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What cool little OS X apps do you use?

Some of you have probably noticed that Synergy has gotten better.. It no more eats your CPU all the time. Makes it much more useful. I finally got to pay the fee too, which I'm happy of because I wanted to pay for it in the first place but couldn't because of the need of a credit card.
 
No more CCC?

amcgee said:
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!...
Click to expand...

Ugh! CCC's no longer being supported? It's been the best backup solution I could use (to back up everything - not just what Apple wants me to back up). I don't remember what I didn't like about SuperDuper when I tried it, but I do know CCC (to create a disk image that I then burn to DVD) has been my weekly friend. Then again, I just went from a 4GB hard drive to a 40GB hard drive, so it would probably stop working as a solution at this point, anyway. I'll have to try something new this weekend.

Ugh!
 
Thanks for sharing your experience!
I'd like to add Butler - small app that sits in the menu bar and adds just 1 icon, but under this icons is whole bunch of useful stuff -- just press Ctrl+Space and start typing appliccation or Contact person's name, and it will find it for you in a second! It has several clipboards which can save their content upon computer shut down or restart, it has Application list, etc etc.

Some other stuff I've found useful:
Accordance - Mac Bible software. Gradual upgrade is also possible.
Audio Hijack / Hijack Pro - grab audio from any application and record it!
Apples to Oranges / iUnit OSX - all kind of conversions.
Captain FTP - FTP client with Randezvous support.
CocoaMySQL - extremely good MySQL frontend with GUI, work with MySQL tables like in Excel - click in the cell and edit it's content :)
Curio - store all your creative ideas for the particular project in one place.
FileWrangler - file batch renamer.
iBackup - free backup utility. Twice saved me from real disaster.
Imprint - print envelopes and labels from your Apple Address Book. Can save results as templates.
MacSword - Mac Bible software for free.
PlainClip - removes formatting from the text in Clipboard.
MacFamilyTree - geneology software. Looks very promising.
Mellel - very good text processor for technincal documentation. Actually for me it's MS Word substitute. I am fully satisfied :)
Jumsoft Money - very simple (too simple?) money management.
MPlayer OS X 2 - real Mac-like media player - for those who don't like QT.
NewsFire - the way RSS feeds were meant to be read.
NetNewsWire - another good RSS reader.
OmniDictionary - free dictionary, can be made also into offline dictionary.
PhaseOne C1 - convert digital SLR camera RAW files into TIFFs or JPGs.
skEdit for PHP and HTML editing.
PrintWindow - print folder and file lists, directory trees.
Salling Clicker - control Keynote presentation or iTunes from your bluetooth mobile phone.
SideTrack - give more power to your PowerBook's trackpad!
Skype - talk to your buddies over the Internet for free! Or call to the landlines for very cheap money.
SlimBatteryMonitor - color your battery info in the menu bar for iB or PB.
Steel - save all your passwords in one password-protected file.
StickyBrain - great place to store all kind of useful info. Just select any text or pictures, press Option-Command-C and it's saved in indexed database.
Synergy - control iTunes from the menu bar.
TimeOut! - for those who forget to excercise while sitting at the computer.
VLC - everyone knows it! Great media player, just playlist isn't as good as in WinAmp or MPlayer OSX.
 
amcgee said:
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).
Click to expand...
A teacher uses Carbon Copy Cloner at school, using step-by-step instructions I wrote, to create a netboot image. Does SuperDuper do that too? The description at Versiontracker doesn't mention it.

The netboot images made by Mac OS X Server itself don't work for a reason our Apple rep was never able to explain, which is why we've relied on Carbon Copy Cloner, which can make perfect netboot images. Now I'm worried we might be left with no working method. Does anyone have a specific reason to expect Carbon Copy Cloner to fail under furture Mac OS X versions?
 
Just wanted to say this is definitely one of the best posts in here. Being new to the mac, I only really knew of adiumx. After seeing this, I've downloaded a bunch of the apps mentioned and I love 'em. Quicksilver has got to be one of my faves. It makes things SO much easier.

thanks!
 
I just tried Delocalizer. I've seen it before, but dared not use it, as it wasn't tested with 10.3. After reading a couple of the posts in this thread where people had used it without any problems I finally had to try.

It removes 950MB of localization files... :eek: almost a full GB (and my HD is getting crowded by a large iTunes collection)... it's fantastic...!!! :D

My girlfriend just ran it, and it removed 1012MB...!!!

Thanks to those who tried it before me...!

