ;). I’ll never go back to windows!
Scott
June 17th, 2007 at 2:06 PM
Lucky mac using bastards. The only thing I’ve been curious about in your apple adventures is your opinion on textmate(http://macromates.com), which is my number one reason for wanting a mac.
Also, my computer is freaking out, so I had to make this post on my wii, so sorry if it isn’t completely coherent.
MrCorey
June 17th, 2007 at 3:08 PM
4.I did the same thing with IE for my kid’s computer, as they like to go to the pbskids website. The exception was that I went to the Avast website and downloaded their antivirus program first. Then, I went and got Firefox (and made it default browser).
cherries
June 23rd, 2007 at 4:44 AM
I like what you said about firefox.
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