Steve's Essential Mac OS X Software List

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Updated: Nov 2010
So I'm three months into (nearly) full-time Mac ownership. What applications have I found essential and worth downloading? For my own memory (should I ever need to re-grab everything after a re-install or on a new Mac, and to help others) here's a brief rundown:
  • Nokia Multimedia Transfer - essential for integrating a Nokia smartphone into a Mac
  • iSync for Nokia - lets your Nokia smartphone sync to Address Book and iCal
  • Seashore - somewhat basic but useful image cropper/manipulator
  • KompoZer - not supported anymore and 1% buggy, but a terrific visual HTML/WYSIWYG editor
  • Cyberduck - the best FTP client for the Mac
  • Copernicus - small screen video grabber, useful for odd extractions from web animations
  • Audacity - the famous audio editor
  • Open Office - the equally famous full Office suite
  • Burn - additional disc burning functions beyond the built-in bits of Mac OS - still not sure if I need this, but it's got a great reputation
  • JumpCut - multiple clipboard utility
  • Audio Hijack Pro - ditto
  • Disk Inventory X - super for finding where all my hard disk space has gone
  • OnyX - the Apple-recommended semi-official hard disk verification and clean-up utility - hasn't found a problem yet on my Mac, but you never know....
  • Smultron - a text editor that copes well with the huge text files used in my Trivopaedia
  • Handbrake - a video transcoder and DVD ripper
  • Wimpy FLV Player - as it sounds.... there's no native FLV playback in Mac OS X
A somewhat shockingly long list, I'd thought that Mac OS X would do most everything I needed (what with the superb iLife 09 suite etc), but it turns out that, just as under Windows, there were a whole raft of little addons I needed in order to get everything done!
I do hope this list helps someonem anyway.

Comments

James said…
Nice list, though I'm sure it will grow to about 100 apps by the years end!

App Zapper
iPlayer Downloader (you'll love this one Steve!)
Boxee
Fairmount
Handbrake
LittleSnapper
Nokia Map Loader
Screenium
Soundfly/Soundfly Receiver
Tweetie
VLC
Xtorrent
Zattoo

Are a few more classic Mac apps.
9:23 AM
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