TW Blog :: Archives for September 2007

OS X Software I Cannot Do Without!

Relates to Software and OSX

I am a software addict! Who isn't in this game. But I cannot resist downloading the latest software for a test drive.

But for every ten packages I download nine of those will inevitably wind up in the trash. In my Windows days this soon became a sorrowful affair as left trawling the registry cursing the total lack of usability. Fortunately on OS X this is simplified considerably with most software being self contained packages with only a small footprint left in the user library Preferences and Application Support folders.

Anyway my Dock is filled with logs of colourful icons (ooooh I love the eye candy!) for software I might use on a week by week basis. But what programmes must I have open at all times? Well here is a quick snapshot of some of my essentials. Perhaps a few are left off this list like Cyberduck, Photoshop and Fireworks but these are the major must haves if I were to reinstall.

From the right since that is where the interesting ones are:

iGTD

I procrastinate! This is the antidote.

Ecto 3 Alpha

Note this is alpha but it performs pretty well to me and I was already a paid up and very large fan of Ecto 2. I use this for my personal weblogs on both Blogger and Wordpress. Slightly different to other blog clients I have tried with great OS integration.

Mailpane Beta

Another pre-release this one. In essence it is a browser window for Gmail but it also integrates with the Dock, menu bar (instead of Gmail Notifier) and Growl.

Syncro SVN Client

I actually own this as part of the Oxygen suite (itself excellent software) and while I generally do must SVN management from the command line, this has become an essential client GUI for reviewing what went where and when along with integrated Diff viewer.

Adium

Feel the force! And see when my friends are around for a chat.

Brilliant - I store everything here from purchase receipts to notes to serial numbers. I just hope it holds out once the SQLite database starts hitting the gigabytes!?

Path Finder

It has taken a while to get used to using this Finder replacement which has similarities to Directory Opus (my old faithful on Windows) and I am still discovering cool features. But couldn't revert to Finder only ever again!

Billings

I test drove a number of tracking and invoicing solutions and this came out as the least bloated and simplest to use.

Mail

Can skip over that one!

Textmate

I really only use this at its most simple (for instance I rarely use the inbuilt SVN package) but it is quick efficient and effective syntax highlighting/macro support.

Foxy

I am a CSS developer - need I say more!

ITunes

With DockArt running as the Visualizer.

Endo

Ecto's companion (buy them together at a great discount) and a fresh approach to RSS aggregation with lots of hidden treats.

Navicat

MySQL client GUI of choice since it allows SSH tunneling and many other other powerful features.

Safari 3 Beta (Pimped)

Testing and general browsing.

Not exhaustive but an excellent set of tools.

Posted on Thursday, Sep 20, 2007 at 09:48:29.