MidKnight Gallery

I’ve been trying to figure out how to shift my default iMovie folder to another hard drive I have in my computer. Since iMovie ‘08 doesn’t have a setting to change the default folder (unlike iTunes), it seemed that this was going to take a bit of unix wizardry. A small bit, to be sure, but still, it would involve lying to the computer about how the drives are organized.

Then I realized I was making it much too hard. The answer is actually quite simple. As long as you don’t mind having a folder called “iMovie events” at the root of whatever hard drive you move the video to.

There are two things to note in following these directions. You have to use the iMovie interface so it knows where to keep track of the files (and as noted, iMovie creates its own folder). Two, while the instructions keep saying “external firewire drive,” any physically separate drive mechanism should do. I haven’t tried it with USB, but I have used a separate internal drive on my G5.

I’ll be up front here.

Spaces is a feature I rarely use. One reason is that I’ve got some excellent programs for web development like Coda that keep me from having to keep five windows in five different applications open all the time. Secondly, when I park my laptop at my desk for serious coding, etc, I always hook up a second monitor, giving me a lot more real estate for keeping windows open to monitor progress, etc. without having to shuffle and find them. I also learned to get by without it before they made a couple large improvements to it.Â

That said, it definitely has it’s uses. To get the most out of it though, you need to be able to categorize or organize your computer usage in some meaningful way. If you can’t break up your usage into two or three different areas, it may end up being more trouble than it’s worth.

So here goes….

To get to Spaces, you can open up the System Preferences application which is in the dock by default, and select “Expose and Spaces,” then click on the “Spaces” tab if needed to hilight it. If you removed it from the dock, you can also get to it from the Apple menu in the upper left corner of your menu bar. Lastly, if you have already enabled spaces and checked the “Show Spaces in menu bar” option, you’ll get something similar to this:

The first option you see is to enable spaces. Check this. I also recommend you check the “Show Spaces” checkbox as well.Â

The black area underneath the checkboxes is where you set how many “spaces” are available. There always has to be at least one row and one column, and you cannot have partial rows and columns.Â

Underneath that is where you set application assignments. This is where “how do I want to organize my programs” becomes vitally important. Here is where you select which programs open in which space, for when it matters. For any program you add here, you have two choices: Either define which (one) space that program will exist in, or if it will exist in all of the spaces.

If you assign a program to exist in space 1 for example, then switching to that program, especially opening up a new window in it, will shift you over to the space that program is assigned to. If you assign it to all spaces, then the program follows you. Set Safari to be in all spaces, and switch to space 2. The existing Safari window will follow you to space 2.Â

The one major piece of inflexibility here is that it only allows you to be all or nothing. Either a program can be used for one type of work, or all of its windows follow you. Which is why Apple added the last checkbox. If it’s checked, opening up a program like Pages in space 2 “anchors” it in space 2. Switching to that program while in another space brings you back to space 2 as if it had been specified in the list. If it’s NOT checked, you lose the auto-switching, but now you can keep separate windows for Safari, Word, etc. in their own separate spaces, and they won’t follow you around.

Let’s say you might have a space you want to use for school work and research. You have another one you want to use for web programming or organizing family photos, and another space for web browsing or music or emailing or….. You can see the beginning of a problem. You may want to have Word, or Pages, or Safari open in two or more of these spaces without all of the windows following you.

So the solution is to uncheck the bottom checkbox, and NOT specify a space for any program that a) can have more than one window open (most of them), and b) you may use in more than one context. In short, programs like iPhoto which only ever have one window open you will usually specifically assign to one space. iTunes can have more than one window open, but is usually used single-window, so either assign it to one space, or have it  ”follow you” if you keep it minimized. Then open up all the Word, Safari, etc. windows where you need them based on the kind of work done in that space instead of based on what program you are using. Of course, now YOU have to remember what space 3 is for, etc.

As long as you keep track of what space is used for what purpose, you’re golden.

One of the best known SF acronyms outside of Science Fiction is TANSTAAFL, from Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It means “There aint no such thing as a free lunch.” more to the point, it means that there is a price for everything in time, money, sweat, or effort.

This to me holds true in the Linux world, and with many of the often brilliant “free” programs that are available.

You can probably see where this is going.

I’ve been trying to set up proxy services on my G5 running Leopard, so I can get rid of the Suse box that currently has no purpose in life outside of acting as a network proxy server for controlling web access. Running one less computer is good, even if the toaster-box doesn’t add much to my electric bill, and the G5 is becoming less and less my primary workstation anyway – my MacBook Pro is.

Getting squid installed – the proxy software – was pretty simple. The problem? I wanted to run it in conjunction with some filtering software called Dansguardian. This is the part where you shake your head, tsk, and say “ahh… foolish mortal.”

OSX launches background programs in a whole new way from traditional Unix/linux methods. The package I installed was fairly up to date and had a proper startup entry in it. or so it seemed.

The long and the short of it is I have the proxy working, but not the filter, and I’m spending much time on this simply because I want to figure the puzzle out, not because it’s cost-effective.

It’s fun, in a way, but usually I spend too much time fixing other people’s computers to want to have “fun” tinkering.

Just discovered another upgrade “gotcha” with Leopard related to Thursby Software’s “DAVE.”

DAVE has been around a long time. Before OSX it allowed Macs to access windows shares and networks with the same credentials/etc. as windows machines. Even when OSX allowed access to Windows file servers and limited Active Directory compatibility Dave and AdmitMac were a much more complete solution, especially when it came to home folders, authenticating to a domain, etc.

Of course, such an extensive system hack intercepting all of the Windows-related CIFS/SMB traffic is likely to break on a major system upgrade, and sure enough it did. If you remembered to remove this before upgrading to Leopard, or first installed the update to version 7, then all was well, and you could still access Windows servers. if you didn’t, your computer would fail to connect.

Fixing this isn’t that tricky, but is non-obvious unless you are paying for an upgrade. In all cases the best way to remove DAVE is to use the removal package (DAVE is one of the few programs on a Mac that really needs an uninstaller). The issue is that the same incompatibility that prevents DAVE from working prevents the version 6 or earlier uninstaller to shut down the services. In this case, download the trial for version 7 (don’t even bother filling out hte form, just download it), and run the uninstaller for version 7. After a restart, your Mac will get back onto SMB servers as reliably as ever.

I’ve spent five days with leopard now, installing it four times on three different computers, the most recent one two days ago. It’s left one heck of an impression on me. Mostly favorable. If your Mac can run Leopard, you should install it. The sheer scope of the improvements is worth it. Having another computer, or a .mac account and integration with calendar and other services on a Leopard server will make it even more worthwhile.

Other people have given their short little overviews. Others have released articles in dribs and drabs on different features. Yet others have released a veritable book on the subject. As a result, this review will be heavier on my impressions and what I went through.

I got the install DVD on Friday. The packaging was, as usual, wonderful. I chose my Macbook Pro to install it on as between the three Macs that could be upgraded, it was not only backed up (as they all were), it was the machine I could suffer the most disruptions with.

So in goes the DVD. Reboot, choose “upgrade.” So far so good. I click through the initial menus and let the install procedure start as I go off to make dinner. A while later, my son wanders into the kitchen. “Dad? Is it supposed to have a blue screen?”

