Mac Resources

This thread is dedicated to helping people find solutions to stuff all in one spot on the forums. Feel free to Link to the thread in your signature, or Post useful information yourself.

I'll begin the thread with applications: Remember to also check Mac Beginners Guide - Apps

Image Viewers and Editors. Image viewers capable of scrolling through images in a folder, and playing animated .gif images unlike Preview.app.

Justlooking - Image viewer

Xee - Image Viewer

Adobe Photoshop CS4 - Professional Image Editor capable of doing almost anything with an image. Also comes with Image Ready which is capable of doing similar things, as well as making animated gifs. If you're serious about photo editing/graphics design -- Photoshop is a good investment

Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 - A slightly cheaper photoshop for those who don't require the full power of photoshop CS4

Live Quartz - A powerful, and Free image editor for OS X designed to work with Core Image effects built right in to OS X. You can manipulate images with any effect available (some of which are the same ones used in Photobooth). There is an eraser tool to remove backgrounds and a tool to make images transparent. It works with layers and has undo functions.

GIMP - A FREE alternative to Photoshop. It has many of the same functions as photoshop. (Requires X11 to run)

X11 should already be installed, if it is not you can install it from the 10.4 Tiger Install DVD. If you run Leopard, it may come already installed, or be on the DVD as well. If GIMP says you do not have X11, and you do not have the install DVD, check here

Paint Brush - The closest thing to MS Paint available!


Adobe Lightroom 2 - Professional Image organizer, processor, and manager for professional photographers.

Aperture - Another Professional Image database software.



Media

Flip4mac - WMV plugin for Quicktime

Perian -- The ultimate quicktime plugin. Gives quicktime the ability to play many different formats.

VLC Player - When quicktime fails, VLC is there to help. This player plays virtually anything, and tends not to struggle with AVI files as quicktime may

Handbrake - Convert DVDs to movie files for iTunes/iPod/iPhone/AppleTV & More

iSquint Convert Videos for iTunes/iPod. This program is a smaller free version of the Techspansion program called "Visual Hub" which did much more. Techspansion has since discontinued it's products, so the link may not work.

Audio Hijack Pro - An app that lets you record system audio, microphone, or specific application sounds. Integration with iTunes allows you to add to iTunes with a click of a button.

Snapz Pro X - One of the best Screen Grabing, and Screen Recording apps out there. Record not only video from your screen, but audio as well!

Mac The Ripper - Rip DVDs to OS X




System Utilities / Customization

System Utilities - From Macrumor guides. These Utilities offer greater customization to OS X

Keyboard Maestro - Creates macros that control the system, control applications, or even execute apple scripts. They can be set to run on hotkeys, or by other means.

Candybar - Change and customize the Dock, even change icons you can't safely change manually such as the Finder Icon, and the Trash Icon which are controlled by the system.

LiteIcon - A free alternative to Candybar


Other - The stuff I either can't place in an above category, or the stuff I forgot and am too lazy to scroll up and find it's place in the code

Fun Card Maker - an Alternative to the now discontinued Apple iCards

Funny Photographer - An alternative to Leopard! err.. an alternative to Photobooth! The new effects are not in Tiger's photobooth, but may be included with Leopard.

Wallsaver - Run your mac's screen saver as the wallpaper

Trash problems

To Troubleshoot Trash Problems, follow these steps

-Reboot. Does it empty now? No?, well then:

-Hold Option while emptying trash to Force Empty. Does that work? No? Well then:

-Click on Finder, click the "Finder" Menu in the task bar at the top, select "Secure Empty Trash". That should do it. No? Well then:

Troubleshooting Macs

Having problems with your mac?
also see software troubleshooting from macrumor guides

-Use Disk Utility HDD/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app
-Repair Permissions
-Verify Disk
-Check SMART Status (listen at the bottom of the window)


Reboot - Rebooting solves a lot of issues.


Still having problems? Try Resetting the PRAM


If problems persist, you will need to take more drastic measures:

Open System Preferences, and click on "Accounts". Create a new user account. Log out, select the new account and log in. This will verify if the problem is system-wide, or just related to your User Account


If the problem persists even on a new user account, try running an Apple Hardware Test




If the problem is not hardware related, you should backup your files, and do a clean install of OS X. To do this, you pop in the OS X Install DVD, and let it boot from that. When the install menu pops up, and you are able to select options in the menu bar at the top -- select "Utilities" and "Disk Utility".

Use Disk utility to completely erase your main hard drive, then continue with the installation.




If "Verify Disk" in disk utility came up with errors, and cannot repair them -- there still may be an option.

Reboot the computer, and as it starts, hold Command+S until you end up in a command prompt type screen with text. From there, follow These steps
--------------------
-------------------
---------------------

Computer Won't Turn On?

For intel iMacs, Use These Steps

For older G-series macs (G3, G4, etc.) try Resetting the SMC