10 OS X Apps You Might Not Know About But Should
Over the past couple of years of running The Apple Blog, I’ve tried out literally thousands of applications. A lot have been great apps that I still use today, but infinitely more have just been plain bad. I know I’m not the only one who’s experienced this. So to help you weed through the clutter, here are 10 applications that I’ve stumbled across that you really should get your hands on…in alphabetical order.
ChronoSync
Econ Technologies’ ChronoSync has been one of my favorite apps for quite some time. It’s a backup/disk syncing tool that’s much more full-featured than something like SuperDuper. It’ll set you back $30.
Connoisseur
For the little chef in all of us, there’s The Little App Factory’s Connoisseur! It’s packed with super useful features like the Cooking View that gives a huge fullscreen view of the recipe and will even speak out the directions for you! It’s also got a solid number of recipes that are downloadable from their recipe community. It’s well worth the $20 price tag.
Democracy
I know a lot of people who subscribe to hundreds of blogs and podcasts but not many people who subscribe to vidcasts. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of great vidcasts and short films available for free out there. What Democracy does is allow you to aggregate everything into one place. It’s basically an RSS feed reader for videos. The player is fantastic, their directory of videos is growing every day, and best of all…it won’t cost you a penny!
DeskShade
I’m a bit of a neat freak. It bothers me when stuff is all over the place in no real order or if there are an unnecessary number of things in a small space (ie. tons of icons/files on my desktop). MacRabbit has released a super dandy little app called DeskShade that lets you hide/show everything on your desktop with the simple press of a hotkey! It is $12.95 and comes with quote a few other features that are useful.
GarageSale
I’ve been using GarageSale for over a year now and haven’t touched eBay’s listing submission form in just as long. GarageSale is a “slick, full-featured client application for the eBay online auction system.” Not only does it come with countless templates to use, but really makes posting auctions a breeze. You can easily preview your listing, upload photos from iPhoto, message buyers, track listings, and tons more. This has got to be one my favorite apps to come out in a long time. The $29.99 price tag really is a steal.
Minuteur
Whether your boiling an egg or timing your 48 minute intervals, Minuteur really is the perfect timer for the mac. It’s got a smooth and simple interface that makes it incredibly intuitive to use. It’s not equipped with bells and whistles because it shouldn’t be. It does what it should…and does it with excellence. It’s completely free.
Paparazzi!
I frequently need to take full screenshots of an entire website (as opposed to just what is visible on the screen). Paparazzi! gives me that ability. All you do is drop in the URL of the site you’re wanting to take a screenshot of and moments later you have a full screen of the entire length of the page! It’s also free…which is an obvious plus.
SpamSieve
Spam is an unfortunate fact of life…or is it? It hasn’t been for me in almost a year. I’ve abandoned the junk filter in Apple’s Mail app in favor of Michael Tsai’s SpamSieve. It’s incredibly accurate and really is the best spam filter I’ve ever used. No mac should be without this! It’s got a low $30 price tag for so much power.
Wallet
From passwords to serial numbers to credit cards…our lives are full of numbers. And while you could try to store them all in a text file, that’s an extremely risky move that’s just asking to get stolen. What you should be using is Waterfall Software’s Wallet. It offers military-strength 448-bit encryption to store everything from login information to credit cards to serial numbers…and everything in between. Quit trying to memorize so many numbers and start storing them in a safe place. They’re practically giving this away at $14.95.
WebDesktop
WebDesktop does exactly that. It lets you embed websites in your desktop. It ultimately acts like Safari (it uses WebKit) except when the app isn’t in focus it embeds directly into your desktop and won’t interfere with your clicking and what not. It’s useful for things like monitoring servers, staying on top of stocks, tracking sports score, and tons more. It’s free to the masses.
John Tyler on November 26th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
You might also look at Desktopple from FoggyNoggin Software. It does the same thing as DeskShade, and it’s free.
Derek Punsalan on November 26th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Great list. Although I already use a few of those apps, the WebDesktop is definitely something worth keeping in the Applications folder. Somewhat disappointed with the lack of navigation functions but I can see why those aren’t needed. Maybe the developer can consider adding options for keyboard shortcuts.
Sengan on November 26th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
Others you might not know about:
* Find It! Keep It! (www.ansemond.com) to keep webpages, then browse them as if the internet were on your own computer
* TacoHTML to edit html while seeing the results side-by-side.