Uh-oh. Try the usual precautions. Safe mode boot didn’t work. Doing a file-system check in single user mode proved that the hard drive is still in good shape. I decided it was worth some time doing tinkering. I’d have to help other people out of their troubles after all, so I didn’t want to jump the gun and do an “archive and install” or “clean install”. I may be backed up but I didn’t want to spend hours rebuilding my utilities and preferences.

A little research and I dug up a thread in the Apple Discussion Boards where people were already fighting with the same issue. About halfway down someone had decided to poke around on the premise that a set of system extensions referred to as APE was at fault. APE, or Application Enhancer was a third-party system hack used by Cleardock, Shapeshifter, and other programs that modify the appearance and behavior of the OS. Needless to say this can make the system… unstable.

The official Apple page (recommending an archive and install but giving the instructions I followed) is here. Daring Fireball also has more on the subject, including how the Logitech drivers for mice and keyboards, among other things, can install APE without your knowledge.

So I reboot holding down COMMAND-S on the keyboard into the single-user command-line mode, type in the commands needed to check and mount the hard drive, delete the relevant files, and reboot. Viola! It works.

Finally I got my .mac information set up, verified I still had my mail library and signatures (Mail predictably updated the library) and started to see what changed and testing what broke.

Insofar as the kerfluffle with the stacks and the dock… I don’t mind the new dock, but I prefer to apply the default side-dock format to the dock as it’s cleaner and easier to tell what is running. I found the new stack behavior a little frustrating at first because I had several folder shortcuts that I wanted to go and open up the folder, but most of them I used by right-clicking to get a menu of the contents anyway. So, once I recalibrated my expectations and realized I was trading submenus for easier-to click targets and a slight inconvenience in actually opening up the folders (when actually needed) I was more than happy with the effect. In a roundabout way, this is a return of the “drawers” behavior of OS8 and 9, complete with spring-loaded folders that you can drag files and documents to.

I hate the icons for the stacks. I hate them for the simple fact that as an aggregation of the icons for the contacts, I’m trading a minimum of useless information about the contents of a folder for an easily identifiable target to click on. Without wasting time to hover each one, it’s almost impossible to identify which is which reliably. While I’m not a huge fan of the new dock, and less a fan of the hard-to-differentiate new folder icons, I cannot understate how much I loathe the dock. Please please make it possible to keep a stable icon there!

I discovered to my annoyance that the calendar does not keep a side drawer open with the details of the currently selected event. I can deal with this change because it also makes it clearer when I’m looking at vs. just editing an event, and minimizes screen usage when I don’t need the details. That said, I love the “current time” bar that runs across the window. It did miff me a bit to discover that all of the subscribed folders had been pulled out into their own category from the groups I had them in.

I checked out the new syncing preferences for .mac, and decided to forego the syncing of widgets and preferences. My laptop and desktop have many overlapping uses, but they are fundementally used in different environments (field vs. office) with different tools needed at my fingertips.

Parental controls now allow for remote control of other macs on your local network. Hmmm… so now if all my future computers are macs I can administer the ones my children will use centrally insofar as web access, and get rid of the proxy server I run. I can also set hours for when they can get on online. I can also run Fusion to let my kids play some W98 games like Zoo tycoon… and probably faster than the current old Win machine they have access to.

When waking from sleep, I get to the password prompt consistently faster. The wiki feature in the dictionary is cool, and makes a program I already use regularly vice pulling down my volumes even more useful. I also trashed a “refresh finder” script I had available because Apple finally, finally made it update in a consistently timely manner when new files are added.

Spaces took some time to wrap myself around. The biggest problem was me – trying to figure out a separation of work modes that would allow me to maintain different virtual desktops. That said – if you use it as a clutter remover it works great, because unlike many variants I’d seen, you still have access to all of your apps through the Dock or COMMAND-Tab – which instantly switches you over to the correct screen. After I figured this out I don’t do any manual desktop switching – which is easy enough to do. The one hitch I’ve had is I often use CNTRL-Arrow in text editing, so I have to find another default key to switch my spaces.

Screen sharing is easily turned on if you want to use the “Back to my Mac” .mac feature or just access your desktop from across the house using Chicken of the VNC or the built-in Screen Sharing app. Like all of the network services it’s off by default. The only thing that threw me was that turning on file sharing automatically allowed guest access to the public folders – though the guest account was otherwise disabled. While it’s easy enough to stop sharing out public folders or turn off ALL guest access, it did throw me.

Actually, I like how they implemented guest access in general. You can log in as “guest” and get a temporary, restricted workspace that erases itself when you are done. The next “guest” again gets a pristine, sandboxed space to access the web. This is a great way to give my kids access to my main desktop when they’re online…

Back to screen sharing for a minute. This has a few other implications. First, those of us in tech support and consulting can now easily access the computer of any client that we can iChat with. This feature also reduces the future need to install the more flexible VINE server on many client desktops, though the jury is still out on servers, depending on security needs. This is yet another way that a user-friendly feature will also be a big help for IT folk. it alsomeans that those of us with .mac accounts have less need for a service like GoToMyPC or LogMeIn.

Speaking of big help – Time Machine. This is possibly the biggest single reason to get Leopard – so that you can have effortless, consistent backups. I’ve lost count of how many clients do a poor job in maintaining backups. While it won’t help with keeping copies offsite, this feature will save a lot of headaches where it comes to “oops I deleted my file” or “oops, my hard drive died” in shops where we don’t have our hands on Retrospect enough to make sure that the users files are regularly backed up. Time machine makes this process almost effortless. One thing to beware of – If you have any Paralells or Fusion windows images, you may want to make them exceptions or back them up separately unless you’ve got a much, much bigger backup drive than your main drive. Aperture also has some issues with Time Machine

When installing this on my desktop, I noted a few other things. First of all, while the Sharepoints prefpane was still available, all of the SMB and Appletalk share configuration data had been wiped out. instead, those share points now were in the Apple sharing preference pane. Also, after opening Cronnix, I noticed that ALL of my scheduling CRON scripts were gone that I used for mounting my backup disks. Not much of a loss since I’ll be using time machine anyways, but you may want to back up your Crontabs if you’re geeky enough to use them. (I was using CRON to schedule applescripts and other scripts that I only wanted to run on my desktop instead of through iCal).

Insofar as most of my programs, here’s the rundown:

Mail improvements. Here’s where I got hurt the worst. While I don’t mind saying good bye to mail.appetizer (it can be obtrusive), Mailtags and Mail act-on effectively don’t work. The good news is that the creator is already making it Leopard-compatible, and the “Leopard” beta of mailtags is available. I’ll just hold off for the final version. That said, the note-taking ability is useful, the contact-data sensing is just phenomenal, and it can now indent without quoting! The templates are fluff, but slick fluff, and very well implemented. mail has always been great about letting you pick an alternate outbound server if you can’t reach your default, but now you can also choose a different outgoing server as you compose your email.

Inquisitor, an app that gives me instant search results as I type in Safari doesn’t work. It may never be updated as it relied on access to parts of the Safari WebKit code that Apple has severely restricted access to. I will miss it.

