Bagel Belly Blog

We continue

Yet another switcher! Is there no end to this? :-)

John is making the jump to the land of sanity, reason and really cool graphics. He ordered himself a 15" powerbook last night. So, time to pull together a definitive list of Mac software (and fix the linkrot), so he can go download it all in advance.

Editors and word processors:

• NeoOffice (OpenOffice with better Mac support)


• JEdit (my preferred editor)


• SubEthaEdit (pair programming extreme!)


• BBEdit (you should at least try "the definitive" Mac editor, before deciding it's too damned expensive)


• <oXygen/> XML editor (try it standalone, then plug it into Eclipse ...)


• Eclipse (the behemoth IDE, that'll make you lust for a G5 desktop)

Net apps:

• NetNewswire (essential RSS reader)


• XChat Aqua (old school)


• Azureus or BitTorrent


• Limewire or Poisoned


• Huevos (quick access to Google)


• ecto and MovableType (for all your blogging needs)


• Rendezvous Browser (see who's offering what on the LAN)


• Firefox and Opera

Multimedia:

• VLC (Video the OSS way)
• Windows Media Player (urgh)
• ViewIt (simple image viewer)
• RealPlayer (urgh)
• Steam for BBC radio, and Audio Hijack

System utilities:

• Anacron


• PostgreSQL


• DarwinPorts, then ... wget, lynx, nano, cvs, subversion, gimp2, ImageMagick, rsync, etc. (Don't mix DarwinPorts with fink. Do one or the other. I like DarwinPorts ... this week.)


• Ext2FSx (if you need to talk to Linux disks ...)


• Diablotin (lets you enable/disable custom startup items, amongst other things)


• TinkerTool (tweak preferences in OS X)

Enhance iLife:

• Clutter (to put cover art on your tunes)


• Better HTML Export and Template Manager (to get your photos on the web from iPhoto)


• Logorrhea (and turn on "log all chats" in iChat)


• MailEnhancer (to get per-account signatures)


• iTunes scripts, particularly Now Playing in iChat


• Crm4Mac (when it's stabilised and released)


• Address-o-sync (synchronise selected contacts with other people over Rendezvous)

Games:

• Age of Mythology


• Quinn (Tetris)


• bzFlag (ubiquitous tank bang bang boom)


• AirBurst (think Frozen Bubble on acid. And, hello, what's this? Frozen Bubble for OS X!)

Utilities / desktop enhancements:

• SSH Agent


• MenuMeters (keep an eye on system load, memory usage, etc.)


• Combine PDFs (glue separate PDFs together. Really useful, since PDF is ubiquitous in OS X)


• Desktop Manager (for virtual desktops)


• Konfabulator, with at least The Weather, iPodRemote, Analogue Clock, Waste Basket, iChat Bezel, and What To Do


• SlimBatteryMonitor


• Salling Clicker (control your laptop from your phone)


• QuickSilver (free version of Launchpad - lets you hit Apple-Space and type first few characters of the application you want to start)


• WhatSize (track down disk hogs)


• Fugu (graphical scp, if you like that sort of thing)


• Share2Blue2th (give your mobile access to the internet via the laptop)


• AP Grapher (track strength of wireless signals)

Interoperability:

• VirtualPC


• Remote Desktop Connection


• X11

Applications:

• ganttproject

This is a summary of previous blog posts, Mac Toys, what's on my powerbook?, the powerbook redux, diary of a switcher #10 on editors, and diary of a switcher #8.

To get up to speed while you're waiting for the powerbook to arrive, go read some of the Mac resources I gathered in diary of a switcher #2.

Finally, don't forget to go buy a "second skin" neoprene cover for your powerbook, too. When you get the shiny new machine, you'll want to keep it that way!

Currently listening to High Life from the album Wide Angle by Hybrid

Posted by savs at April 4, 2004 12:47 PM