Best Mac Software
 

I noticed a lot of shareware for Windows topics around here. So I thought we could list the best mac shareware/freeware there is out there. Since there is a lot of quality programs for OSX with Cocoa and so on.

Text Editor
Textmate - Best editor at the moment with bundles to suit which ever lanuage you code in. Lightweight to boot
http://macromates.com/

FTP Client
Transmit - Fully featured, Works well.
http://www.panic.com/transmit/

RSS Reader
NetNewsWire - Easily the best, espensive though.
http://www.newsgator.com/NGOLProduct...ID=NetNewsWire

IM Client
Adium - Msn, Aol, ICQ, and others. You can customise everything. http://www.adiumx.com/

Torrenting
No great programs but:

xTorrent - ok, lightweight, missing features
http://www.xtorrentp2p.com/

Transmission - same as above, banned from some private trackers although that problem was fixed with the release of 0.7
http://transmission.m0k.org/

Usenet client
Unison - Best client on the mac by far. Quite possibly the best on any OS.
http://www.panic.com/unison/

You will need a par-extractor as well:
Macpar
http://www.xs4all.nl/~gp/MacPAR_deLuxe/

Media Player
VLC - Best on all platforms (imo)
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Other
If you use Safari you must use this add on:
Inquistor, A cool and nice looking way to use the google search in Safari
http://www.inquisitorx.com/safari/

Alternative to Finder:
PathFinder - Better, especially at handling file transfer problems but costly
http://www.cocoatech.com/

So any other mac users got good software to recommend?

Re: Best Mac Software
 

I recommend the FireFTP extension for Firefox, not Mac specific but cheaper than Transmit (i.e. free)

The Opera browser has a Torrent client (which I occasionally use, if I have bodged an attempt to video something), or try Azureus.

NeoOffice is a fully Aqua-native version of the Open Office suite and is just as free to use.

Re: Best Mac Software
 

The problem with Azureus is its in Java and very memory intensive i find.

Re: Best Mac Software
 

NeoOffice starts up slowly on my 1.5Ghz PowerPC Mini, but once it has loaded, is fast enough and a lot less clunky than OpenOffice.

Re: Best Mac Software
 

Agreed, you need to get a Mactel. ;)

I find 'slow' a relative term however. 'Slow' is waiting for Sphynx Adventure to load onto a BBC micro from a tape.

Re: Best Mac Software
 

Here's some of what I use...

BBEdit lite (Free) Its the only text editor I found that can handle Windows/non-Windows carriage returns properly.

Sidetrack (Nagware) to allow me to scroll with my trackpad.

Adium (Free) for IM.

MT-Newswatcher (Free) for newsgroups. Extremely powerful.

Cyberduck (Free) for FTP.

VLC (Free) for media player.

Acqlite (Free) for P2P

iMergePDFs (Free) to merge PDFs.

Chicken Of The VNC (Free) VNC client

X-Chat Aqua for IRC.

Dashboard Starter (Free) to pre-load the Dashboard on startup...

UnRarX (Free) for decompressing files.

Firefox (naturally) & OpenOffice

I did use Tomato Torrent at one point, but removed it. Can't remember why though :dunce: I use Azureus atm, but could be worth a try if you want an OSX-native alternative.

The best site i've found for finding new Mac software is: http://www.versiontracker.com/

Re: Best Mac Software
 

http://www.bombich.com/ has a lot of software for imaging/ghosting macs, and various programs for managing both labs full of macs and single macs. It's all free, and their Netrestore package is apparently what Apple use to install their own Macs..

Basically, NetRestore and CarbonCopyCloner do the same thing: They let you store a working image of your Mac's harddrive. Netrestore works with DMG files and is designed to enable you to store images on the network, and CarbonCopyCloner is designed so that you store the images on another harddrive or DVD.

CCC also apparently has the option to automatically perform a backup at a scheduled time, or when a device is plugged in.

Re: Best Mac Software
 

Bump....

So any new or better suggestions for this new mac os user?

Also any tips in general about usage.

Cheers, dilli

Re: Best Mac Software
 

With Opera (http://www.opera.com/)if you download a .torrent file, it will then automatically download the torrent

Re: Best Mac Software
 

Indeed it will, but personally I found Opera's torrent client to be pretty poor. Not very controllable and liable to stall downloads, not properly recognise bad data, that sort of thing.

---------- Post added at 11:51 ---------- Previous post was at 11:50 ----------

You can now get BBC iPlayer on the Mac, if you go to the iPlayer Labs page and sign up as a tester.

Re: Best Mac Software
 

Cheers :)

Re: Best Mac Software
 

In line with Apple's recent advice that OSX users should use an antivirus program, Avast have now released a Mac version of their free antivirus software:

http://www.avast.com/eng/programs.html

Re: Best Mac Software
 

Downloading now, not sure if the Mac one is free though ?

Re: Best Mac Software
 

Oh, looks like it isn't.. Damn.. Was told it was..

Re: Best Mac Software
 

Mac the Ripper - DVD ripper (quality name)
Avide Mux 2 - Editing and saving video (works with files ripped direct from DVD)
ffmpegX - another video editing tool and also converts to different audio formats (will say it's only a trial but it has yet to run out on me)
Gimp - Image editor (doesn't work very well with PNGs)
iResizer - Mass image resizing in various formats
Name Mangler - On mass renaming tool
InstantShot! - Best screen grabbing software I have found
Just Looking - Alternative to viewer - allows similar controls to windows when looking at a folder of images

I personally find VLC extremely annoying on my Mac. I have managed on the whole to get away without using it :)