Transmit and Quicksilver seem to work fine overall (with updates) though the “open all files with this tag” feature of the tagging module needs updating. The growl notifications are working just great.

Chax has disappeared, but most of the features it provided were rolled into iChat anyway. As it is I’ll still be using Adium except when I need the new “theater” and “screen sharing” modes.

I haven’t run mine yet, but apparently Photoshop works, though may “crash” upon closing out the program. I know Adobe has posted some other issues but apparently the main graphics programs all work OK.

As noted previously, APE is (very) broken.

LiteIcon, an App that allows you to change the default system icons is broken. We’ll have to wait for an update on that or Candybar (from the iconfactory).

Desklickr doesn’t change the desktop out.

Google Earth needed me to reinstall/download the latest version on my laptop.

My Cisco VPN settings were wiped out. I am not sure yet if simply reinstalling will fix this. I WILL get a Time Machine backup first….

Tinkertool says that it is not fully compatible, but shouldn’t break anything, even if some effects are unexpected.

The Wacom drivers needed to be replaced with a new version.

Internet Explorer 5 (OSX version) still works as well as it ever did, for what it’s worth.

Other things that apparently still work:

• Bonjour Browser
• MagiCal
• Aleph One
• MythII
• MS Office
• FlickrUploader
• Synk (with an update)
• Canoscan drivers

Stuff I still need to test:

• Blender
• Emulators
• Freeciv
• Handbrake
• Lingon
• NeoOffice
• nethack
• Pic2Icon
• Picasa Web Albums

That’s it in a nutshell.

My initial impression upon looking at Apple’s 300+ features page was “Good Lord!” The second was “A lot of these are pretty minor.” Remembering that Apple has built its success on making the little stuff work so well it completely changes how you do things, I dug deeper, and came away impressed. When I get around to reviewing it the review will end up being a long one.

Many of the features are actually minor ones, small usability enhancements such as doing a Google maps search by clicking the address in the address book, or the ability to add a new contact to your address book by clicking on an address in the mail body even if they didn’t send you a vcard. Each of these is minor. Each of these nevertheless saves you time by minimizing the jumping around needed to do each task. That way you get back to your work quicker.

In other cases, it’s the combination of features that’s the big deal. Sure, 10.4 had parental controls in place and workable whitelisting that made similar controls built into Windows look anemic and weak. Apple didn’t rest on its laurels, and made improvements. I’m not impressed by “dynamic” filters, but they are now available for filtering web pages if you want. What really blows my mind is that on top of whitelisting allowed websites, email contacts, chat contacts, etc. you can also now control when certain users are even allowed to be on the computer at all. You can also do this from a remote computer across the house so you can centrally manage your parental policies.

For parents geeky enough to be using these features in the first place: whoah.

The biggest deal to me is that Apple, in conjunction with their iWork update, has taken one more step towardsa replacement for Exchange/Outlook/Office that many workplaces rely on. The iCal server integration features offer what 90% of Exchange users use shared calendars for. Now if we could get shared address books (a real one that can be easily updated like Exchange, that LDAP schema doesn’t count) and a Access-like database program integrated with iWork…

The long and the short of it is that it looks like a number of the small features may be small, but they can change how you work in ways that going back will feel like being crippled. Other features work together to be a really big deal. To tell the difference, as well as which features really are just fluff, will take time. To explain how this could  affect you or improve your computer usage will likely use a lot of space.

Don’t expect a full review from me anytime soon.

DWBlog, from the maker of NewsFire (the first RSS reader to hook me before I outgrew its feature set at the time) has an entry on a subject that I’ve often felt conflicted about: product activation. In many ways, I agree with his points, even this one:

What activation allows is for reasonable limits to be placed on licenses. One has to realize that people will try to pirate software, and that in cases of rampant abuse it must be possible to stop the bleeding. The use of activation means that while honest users are given very liberal boundaries, rampant and excessive abuse can and will be stopped. 99.99% of users will never have an issue. In the few cases where the liberal boundaries are broken, there’s probably something suspicious happening.

First of all – I absolutely loathe “copy protection.” In software this is the practice of deliberately manufacturing a CD or other disk so that it violates the spec but is still readable – on the majority of readers – but the “bad” sectors can’t be copied. Time after time this has resulted in disks that are bought and paid for that don’t work on some fairly small subset of perfectly functional CD-ROM drives. Given software return policies at most stores this is usually money down the drain. In the music industry this has resulted in everything from CD’s that won’t play in the fancy DVD/CD player you now use for your home system or in your car stereo, to CD’s that run software to prevent your computer from reading the audio tracks. Some of the latter, such as the Sony rootkit, have gone as far as completely hijacking your computer.

To add insult to injury, if anything happens to the original media – it gets scratched or your 4-year old decides it makes a shiney frisbee – you are stuck, with no recourse, because you cannot back it up.

That said, I think every software distributor deserves to be paid for his work if you use his product. That leaves us with the question of what is fair value and how to best enforce the programmers/distributors end of the bargain.

He’s right. programmers need a way to tie “you paid for this” to “you can use this,” and serial numbers are so easily distributed and cracked that it’s practically worthless. My point of disagreement with his article is the following – many people pushing activation and digital rights management are very restrictive in their activation licenses, and the boundaries are not liberal and are very easy to slam into. There are also other issues relating to activation vs. serial numbers that can make it a pain to use and need to be addressed.

Let me get one triviality out of the way. There are a few other methods of piracy prevention. One that is common with higher-end and specialty software (Lightwave, Nobeltec) is to use a “dongle.” The huge disadvantage with this methodology is the same as copy protected media – if the key is lost or damaged then poof, no software. That said, it allows you to install a copy on several machines that you may sit at use the software at whichever one simply by bringing the key along.

Another method is to not even bother. Apple takes this approach with a good percentage of their software, though not Aperture and their “pro” apps. The sci-fi publisher Baen Books, one of the few to make significant money off of ebooks not only doesn’t lock theirs down at all, but gives away an entire “free library,” the better to hook you with. All of the books are available in numerous, standard, easy-to-transfer formats. If you want to know why they did this:

If I can’t make a living as a writer by the quality of my writing outweighing any losses I might suffer from theft — without trampling all over blind and crippled people in order to stop the theft — I’ve got no damn business being a writer in the first place. I’ve still got my tool box, and I haven’t forgotten how to be a machinist.

Eric Flint

Entire pages of this material on copyright and why they did the ebooks the way they did are available at the old Library still available at: http://www.baen.com/library/ under “Prime Palaver.”

Back to our topic. Our remaining issues are these: What constitutes fair use and what problems does “activation” bring to the table for users?

With serial numbers/etc. if you lose the number, well, you’re toast. That said, it’s easy if you’re reasonably careful to keep duplicate copies of your serial numbers and disks so that if anything happens, you can still install and use the program.

What happens if the company providing the software or service goes away or is bankrupted, and the computer you originally installed the program on had to be replaced or reinstalled? Suddenly, even though you have a product bought and paid for that you can reinstall off of your backup discs, you can no longer use the program because there is no activation/authentication database to activate it against.

