December 9, 2003

Powerbook redux

powerbook_weight.jpgMore Mac stuff, partly to try and convince Marc and Sylvain to give in and buy themselves Powerbooks. Come on guys, you know you want to!

Today: what's on my Mac. A stroll through the essential utilities and applications that have been installed and kept rather than being thrown in the trash. In no particular order:

  • Age of Mythology - great game, had it on the PC, just trying to get back to where I was before I switched.
  • Anacron - I used it on Linux to make sure the important tasks happened even if the laptop was suspended. Now on OS X.
  • BitTorrent - great for speedy downloads. Useful for grabbing "evaluation" versions of stuff ...
  • Clutter - useful for getting pictures for my iTunes collection. Also kinda nice having CD cases scattered across my virtual desktop.
  • EV Nova - fan of Elite? Get this game.
  • Huevos - faster access to Google.
  • MenuMeters - lets me see at a glance what's going on with my laptop. It's responsible for the Tx/Rx, pie chart of memory and the blue and red graph of processor usage:
    menumeters.png
  • OpenOffice - it's so much lighter to run than Microsoft Office.
  • VLC - video player supporting unusual formats.

There's also half a dozen perl modules I've compiled and installed. I'm trying to figure out a neat way of making them available as disk images or downloadable packages. I've made a Xindice 1.0 package already ... if you're interested, let me know, as I could do with more beta-testers.

Posted by savs at December 9, 2003 7:17 PM
Comments

Mate, you so need Launch Bar - http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/ - Fred Sanchez (way to name drop... woot!) introduced me to it at ApacheCon this year, and it just kicks ass!

Posted by: Thom May at December 10, 2003 12:30 AM

Downloaded and installed ... first impressions are "muh?"

Will let you know how I get on with it ;-)

Posted by: Andrew Savory at December 10, 2003 12:51 AM

Yeah, the "muh" stage lasts about 30 minutes and then it's essential...

Posted by: Thom May at December 10, 2003 11:25 PM

People need convincing to want a Powerbook? I thought everyone was born with the basic instinct to own a Powerbook. Who are these "non Powerbook lusting" people you speak of?

Posted by: homerjay at December 14, 2003 5:02 AM