Top Mac OS X Applications for Bringing in 2008 With Productive Style
It has been almost two months since I purchased my new MacBook Pro. I have had plenty of time to cruise the interwebs to find the best and worst applications. As you can see from my initial list of top 13 Mac OS X applications, many things have changed. As the last days of 2007 dwindle down, these following apps will bring me productively in to 2008.
Top Mac OS X Applications:
Web Browsers
Firefox
Safari ain’t that bad. But Firefox is better.
“The award-winning Web browser is better than ever. Faster, safer, and easy to use, Firefox delivers a better Web experience.”
Really it’s the add-ons that make this browser. Try it out.
Coding
TextMate
It was a toss up between this and BBEdit. This one just seemed to produce a better visual code for my taste.
“TextMate brings Apple’s approach to operating systems into the world of text editors. By bridging UNIX underpinnings and GUI, TextMate cherry-picks the best of both worlds to the benefit of expert scripters and novice users alike.”
Truth is, both TextMate and BBEdit are great pieces of software that do relatively the same thing. You won’t go wrong with either one.
CSSEdit
Very clean and elegant visual CSS editor.
“Design beautiful, innovative and fast-loading web sites… with a beautiful, innovative and fast app. CSSEdit’s intuitive approach to style sheets and powerful previewing features will make you deliver awesome standards-based sites in no time!”
My favorite features are the real-time styling of any web page and the new X-ray Inspector that shows you what styles apply to the web page.
Coda
Text editor, FTP program, CSS editor, terminal and more all rolled in one.
“So, we code web sites by hand. And one day, it hit us: our web work-flow was wonky. We’d have our text editor open, with Transmit open to save files to the server. We’d be previewing in Safari, running queries in Terminal, using a CSS editor, and reading references on the web. “This could be easier,” we realized. “And much cooler.””
Great for new, rather than existing, web site projects.
Blogging
MarsEdit
If you’re out a connection to the interwebs and you absolutely need to blog, this is your savior.
“Browser-based interfaces are slow, clumsy, and require you to be online to use them. While your blog’s web interface struggles to perform the simplest of tasks, MarsEdit uses the power of your Mac to provide an amazing blog editing experience. MarsEdit is a desktop blog editor, so you can write a blog without giving up the comforts of your Mac.”
I have issues with both MarsEdit and the other well known desktop blogging software, ecto. MarsEdit is just a tad more aesthetically pleasing and intuitive.
Writing
NeoOffice
This is the best alternative to Microsoft Office I have found.
“NeoOffice is a full-featured set of office applications (including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and drawing programs) for Mac OS X. Based on the OpenOffice.org office suite, NeoOffice has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can import, edit, and exchange files with other popular office programs such as Microsoft Office.”
If you can’t afford Microsoft Office, this is your new office suite.
WriteRoom
Simply write.
“Walk into WriteRoom, and watch your distractions fade away. Now it’s just you and your text. WriteRoom is a place where your mind clears and your work gets done. When your writing is complete, exit WriteRoom and re-enter the busy world with your work in hand.”
Feed Reader
NetNewsWire
If you’re not using Google Reader, you should be using this.
“Looking for an easy-to-use RSS and Atom reader for your Mac? You’ve found it! The “Eddy” award-winning NetNewsWire has a familiar three-paned interface and can fetch and display news from thousands of different websites and weblogs.”
Their purchasing method is lousy. It’s a subscription and you’re not guaranteed within your subscription year to get any program updates if there aren’t any. I recommend waiting until the program is updated and then purchasing the subscription.
Burning/Ripping
Burn
Simple burning application.
“Burn is an application to burn most common disks: data disks, audio disks (mp3, audio cd), video disks (VCD, SVCD, DVD-Video, DivX), images and disk copy. Burn makes it easy for everyone to burn.”
HandBrake
Great for pulling video and converting it to iPod format.
“HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.”
Takes forever though.
MacTheRipper
Pulls the entire DVD and puts it on your hard drive.
“MacTheRipper is a free DVD ripper (extractor) for Mac OS X. It can extract commercial DVD movies to your hard drive, minus all the copy protections and region controls put in place by DVD publishers. You can then use various tools to burn the movie back to DVD-R for use in DVD players, or convert the movie to different formats for playback with a variety of devices.”
Much faster than HandBrake since its not converting to anything.
Audiobook Builder
This isn’t really a burning or ripping application but it does convert files to .m4b, which iTunes recognizes as audio books.
“Now there’s Audiobook Builder, the easy way to quickly import your Audiobook CDs (or tracks that are already on your Mac), organize them and output one or two files that your iPod recognizes as actual Audiobooks.”
It even lets you separate files into chapters.
Photo Editing
Pixelmator
While Adobe Photoshop is the image editor of choice, this ain’t a bad alternative.
“Pixelmator, the beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editor for Mac OS X has everything you need to create, edit and enhance your images.”
And a whole lot cheaper.
BitTorrent
Transmission
Very streamlined and easy to use.
“Transmission is a fast, easy, and free multi-platform BitTorrent client with a focus on being lightweight yet feature-filled.”
This little guy helped me watch Dexter Season 2.
FTP
Transmit
FTP made easy.
“column view. idisk. sidebar. ftp/ssl. search. zooming. tabs. transmit 3 takes mac os x ftp to the next level. again.”
There is a bunch of competition out there like Fetch and Cyberduck but I found this to be a tighter package.
Media Player
VLC
After you use Transmission to download that legal media in XviD format, you can use this to watch it.
“VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.”
This eliminates the need for multiple video players and extra codecs.
Money Management
Cha-Ching
If Quicken is too daunting, this is a great little alternative.
“Cha-Ching is a fun and easy to use money manager, with a slick interface that uses advanced functionality built into OS X.”
Or you could just use pre-made spreadsheets like PearBudget.
Task Management
OmniFocus
Great if you’ve read, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
“Task management shouldn’t be your full time job. We’ve built OmniFocus to take a load off your mind by managing your tasks the way that you want, freeing you to focus your attention on the things that matter to you most. Finish that novel. Spend more time with your friends and family. Grow your business. Let us worry about keeping your goals and tasks, both personal and professional, in one ordered, easy to access system that you can depend on.”
You’re first task should be learning how to use this application. There’s a bunch of features.
Backup
SuperDuper!
Everyone should have a backup program.
“SuperDuper is the wildly acclaimed program that makes recovery painless, because it makes creating a fully bootable backup painless. Its incredibly clear, friendly interface is understandable, easy to use, and SuperDuper’s built-in scheduler makes it trivial to back up automatically. And it runs beautifully on both Intel and Power PC Macs!”
This one is the best.
That’s it folks. If there are any other applications that can hang with this crowd let me know.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
[…] soul so it was difficult not to. I don’t plan on deleting any past posts, as some of them, like this one, were pretty popular so that would be unwise. I do however pledge to keep my off-topic fascinations […]
This is a cool list. I’ll add some of those on my Mac too.
Funny enough, I already found more…will it ever stop.
A few days ago I discovered MarsEdit. I love it. You might want to check out Scrivener. It’s an excellent tool for writers. You can try it free for thirty days.
You know I keep wanting to love Scrivener but I seem to just navigate back to a simple word processor and post-it notes. Go figure.
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