This to me is the biggest achilles heel of any centralized activation system, and one reason why despite the weaknesses of serial numbers, etc., I avoid “activation”-based schemes where possible.

Lest you think I’m merely fearmongering, even worse is already happening. Google just shut down their pay-for-download video service. Everyone who bought a movie through the service will no longer be able to play those videos because Google will not even continue to run the authentication servers for the rights management embedded in the movies. Since they can’t verify the copies are authentic and on the approved computer – they will not play. Google may decide to do something different, but right now they are only giving partial credits towards new purchases that expire after 60 days. At least with iTunes you can backup your music store purchases to a real CD that can get re-ripped, in the event the iTMS gets shut down – and your music will also still keep playing on any authorized computers.

So what is fair use? Obviously, that depends on what the software maker decides, to some extent. The blogger that inspired this article obviously “gets it.” Some of his products feature “family pack” pricing that allow several users in a household to use the program without buying entire separate copies. Apple does the same with OSX. For $200 you can buy a family pack for up to five users instead of the usual, one-user standalone copy that goes for $130. Contrast this with the price of Windows, which “mere mortals” like us can only get one very expensive copy at a time. While required to have some sort of DRM for the iTunes Music Store, Apple made the policies very liberal by any other retailers standards: You can burn a song to CD any number of times, just not the same playlist more than 7 times. A song you buy on iTMS can be copied to, authenticated, and used on up to 5 computers. Songs can be shared via streaming to however many computers are practical that are also running iTunes.

This concept is just perfect for a typical household. it is becoming more and more common to have multiple computers in a house. I personally have two: a workstation at home and the laptop I use on-site. Ponying up for two copies of everything just so I can use it as the sole user where and when I need it at the best computer for the job is ridiculous. So is having to pony up for separate full-price copies of an office suite just so the kids don’t have to take over my workstation to work on a school project – one more reason I’ll be getting the newest version of iWork. I’d gladly pay extra for Windows if it gave me the right to run several copies concurrently in virtualization or on several computers in my household. As it is – I don’t buy the extra copies (still running a w98 and a w2k machine) – and MS will get an even smaller cut via Dell or a similar vendor when I finally do replace my computer.

Piracy is an issue that needs to be addressed. The problem is that many of the cures are either only marginally effective, or worse, actively interfere with your ability to use a product you paid for. A lot of software vendors could look to Apple and Baen for ways to effectively deal with piracy without ruining their own image – by providing a better value for the reality of how people wish to use the software they paid for, and being very careful not to step on the toes of those self-same customers.

There are plenty of articles out there about “must-have apps” and others that evaluate “here are all the programs that do this.” This is not one of them. Instead, this is a tour of the tools I currently use that didn’t come with my Mac, and why. I’m ignoring the built-in apps like the Terminal for command-line access or Disk Utility because if I don’t mention a third-party alternative, I’m currently using it, and you can check it out for yourself. Along the way I’ll mention a few good alternatives that didn’t quite fit my needs. (This has been updated as of November 2009)

A is for…

Adium: This has completely taken over for iChat except for those rare occasions I’m using iChat for screen sharing or video chatting. It handles almost every chat network under the sun including Facebook.

Adobe: Acrobat reader 9 – In Snow Leopard I almost never use this as it is still slower and more bloated (though much improved), but I keep it around when nothing else has one of those special Adobe features – like forms. It does not have a plugin for Firefox.

Adobe: Designer Suite – The entire designer suite gets lumped in here. If you are NOT a graphics professional you might want to look at the current version of Photoshop LE, or Acorn, or Pixelmator. Even as rarely as I need to do photo editing or illustration these days – and iPhoto, Picasa, and several other packages can do whole-image color correction quite nicely if not with the same degree of control – having these features available is a godsend. For creating vector artwork, laying out newsletters without the headaches involved in using Word, color-correcting just PARTS of an image, repairing old family photographs, or for image compositing, nothing beats these. Of course, the learning curve for all of this power is ridiculously steep.

B is for…

Blender: I have yet to explore even most things this program can do. Nevertheless it has much of the power I played with in Lightwave 7 (I stopped staying current after I got 8), and it’s free.

C is for…

Candybar: I paid for it, but this little app from the Icon Factory allows you to collect, organize, and assign icons, even to system wide settings like the trash can or your home folder icons.

 Chax: This is actually an extension for iChat, and one of the biggest reasons I held off using Adium for so long. This gives you a lot more control over how iChat behaves, including setting the auto-away times, enabling tabs, and control over a number of other hidden features of iChat.

Chicken of the VNC: This is one of a small handful of VNC programs available for the mac. While it’s not the fastest, it is one of the most flexible, Works just fine with the built-in desktop administration in OSX server, and can scan the network for Mac-based VNC servers. This latter feature makes it very useful for administering Mac-based shops. Sometimes I do wish for a faster client though. This is still in my toolkit despite the wonderful screen sharing app you can dredge up from the depths of leopard because it easily handles port selection and redirection through SSH tunnels. If you’re geeky enough to know what that means, then you know why you need it.

F is for…

Firefox: Absolutely essential. Doubly so as a web designer. There are enough sites that work better, if at all in Firefox (the administration of this blog, Gmail) that I strongly recommend keeping it around. I definitely find nearly daily uses for it even though the Safari 4 has reduced my need for it.

Flickr Uploader: I’ve tried several third-party utilities (and though it’s great, didn’t feel like paying for the iPhoto to Flickr exporter), and this one from Flickr is by far the most stable and snappiest, if not issue-free or slick. My wishes for it are as folllows: to gracefully deal with Photoshop and Tiff files that iPhoto handles well, and allow me to select subsets of images to batch-tag instead of taking the all-or-one approach. With these limitations it hasn’t choked on large upload sets, or completely flaked on tag handling like other programs have.

Flip4Mac: This plug-in is needed to play windows-style AVI files. Needed, not only because Microsoft has not updated their Windows media Player for the Mac, but they explicitly point you to Flip4Mac. Works smoothly, and AVI files open up under quicktime, preventing confusion and other headaches.

FreeCiv: This game is based on the classic “civilization” games by Sid Meier. It allows you to start off at nearly any primitive technological level, and advance and expand your civilization from there . Likely you will eventually take over the world. This requires you to install X-windows (available on the OS X installation disc(s)) to play.

G is for…

Google Sketchup: This nifty little program allows you to “sketch” basic 3D objects. The learning curve is fairly shallow, but what you can do with it once you start messing deep within it is nothing short of miraculous. There is also a “pro” version that you can pay for. This program was bought by Google and made freely available to allow people to create 3D buildings and models for their “Google Earth” program.

Google Earth: I call this a software “toy” and research tool. Mostly because it’s not as good at generating directions as the web-based Google maps or MapQuest. Nevertheless, it is very, very powerful, and gives you a perspective that is unmatched, with almost seamless zooming and navigation. it will guide you, show you streets and houses, and as people have added more and more information, even hiking trails in national parks. It will also suck you in for hours and hours of fun.

Growl: A notification tool. It doesn’t work with many of Apple’s built-in apps, but does work with a number of third-party programs and extensions. Growl allows programs to toss a message up on your screen in a relatively unobtrusive way, letting you know when certain events have happened. This can be when an upload or download is complete (Transmit), when a new IM message comes in (Adium), or when your plugged-in status on your laptop changes (Unplugged).

