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My Essential Mac Apps
I've only had my Macbook Pro since Thursday, but I must say that it's growing on me... a lot. Here's the essential Mac apps I've discovered. Some freeware, some shareware, and some commercial software.
Photoshop CS3 - Obviously this is the same photo editing software as it is on the PC. There are plenty of cheaper, but no better.
Microsoft Office 2008 - I was a bit surprised to find that Office 2008 does not look much like Office 2007 on the PC. I fired it up and was a bit disappointed to not find the "ribbon" (some hate it, I liked it). It'll take some time to learn where things are located, but for the most part, it has the same functionality and is compatible with Office 2007's formats (docx, xlsx). I did notice that launching the applications takes longer than it does on Windows.
Parallels - I installed Vista in a Bootcamp partition and Parallels allows me to run the same instance inside of OSX. The feature that made me convert from VMWare Fusion was the fact that it does cross-platform file association - I can double click on a .mpp file on my OSX desktop and it'll bring it up in Microsoft Project for Windows in Confluence mode (Windows is running in the background completely hidden - the application runs seamlessly next to all other OSX apps).
Toast - CD/DVD burning software.
Adium - Multi-protocol chat client. Adium just rocks.
BBEdit - HTML editor. I do a lot of PHP coding and this fit the bill perfectly.
Carbon Copy Cloner - SuperDuper (a competing product) is not yet available for Leopard, so I just downloaded this to clone my drive over to a 7200rpm drive I got my hands on. I admit I have not tried it yet, but it should copy my OSX install and my Bootcamp partition just fine (it does a bit-level copy).
Cisco VPN Client - I need to VPN into work, don't I? I can connect even faster than I can in Windows with a small helper application called Shimo.
Handbrake - 'Rip' a DVD into DivX.
VLC - Media player that plays all popular formats & codecs.
Firefox - Many suggested Camino, but information I found online suggested that Firefox's preferences were not 100% compatible with those of Camino. I was running Firefox on Windows - I copied the contents of my profile folder over and everything just worked - all of my bookmarks, extensions, saved passwords, etc.
Thunderbird - Another app I was running in Windows. I tried out Mail.app, which is built into OSX, but it is incompatible with my mail server's IMAP capabilities. I read suggestions that OSX 10.5.2 may fix this when it's released in the next few days. Just like Firefox, I copied the contents of my profile folder over and everything worked great.
iCal - Built in calendar app. My only complaint is that the notifications are a bit weak. I'd prefer a sticky Growl notification. (There is a script that does just that, but it is not currently available for Leopard)
Spanning Sync - This application syncs iCal with Google Calendars beautifully.
Expose - It's pretty; however, I don't think it's as efficient as the Windows Taskbar at switching apps. Regardless, it's an essential app if to do nothing else but show off. :)
Miro - Video downloading and viewing application. I use this to download Diggnation.
Little Snitch - Great app to control the firewall. Lets you know when an app is trying to contact the outside world and allows you to deny it access.
NetNewsWire - RSS reader so I can read blogs such as Lifehacker, Engadget, and Jalopnik.
Remote Desktop Connection - Microsoft app to remotely control Windows machines.
Pathfinder - I just found this one today and I'm very glad I did! It's a replacement for OSX's 'Finder' app (similar to Windows' Explorer). Finally, I can have folders listed at the top of folder trees, use the return key to open an app/folder instead of rename it, and have a keyboard shortcut to copy the curent path!
The Unarchiver - Unarchives RAR and all the other popular formats. Why can't this also be the Archiver?
USB Overdrive - When I first attached a USB mouse, I had a hard time clicking on any small text. This app lets you manually set the mouse speed and acceleration curve (I prefer 180dpi & 125% acceleration).
Fan Control - My machine was running very hot. This app kicked up the fan speed to keep my pants from melting.
Slingplayer - The slingbox is the best $100 you can spend if you travel on business and have a lot of season passes on your Tivo! Luckily, Sling Media makes this client for OSX, too.
Transmit - Incredible FTP client.
Last, but not least, Quicksilver. The most powerful 'launcher' for any operating system. I can perform most tasks (connecting to an ftp site, launching my browser and going to one of my bookmarks, etc) in only a few keystrokes.
Not bad for 5 days with the machine, eh?
Comments
So little time and so many apps
First of all, congrats on making the transition to the Mac. A lot of friends, some long-time Windows IT folks, are running Macs at home and pushing them at work as well. I think once you've used it for a while, you'll have a hard time going back. I've been using Mac OS X since it was public beta, and 10.5 is the best version to date. I have to say, for someone who's only had it a short while you sure have installed a lot of apps. I use about half of the ones listed: Adobe CS (although the bulk of my photos are edited right in iPhoto), Office 2008, Parallels (on another machine at my desk), iCal, Firefox (Safari is my primary browser) and Transmit (for uploading to Eurosunday.net), VLC & Handbrake. I also have an assortment of other apps that I use as well from time to time including: Camino, Acorn, OmniOutliner, OmniGraffle and MeetingMaker. I'm hoping to get a MacBook Pro soon to replace my aging PowerBook G4.
How funny that you're
How funny that you're dabbling with OSX just as I, as a longtime UNIX & Mac user, am transitioning to Vista. Regarding text editors, you might also take TextMate for test drive.
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