Cannot Compute Without
This morning a friend and recent switcher asked for my recommendations on must-have apps for the Mac. Being a fellow designer and web developer this list is largely skewed in that direction. Thought I’d toss the list up here for good ol’ Posterity.
- Safari with Saft (fullscreen, type-ahead, additional prefs) and Stand (thumbnail tabs, dated download folders, per-site user styles, additional prefs)
- iTunes
- The usual Adobe suspects
- Textmate (coding)
- BBEdit/TextWrangler (for RegEx find/replace and diffing)
- Transmit (ftp)
- Quicksilver (an intuitive launcher)
- MAMP (Mac/Apache/MySQL/PHP)
- CleanArchiver (create zip files without OS X-specific hidden cruft)
- Synergy (iTunes controller)
- ClearDock (interface refinement)
- Adium (multi-protocol IM client, includes Growl)
- UNO (interface consistency—you’ll need this for a graphite iTunes)
- Headdress (GUI for setting up virtual domains, works well with MAMP)
- PHPfi (local, searchable index of PHP functions)
- Letterbox (three column Mail)
- SpamSieve (Bayesian spam filtering)
- NetNewsWire (RSS Reader)
- GarageBand
- Audio Recorder (simple audio recording—grab a decent replacement icon while you’re at it)
- VLC (full screen video, playlists)
- Perian/Flip4Mac (expand Quicktime’s compatible formats)
- Mac the Ripper (DVD ripping)
- Toast (CD/DVD burning)
- Handbrake (DVD to Divx)
- Snes9x (gotta keep the Super Nintendo alive!)
Comments are disabled because I’m not soliciting recommendations and I don’t feel like explaining why I’m still using Toast instead of Disco, why TextMate is listed before BBEdit or why I prefer Safari over Firefox.