“If you use your Mac for graphics, you will love xScope. Six tools. One low price.”
News & Commentary
- Leopard 10.5.3
- Times: The RSS newspaper for your Mac
- Apple ignores Safari carpet bomb flaw (for now)
- Mac market share up to 66-percent (PCs over $1,000)
- Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate available
- Microsoft: We’ll have 40% of smart phone market by 2012
- Can Dell rebound from the brink like Apple?
- The new rules for buying a Mac
- How Microsoft could kill Google on the Web
- AOL Desktop for Mac
- The iMac is a 10
- A Tale of Two Steves
6 top utilities you must have on your Mac
Friday, May 16, 2008
Mac users are different. I mean, we’re different from one another, so our software needs are different despite the fact we use Mac OS X. Are there six Mac utilities we can all agree that we all need? Probably not. That said, here’s 6 top utilities that I agree you must have on your Mac (if you’re like me).
Reader Comments
computer components said:
you got that right, mac users are different than windows users. whoever uses mac will never go back to (or start using) windows
Thomas Benner said:
MainMenu is a must have. Simple to use, yet extremely powerful and practical.
George W. said:
It’s gotta be close to impossible to trim the number of ‘must have’ utilities to less than a dozen. That’s no offense to those on your list. All are capable, and certainly useful for nearly everyone. So is Flip4Mac, the only Mac add-on that lets us view Windows Media Video in Safari. I’m not so sure Stuffit is a ‘must have’ anymore. Its’ day is over. TypeIt4Me is good, too, but one I find completely indispensable is PTHPasteboard, for multiple clipboards. That’s a ‘must have.’
Jan Onik said:
No, no, no. No Quicksilver zealots, please. It’s a purely a power user, nerdy, geeky utility, not for the masses of Mac users. All the utilities on this list are to be used by mere mortals, not the kind of Mac user who invites pain and suffering, which often accompanies Quicksilver.
I used QS for over a year on two Macs, both of which it would crash or hang with regularity. There was always something wrong with QS which required frequent updates. Then, the QS development team threw in the towel and shoved it off to open source, the elephant graveyard for utilities (mostly) that can’t make it in the real world.
QS is a dream that never came true, a utility for Mac users who use their keyboards 27 hours a day.
Kate, your list is spot on. All worthy Mac utilities that most of the rest of us can manage.
Brian said:
Otis—i disagree. It is free, and works flawlessly as a simple application launcher (something not mentioned here). Something which will make your life so much easier! Anyway—I am sending my Merlin Mann robot to your house to show you what is what.
Otis of Mayberry said:
Brian, haven’t you heard? Quicksilver is dead. No more development. Frankly, that’s a good thing, Yes, it was loaded with ‘power user’ features that only the geeks would love, but it was buggy as Windows Vista, more arcane than Outlook, and not worthy to be Mac software with a long life. Kate, you did everyone a service by not including Quicksilver. Your list is good, not geeky.
Scott said:
Thanks for the pointers. I’ve downloaded the trial versions of Image Tricks and 1Password.
My personal favorite is DragThing. The Dock is shoved off to the side - and avoided whenever possible.
Richard Dalziel-Sharpe said:
in no particular order my absolute indispensables are: TypeIt4Me, WindowShade and PopCopy.
TypeIt4Me enables me to save thousands of keystrokes a week. WindowShade allows me to have lots of open windows on my desktop all shrunk to the size of an icon or window title bar and Pop Copy gives me as many clipboards as i want and doesn’t lose any of them when i shutdown.
I have and use some others mentioned but all of these add much to the ease of use and productivity.