my favorite mac-tools
Posted on | July 21, 2006 | 4 Comments
since Martin from futurenews.at is currently installing his very first MacBook, I thought I’ld collect some of my favorite Mac-utiltities for him…
Transmit 3 is probably the most popular FTP-client for the mac. it’s capable of all important protocols (FTP, sFTP, WebDav, .mac), integrates well with common text-editors for remote edit, syncs folders and offers a sweet user-interface (including dashboard-widgets and droplets).
strange name, great text-editor: SubEthaEdit is a lean yet powerful editor clearly aimed at developers. features include syntax-highlighting of the web’s most important languages, apple script-support, a UNIX-like command-line utility interfacing with the terminal and awesome collaboration-capabilities, allowing several users to work on the same document simultaneously.
for most mac-users, instant messaging means Adium X. Adium supports AIM, Jabber, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger and sports a gorgeous, skinable interface. of course, like all other meta-messengers, Adium lacks support for many advanced features of the IM-networks (and you’ll still need your Skype-client, though this is probably about to change).
iTerm is a neat telnet/ssh-terminal application. besides boring stuff like VT- & ANSI-compatibility, apple script-support and multiple languages, it offers transparent windows and – quite useful – tabbed terminal-sessions.
at first glance Quicksilver, is just a fast search-index for commonly used folders, documents and programs (very much like os-x’ spotlight). when looking closer, Quicksilver offers powerful ways to define actions and scripts which also can be mapped to keyboard-shortcuts.
Butler is an essential desktop-utility providing extra menu-bars, docklets, hot-corners and custom hotkeys. Butler launches applications, manages bookmarks, inserts text-snippets, controls iTunes and runs apple scripts.
Transmission is a simple but efficient bittorrent-client – no bells and whistles, just working unobtrusively in the background. for more features, the java-based client Azureus is the weapon of choice.
VoodooPad is my favorite scratchpad-application. VoodooPad is unique in storing documents as marked up text very similar to html, allowing nested documents, links and the usual html-formatting. moreover, it exports directly to your iPod.
two more-or-less useful scripts utilize the integrated motion-sensor of the MacBook (Pro) in rather innovative ways: while SmackBook Pro allows users to change virtual desktops by smacking the MacBook’s sides’, MacSaber is totally over the top, turning your laptop into a jedi-weapon!
any must-have tools I have missed? you’re welcome to post!
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4 Responses to “my favorite mac-tools”
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July 22nd, 2006 @ 3:42 am
great overview. thanks michi. I also really like the layout of icons being next to the explanation. looks edgy and clear…now i gotta check out some of those appz.
another rather interesting yet strange app is “liquify”. a totally new way of desktop navigation. very intuitive
July 23rd, 2006 @ 9:11 pm
thx lukas…
about liquify – can u post an URL? wasn’t able to find it yet…
July 26th, 2006 @ 7:41 pm
obviously i misspelled it. it is called LIQUIFILE. nevertheless it was still hard to find
2 links concerning this rad app:
http://www.liquifile.eu/
http://www.liquifile.eu/
it is shareware but available for less than 10 bucks.
July 26th, 2006 @ 9:55 pm
just tried it out…
wow, this is really redefining the way u see your file-system…honestly,at first I didn’t get the fact that the x-axis represents the date of creation/last-change…once I got this…it really started to rock
some glitches: folders aren’t represented as files (they should appear as gray spheres, just as files…)…and I’m afraid the concept will get ineffective when dealing with many (>100) files per folder, too much scrolling…anyway… cool thing!
thx man! (that goes also for ur ongoing contribution to my blog
)