Your Top 5 Software Recommendations?

[Darby]

Hi all,

I'm almost a switcher (crossing fingers and looking forward with anticipation).

I was wondering what 5 software/shareware apps you would say are your favorites? :)

I have been looking at: Photoshop Elements 2, StickyBrain, Deamweaver, Konfab(?), and Iconbuilder(?) (Toast is also on my wish list).

I'd love to know what else might be out there that could be useful (and fun) for someone who loves to write, draw and is addicted to digital photography. :)

Also, (sorry, I keep remembering all these questions :)) does anyone know of any software for creating a kind-of gallery online at a website. I would love my family/friends to see my drawings as if they were hanging in a museum (Adobe Album? seems like it might have this...not sure).

Thank-you all in advance,
Darby

P.S. I wasn't sure if this forum (or Mac Questions is the right forum?) :)

[janey]

shake, final cut pro, protools, photoshop, iChat (and all the iApps).
then i'd go on and on but that's just me.
the gallery slideshow like on .mac homepages? sorry nope.

[alset]

Go with .Mac for publishing to the web. As for Apps, it sounds like you've got a great start. I'd say add Flash, since you are looking at Dreamweaver. Maybe Illustrator, as well.

Dan

[Darby]

Hi,

Thank-you ubergeek and Dan. I appreciate your replies and advice. :)

Darby

[Wes]

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, get a game or two. I recommend Medal of Honour or Ghost Recon.

[iGav]

If I didn't have access to these... I couldn't function...

Photoshop
Macromedia Director MX
Discreet Combustion
Final Cut Pro
GoLive

That's the basics done...... ;)

[khollister]

Toast is pretty much mandatory IMHO.

Beyond that, it depends on what you are doing

Office Productivity:
Office X
OmniGraffle (comes with Power Macs)
Keynote

Still Imaging:
iView MediaPro (industrial strength iPhoto+)
Photoshop

Web Development:
DreamweaverMX
Photoshop (again)

Depending on your online habits, you may also need a real newsreader. I use Thoth - great binary handling.

Basic Audio:
Amadeus II

More Advanced Audio:
Mbox + Pro Tools

[mr_austin]

The guy is looking at Photoshop elements and you're recommending Shake and Combustion? How about Oracle 9 and 4D? Or Maya? Or SPSS? Come on....

For basic home use, start with the iApps. Then for basic added productivity, I'd look at Dragthing + Default Folder. Konfabulator does some cool things and has a high 'wow' factor.

For Business stuff, Omnigraffle is a great visio replacement, Keynote a great powerpoint replacement, and if you need compatability, or iCal and Mail arent' cutting it, Office ain't bad.

For web dev - Dreamweaver + BBEdit. Don't forget a nice CVS front end if your projects are hairy. I like CVL.

If you don't like shootem up games, try Candy Crisis, Airbust, and pop-pop. If you do, go with Wes' recs....

A few of the other apps you mentioned expand on functionality already in the iMac. I'd try iPhoto, and if it doesn't do what you need, look at Photoshop Elements, or make the jump Photoshop. Ditto w/ Stickies/Stickybrain.

The funnest part of being a switcher is all the cool mac only software. My current favorites are Audio Hijack Pro and Page Sender. Take a look at Chez Mark and Versiontracker, and they'll show you the things you need that you didn't know you needed....

http://www.chezmark.com/

http://www.versiontracker.com/

enjoy....

[janey]

Originally posted by mr_austin
The guy is looking at Photoshop elements and you're recommending Shake and Combustion? How about Oracle 9 and 4D? Or Maya? Or SPSS? Come on....
:D ;) :p
Hey he asked us for our favorites, not software titles we suggest he use ;)
Oops i forgot Project Builder, WebObjects, InDesign, Quark, Combustion, Maya, 3D Studio Max, Director, After Effects, DVD Studio Pro...:D

[Darby]

Hi again,

Thank-you Wes, iGav, Keith, Mr_austin, and ubergeek. I appreciate the recommendations and will look into them all. :)

Thanks,
Darby

P.S. I'm a girl. Why'd you assume I was a guy with my name? :) Silly.

