FlatulentFish All Kinds of Junk

Here's a list of applications which I feel no Mac should be without. In no particular order:

Macaroni (Atomic Bird Productions: http://www.atomicbird.com/macaroni)
OSX is built upon UNIX. In order for a UNIX based system to remain healthy and happy, there are several maintenance scripts which should be routinely run; OSX is no exception. The problem here is that UNIX underpinnings of OSX make the assumption that the computer will be up and running all of the time, a fact which is simply not the case with laptops or with most desktop computers. Macaroni makes sure that these critical UNIX maintenance scripts get executed regularly, whether or not your machine is on all of the time. Absolutely critical in my opinion. (Shareware, $8.99)

Growl (http://growl.info) This is one of those applications which, in my opinion, should just be part of OS X. Growl adds a standard mechanism for notifying you of changes to your system as well as other events. A large number of Mac applications now communicate with Growl to let you know things have changed on your system. It also ships with a program called “HardwareGrowler”, which lets you know when things happen on your system, like USB devices being plugged in or unplugged, changes to power status, changes to your network, etc. A great little application, plus it's free. (Open source, free)

NeoOffice (http://www.neoofiice.org) It's no secret – I despise Office for the mac. I've found it to be buggy, unstable, and very un-mac like. The interface is, in my opinion, absolutely horrific. That said, the business world runs on Office. Thank goodness for NeoOffice. It's 100% office compatible, fast, stable, and works like you expect a Mac application to work. Hmm, and there was one other thing... Oh, yeah, it's free! Based upon the excellent OpenOffice project, NeoOffice removes that project's requirement of needing to install a third-party X Windows server, and makes the application a first-class Mac citizen. I exchange hundreds of Office documents with customers and co-workers each week, and I have never run into a document which did not display properly; not to mention, the folks that I exchange files with just don't realize that I'm not using Office. It's that good. (Open source, free)

VLC Player (Video LAN Client) (http://www.videolan.org/vlc) Quicktime is great and all, but it just can't handle all of the video formats roaming around out on the web. The VLC player can handle almost any video format you can throw at it, and can display these videos fullscreen without the need to pay a licensing fee (for shame, Apple!). Oh, and it's free as well. (Open source, free)

Cyberduck (http://cyberduck.ch/) If you use ftp or sftp to manage your website or just for exchanging files, cyberduck is an excellent tool. It works smoothly, painlessly, and is unobtrusive. A great little application. Combined with a supported editor (I use bbedit, but it supports several others), double-clicking on a file on a connected server will cause the file to be opened in your editor; save it or close the editor and your changes are automatically uploaded to the server. An excellent tool. (Freeware)

Parallels (http://www.parallels.com) If, like me, you've got those pesky few applications for which no Mac alternative is available, Parallels is a godsend. It allows you to run Windows in a window directly on your Mac desktop, where it is contained within it's own little sandbox and cannot do any damage to your machine. Oh, sure, Bootcamp is available from Apple, but it's install is not for the fainthearted, is in a constant beta state, and is completely unsupported by Microsoft as well as Apple. Not to mention, when you install Bootcamp, windows has full control of your nice Apple machine. I don't know about you, but I switched to the Mac to avoid Windows headaches; because of this, Parallels is a very attractive alternative for me. I use it to run a few Windows-only applications as well as for testing the web sites that I develop under Internet Explorer. It's a bargain for the price – a mere $79 US (plus that pesky Windows license if you don't happen to own one), but can be found deeply discounted at retail (I paid under $30 US for my copy after rebate). Fast, stable, and well-supported – you really can't beat it. Oh, and if you are used to the former nightmare that was Virtual PC, you will be pleasantly surprised – Windows running in Parallels on an Intel Mac runs at about 95% of native speed, so it's very usable. (Commercial, $79)

Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/) Some sites just don't work properly under Safari. Sad, but true. Most websites today are tested against two browsers: IE and Firefox. Given my attitude about Microsoft products, you can guess which one I recommend. Firefox is a great browser, and it's free. A must have for any Mac user. (Freeware)

Xtorrent (http://www.xtorrentp2p.com) Lots of sites are offering software and other content via bittorrent these days. Unlike traditional downloads, ftp, or even P2P applications like limewire, bittorrent limits your download speeds by your upload speed; in order to download a file, you automatically share it with all other users who are downloading it. The net result here is that the more people go after a file, the FASTER the download will actually be. There are several options available for the mac; I recommend two: azureus and Xtorrent. Azureus is, by far, the most capable of the two – it is much more configurable and has more capabilities (the most valuable being partial torrent downloads). But for straight-up ease-of-use, you just can't beat Xtorrent. With it's built-in search features, finding and downloading a file is a one-stop-shopping affair. (Shareware, $20)

SSHKeychain If you use ssh or sftp on a daily basis like I do and use public keys to manage your connections, the excellent SSHKeychain program comes in really handy. It patiently sits in the background waiting for an SSH connection; when you make a connection, it will prompt you for your keyphrase; it then caches this information for you for a while, so you don't have to type your keyphrase in over and over. It also gives you a handy interface for configuring commonly used SSH port tunnels. Very nice. Only problem – the developer has not yet gotten around to releasing a universal binary. I've built an Intel-only release of the tool, available here: sshkeychain.dmg; download and mount the disk image, then copy it's contents to /application/utility or somewhere handy. I set it up to run at startup so I don't have to think about it.