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.

• Mail
• 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.