macolyte.net

I think just about everybody does one of these posts sooner or later, so now it’s my turn. In this post I’ll list the applications that I use everyday, most of which I can’t compute without anymore.

At the pinnacle of the list are quicksilver, Desktop Manager, and WindowShade X. I mainly use quicksilver as an application launcher, but it is capable of so much more. It has an incredible plug-in library that allows you to interface with almost everything, from the Finder to Bluetooth to Google Calendar to…well you get the idea. Desktop Manager is especially dear to my heart. Since I mainly use a 12″ PowerBook, screen real estate is precious. DM gives you virtual desktops in OS X. I have it set up for 6 desktops, but I believe you can go as high as 99. WindowShade X is another screen real estate saver. It lets you roll up an application into its title bar. I loved this feature when I used fluxbox under Linux and am overjoyed that I can have it on my Mac as well.

While Desktop Manager and quicksilver are more or less the only apps I couldn’t possibly live without, there are some others that I use on a daily basis, which I will present in list format.

• MacIrssi – Graphical, OS X version of the *NIX irssi IRC client. I started using this when I noticed an update to X-Chat Aqua limited my scrollback. If these two IRC clients were cars, X-Chat Aqua would be an automatic, and MacIrssi would be a manual.
• Deer Park – A G4/G5 optimised build of Firefox. After a stint using OmniWeb, I decided to go back to Firefox. Then I read this BeatnikPad post about Deer Park and immediately installed it. I think that Firefox in general has some memory leakage issues, but overall, I’m very happy with it.
• Apple Mail – I know a lot of people don’t particularly like Mail, but I think it’s great. I actually prefer [blasphemy!] the new look that Mail got in Tiger as well. One day I may try Mozilla Thunderbird, but as they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
• Yojimbo – Mostly I use Bare Bones’ most recent offering to keep passwords, but it can also hold notes, web archives, bookmarks and serial numbers. It’s very useful and, I think, definitely worth the price.
• NetNewsWire – Probably the most well-known Mac RSS reader. Very well designed and easy to use. Check out my current feed list.
• Adium – I’ve only been using this IM client for a month or so. I was really quite happy with iChat, but Josh suggested I try Adium. I haven’t messed around with it too much, but it gets the job done.

Of course there are other apps I use daily like iTunes and Apple’s Terminal, but I figured they were so mundane as to not warrant special mention. I hope this list was useful and you discovered at least one new application you think you might use.