"Essential" Productive and Fun utilities/shareware

[eVolcre]

I apologize if this is a repeat but a search didn't bring up anything.

While I wait for my new 12" to charge up, I started browsing through 'versiontracker' and got quickly overwhelmed.

A one stop thread might be useful for recent switchers like me to get up to speed on cool software.

Here's what I came up with so far ...

1. iStumbler: (thanks patrick), locates WiFi Hotspots

2. XBack: allows screensavers to be used as backgrounds

3. SereneScene: The fishies! They be swimming.

4. Reflection of Daylight : Refection of Daylight is a freeware application that changes the background of your desktop according to the time. So you'll have a sunny desktop at noon whereas in the evening your desktop will be full by the red sunrays of the sunset which will fade into a starry night.

Proteus: All in one chat client ... MSN/Yahoo/Aim

Any comments on the ones I listed?

Mainly ... what else would you recomend? A name and small description would be nice ...


Cheers ... KSR

[janey]

there are two more apps i like to use with or in place of iStumbler: MacStumbler and KisMAC.

my favorite apps are candy bar, cocktail, forty-two, hydra, almost all of unsanity's haxies (ie shadowkiller, fruitmenu, metallifizer, can be found @ http://www.unsanity.com), finkcommander (http://finkcommander.sourceforge.net), bbedit, SAFARI!!!!! and stuff like protools, maya, shake and fcp that you don't need to know about

[eVolcre]

Umm, so .... what do these things do?

[Chimaera]

ok I suggest the following apps:

Launchbar (gives you a command bar to load programs, for example hit apple-space and type toa and hit enter and up comes toast).

JAlbum - Java based web album generator - I use it to organise my digital photos on my website

Camino - the best OSX web browser out there (although Safari is close)

Graphic Converter - great batch editing photos and minor manipulation stuff

BBEdit - the best text editor out there

Transmit - fantastic FTP client

NetNewsWire - RSS feed grabber

[alset]

I'm a fan of NetFinder for FTP. It lists directories in a hierarchical "list" view, allowing you to triangle-tab navigate through files quickly.

Dan