Recommended OS X Applications And Utilities

So, my friend Guy just upgraded to OS X after bagging himself a beautiful Powerbook. Through jealously gritted teeth, I suppose I can just about bring myself to list some of the applications and utilities I think he should install right away, with the emphasis on little thing to make life easier, rather than full-blown apps for specific tasks.

• Jumpcut A wildly handy clipboard enhancer, that gives you access to the last 20-odd items you copied. Free.

• Path Finder Alternative to the Finder, with many more features at your fingertips, including an incredibly useful ‘stack’ for moving files around and easy access to running applications. Essential. $39 Shareware with a 21 day trial.

• Quicksilver is an application launcher and file manipulator that essentially allows you to access and manipulate everything on your computer by whacking Command+space and typing the name of what you’re looking for, whether it’s an application, file, Address Book contact or song in iTunes. My current fave features are the ability to set system-wide command key ‘triggers’ for opening applications, and the ability to pre- or append text to a file, or rename it, from within the QS interface. It’s great for moving files around, too (even if you have no idea where they’re kept). Abso-fucking-lutely essential - I can’t even use a computer without this anymore. Free.

• Saft: Unbelievably cool plugin/patch for Safari, that adds a ridiculous number of extra features, like saving open tabs on quit or crash, a customised Search field that lets you perform various Google, Dictionary.com and IMDB searches, plus type-ahead search. Essential. $10 Shareware.

• Sidetrack: This is a replacement driver for the Trackpad, which lets you use the edges for scrolling vertically and horizontally, set a finger-tap in each corner to emulate a mouse button, or any command key combination you can think of. (I have the top corners mapped to Command+Shift+right/left arrow, so I can tab around Safari with a flick of the thumb, and the bottom left corner pretending to be a right click on a mouse, so I can access contextual menus easily). Essential. $10 Shareware.

• SoundSource lets you switch your audio input and output sources with a single click. Free.

• SpamSieve: In my experience, Mail’s spam filtering sucks bad. This adds Bayesian filtering to most popular email clients, and will catch everything, with next to no false positives. Maybe not essential, but, depending on how much spam you get, a massive time-saver. $25 Shareware with a free 30-day trial.

• Services: There’s lots of useful things you can add to the Services menu, which provides a sort of system-wide set of handy things for use in most applictions, often accessible via quick command key combinations. I find the following essential:

  • HumaneText: Markdown is a syntax for marking up text in a nice human-readable way, and this Service lets you easily convert Markdown documents to HTML and vice versa. (That mightn’t sound awfully useful, but it is, honest.) Free.
  • WordService makes it easy to do a lot of text formatting stuff quickly, but I mainly use it as a word counter (because I tend to write in SubEthaEdit or Smultron, rather than a fully-fledged word processor). Free.

• Whiteout removes the brushed metal look from most Apple applications, replacing it with a pinstripe look that is much easier on the eye. Free.

Enjoy!

And then click the ‘Related Linking’ links below for a ridiculous number of pointers to more applications, utilities, tips and tricks.

Posted at 1pm on 25/11/04 by Jack Mottram to the mac category.
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Tags: applications, mac, osx