[janey]

Originally posted by Darby
P.S. I'm a girl. Why'd you assume I was a guy with my name? :) Silly.
sorry ;)
most ppl on macrumors are guys :rolleyes:

[vniow]

Originally posted by übergeek
sorry ;)
most ppl on macrumors are guys :rolleyes:

Yeah, there's only like four or five female regulars here, three of them posted in this thread already.http://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=257755

[hacurio1]

Originally posted by Darby
Hi again,

Thank-you Wes, iGav, Keith, Mr_austin, and ubergeek. I appreciate the recommendations and will look into them all. :)

Thanks,
Darby

P.S. I'm a girl. Why'd you assume I was a guy with my name? :) Silly.

Also… if you like music and want to do some mixing once in a while there is Traktor DJ Studio. I like to do some VJ stuff once in a while as well and I use Arkaos VJ. If you do a lot of video and animation, the above-mentioned programs are indispensable, but Media Cleaner 6 is also a must.

[bwawn]

Check http://www.macosxhints.com regularly. They often have really great OS X tricks posted that involve specific apps that you'd might never otherwise know about, or features of apps you already have that you never knew existed.

macosxhints.com right has got me a really cool interface for music. My iMac is my main jukebox for music now, no CD players in my system. Holding down a button on a remote control that controls my iMac from across the room, I can speak out loud: "play -- [artist name] -- [song title]" and it plays. That is about as geeky as one could get with their music, and other than the remote control's driver software, everything involved is standard software with OS X.

[janey]

Originally posted by bwawn
Holding down a button on a remote control that controls my iMac from across the room, I can speak out loud: "play -- [artist name] -- [song title]" and it plays. That is about as geeky as one could get with their music, and other than the remote control's driver software, everything involved is standard software with OS X.
that's geeky?! my mac can read my mind and figure out what mood i'm in and plays music accordingly. :p

[losfp]

Launchbar.

anything else is optional :D

well, I guess I can add more ;)

iTunes, Mail etc are great.

Plucker is an offline viewer thingie that I'm using as a substitute for avantgo (though it's more manul)

BBEdit is great, but I can't afford it, so I'm using Webcode or Taco HTML

Backlight is good fun - set a screensaver as your background

And of course Proteus for IM madness.

[Macette]

Originally posted by Darby
P.S. I'm a girl. Why'd you assume I was a guy with my name? :) Silly.

Hello girl. Welcome. (I know two boys called Darby, tho!)

[wuntrikpony]

Photoshop 7, Final Cut Express, Logic 6, MS Word, Maya

[mr_austin]

you're right... she did ask for favorites...

(and in my mind, guy is a genderless term... sorry if i offended..)

Some..Favorites I didn't list before: After Effects (esp. Trapcode's Shine), Watson, Safari,Codetek Virtual Desktop, Photoshop....

[Chimaera]

Hi Darby.

The programs I couldn't do without on my work machine:

Stickies
Launchbar (check it out on versiontracker, amazing little app)
Office X
Photoshop
BBEdit
Graphics Convertor
Camino

And for a cool screensaver I chose Fluid :)

As someone else said, Toast is fundamentally essential program.

Not quite what you were asking for, but a realy good book for the OS is Mac OSX: The Missing Manual by David Pogue - that has all sorts of hints and tips, and focus on both upgraders from OS9 and Switchers...

[Darby]

Hi again,

Wow! I can't wait to go check out all these recommendations. I now have quite a list thanks to all of you. :)

Thank-you ubergeek, vnlow, hacurio1, bwawn, losfp, Macette, wuntrikpony, mr_austin(No offense taken :)), Chimaera, and anyone else I might have missed.

Off to go look at some software, sites and book rec's.