* Pzizz to help you doze off if that’s difficult for you
* Color Oracle, to simulate the effects for color blindness
Loudermilk on November 26th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
Great post. Left me hungry for more! Please consider making this a series: lesser known but great mac apps!
Brian on November 26th, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Decent list, though I think you should do one for good freeware apps. I’m a fan of http://www.civilnetizen.com, like FedEx for digital parcels. Also, Adium, a really good unified messaging client.
MacNewb on November 26th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Are there any programs to make OS X more like Windows?
I can’t stand the fact that you can’t cut files to the clipboard and go paste them somewhere….Also how about a file manager that has a hierarchical tree-view of the folders?
Dylan on November 26th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
@MacNewb
For your first annoyance try dragging the files to the desktop. I find that a more logical solution than cutting. As for the second look in finder’s toolbar for the set of 3 icons one is a set of 4 boxes one is 4 lines and one is 3 columns, the one you want is the one with 4 lines called “list view”. I advise you to try the column view as well.
krunkosaurus on November 26th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
virtuedesktops – best free multiple desktop app.
Michael Skelton on November 26th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
Great post! Hopefully see some of my software ideas on here shortly ;)
dan on November 26th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
Features alone doesn’t make a great app. For 90 percent of the public superduper is a better option.
Max Rubin on November 26th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
It never ceases to amaze that Mac applications are written so functionally and so well written with the actual user in mind.
Nazz on November 26th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
A pretty good list, but info.xhead is a better substitute than wallet.
http://www.xheadsoftware.com/info_xhead.asp
and SuperDuper is a great backup tool…
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
Wim Leers on November 26th, 2006 at 11:47 pm
ChronoSync does not allow you to make clones, i.e. bootable back-ups, of your current system. So you can’t really compare it with SuperDuper, which is superior by far if you need that functionality!
zpjet on November 27th, 2006 at 12:50 am
about cluttering desktoop, i found the best is to make Finder quit-able, either by one of tools like Onyx, Macpilot or TinkerTool, or by simple command in Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem 1
and then quitting Finder whenever i don’t need it – it even saves few megas of memory.
Brutal on November 27th, 2006 at 1:28 am
If Webdesktop acts like Safari, is it also a memory hog like Safari? If that’s the case I wouldn’t want it constantly running in the background..
Duncan Ponting on November 27th, 2006 at 1:47 am
I bought wallet and the gits never sent me a license key, even after numerous emails. I asked for a refund and funnily enough they haven’t contacted me about that either. I recommend 1Passwd instead (far superior).
Berbie on November 27th, 2006 at 1:51 am
Another very useful app for people doing long distance sports using either the Nike + Apple Sport Kit or a GPS Receiver like the Garmin ForeRunner is TrailRunner.
http://www.trailrunnerx.com
Carl on November 27th, 2006 at 4:32 am
@MacNewb: Did you try PathFinder? Besides, I can recommend BetterZip as the best replacement for WinZip on the Mac. And web designers should take a look at xScope.
Linh on November 27th, 2006 at 4:39 am
KeePassX is a nice password manager as well. It’s better under windows, but being cross platform helps.. I didn’t have to reenter everything.
Anyone have any alternative to ChronoSync that is free?
John on November 27th, 2006 at 6:20 am
@MacNewb
Cutting and pasting files is bad behavior that OS X doesn’t have for a good reason. It breaks the cutting metaphor, since the file stays where it is until you paste it. What happens if you never “paste” the file? What happens if you “cut” something in the interim?
The Mac way is to drag files from one Finder window to another. I used to crave the Windows way of doing things (maximizing windows, doing everything through menus) when I first switched, but I have found the Mac way of direct manipulation and actually using drag and drop to be much faster.
But PathFinder is a very powerful Finder replacement/shell. It has a shelf metaphor, I believe, which is file “cutting and pasting” done right: You put a file onto the shelf and it stays there until you put it where it needs to go. It can also give you a hierarchal tree view. (The Finder can give you a single paned tree view, kind of: click the arrow next to a folder in list view.)
Chris Meisenzahl on November 27th, 2006 at 7:02 am
Some good stuff in there, thanks.
Dan Semaya on November 27th, 2006 at 7:31 am
The Keychain stores passwords and secure notes, and is 3DES encrypted. No need for third party software.
Top Ten Lists on November 27th, 2006 at 8:37 am
[...]10 OS X Apps You Might Not Know About But Should[...]