As to other freeware I use regularly:
- Firefox (d'uh)
- Adium X (good to keep up with both msn and icq users)
- SubEthaEdit (plaintext editor, until I can afford BBEdit)
- LyX (latex wysiwyg editor, using it to write my master thesis)

Still the #1 program I use has to be Apples own iTunes. I don't think I could live without it. I dreamed of this kind of program back in the mid 80's, when I spend numerous hours compiling mixed tapes from my vinyl albums (and other cassettes). An easy way to store and access all my music was on the top of my wishlist allready then, and now 15-20 years later I got it. :D :cool:
 
Tnef's Enough

I work a lot with business professionals and some of them don't know how to tell their email programs not to encode rich text format (native for MS Outlook users). This program will end your WINMAIL.DAT email attachments woes. You drag the WINMAIL.DAT file to the Tnef's Enough icon and the encoded attachments come through great. It is very solid and in four years of use I have only had it wig out on me twice. And you can't complain; it's free.

Go here to try it http://www.joshjacob.com/macdev/tnef/index.html

I am also a fan of the simple, free and feature rich Tex-Edit from TransTex Software. It has a good search replace function and is great at cleaning up emails with funky Windows characters for printing. It has a ton of mileage on my comp. Hint: Learn to use Apple-J. http://www.tex-edit.com/
 
I downloaded yasu and delocalizer and neither will open on my ibook once they have decompressed and installed. Both worked great on my G5 but I can't get either to work on the ibook. Any suggestions??
 
iScroll2 - A nice little hack that gives many pre-2005 PB and iBook trackpads vertical and horizontal scrolling with more functions on the way. Still under development but works as promised so far. I think you may have to uninstall Sidetrack as drivers may not play well together.

http://www-users.kawo2.rwth-aachen.de/~razzfazz/
 
ic1 said:
iScroll2 - A nice little hack that gives many pre-2005 PB and iBook trackpads vertical and horizontal scrolling with more functions on the way. Still under development but works as promised so far. I think you may have to uninstall Sidetrack as drivers may not play well together.

http://www-users.kawo2.rwth-aachen.de/~razzfazz/
Click to expand...

Awesome! Thanks for that tip. Now I don't have to deal with SideTrack and registering or dealing with the pop-up. I actually like the dual finger method, although it'll probably take some time to un-learn the right-side scroll ;)
 
Since this program was mentioned, how do you get gestures to work. I have followed the instructions from the website to the letter and I get nothing. Any DETAILED instructions would be helpful. By the way, just downloaded Butler and already I am wondering how I ever lived without it.
Pete
 
asphalt-proof said:
Since this program was mentioned, how do you get gestures to work. I have followed the instructions from the website to the letter and I get nothing. Any DETAILED instructions would be helpful. By the way, just downloaded Butler and already I am wondering how I ever lived without it.
Pete
Click to expand...

Assume you are referring to iScroll2. Agree that detailed instructions would help. Best I can do is to say that two fingers scroll (both axes), one finger (even thumb) moves cursor. Could be that your machine is not late enough to benefit altho the app is supposed to check before it completes the install.

Try contacting the author, he'd probably welcome the feedback. If you do, ask him to add a right click function that doesn't involve the ctrl button.
 
First off this is a really great educational thread, already use some of these mentioned applications, but some of these sound very interesting. I'll add one for audio freaks. It's not cheap, but Bias software makes Soundsoap 2, this thing is a heaven sent item for me. Soundsoap takes away noise and it will enhance as well. I use it as a plug in on Peak and AudioHijack Pro, but it will work as a stand alone application as well.

Brian
 
Not to hijack the thread, but I have a quick question regarding iScroll2:

I have noticed that when using Firefox, I can go forward or backward with a 2-finger sequential tap (ie. back is right finger down then left). I think this is an iScroll2 provided feature but maybe that's wrong. Anyway, this a cool idea, but falls completely flat when I try to use the scrolling...

When I try to place both fingers down to scroll up/down, I *rarely* have the exact simultaneous contact of both fingers on the pad, so the software interprets this as a forward or back browser movement. This is obviously VERY annoying when trying to scroll down a page and I end-up going back/forward constantly instead.

So, is there a way to adjust the time required between a sequential double finger-down to trigger the forward/back to make it more deliberate? If not, is there a way to disable this forward/back functionality (as, for me, it completely destroys the scroll part of iScroll which is what I mostly want)? I looked in the iScroll2 in the Prefs and saw nothing so maybe it's hidden somewhere else?

Thanks,
Mike
 
ic1 said:
Assume you are referring to iScroll2. Agree that detailed instructions would help. Best I can do is to say that two fingers scroll (both axes), one finger (even thumb) moves cursor. Could be that your machine is not late enough to benefit altho the app is supposed to check before it completes the install.

Try contacting the author, he'd probably welcome the feedback. If you do, ask him to add a right click function that doesn't involve the ctrl button.
Click to expand...


Actually I was referring to CocoaGestures (using the mouse to navigate the GUI) not a trackpad. Sorry for the confusion.
 
asphalt-proof said:
Actually I was referring to CocoaGestures (using the mouse to navigate the GUI) not a trackpad. Sorry for the confusion.
Click to expand...

In each application you are in you need to go to the application menu and then select cocoa gestures. It only works in Cocoa apps. From there you can turn it on or off configure the activation keys and what commands what symbols control.
 
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