Darby :)

[billyboy]

Sorry to be a boringly practical Capricorn type, but there will be times you have to actually keep your house in order with all this marvellous software rocking your Mac. So in my favourites cupboard is the maintenance freeby MacJanitor, with Carbon Copy Cloner (not free if you have a conscience) for backing up all creative digital genius on a very regular basis - regular as in like every day. And Jaguar Cache Cleaner is really sexy to have around when solving occasional petty wierdnesses.

Then you can party with a clear conscience. It must be my old man's Scotish blood or something, but my all-time favourite software is iTunes because its free and since 10.2.4 plays Celtic rock very very loud. :p

[tjwett]

it's hard to suggest apps we're all into different things. 5 third-party apps i personally use everday are:

Logic(work)
Reason(work)
BBEdit(fun)
Illustrator(fun)
Photoshop(fun)

If you want to do some web and graphics stuff I'd say get an image editor like Photoshop, a WYSIWYG html editor like WebDesign 1.9(VERY cool and not buggy like Macromedia), maybe .Mac so you can post the pages you are building. If you like to draw tryout Procreate Painter, it's really a joy to use. ToonBoom Studio is awesome as well. if you ever get into video Final Cut Express is a great place to start. Good luck and enjoy your new Mac.

[Darby]

Thank-you for the replies.

BillyBoy, sounds kool. I can't wait to have fun with iTunes. :)

TJwett, organization is a definite priority. I need all the help I can get. :) (*Great* Dune sig too)

Darby :)

[Foxer]

1. Final Cut Pro or express (Haven't used FCE, but at several hundred bucks less...)

2. Photoshop or Elements.

3. Illustrator.

4. Toast

5. (I don't want to say) Office X, but Word and Entourage are important, at least to me.

Must have bonus: Wingnuts. It's a hoot!

[maradong]

photoshop
studio mx ( plus )
cinemam 4d
4th dimension
and
filemaker

[aafuss1]

My top five are all Apple products:
Number one-iLife- it's the best multimedia suite you can get (conmes with many Macs)
Number two-Appleworks-eaiser than Office, but need a major ugrade ( 6.x series-is about 3 years old)
Number three :Safari
Number four: Final Cut Express-cheaper than the Final Cut pro
Number five- .Mac (fee based wevb serrvices-has a utility software-backup and virus scanner-better than the iTools it replaced)

[wsteineker]

Oooh, there are so many...

Well here's my top 5 (in no particular order ;))
1. Adobe Photoshop 7: You just can't beat it.
2. Macromedia Dreamweaver MX: It's incredibly powerful and insanely easy to learn.
3. Microsoft Office X: Still the standard, and a damn sight better than anything Microsoft's ever produced on either side of the fence.
4. Roxio Toast Titanium: It's simply a must for any sort of advanced burn, and it won't hurt your wallet too badly.
5. Ambrosia's Escape Velocity Nova: This is a fun little 2D space shooter that never seems to get old.

There you have it, my friend. A little slice of goodness straight from my dock. Hope this helps! :)

[Darby]

Hi again,

Thank-you Foxer, Maradong, Aafuss1, and Wsteineker for your replies!

I appreciate all the replies. This is a *very* helpful forum. Thanks all!

:)
Darby

[pilotgi]

Don't buy Office X unless you absolutely have to.
OpenOffice for OSX is still in beta, but it's free and I haven't had any problems with it.

[janey]

Originally posted by pilotgi
Don't buy Office X unless you absolutely have to.
OpenOffice for OSX is still in beta, but it's free and I haven't had any problems with it.
compatibility with word docs are much better with Office or AppleWorks than OpenOffice. Darby, if you're a beginner don't use OpenOffice you're gonna be so frustrated...just wait until the final version comes out.
(btw i forgot to say hi...i'm a girl too:D)

[yzedf]

http://www.apple.com/safari/

http://www.adiumx.com/

http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/mail.html

http://www.limewire.com/ (if you do the p2p stuff)

http://www.apple.com/iPhoto/ (if you have a digital camera)

http://www.apple.com/macosx/applications/