The List

It’s been a year and change since I switched to a Mac. Over that period I’ve collected an assortment of software that I use all the time and find indispensable now. I wanted to have a list just in case I needed to get a new Mac up to speed.

It later dawned on me that other people might find the list useful as well. I think all these apps are fantastic, many of them made even more fantastic by the fact that they are from small indy developers. Be warned, some of this stuff needs to be purchased for it to work right. Good software costs good money. Anyway, on to the list: 

  1. iWork ’08 - Microsoft Office can suck it
  2. CS4 Design Premium – Tools of the trade
  3. Coda - The best damned web site development tool out there
  4. VMWare Fusion – Current virtualization tool of choice
  5. MacFUSE – Read/Write NTFS (among other things)
  6. MozyHome – Cloud backup
  7. SuperDuper! – Disaster recovery image creator extraordinaire
  8. Logbook – Backpack journal logging client
  9. Twitterific – Twitter client of choice + iPhone client
  10. CoverSutra – Rate songs in iTunes using keyboard shortcuts, also, looks fantastic
  11. MediaLink – Shares my Mac’s media library with the Playstation upstairs
  12. Adium – MSN and more
  13. Skype – VOIP done right
  14. LoudHush – Asterisk IAX client for Mac
  15. PodWorks – Copy songs off iPods/iPhones straight into iTunes
  16. VLC – Because QuickTime isn’t good enough
  17. Perian – Also because QuickTime isn’t good enough
  18. Things – Task management + iPhone sync
  19. NetNewsWire – RSS reader of choice
  20. Firefox (with Firebug and View source chart)
  21. PoxNora – Addictive little bugger
  22. LaunchBar – Current launcher of choice, Quicksilver/Butler close second
  23. OmniGraffle – Flowcharts and diagrams
  24. Xtorrent – BitTorrent client of choice
  25. Amazon MP3 Downloader – Yes, I buy my music
  26. Cha-Ching – Money management
  27. Colloquy – When EFNet beckons
  28. GoToMeeting – Easy cross-platform conference + VOIP + screen sharing
  29. Handbrake (and the replacement icon because I hate pineapples) – Video encoding
  30. Transmit – FTP client of choice
  31. Proxifier – For circumventing draconian Omani internet restrictions
  32. Remote Desktop Connection – Windows RDC for Mac
  33. smcFanControl – Currently boosting MBP fans to 4000rpm, India is hot
  34. ScreenFlow – Kickass Screencast creator
  35. VoodooPad – Wiki notes
  36. StuffIt – For those pesky old archives and RARs
  37. Sequel Pro (used to be CocoaMySQL) – MySQL manager

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 3:17 am and is filed under Mac. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Comments

  1. svs

    December 11th, 2008 at 10:41 am

    hmmm…great software doesn’t always cost good money…

    check out the new KDE in your vmware fusion. It is very nice (not quite Leopard nice, but getting there). Especially check out amarok 2.0 … hmmm…sweet. and now with nokia buying trolltech look for some corporate bling in the new KDEs…

    but then again, every year is the year of the linux desktop….

  2. bruce

    December 11th, 2008 at 9:17 pm

    nice list! some interesting stuff in there. i need to do this too! thanks for the motivation :)
    have you checked out http://osx.iusethis.com/

  3. Farah

    January 29th, 2009 at 3:26 pm

    I saw Stuff It on your list… and thought you’d have an interesting story to write…
    Check this out:
    http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=BW&date=20090129&id=9557777

    If you win something… we share it! ;)

  4. Vishal Parpia

    January 30th, 2009 at 10:42 am

    The only extraordinary experience I’ve had with StuffIt is the incredibly annoying home page that tries to get me to buy the Pro product.

  5. Kaushik

    March 21st, 2009 at 4:54 am

    hmm so I take it you have a US credit or debit card issued by a U.S bank with a U.S. billing address ?

  6. Vishal Parpia

    March 27th, 2009 at 12:01 am

    You are correct sir!

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