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What cool little OS X apps do you use?

jsalzer said:
I'm amazed we've gotten this far and only one of the apps that I couldn't live without has been mentioned (WindowShade).

Then again, maybe I'm the only one hanging on to my OS9 heritage.

These are the things that made the jump to OSX a good experience where it would have been a bad experience - to me.
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funny, i have no use for any of these apps. (not exactly true, but they do not do what they do the way i want it)

i've adjusted my workflow to os x more than i've adjusted my os x to my workflow. the only app i could not live without is quiksilver...
 
titaniumducky said:
I like SizzlingKeys from Yellow Mug Software (in place of Synergy) namely because it's FREE and doesn't use a menubar icon (which slow login considerably).

I also like Schubert It's Word and PDF plugins which allow you to open DOCs and PDFs in Safari.
Click to expand...

I think the login time slowdown from menu items depends on your machine. My Dual1.42 allows me to start and use apps while the menu bar items are still loading. Also there was a time when I noticed I was having to wait longer and longer for the menu bar items to load so I did a dump cache, daily/weekly/monthly tasks, fsck, permission check, prebind. Now my startup is half the time it use to take and my login is nearly instant even with a half dozen 3rd party menu bar items.
 
thanks for sharing this

I just downloaded Delocalizer and it removed 760 mb off my harddrive! I did quite a bit of that type of work myself, but that program was so easy and got a lot more then I ever would have. This has to be one of the best threads yet. I know is has been done before, but I think it's good to do this type ever so often so that new programs can be shared.
 
Imagewell is a quick drag and drop "PDF to jpeg compressor" which makes emailing screenshots and so on a breeze.

Filechute is shareware drag and drop "upload files to iDisk", which, with its auto homepage address generator, also makes sending large files a breeze.

Bitplayer is a very nifty QT movie player. Free and works brilliantly, especially the feature that automatically starts the movie in full screen size on a second display.

TextEdit is the best for "word processing"! although MacJournal is very useful for keeping at-a-glance tabs on related documents in various projects.

Ultimate Pen lets you write on your desktop which is great for annotating presentations.

Synergy for iTunes, iAddressX for addresses no less, and phone numbers that can be copied and pasted into Skype which is a pretty reliable VoIP for Mac to landline phonecalls.

God I hope my Mac never breaks down, else my professional and personal life will grind to a massive halt!

Most desired app would be a reliable all in one interface which draws together all the relevant info from Mail, iCal, Addressbook - plus links to VoIP
 
Gold: I think Salling Clicker really pushes the limits and takes us S-E mobile phones happy users to the state-of-the-art of the Human-Computer interaction.

Silver: AdiumX is the best IM app by far, and with the addition of script-ability combined with Salling Clicker it rocks!

Bronze: It's a tie between Raging Menace's SideTrack (Trackpad enhancement) and MenuMeters (System Performance Measured in the Menu).

Special Mention: LapCop, a program that helps you to find a stolen Mac (i hope i will never use it but then again it's nice to know it's there) and they have GREAT support personnel.
 
lalcan said:
.....................Special Mention: LapCop, a program that helps you to find a stolen Mac (i hope i will never use it but then again it's nice to know it's there) and they have GREAT support personnel.
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Lapcop sounds cool but I'm looking for a free alternative. If anyone has anything that is remotely similar please let me know.
 
Following are the apps that are always running on my pb and if I use someone else's mac I go ahead and install(those which are free) it without even asking them :D
Quicksilver - I think most of you use it. Its in my startup items and absolutely essential. I usually install this on everyone's mac.
konfabulator I only run BetterWhatsGoingOn widget. But its not something I can not do without.
desktop manager Its for multiple desktops. Again absolutely essential for what I do. I have a 12" pb and generally 3-4 completely different things going on.
windowshadeX Its one of the few apps I have paid for. With this app, you can customize the behavior of your windows. Also you can turn any window transparent with hot keys. Its again one of the absolute essential apps as I have programmed my minimize key to hide(and its really inconvenient on some other machine if minimize actually minimizes). And very often if I am working with two windows I make one transparent to see the other.
Synergy I always have it running, but its not something I can not do without.
Salling Clicker I paid for this app. And its always running. But I don't use it now. Still its a very good app.
MenumeterIt shows cpu processes in the menubar. Again, its always running. But its not something I can not do without.

cheers
 
evilpenguin21 said:
I was just curious what little applications people are using to mac OS X that much cooler. Here's what i'm using...
Click to expand...

There is only one third-party OS X application that I absolutely, positively, cannot live without, and that is because it serves as the gateway to making OS X realize it's full and awesome potential:

http://fink.sourceforge.net

OS X is completely crippled without a package manager such as Fink. The radiant beauty of Fink is that it brings the ease of use of Debian Linux to the nuclear-powered BSD Unix core of OS X. Kneel before Zod!!!

Add to that a graphical interface via FinkCommander:

http://finkcommander.sourceforge.net

Have you ever seen the magnificent spectacle of OS X Aqua running in tandem with KDE? Oh my goodness. I'm about to pass out at the keyboard from overstimulation and joy. Cue the violins. Someone hand me a handkerchief.
 