I is for…

InstantShot: A snapshot application that lives in your menubar. It allows you more control over screenshots than the usual Shift-Command-4. While I still usually use the built-in screenshots when I need a quick record of something for myself, I use this when I need to capture a specific window (and ONLY that window) without cropping headaches, or I specifically need a .jpg image format and i don’t want to go through converting it.

iStumbler: For all of your Wi-Fi discovery needs. This program will show you all of the wireless networks that are visible in the area, their relative signal strength (and how “noisy” they are), which ones are secure, and give you a moment-by-moment graph of signal strength . Excellent for plotting out where your home or business networks need better coverage.

iWork: One reason I rarely use Word anymore. Or InDesign. Keynote, the presentation program, is both easier to use thanPowerpoint, and just beautiful to look at. Pages, the writing program has now become my default for all creative writing, for letters, and envelopes. It’s also much better suited to newsletter layouts than MS Word, as it doesn’t randomly rearrange things for no reason that can be determined when you drop in pictures, etc. Numbers makes for a very nice, easy-on-the eyes spreadsheet. It exports toMS Word format, as well as directly to PDF.

L is for…

LEGO Digital Designer: A bit of harmless fun. Build almost any lego model using what feels like every lego part made.

Little Secrets: An encryption and storage program. This allows you to open up an encrypted, password-protected file, and store critical information like passwords for banks and servers. It also allows you to drop in screenshots, PDF documents, etc. While nowhere near as pervasive or good for organizing as Yojimbo, It deals much more gracefully with data that needs to stay protected.

M is for…

Mail Appetizer: Actually an extension for the Mail.app that Apple includes with OSX, this love-or-hate plugin throws a “smoke” bezel up into the corner of your screen every time new mail comes in, with the basic to, from, subject information, and the first paragraph or so of text. It also allows you to switch directly to that message in mail, delete the message, or mark it read, and fades away after a few seconds if you decide that nothing coming in needs to be dealt with right now. In my case it keeps me from going into my inbox everytime I see a new mail notification, because I already know if it’s important or not.

Mail Act-On: Another Extension for the Mail.app. This one allows you to use keyboard shortcuts to redirect your current or selected mail via a set of custom rules. In my case I use it to file away several common general categories of mail, flag them or not based on whether I need to see it again (with a smart folder to view flagged mail), and forward them if needed – all in one easy step.

MagiCal: This replacement for the calendar and clock in your menu bar just looks nicer. it also allows me to call up the current month in a minicalendar (complete with week-of-year) without switching over to iCal. Supplanted in Snow Leopard by the built-in capabilities.

Marathon: An absolute classic. Brought to you courtesy of the Aleph One project. Years ago, Bungie released the source code of their Marathon games, as well as their original maps and levels. The Aleph One project took these games and updated the display engine adn graphics to use modern 3D rendering technology. While the games still don’t look as flashy as anything modern, they’re still fast, fun, and occasionally creepy playing experiences with an engaging story.

Microsoft Office: The program everyone knows and loves – to hate. Used only when absolutely nothing else will do – usually when I have to send the file to another person using MS Office.

Myth II: Soulblighter: This game is perhaps my all-time favorite. Ever. I bought it back in 1999 and have played it over, and over, and over again. The engine has been updated to include intel-based Macs since Bungie released it, and I’m not sure where to get the actual game levels (I had the CD’s around still), but at least try the demo.

N is for…

NeoOffice: This is what I usually use to open up MS Office files – assuming it’s not an RTF that can just as easily be handled by TextEdit or iWork. This is a free, mac-specific, open-source office suite based on the OpenOffice project. I don’t recommend using the powerpoint clone, and it’s slower on PPC macs (and faster on intel ones since there is not yet an intel-native version of MS Office), but it does just fine in opening up most Word and Excel documents.

O is for…

OmniGraffle: Think Visio for the Mac. This program allows you to create flow charts, diagrams, and network maps quickly and easily.

Omni Outliner: Outlining. Whether it’s brainstorming or organizing or making checklists. Many of you will get this nifty little program written by the geniuses at the Omni Group with your MacBook or MacBook pro, and not realize what power this has. This program is intended to do only one thing, and do it very well. Create, sort, and consistently format outlines.

P is for…

Perian: For those formats that Quicktime doesn’t like, but you don’t want to use another video player. While VLC may be even more flexible, this allows Quicktime to handle the vast majority of what it won’t out of the box.

Preview: For PDF’s, and much of my one-off image viewing in general when not using cover flow. I still keep Adobe around for filling out IRS forms, etc., but Preview does so many things that you otherwise have to pay for the pro version…

Q is for…

Quicksilver: I find it difficult to use a computer without this app. I literally come to a halt at clients computers and catch myself having to remember the old way of opening up programs, performing certain actions, and searching for files. This very powerful program makes it extremely easy to launch programs, or trigger various actions with just a handful of keystrokes. It is very easy to start with, and the further you dig into it, the more customizable it is. You will either find it absolutely indispensable, or hate it. Another program with a similar audience that has been recently updated and regained converts is Launchbar.

NOTE: In Snow Leopard, I now use the Google quick search (brought to you by the same guy that brought us Quicksilver…), but still use Quicksilver on my older macs.

R is for…

Remote Desktop Connection: This program, freely available for download from Microsoft, is a must for anyone remotely connecting or administering Windows machines, especially servers. Faster and more fully featured than VNC, it’s an absolute no-brainer for these situations.

Remember the Milk: An outstanding to do and organizational app – that isn’t really a program. Much like Flickr (or photos), this service exists only on the web. This has its downsides, but with Firefox and the Google Gears extension, you can keep working on a local copy until you get back online. It also has an iPhone app that allows you to see and update your status on any task, that can be arranged by category or location as well as priority and due date.

S is for…

Scrivener: My new all-time favorite program for writing and research projects. Give it a shot. If you like the minimalist writing approach without the research and filing bloat, then check out Writeroom.

SilverKeeper: This backup uitlity is far from perfect, especially since it does not preserve my metadata and tags as well as I’d like. What it DOES do though, is back up my files from my internal hard drive to a windows-style share on my linux box, only copying updated or new files and deleting removed files, without any hiccups. This, combined with a rotating snapshot script, allows me to keep a copy of my disk as it was last night, the night before, last week, last month, etc. You may also want to look at iBackup.

Skitch: My screenshot software of choice. Not only can you specify and take a snapshot, but you can then mark it up to hilight and point out relevant info, as well as draw mustaches.

Spanning Sync: A background program you control through your system preferences. This allows you to synchronize your Google calendars with your iCal calendars in a way that is effectively transparent. I’m not sure you can give much better praise than that.

Stellarium: A software toy that allows you to look at the night sky at any given hour, at any given place in the world, at any given time rate, and point out the moon, constellations, planets, and major objects visible to the naked eye and binoculars. Slick, simple, and plain pretty to look at.

Synk: I use this to perform two-way backups with metadata between my laptop and a share on my main desktop. This allows me to dump any data I need to keep backed up into a “transfer” folder on my laptop and know it will get backed up.