Mark Asteroff on November 27th, 2006 at 9:38 am
Koingo Software’s Data Guardian has Wallet beaten to a pulp!
http://www.koingosw.com/products/dataguardian.php
Matt J on November 27th, 2006 at 10:09 am
ChronoSync has one major advantage over SuperDuper, you can retain multiple older versions of files, so that, for example, if I were to accidently delete part of a document I can recover it, or if some database (iPhoto, I’m looking at you) were to become corrupted, it doesn’t overwrite the old backup. However, Chronosync has a horribly ugly interface.
Jim Gaynor on November 27th, 2006 at 11:51 am
You might also want to try out ScreenGrab! – http://andy.5263.org/screengrab/
It’s a java-based Firefox add-in that will create images of full webpages (the full page, not just what’s visible in the browser window). Best of all, it works on MacOS X and XP.
Honza on November 27th, 2006 at 11:52 am
The only thing I miss from Windows is having information on the currently selected file in the status bar. Well actually all I want to see is the size of the file, without having to do CMD-I or using CTRL-CMD-I… It’s not rocket surgery.
Duncan Ponting on November 27th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Just though I should say that after my comments about Wallet above I have had my money refunded and been given the license key I missed out on.
Craig (mars-hill) on November 27th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
I also prefer 1Passwd as a secure place to keep passwords et al since it keeps everything from FIREFOX and SAFARI. Both in the same place and all accessible.
Scott on November 27th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Glad you mentioned * Minuteur*. I use it daily for stuff like “turn off stove in 12 minutes!” or “LEave the house in 24minutes for appt!” It’s so perfect.
eric on November 27th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
i looked at chronosync and it seems to serve a different purpose than superduper. superduper makes a complete backup of every 1 and 0 on your hard drive, resulting (in my case) in an external, bootable firewire clone. this is a lifesaver if your hard drive crashes (like mine did). but maybe i didn’t scan the chronosync feature list closely enough.
themacthinker on November 27th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Nice description. but there are so much more applications for os x that are you not mentionned here. This is clearly the author’s point of view…
————–
http://www.mostofmymac.com
subcorpus on November 27th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
how about quicksilver ….
its a very good launch program …
and has lots lots more features …
some ppl say they dunno how they actually did without it …
try it …
Anneliese on November 27th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Re: Honza,
If you are in list view in Finder, command J will bring up your view options. Choose all windows or this window, and then check to show size. Close the view option window. You can now drag the size column to where you want it in the window.
As far as apps, I love Journler. Check it out.
FalknerX on November 27th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
try these:
Overflow – fast application launcher
Onyx – Free system maintainace suite
Remote Buddy – use Apple Remote for more than frontrow
iSquint – encode any video for iPod
Handbrake – rip DVDs into iPod ready format
Senuti – copy songs off an iPod
Chris Ryan on November 27th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
My Favorites:
Textmate
DEVONthink
Aqua Data Studio
DiscLabel
iWatermark
SideNote
Adium
Audio Hijack Pro
CupertinoSlim on November 27th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
I like Windows’ buttons along the bottom of the screen for the open windows, not just app icons. Is there a Mac OS X app that adds that?
swissfondue on November 28th, 2006 at 2:14 am
Quicksilver is the second app (after Spamsieve) that I recommend everyone to install. Once you get used to it, you’ll hardly ever need dragthing or launchbar or even spotlight.
Satai Neroon on November 28th, 2006 at 8:49 am
Check out Pastor for password storage — I have used it for several years. Best of all it’s Free! Doesn’t ahve a lot of bells and whistles, but it does what I want in a very simple manner. I would also suggest UNO for those of you who are sick of having to look at Unity, Metal, Aqua, all in one OS when all you want is one interface look. I can’t rave enough about this little one-trick-pony.
mwschmeer on November 28th, 2006 at 10:08 am
DragThing, baby!
AndyM on November 28th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Another vote for:
Desktopple
TacoTML
Onyx
Handbrake
Textmate
And no one has mentioned
Transmission or Bits on Wheels
Transmit
CandyBar
EasyTask
MDict
MenuClendar
Movie Time
ProVoc
SohoNotes or Yojimbo
Service Scrubber
You could do a pretty good top ten even if you only chose free/donationware apps.
Oh and on the cut and paste thing- I think that on a Mac you copy and paste. Same thing SFAIK.
42 on November 28th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
ugh, Quicksilver is a nasty p.o.s. it gave me the first and only kernel panic on my Macbook.
Deja Vu is a super-easy (not -duper) backup utility. it doesn’t make clones but you can make a clone with CCC then schedule Deja Vu to synch the clone with your live drive overnight.
jdwaters on November 28th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
What about a free replacement for Window Shade?
kginger on November 30th, 2006 at 12:57 am
great list!