Toast Superfluous

munkle said:
As far as I know, if you want to create a playable DVD that will be recognised by a DVD player you have to use Toast.
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Toast is *not* required to make playable DVDs. You can create an empty DVD image with Disk Utility, fill it with files (in AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS subfolders), and then burn it. Toast is simply an easier way to do things, because you can burn directly from files and folders, without having to create an image of the DVD first. I repeat, you don't need third-party software to burn DVDs in Panther or Tiger (I'm not sure about Jaguar, as I haven't looked at that in awhile). In addition, if you want to use a third-party program, there are free and open source programs for burning DVDs or creating DVD images that can be used instead of Toast. Toast is simply popular, it's not hegemonous.
 
Schubert Plugins Universal

titaniumducky said:
I also like Schubert It's Word and PDF plugins which allow you to open DOCs and PDFs in Safari.
Click to expand...

Those plugins work with *all* browsers, not just Safari.
 
Yasu for You

MacBandit said:
Also there was a time when I noticed I was having to wait longer and longer for the menu bar items to load so I did a dump cache, daily/weekly/monthly tasks, fsck, permission check, prebind. Now my startup is half the time it use to take and my login is nearly instant even with a half dozen 3rd party menu bar items.
Click to expand...

Yasu is a compact little app that will take care of all of this:

http://homepage.mac.com/jim.mitchell/software/

Boot into safe mode and then run it, so the fsck will be taken care of as well. It can auto-reboot after it finishes, so then you're back to normal. Simpler and cleaner than Onyx and other fancier tools.
 
amcgee said:
Yasu is a compact little app that will take care of all of this:

http://homepage.mac.com/jim.mitchell/software/

Boot into safe mode and then run it, so the fsck will be taken care of as well. It can auto-reboot after it finishes, so then you're back to normal. Simpler and cleaner than Onyx and other fancier tools.
Click to expand...

Thanks that's the program that I've been using. I should have mentioned that.
 
cool thread. i downloaded/installed sidebar and am starting to like it more and more. i'm still getting used to using it but i luv the scrolling capabilities.

also downloaded desktop manager and that seems to be a cool multi desktop mgmt program. wish they had more options though for the type of keys that are placed in the menu bar. minor quib but my pb is just so stylin'. :p

i've had konfabulator for some time. i LUV the widgets but still can't justify spending $25 on the program. seems a little expensive to me so i had to uninstall it since i was getting rather annoyed with the little pop-up reminder. if it was like $10 cheaper, then i'd have no problem. that's 25 songs on itunes man (or more if you buy some albums that have a lot of songs on them for $9.99)!

also bought synergy. that was a no brainer. love how it flashes song details from itunes. very nice!
 
Hm, little programs that I like...

Well, I've had quite a bit of fun with iTaf, I love Mozilla Firefox, particularly with the FoxyTunes extension, MPlayer OSX is a great video player, and I used to use FFmpegX a lot until I upgraded to Panther and it decided not to run on my system anymore. I'm still trying to figure that glitch out...
 
How many of these applications are likely, or unlikely to work with OS X Tiger when it's released?
 
someone mentioned StickyBrain which is a scrapbook type app that lets you organize random snipits of your personal life along with notes pictures, websites. i liked it a lot but the thing thats preventing me from buying it is the fact that when you save a webpage it doesnt retain its original layout. this is just too weird. if i save a website i'd like to view it in its original layout.

does anyone know of an organizing application that will allow you to take notes and add pictures, emails, webpages and still maintain html layouts?

thanks a lot.
 
Dahl said:
It's not really small (or cheap), but Adobe Acrobat lets you save webpages.
But I'm sure there are other cheaper solutions.
Click to expand...

thanks :)

but im actually looking for something that allows me to just save the webpage by just selecting all and sending to my "scrapbook" application. or clicking on a web image and using control-click i can choose save to "scrapbook". then when i need to find that LCD tv that i was looking at the other day i can just search in my "scrapbook" for LCD tv and the info will pop up. STICKYBRAIN is perfect but it strips the layout of the webpage.
 
Steve-o

Recently I have stumbled across this, a RSS reader that learns what topics you like.

Aside from that I am a big fan of the konfabulator, bring on Tiger and all them widgets
 
adium for MSN...very nice little App.
osx planet for great desktop environment.
Acqusition for p2p.
 
Upgrade, Upgrade, Upgrade

Shadowbird said:
I used to use FFmpegX a lot until I upgraded to Panther and it decided not to run on my system anymore. I'm still trying to figure that glitch out...
Click to expand...

There's no glitch, you simply need to upgrade to the latest version. Many open source apps broke and/or were rewritten or recompiled with XCode when 10.3 was released. Anytime you do a major system upgrade and a third-party app stops working, the very first thing you need to do is check for upgrades.
 
Moot

MacSA said:
How many of these applications are likely, or unlikely to work with OS X Tiger when it's released?
Click to expand...

Answer: It doesn't matter.

Most of the applications being recommended in this thread are free/open source or inexpensive shareware, so getting an upgrade for Tiger compatibility will be relatively painless. Only certain defunct and no longer supported apps like Carbon Copy Cloner or DVDBackup may end up breaking permanently, but once again, that doesn't matter, because there are already better programs available which people should have switched to using long ago (Carbon Copy Cloner should be replaced by SuperDuper! and DVDBackup should be replaced by MacTheRipper). The most important thing to do before installing Tiger is to find out which apps you absolutely cannot live without, and then see if they are either replaceable by built-in 10.4 tools, or if there is a need for an upgrade. You should plan all this out long before you even touch the Tiger install disks.
 
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