Comments on David Alison's Blog: My top 10 free Mac utilities

really, check out www.perian.org, works transparen...

2009-03-29T08:18:00.000-04:00

really, check out www.perian.org, works transparently with quicktime player

@Anon: I probably should have made it my top 11 be...

2009-03-01T16:53:00.000-05:00

@Anon: I probably should have made it my top 11 because I use Growl and am quite happy with it. It's one of those seamless applications that it's easy to overlook because they meld in so well. Thanks!

Speaking of notifiers, you should check out www.gr...

2009-03-01T16:50:00.000-05:00

Speaking of notifiers, you should check out www.growl.info. They make notifiers for quite a few applications, including a lot you make use of. Anyway, I am fond of the growl mail plugin for apple mail. Take a peek at their website, cool stuff.

I'm really curious about webEdition 6.0.0.2 CMS we...

2009-02-28T11:07:00.000-05:00

I'm really curious about webEdition 6.0.0.2 CMS web site development tool. It's not a utility, but it is free, built for Mac , and has an open-source development philosophy. Has anyone used it? Heard of it? Heard anything about it?

@David: please put it away, you'll scare the child...

2009-02-26T13:46:00.000-05:00

@David: please put it away, you'll scare the children!

@Brian: I've found the RSS reader in Mail.app a bi...

2009-02-25T16:49:00.000-05:00

@Brian: I've found the RSS reader in Mail.app a bit wanting; NNW has some great features, the best for me that I can queue up stories to read. That, plus with 12G of RAM I haven't worried too much about resources ;-)

Love the blog, David. Just wondering why you use N...

2009-02-25T16:35:00.000-05:00

Love the blog, David. Just wondering why you use NetNewsWire when that function is built into Mail. I figure if it's in Mail, I can save resources by reading RSS that way.

@Mark: Good point - though technically Gmail has b...

2009-02-24T08:13:00.000-05:00

@Mark: Good point - though technically Gmail has been in beta for at least 4 years now. Still, the little client app is my favorite part of the whole thing.

@Kermit: I use Audacity primarily to run compression and clean up on the audio portion of videos. The video I did on SharedStatus.com/tour.html is an example.

David, what do you use Audacity for?

2009-02-24T06:26:00.000-05:00

David, what do you use Audacity for?

Skitch has been in public beta for a such a long t...

2009-02-23T00:09:00.000-05:00

Skitch has been in public beta for a such a long time that I wonder whether it will ultimately become a service you have to pay for — which would be a drag if you've already uploaded a lot of pictures.

@VesperDEM: Thanks for the util names.@Daniel: I'v...

2009-02-22T21:57:00.000-05:00

@VesperDEM: Thanks for the util names.

@Daniel: I've got Neo Office but primarily use iWork; very happy with that.

And that link for Open Source Mac? Really cool - thanks!

for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, ...

2009-02-22T05:59:00.000-05:00

for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc, you have to check out neooffice:
http://www.neooffice.org
this is a port of openoffice designed specifically for mac and it works great for anything you might want ms office for. also compatible with all the major file formats.

and if you haven't seen this website yet, check it out:
http://www.opensourcemac.org/
lists a great free mac program or two for almost anything you could think of. i LOVE it

For me: SoundSource (Rogue Amoeba), GeekTool, Semu...

2009-02-22T05:06:00.000-05:00

For me: SoundSource (Rogue Amoeba), GeekTool, Semulov, BwanaDik, MediaLink (PS3 media streaming), Google Quick Search Box, Office Dock, iLife Dock, iWork Dock, FinderSize (Applescript to set finder window to set size), Cocktail, VirtualBox (Virtualization from Sun), TimeMachineEditor.

@Anon: thanks for those app names, I'll check them...

2009-02-21T15:19:00.000-05:00

@Anon: thanks for those app names, I'll check them out.

Zalinstead of Gmail Notifier I use GmailNotifr, I ...

2009-02-21T13:50:00.000-05:00

Zal

instead of Gmail Notifier I use GmailNotifr, I think it's smaller and sits on the menu bar, just point your mouse and see the headlines.
Another smaller also RSS thing is Shrook. Uses much less resources than NNW.
ClipMenu is very useful.
Noted and xPad - for all kinds of notes, clips..etc
and Skype of course

i use gmail notifr. replace gmail notifier with th...