T is for…

TextMate: This is a program for people like me who feel like we spend far more of their time in front of a computer looking at and working with code than most anything else. Text editing isn’t sexy. It’s not “cool”. It can be utterly engrossing as long as your tools don’t get in the way. Having an editor that fits like a glove and can be customized to work the way you want to work is absolutely essential. I gladly bought and paid for this editor after learning how to use it (30-day trial). It’s sole weaknesses for me are the printing output, which is nowhere near as flexible or configurable as it should be compared to the free TextWrangler, the multi-file search, and file comparisons. That said, there are other options that people swear by, including TextWrangler (a tool I’ve used for years), BBEdit, and SubEthaEdit.

TextWrangler: This free little brother to BBEdit replaced BBEdit Lite, and is so powerful that it’s almost hard to justify paying for a full-blown editor until you are heavily involved in coding on a regular basis and really need some of the power-user features like code block folding. I keep it around these days because it’s printing is still prettier and more flexible than TextEdit’s. File comparisons on this also make it  ahands down winner when I have to compare code between pages.

TinkerTool: A small program that gives you access to a number of the Macs hidden features that are otherwise only available using the command line in the terminal, including letting you easily see hidden files.

Transmit: My overall favorite FTP program, used to upload web pages to websites and do large file transfers across the internet. Cyberduck is also worth a look (and free), and Interarchy is also really a good program – though I was forced to stop using it due to unresolved issues (at the time) when accessing windows-based WebDAV servers. Since I’d already happily used Transmit for many years before that, and it currently fit my needs, I haven’t looked back.

Twitterific, Tweetie, and Tweetdeck: Twitter is one of those services I’m not sure if I love or hate. I find I don’t update as often as many other people, I can’t stand being constantly interrupted by the public stream, but few things, even facebook, really give you a general feel for how a friends life is going anywhere near as well as Twitter. Twitterific is a mac-based program from the Icon Factory (makers of wonderful icon packs and the incredible Pixadex software for organizing them, among other tools), that floats on your desktop mostly out of the way, and allows you to get, send, and reply to “tweets” in a convenient manner. Tweetie easily handles multiple accounts and is fully snow-leopard native, and Tweetdeck is for the hardcore 24/7 twitter addict.

U is for…

Unplugged: A battery management aid, this is another love-or-hate item. It may seem redundant, but I’ve been bitten enough by the “my laptop is still plugged in but someone turned out the power to the wall outlet while it was asleep” issue that having a reminder pop-up to tell you that it’s no longer geting power/plugged in is something I find really, really useful.

V is for…

Vienna: RSS readers have effectively replaced usenet readers as a way for geeks, and now non-geeks, to keep up with the headlines from a number of papers, blogs, and other information sources. Vienna for the Mac is as intuitive as any of the others I’ve used (NetNewsWire, Pulp Fiction) More reliable than most (Pulp Fiction – I’m looking at you), and best of all, free.

VLC: Seemingly yet another video player. Plays a lot of formats that quicktime won’t by default, and deals with several mpeg encodings that quicktime can’t stand at all.

VMWare Fusion: A virtual machine allows you to run a completely different operating system (windows, linux, etc.) inside of a window or full-screen without having to reboot your computer. As a result of this I no longer have to turn to another machine to test my web-design work in a Windows environment. VMWare is the big player in virtual machines on the Windows side, and though they got into the Mac market late, they have a solid product. The choice between Fusion and the Parallels Desktop is mostly one of style. The configuration for Fusion feels more intuitive for me, and their slow-but steady approach to adding features is one I appreciate. That said, Parallels headlong plunge into the market and into adding useful features for the consumer has kept VMware on its toes as well as ensured reasonable prices for Fusion, despite a few bugs cropping up along the way. Check them both out.

W is for…

Weird Worlds: An oddball little game of space exploration that has you search planets for artifacts and meet alien races. Sometimes you kill them.

X is for…

Xyle Scope: If you are a web designer, this program is invaluable. It allows you to quickly and easily determine exactly what style and other rules are making your page look the way they do. It even allows you to make temporary changes to the stylesheet rules on the fly so you can observe their effects.

Z is for…

Zterm: Only the geekiest of admins will need this, but you know who you are. Yes, you, the guy who has a USB – serial adapter and needs to console into a Cisco router before it’s ever been put on the network.

Honorable mentions:

Yep!: I personally haven’t paid for this yet, but I still may. It skims your drive for all available PDF files, tags them by folder and file name (and allows you to add other tags) and makes it ridiculously easy to find a PDF file almost anywhere on your computer and take quick sneak peeks without opening up and transitioning between programs. Given that nearly every page you see can be saved to a PDF to easily keep electronic copies, this should be a no-brainer, but barely misses out for two reasons. First, OSX 10.5 will have similar quick-peek functionality. Second, this is limited to PDF’s only. Word documents, JPEG’s and TIFF’s need not apply.

Freeverse, and Ambrosia Software: Ambrosia got its start doing clones of popular arcade games such as Asteroids and Centipede before branching out to titles such as Escape Velocity. Freeverse made its name with a hysterical version of solitaire and a very solid Tetris clone. Both have catalogs of very fun software that you should check out. Freeverse, in particular, has a loony sense of humor.

S is for… (continued)

SilverKeeper: This backup uitlity is far from perfect, especially since it does not preserve my metadata and tags as well as I’d like. What it DOES do though, is back up my files from my internal hard drive to a windows-style share on my linux box, only copying updated or new files and deleting removed files, without any hiccups. This, combined with a rotating snapshot script, allows me to keep a copy of my disk as it was last night, the night before, last week, last month, etc. You may also want to look at iBackup.

Spanning Sync: A background program you control through your system preferences. This allows you to synchronize your Google calendars with your iCal calendars in a way that is effectively transparent. I’m not sure you can give much better praise than that.

Stellarium: A software toy that allows you to look at the night sky at any given hour, at any given place in the world, at any given time rate, and point out the moon, constellations, planets, and major objects visible to the naked eye and binoculars. Slick, simple, and plain pretty to look at.

Synk: I use this to perform two-way backups with metadata between my laptop and a share on my main desktop. This allows me to dump any data I need to keep backed up into a “transfer” folder on my laptop and know it will get backed up.

T is for…

TextMate: This is a program for people like me who feel like we spend far more of their time in front of a computer looking at and working with code than most anything else. Text editing isn’t sexy. It’s not “cool”. Having an editor that fits like a glove and can be customized to work the way you want to work is absolutely essential. I gladly bought and paid for this editor after learning how to use it (30-day trial). It’s sole weakness for me is the printing output, which is nowhere near as flexible or configurable as it should be compared to the free TextWrangler. That said, there are other options that people swear by, including TextWrangler (a tool I’ve used for years), BBEdit, and SubEthaEdit.

TextWrangler: This free little brother to BBEdit replaced BBEdit Lite, and is so powerful that it’s almost hard to justify paying for a full-blown editor until you are heavily involved in coding on a regular basis and really need some of the power-user features like code block folding. I keep it around these days because it’s printing is still prettier and more flexible than TextEdit’s.