I use chronosync to make incremental archive backups over NETWORKS – it automatically mounts a network volume (Mac AFP or a PC through samba*). It does not make boot-able copies (use superduper for that) but I only need to backup ~/User documents …
*watch out for unsupported file names via samba!
Sherman Boyd on November 30th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
I would warn against storing your social security number, and other sensitive data on your net-connected computer in Wallet or any other form. No matter how secure the encryption is, it can be circumvented with a simple keystroke logger.
Keep that info on a piece of paper in your filing cabinet!
Ms Shooz on November 30th, 2006 at 6:14 pm
Is there a comparable application to “Snag-It”? It’s a great program, but for windows only. And the company states they have no plans to make a Mac version. Paparazzi, doesn’t have any markup tools integrated within the application, and this seems to be the biggest downfall of most of the screen capture program I have come across
GabbyM on July 25th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
The closest I have found is Voila for capturing and editing. And then I also have Paintbrush for some of the easier edits I used to do via Snag-it editor.
timb on December 9th, 2006 at 8:56 am
@John (#20):
“[put useful feature found in another OS here]… is bad behavior that OS X doesn’t have for a good reason. It breaks the …[put dumb*ss metaphor for technophobes here] metaphor, since … [put lame reasoning here]. The Mac way is to …[put painful procedure involving mouse here]…[Add some Windows-bashing plus primitive GUI philosophy and claim superiority].”
Yep. You summarized nicely what keeps me from switching back to Macs (1 do still own several, but don’t use them): the arrogant attitude and stubbornness from the OS and hardware vendor (and its fanboys) that insists on the usefulness of stuff like a jack-of-all-trades-”dock”, multi-column mode in a filemanager and open-/save-boxes and moving targets anywhere in the GUI. Oh, and a one-button-trackpad on notebooks. Ctrl-click is so much better, of course.
No thanks, I don’t want my OS to school me how I should use a computer.
mushu on December 23rd, 2006 at 1:53 pm
why on earth would anyone need a Wallet when they have keychain ? it does the same thing
Stephan Spencer on December 26th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
Ms Shooz, I’d suggest you try iShowU.
Mike on February 10th, 2007 at 4:50 am
I strongly advise against using Wallet or Data Guardian because both products require software activation.
While software activation has no extra benefit for the customer, it does have several disadvantages. Software activation potentially can cause extra effort when the user moves forward to new hardware, changes his system or simply wishes to install a product on multiple machines. (Installations on a single user’s multiple computers are not generally illegal in all countries.) Software activation can even make a software useless if the vendor goes out of business or is unwilling or unable to provide new activation keys within a required time frame.
In short words: Why would you buy software from somebody who still treats you like a criminal even after they have your money on their account?
Meherally on March 4th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Hi cupertinoslim, why would you need windows buttons. just use cmmd-tab and you can go into any open application and then cmmd-~ will cycle through the windows. BTW, the cmmd-tab can also be used to force quit or simply quit any application. With cmmd pressed, leave tab key and press Q….the app is gone.
Dushan on June 8th, 2007 at 10:22 am
I took a look at Minuteur’s website with the thought of trying it out. The thought of a simple, no frills app appealed to me. Then I noticed that this ’simple’ app was a 7.1 MB download! I’ll bet that 99% of that is graphics. Inexcusable bloat, IMO.
Allan on April 22nd, 2008 at 8:46 am
I wouldn’t want to use Wallet. IF my information is accessed they have every thing in one slick shot.
Ferdinants on June 22nd, 2008 at 1:48 am
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MO on November 16th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
for a screen capture with basic markup look at skitch – it is free
Dale Kaup on February 14th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Just use Thunderbird for email and better yet fetch your gmail with it. You won’t be getting much spam at all.
Dale
Dale Kaup on July 31st, 2009 at 8:05 pm
I do like the look of OS X but for usability I’d rank Ubuntu and Windows XP higher. I just don’t like having to click all over the freaking place. I know I can set it up so I can tab to the “OK” button but having to find out how to change that setting that should be default makes me feel like I’ve “OD’d” on OS X.
carl@garmin305forerunner on August 4th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Informative as usual, I will be back again to see what else you’ve got going on that
Penny auction on August 17th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Has anyone bought anything from http://www.gozila.co.uk penny auction?
Whats the deal, is it like ebay?
Thanks
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