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At least once a day I send a message (now using iChat rather than MSN!) to Kirk telling him that I love my Mac. Why? A number of other reasons:
#1. It just works!
#2. It’s not Windows!
#3. The ton of free and really useful applications out there. For example:
- AppTrap – want to get rid of all the other little bits and pieces of files (preferences etc) when deleting a program? This little tool works in the background and does it for you
- Anxiety – That to do list in iCal is great…but only if I remember to go look at it. Anxiety is an unobtrusive little application that puts your to-do list right on the desktop
- I Love Stars – I’m a heavy iTunes user, always have been since day 1 – even on the PC. So this great little program runs up in the top menu bar when iTunes is running and allows you to quickly add a rating to your songs without actually needing top topen the iTunes window. Doesn’t interrupt the work flow, just a quick little click and the song is rated.
- Gimme Some Tune – on the same vein, I also love lyrics. It’s always nice to try and understand what you are listening to and Gimme Some Tune runs up in the top menu bar and grabs lyrics and album art for your mp3 files as they are played.
- Jalbum – OK, I used this one on the PC too, but I still love it. Put together a quick little web based photo album, skin it any way you want from dozens of free templates, upload it to your website, and share. Easy peasy.
- AppFresh – Keep all your applications up to date. AppFresh checks your Applications and takes a quick look to see if there are any updates available for them. Surte the Apple built in updater works, but only for the Apple software. All those other programs require manual checking every so often. This is one stop shopping! Free for now since it’s still in beta testing.
- Capture Me – I just found this one yesterday. I used to use Print Screen on the PC. Then I had to save the file, open it in Photoshop, clip it down, save it again, insert it into my Word document, resize it, etc, etc….a pain really. I know the Mac has something similar, but yesterday when I was frantically trying to get some documents finished and capture some graphics from a presentation for insertion, I did a quick search to try to figure out how to do this. Being a newbie to the Mac, I didn’t realize there was a screen capture function built in so I just did a Google search and came across Capture Me. Kicks butt on any screen capture I’ve done before. Just drag, click, cut, paste. It resizes proportionally and easily in whatever you paste it into!
- Flock – Another one that I started using on the PC…anything to get away from Microsoft products! I abandoned Internet Expolorer years ago for Firefox and Flock is built on the same Mizilla foundation. What I love about it is the integration with things like Facebook and Flickr, both of which I have accounts in. The Flcikr integration is what probably keeps me using it. I tried Safari, I really gave it a solid go…but Flock is the winner. Yes, it eats a little more of the resources, but it’s still relatively new and I’m hoping they manage to fix that, but it’s a great way to keep in touch.
- Miro – This little gem opens pretty much any video format available. Nothing more need be said.
- WMV Player – Well, OK, one more thing need be said with respect to video. I never realized that Macs don’t have the built in capability to read a WMV file. So if you (like me) get sent a lot of PC video attachments from family members and friends who obviously don’t work when at work….you need this little Quicktime plugin from (ptooie) Microsoft
- uTorrent – This one is something I couldnt’ live without ont he PC. Yes, there are lots of Torrent programs out there (Azureus, Limewire etc..) but uTorrent got it right. It’s a nice, stripped down, easy to use Torrent client…..that isn’t yet completely available for the Mac. It’s in development and there is a beta floating around out there if you hunt. I found it on Demonoid and although it’s not working quite the same way it did on the PC…it IS working. The catch…of course since it’s on a Torrent host, you need a torrent client to get the torrent client. Keep your eyes on the uTorrent site to see when it becomes openly available.
- Mail Scripts – Ever want to write an email now but send it later? In Outlook this is easy with schedule. But Apple Mail doesn’t have this built in function. Mail Scripts adds this functionality. A great little set of plugins.
- Hawk Wings – And on that same topic, Hawk Wings brings together a great set of application plugins to be browsed.
- MagiCal is a free menu bar calendar that gives you quick access to the month at a glance and sits unobtrusively up there at the top of your screen.
- XNJB – Last Boxing Day I picked up a Creative Zen Vision W. I bought it as an addition to the photography bag, a place to store photos and get them off the memory cards. Instead, we have mainly used it for video files since it plugs directly into the TV and can play mopvies without the need to waste disks in burning. Really, how many times does anyone watch the same movie? Unfortunately, Creative doesn’t support the Mac with it’s software so plugging it into the USB port does nothing at all. That is unless you install XNJB. It doesn’t give all the same functionality as the Creative Media Browser, but it does enough to make the little machine useable rather than a dead lump in my drawer, and for that I’m grateful.
I’m not big on paying for software, but there are a few little apps I’ve shelled out for. What amazes me though, is the low cost that Mac developers charge for their apps. Very impressive. There are a coupel of little, very useful, programs I’ve ponied up for.
- Notebook by Circus Ponies. I was a heavy One Note user on the PC. Unfortunately they haven’t built a version for the Mac yet so I went looking…and found Notebook. In some ways it’s missing a few things, but overall, I’m starting to like it a bit better than OneNote. It just takes a bit of getting used to but it’s a great program and ridiculously inexpensive for what it is.
- Visual Hub – Need to convert a video into another format? All my video downloads are in avi and unfortunately, the Apple TV doesnt’ like those files unless you hack the machine. Rather than do that, Visual Hub does it for you and quickly! The downside? Just after I bought it, the developer decided to hang up his hat. It is being reborn, though…
Did I mention that I love my Mac?