Saturday, April 11, 2009

Suggested apps for new Mac owners

So, you bought a new Mac and you're wondering what Apple left out. Here's my suggested list of things to add:
  • Firefox: it should be obvious, but just in case it wasn't (but check out Flock below first)
  • Adium: universal IM client. Yahoo, AIM, MSN, Facebook, Myspace, whatever, it has support for it
  • Audacity: sound recorder and converter
  • CoconutBattery: if you've got a MacBook, gives you detailed information about your battery's lifespan
  • Cyberduck: if you do FTP work, this is essential
  • Flip4Mac: plays WMV video in QuickTime Player
  • Flock: Firefox on steroids for social networking site users. Built in tools for YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, and many more. I use it instead of Firefox.
  • HandBrake: DVD ripper extraordinaire.
  • MPEG Streamclip: convert video to a number of formats. Particularly useful for converting videos to iPod-friendly formats
  • OpenOffice.org: free alternative to Microsoft Office which can read and write Microsoft's formats
  • Perian: adds more video codecs to QuickTime Player (e.g. natively play .flv Flash video)
  • Smultron: advanced text editor for coders
  • The Unarchiver: OS X can unzip zipfiles but doesn't recognize other formats like .rar or .7z or many, many others.
  • UnRarX: more sophisticated .rar decoder, can unpack .rars that the Unarchiver can't
  • Transmission: fast, lightweight BitTorrent client
  • VLC: excellent media player for playing media formats other players can't. Also plays ShoutCast internet radio stations from around the world

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