Everyone needs tools to use their PC. I covered the
essentials for a Windows PC previously. Some good (free) tools for your Mac:
- StuffIt Expander, your OS X WinRAR/WinZip equivalent.
- MacFUSE, this extension enables file systems in user space for the mac. Ever want to read NTFS?
- NTFS 3g, the NTFS plug in for macFUSE, no more 'Items could not be moved because XXX cannot be modified'. Why OS X doesn't support NTFS is beyond me. I have been using the NTFS 3g plug in with no problems for about a year now.
- Opera, while not a Mac-only utility, having the Opera web browser is essential. Especially when Safari acts up, or you want to use IRC, or bittorrent, or RSS, or email, or anything really. Its an all in one solution.
- Parallels, lets you run your bootcamp Windows partition seamlessly inside the mac, and with graphics acceleration to boot. Nifty. While not free, I feel its worthwhile. The free alternative is virtualbox.
- Nocturne, this lets you dim, and otherwise change your screen display. Very useful for late night computing.
- Small Image, for quick image resizing.
- Paintbrush for mac.
- Perian and Flip4Mac WMVfor extending media file support by OS X.
Plus the usual assortment of VLC, Mplayer, Filezilla, Adobe Reader, etc. A great place to find nifty tools is
I use this, for OS X. Tools that get a lot of recommendations, but I don't use much are iStat Pro, VMware, Little Snitch and Transmission. I still haven't figured out if MacPorts or Fink is better, so far, I've had poor experiences with both.
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4 comments:
Correct the little green button so it maximizes:
http://www.blazingtools.com/downloads.html
Open a terminal from finder (not sure anymore if this is the one I use):
http://code.google.com/p/cdto/
You can open a finder window from terminal with "open .", if this is the right version.
Preview has the built-in ability to resize images and adjust colors. Open up your image in Preview and select Tools > Adjust Size or Adjust Color.
Microsoft 2008 -> older, word file converter:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx
And I think I forgot to mention Flip4Mac... (for wmv playback).. and thats it!
Foun this great tool to let you geo-tag your photos using an independent GPS unit and a standard camera. Works by synching time data.
http://www.earlyinnovations.com/gpsphotolinker/index.html
Get home/end working properly:
http://doublecommand.sourceforge.net/index.html
Favourite dashboard widgets:
*Deep sleep, for hibernate:
http://deepsleep.free.fr/
*Currency Converter:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/calculate_convert/currencyconverter_palplesoftware.html
*Time Scroller:
http://www.timescroller.com/Widget.html
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