Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

OS X essentials

Macnoviz

Macnoviz

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 10, 2006
1,059
0
Roeselare, Belgium
I bought the Macbook when it came out, and I am quite happy with it. As a newbie, it took some looking to find the right free programs to be able to do some basic stuff, now I have:
Handbrake (mac the ripper makes the files too big, and I do know the difference)
iSquint
Flip4mac
Adium (with MSN theme, yes I still hate Windows, but it happens to be a nice look)
NeoOffice (to complement iWork)
Acquisition
Quinn (gotta have something to do while rendering)
Seashore (I never quite figured out the Gimp, though I have it too)
Audacity
Firefox as main browser (and Opera in the archives)
Stuffit
WMP (from before I had Flip4Mac Universal)
Realplayer
Coverflow

Now my question is: what is missing from this list? I have no specific needs at the moment, but there will always be things in the future.
Any programs that should be replaced with other (free) alternatives?

I know this has probably been asked, but I can't really seem to find those threads.

Thanks!
 
Other than the ones you mention, I would add:

Mail.appetizer: This is a Plugin for Mail.app that alerts you of incoming messages with a floating panel. It is similar to Outlook's notification feature.

Electric Sheep: Very impressive screensaver.

Transmit / Cyberduck: Very good FTP applications. Cyberduck is actually free.

Viena: I love this RSS reader.

Azureus

You should also get the Deerpark Mac-optimized builds for Firefox.

Hope that helps get you started. And welcome to the Mac. :D
 
A program which I've found very useful (mainly because I'm kind of OCDish about my iTunes library being organized) is Parsley is Atomically Delicious. It's a tag editor which allows you better control over labelling show names and seasons for TV seasons ripped into your library (and, thus, onto your library). This way ripped TV shows will actually show up under "TV Shows" in your library and on your iPod.
 
I use VLC for almost all of my video/DVD playback. Also, Delocalizer is great for freeing up disk space by gettting rid of unneeded language files. (Never tried it on Tiger.) There is an extensive software list in the Mac Rumors guides here.
 
Dd you get the intel binary (beta) version of Audacity? Under Rosetta it does not work very well for a lot of people, including myself.

BTW, does anyone know whether RealPlayer is universal? I checked their website and it lists G3 or Intel Core Solo as one of their minimum hardware requirements, but it is mum about whether it is Universal. I already have PPC version and before I go through another download, it'd be nice if I was sure one way or another.
 
Divx for Mac (self-explanatory)

Stuffit Expander, a zip/rar/cab.. decompressor

Darwine (if you wish to run some ugly Windows apps natively for free)

Transmission, a very good bitorrent client

Opera for Mac, an alt fast browser

Google Earth, SketchUp.., a bunch of Google cool apps, no big use though
 
lexus said:
I still have no idea what it does.
Click to expand...

QuickSilver is vaguely like SpotLight, only supercharged. I primarily use it as an application launcher for those apps I don't have on my dock, (for example I just hit ctrl+spacebar, then type "xc" and hit enter, X-Chat Aqua loads-up.) It has loads more features though.
 
whenever i read "Mac OS X Essentials" the first thing that comes to my mind is quicksilver... maybe someday mac os will have something like this built-in
 
I second, third and fourth Quicksilver. Man, that's an amazing app. And I still don't even put more than 25% of what it can do to good use. Incidentally, has anyone played with droplets in the new release?

I love Desktop Manager. Even on my 20" iMac, I still need more screen real estate. On my wife's iBook, multiple desktops are essential.

I've also grown quite fond of iMote over the past week -- but then, I was freelancing away from home, and when I got back, I discovered the system-wide iTunes hotkeys in the new version of (what else?) Quicksilver. So I don't really need iMote at home... though it uses less RAM than GrowlTunes.

To see what other apps folks are using, why not try this new site?
 
I recomend VLC for all your video playback needs... and for ppl like me who want to know about these cool programs, if someone mentions a program, a brief description of what it does would be much appreciated:p
 
Essential Mac Applications

Hey every1,
I'm trying to put together a disk of "Essential Mac Applications." just in case of a catastrophic failure, or buying a new Mac so i wont have to re-download all of them. Here's my list so far:

Adobe CS2
Acquisition
Adium
Azureus
Candybar
Carbon Copy Cloner
CoreDuoTemp
Dvd Imager
DVD2OneX
handbrake
iSquint
MacTheRipper
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Mouse
Shiira
Stuff It Expander
SuperDuper
VLC


Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
-Zach
 
DarkNetworks said:
Quicksilver...an OS X must have...
Click to expand...
Can't say it any better than that.

If you don't know what it is, download it, install it, and read the quick tutorial on the homepage to show you the power of this amazing program (very very quick tutorial).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back