TinkerTool: A small program that gives you access to a number of the Macs  hidden features that are otherwise only available using the command line in the terminal, including letting you easily see hidden files.

Transmit: My overall favorite FTP program, used to upload web pages to websites and do large file transfers across the internet. Cyberduck is also worth a look (and free), and Interarchy is also really a good program – though I was forced to stop using it due to unresolved issues (at the time) when accessing windows-based WebDAV servers. Since I’d already happily used transmit for many years before that,and it currently fit my needs, I haven’t looked back.

Twitterific: Twitter is one of those services I’m not sure if I love or hate. I find I don’t update as often as many other people, I can’t stand being constantly interrupted by the public stream, but few things, even facebook, really give you a general feel for how a friends life is going anywhere near as well as Twitter. Twitterific is a mac-based program from the Icon Factory (makers of wonderful icon packs and the incredible Pixadex software for organizing them, among other tools), that floats on your desktop mostly out of the way, and allows you to get, send, and reply to “tweets” in a convenient manner.

U is for…

Unplugged: A battery management aid, this is another love-or-hate item. It may seem redundant, but I’ve been bitten enough by the “my laptop is still plugged in but someone turned out the power to the wall outlet while it was asleep” issue that having a reminder pop-up to tell you that it’s no longer geting power/plugged in is something I find really, really useful.

V is for…

Vienna: RSS readers have effectively replaced usenet readers as a way for geeks, and now non-geeks, to keep up with the headlines from a number of papers, blogs, and other information sources. Vienna for the Mac is as intuitive as any of the others I’ve used (NetNewsWire, Pulp Fiction) More reliable than most (Pulp Fiction – I’m looking at you), and best of all, free.

VMWare Fusion: A virtual machine allows you to run a completely different operating system (windows, linux, etc.) inside of a window or full-screen without having to reboot your computer. As a result of this I no longer have to turn to another machine to test my web-design work in a Windows environment. VMWare is the big player in virtual machines on the Windows side, and though they got into the Mac market late, they have a solid product. The choice between Fusion and the Parallels Desktop is mostly one of style. The configuration for Fusion feels more intuitive for me, and their slow-but steady approach to adding features is one I appreciate. That said, Parallels headlong plunge into the market and into adding useful features for the consumer has kept VMware on its toes as well as ensured reasonable prices for Fusion, despite a few bugs cropping up along the way. Check them both out.

W is for…

Weird Worlds: An oddball little game of space exploration that has you search planets for artifacts and meet alien races. Sometimes you kill them.

X is for…

Xyle Scope: If you are a web designer, this program is invaluable. It allows you to quickly and easily determine exactly what style and other rules are making your page look the way they do. It even allows you to make temporary changes to the stylesheet rules on the fly so you can observe their effects.

Z is for…

Zterm: Only the geekiest of admins will need this, but you know who you are. Yes, you, the guy who has a USB – serial adapter and needs to console into a cisco router before it’s ever been put on the network.

Honorable mentions:

Yep!: I personally haven’t paid for this yet, but I still may. It skims your drive for all available PDF files, tags them by folder and file name (and allows you to add other tags) and makes it ridiculously easy to find a PDF file almost anywhere on your computer and take quick sneak peeks without opening up and transitioning between programs. Given that nearly every page you see can be saved to a PDF to easily keep electronic copies, this should be a no-brainer, but barely misses out for two reasons. First, OSX 10.5 will have similar quick-peek functionality. Second, this is limited to PDF’s only. Word documents, JPEG’s and TIFF’s need not apply.

Freeverse, and Ambrosia Software: Ambrosia got its start doing clones of popular arcade games such as asteroids and centipede before branching out to titles such as Escape Velocity. Freeverse made its name with a hysterical version of solitaire and a very solid Tetris clone. Both have catalogs of very fun software that you should check out. Freeverse, in particular, has a loony sense of humor.

There are plenty of articles out there about “must-have apps” and others that evaluate “here are all the programs that do this.” This is not one of them. Instead, this is a tour of the tools I currently use that didn’t come with my Mac, and why. I’m ignoring the built-in apps like the Terminal for command-line access or Disk Utility because if I don’t mention a third-party alternative, I’m currently using it, and you can check it out for yourself. Along the way I’ll mention a few good alternatives that didn’t quite fit my needs.

A is for…

Adium: I don’t use it often, because I like the look of iChat, and most of my clients and contacts use the AIM network anyways. For those occasions I need a control check, or to use my Yahoo or MSN accounts, it’s invaluable. It is also very powerful, and very flexible. It also supports Growl notifications. Honestly, if I spent more time in “chat” mode, I’d probably use it more.

Adobe: Acrobat reader 8 – finally an adobe client that is almost as fast as preview, but has more features! I used to loathe it as a nescessary evil (and none more evil than reader 7), but with version 8 I use this for about 50% of my PDF viewing – whenever I have to do more in-depth searching. The plugin for the web browser allows me to save conveniently with a click and works smoothly with even the Safari 3 beta.

Adobe: Designer Suite – The entire designer suite gets lumped in here too. If you are NOT a graphics professional you might want to look at the current version of Photoshop LE. Even as rarely as I need to do photo editing or illustration these days – and iPhoto and several other packages can do whole-image color correction quite nicely if not with the same degree of control – having these features available is a godsend. For creating vector artwork, laying out newsletters without the headaches involved in using Word, color-correcting just PARTS of an image, repairing old family photographs, or for image compositing, nothing beats these. Of course, the learning curve for all of this power is ridiculously steep.

B is for…

Blender: I have yet to explore even most things this program can do. Nevertheless it has much of the power I played with in Lightwave 7 (I stopped staying current after I got 8), and it’s free.

C is for…

Chax: This is actually an extension for iChat, and one of the biggest reasons I don’t use Adium. This gives you a lot more control over how iChat behaves, including setting the auto-away times, enabling tabs, and control over a number of other hidden features of iChat.

Chicken of the VNC: This is one of a small handful of VNC programs available for the mac. While it’s not the fastest, it is one of the most flexible, Works just fine with the built-in desktop administration in OSX server, and can scan the network for Mac-based VNC servers. This latter feature makes it very useful for administering Mac-based shops. Sometimes I do wish for a faster client though.

F is for…

Firefox: Absolutely essential. Doubly so as a web designer, but there are enough sites that work better, if at all in Firefox (the administration of this blog, Gmail) that I strongly recommend keeping it around. I definitely find nearly daily uses for it even though the Safari 3 beta has reduced my need for it.
Flickr Uploader: I’ve tried several third-party utilities (and though it’s great, didn’t feel like paying for the iPhoto to Flickr exporter), and this one from Flickr is by far the most stable and snappiest, if not issue-free or slick. My wishes for it are as folllows: to gracefully deal with Photoshop and Tiff files that iPhoto handles well, and allow me to select subsets of images to batch-tag instead of taking the all-or-one approach. With these limitations it hasn’t choked on large upload sets, or completely flaked on tag handling like other programs have.

Flip4Mac: This plug-in is needed to play windows-style AVI files. Needed, not only because Microsoft has not updated their Windows media Player for the Mac, but they explicitly point you to Flip4Mac. Works smoothly, and AVI files open up under quicktime, preventing confusion and other headaches.