2009-02-20T16:05:00.000-05:00

i use gmail notifr. replace gmail notifier with this. works very well for me

@David. Yes, I agree. I keep IRC just because a fe...

2009-02-20T15:47:00.000-05:00

@David. Yes, I agree. I keep IRC just because a few of the "oldies" I keep in touch with still use it now. Mind you, finger was a security hole, so I can understand that being deprecated. And with everyman and his dog a-Twittering, you KNOW where people are every damn minute of the day :)

@Chris Bulow: You know, of the "abandoned" interne...

2009-02-20T15:28:00.000-05:00

@Chris Bulow: You know, of the "abandoned" internet technologies (think Finger), IRC is the one that would be interesting to see a resurgence in. Simple, lightweight, dynamic "chat rooms" with tons of client software available.

The only channels on IRC that I use now are on pri...

2009-02-20T15:25:00.000-05:00

The only channels on IRC that I use now are on private servers - as you say, there's a lot of rather messy other stuff "out there" :)

@Nicholas: TrueCrypt is nice because there is a Ma...

2009-02-20T15:09:00.000-05:00

@Nicholas: TrueCrypt is nice because there is a Mac, Windows and Linux client and it allows me to create a heavily encrypted virtual drive for really sensitive documents. I have a 20MB virtual drive that is stored on my Dropbox account.

@Chris Bulow: Out of curiosity what do you use IRC for? I grabbed Colloquy but really haven't found a real use for IRC. The last time I played around with IRC it was quickly being taken over by uuencoded download bots.

@Keleko: Yeah, it's a bit out of date but the performance is a little better than VLC and it does seem to work.

@Sam: Good question, though other than TweetDeck (Adobe Air based) and Skitch, which application from my list do you feel is not a good representation of the Mac UI standard?

This is one of the things that drove me crazy about Windows—the lack of a clear UI standard within Windows applications, especially from Microsoft itself. In general I've found the majority of Mac applications are much more standardized than Windows applications, though I'm a little concerned that Apple is violating their own standards (like MS did) with products like Aperture, which contains slightly different UI elements than other OS X applications.

I personally would prefer that applications do everything they can to stay within the bounds of user interface standards. I think there is room for innovation but just doing something different for the sake of change is a pointless exercise to me.

@DieMonkey: I haven't tried Evernote; thanks for the tip, I'll check it out.

There's also an iPhone version of NetNewsWire that...

2009-02-20T15:07:00.000-05:00

There's also an iPhone version of NetNewsWire that you can sync with your OS X version.

If you're already using other Google Apps you might want to try out Google Reader instead. I've happy with it, especially since they added a folders feature.

I don't know if you use Bit Torrent or not, but uTorrent now has a Mac version that is great.

As DieMonkey mentioned, Evernote is worth looking at. It's a good note taking app, and is available for the iPhone for free and syncs with other platforms. Text notes, voice recordings, and pictures + OCR all in one.

Why do you need QuickRestart for Firefox when Fire...

2009-02-20T14:13:00.000-05:00

Why do you need QuickRestart for Firefox when Firefox (at least the version 3 I use) can already restore your tabs?

Since you are a Google Mail user who obviously bounces around different machines and locations, have you considered using Google Reader over NetNewsWire? Sure, the interface isn't as slick, but everything is kept "in the cloud" which is great for access from multiple machines.

Instead of MPlayer get VLC player or QT plugin Per...

2009-02-20T14:06:00.000-05:00

Instead of MPlayer get VLC player or QT plugin Perian. Most of your applications are Free Software, have a look at FreeSMUG list

How bout Evernote? Synchs notes between computers ...

2009-02-20T12:45:00.000-05:00

How bout Evernote? Synchs notes between computers and web and does OCR on images for searches.

it is interesting to notice that of your top 10 ap...

2009-02-20T12:24:00.000-05:00

it is interesting to notice that of your top 10 apps, most of them are relatively "non-mac". By which I mean, they do not follow the usual UI/layout and usability features found in many only mac apps.

As a long time mac user and a recent acquirer of a windows machine, I am super sensitive to difference in the way I am interacting with the apps I use. Having tried many on your list at one time or another. I have not stopped using most apps because of some lacking in functionality, but more so, I rejected most for doing little things that bugged me in usability.

I think mostly I am just curious as to overall what you think about the differences in the interface on apps on the mac versus windows.