FreeCiv: This game is based on the classic “civilization” games by Sid Meier. It allows you to start off at nearly any primitive technological level, and advance and expand your civilization from there . Likely you will eventually take over the world. This requires you to install X-windows (available on the OS X installation disc(s)) to play.

G is for…

Google Sketchup: This nifty little program allows you to “sketch” basic 3D objects. The learning curve is fairly shallow, but what you can do with it once you start messing with it is nothing short of miraculous. There is also a “pro” version that you can pay for. This program was bought by Google and made freely available to allow people to create 3D buildings and models for their “Google Earth” program.

Google Earth: I call this a software “toy” and research tool. Mostly because it’s not as good at generating directions as the web-based Google maps or MapQuest. Nevertheless, it is very, very powerful, and gives you a perspective that is unmatched, with almost seamless zooming and navigation. it will guide you, show you streets and houses, and as people have added more and more information, even hiking trails in national parks. It will also suck you in for hours and hours of fun.

Growl: A notification tool. It doesn’t work with many of Apple’s built-in apps, but does work with a number of third-party programs and extensions. Growl allows programs to toss a message up on your screen in a relatively unobtrusive way, letting you know when certain events have happened. This can be when an upload or download is complete (Transmit), when a new IM message comes in (Adium), or when your plugged-in status on your laptop changes (Unplugged).

I is for…

iGTD: There are several decent GTD-style to-do applications out there (such as the kinklessGTD scripts if you have the pro version of Omni Outliner), and several interesting-looking ones coming out (OmniFocus and Things from Cultured Code). When I originally tried it I wasn’t impressed, but started using it after a few critically needed improvements. Despite its bugs – most of which have been fixed over its amazingly rapid development cycle – it has grown into a solid, stable, and simple to use means of sorting out your life and what you need to do.

InstantShot: A snapshot application that lives in your menubar. It allows you more control over screenshots than the usual Shift-Command-4. While I still usually use the built-in screenshots when I need a quick record of something for myself, I use this when I need to capture a specific window (and ONLY that window) without cropping headaches, or I specifically need a .jpg image format and i don’t want to go through converting it.

iStumbler: For all of your Wi-Fi discovery needs. This program will show you all of the wireless networks that are visible in the area, their relative signal strength (and how “noisy” they are), which ones are secure, and give you a moment-by-moment graph of signal strength . Excellent for plotting out where your home or business networks need better coverage.

iWork: One reason I rarely use Word anymore. Or InDesign. Keynote, the presentation program, is both easier to use thanPowerpoint, and just beautiful to look at. Pages, the writing program has now become my default for all creative writing, for letters, and envelopes. It’s also much better suited to newsletter layouts than MS Word, as it doesn’t randomly rearrange things for no reason that can be determined when you drop in pictures, etc. It exports toMS Word format, as well as directly to PDF.

L is for…

LEGO Digital Designer: A bit of harmless fun. Build almost any lego model using what feels like every lego part made.

LiteIcon: This app allows you to change your default system icons for things like the trash can, your documents folders, etc.

Little Secrets: An encryption and storage program. This allows you to open up an encrypted, password-protected file, and store critical information like passwords for banks and servers. It also allows you to drop in screenshots, PDF documents, etc. While nowhere near as pervasive or good for organizing as Yojimbo, It deals much more gracefully with data that needs to stay protected.

M is for…

Mail Appetizer: Actually an extension for the Mail.app that Apple includes with OSX, this love-or-hate plugin throws a “smoke” bezel up into the corner of your screen every time new mail comes in, with the basic to, from, subject information, and the first paragraph or so of text. It also allows you to switch directly to that message in mail, delete the message, or mark it read, and fades away after a few seconds if you decide that nothing coming in needs to be dealt with right now. In my case it keeps me from going into my inbox everytime I see a new mail notification, because I already know if it’s important or not.

Mail Act-On: Another Extension for the Mail.app. This one allows you to use keyboard shortcuts to redirect your current or selected mail via a set of custom rules. In my case I use it to file away several common general categories of mail, flag them or not based on whether I need to see it again (with a smart folder to view flagged mail), and forward them if needed – all in one easy step.

MagiCal: This replacement for the calendar and clock in your menu bar just looks nicer. it also allows me to call up the current month in a minicalendar (complete with week-of-year) without switching over to iCal.

Marathon: An absolute classic. Brought to you courtesy of the Aleph One project. Years ago, Bungie released the source code of their Marathon games, as well as their original maps and levels. The Aleph One project took these games and updated the display engine adn graphics to use modern 3D rendering technology. While the games still don’t look as flashy as anything modern, they’re still fast, fun, and occasionally creepy playing experiences with an engaging story.

Microsoft Office: The program everyone knows and loves – to hate. Used only when absolutely nothing else will do – usually when I have to send the file to another person using MS Office.

Myth II: Soulblighter: This game is perhaps my all-time favorite. Ever. I bought it back in 1999 and have played it over, and over, and over again. The engine has been updated to include intel-based Macs since Bungie released it, and I’m not sure where to get the actual game levels (I had the CD’s around still), but at least try the demo.

N is for…

NeoOffice: This is what I usually use to open up MS Office files – assuming it’s not an RTF that can just as easily be handled by TextEdit. This is a free, mac-specific, open-source office suite based on the OpenOffice project. I don’t recommend using the powerpoint clone, and it’s slower on PPC macs (and faster on intel ones since there is not yet an intel-native version of MS Office), but it does just fine in opening up most word and excel documents.

O is for…

OmniGraffle: Think Visio for the Mac. This program allows you to create flow charts, diagrams, and network maps quickly and easily.

Omni Outliner: Outlining. Whether it’s brainstorming or organizing or making checklists. Many of you will get this nifty little program written by the geniuses at the Omni Group with your MacBook or MacBook pro, and not realize what power this has. This program is intended to do only one thing, and do it very well. Create, sort, and consistently format outlines.

Q is for…

Quicksilver: I find it difficult to use a computer without this app. I literally come to a halt at clients computers and catch myself having to remember the old way of opening up programs, performing certain actions, and searching for files. This very powerful program makes it extremely easy to launch programs, or trigger various actions with just a handful of keystrokes. It is very easy to start with, and the further you dig into it, the more customizable it is. You will either find it absolutely indispensable, or hate it. Another program with a similar audience that has been recently updated and regained converts is Launchbar

R is for…

Remote Desktop Connection: This program, freely available for download from Microsoft, is a must for anyone remotely connecting or administering Windows machines, especially servers. Faster and more fully featured than VNC, it’s an absolute no-brainer for these situations.

S is for…

Safari 3: This is on the list because it’s still only available for download as a beta, and doesn’t ship yet with the operating system. That said, I’ve used it for over a month on one of my two Macs, and now installed it on my MacBook as well. I’ve heard of (but not experienced) some issues with various Dashboard widgets, and XyleScope needed to be updated, but everything else (flash, etc.) work and render the same as in Safari 2, and some of the lesser-hyped features have become indispensable. For example: being able to move tabs around, and the ability to resize text entry fields.