Macintosh Software, Revisited

I was recently updating my about page when I realized that I’d really not kept up with the good things on Hithlum, only the bad.

And that’s unfortunate, because my Mac really rocks. I’m glad that I left the switching-distros-solves-problems world of Linux behind, even though I look at Tsiolkovsky with an admittedly covetous eye.

(But if Apple put out a ruggedized subcompact MacBook Pro with an optical drive? I am so there.)

So I thought I’d start by revisiting my original list of software that I’d posted a year ago and see what I’m actually using, versus what didn’t work out for me. A lot of these applications have been good to me. Maybe you’ll find them useful, too.

Here are my standards, the applications that make Hithlum a joy to use:

• Quicksilver remains the only application I run all the time. Every week I learn something new about how to use it. I remapped my Caps Lock key to Control just so I could trigger Quicksilver even faster. Oh, and there’s command line interaction, so I don’t even need to keep Terminal open!

At the time, I said: “Holy holy holy. Quicksilver changes everything.” I stand by that and can only add more emphasis.

• Safari and Camino are currently vying for my affections as web browsers. Safari had speed problems when I used it as a RSS news reader, but the font rendering is incredible. (I’ve since switched to Google Reader for news.) Camino feels snappier and doesn’t bog down after its been open a while, but it doesn’t do as good a job with text. We’ll see who winds up on top.

• Mail continues to be my main mail client. Hawk Wings has been a great resource, pointing me towards all sorts of useful (and not so useful) add ons. I use MacGPG and GPGMail in conjuction with the built-in x.509 certificate support, Mail Stamps, SignatureProfiler, and MailFollowup. That’s actually about it — I don’t use Mail Tags as often as I used to, but I keep it around. I end up using the ⌥⌘T command to file mail quickly and let Spotlight sort it all out later.

• iPhoto. I spend a sizeable part of every night working in iPhoto, processing pictures and whatnot. I’m still on the iLife ‘05 package but will happily upgrade to ‘07… whenever it actually comes out. I have gripes about the ‘05 version that I know are fixed in ‘06, so now it’s just a waiting game.

• I upload photos to Flickr and Zooomr with jUploader. The various plugins and dedicated uploaders just haven’t done it for me. I keep hoping, though…

• Preview. You know what? This simple application is fantastic and is the unsung hero of OS X 10.4. How do people get by without it?

• Emacs is my primary text editor, but I use neither the Cocoa nor the Carbon versions. I, uh, use the default terminal one. Do I lose points for that?

• xscreensaver. What can I say? I love me some GLMatrix action combined with Backlight. Mmmm, green and black desktop goodness.

There are a few other programs I use on a regular basis, just not every day, which I consider essential.

• Address Book. Does what it’s supposed to do. Syncing problems with Entourage, though, led me to resort to manual imports and a lot of backups.

• Adium X is still in the Dock, used fairly often but not every day. iChat didn’t have a chance.

• I wish iCal integrated better with either Google Calendar or Exchange. I love the interface, but not the syncing.

• The Mac The Ripper / HandBrake combo sees a lot of use, as I rip movies to watch on iTunes. I watch a lot of movies in iTunes these days — much more than I listen to music.

Then there’s a large group of specialized programs that are useful in one way or another, but not part of my normal mundane computing existence. Or, I haven’t grokked them yet.

• Audacity for audio processing. I use it to rip old cassette tapes to MP3. (Don’t forget the LAME codec.)

• I’ve only recently downloaded Cocoalicious, a del.icio.us bookmarks manager. Still figuring out if I need it or not.

• Colloquy. IRC client. I’ve used it twice, works.

• Crack Attack, one of Merrystar’s favorites.

• DynDNS Updater, to keep my dynamic hostname associated with my Mac. I haven’t looked at it since I installed it, which is how it’s supposed to be.

• Entourage does all sorts of bad things when I try to sync it with both Exchange (for work) and iCal (to publish my calendar for my family.) Don’t like the mail interface at all, ditched it very soon after I tried it out. There was also an incident that reinforced the importance of keeping work and play separate, so I don’t do anything work-related on the Mac anymore. Entourage’s days are numbered.

• Excel, on the other hand, continues to blow OpenOffice’s Spreadsheet out of the water. Sorry, but until you can do pivot tables, you’re not in the game. Possibly the best part of MS Office.

• Firefox is only installed for those rare occasions where I’ve needed to get into a site that didn’t work with Safari and didn’t recognize Camino. I may discard this one soon.

• Flip4Mac, plays windows media files.

• I finally installed X11 so I can run The Gimp for image manipulation. Works just like I remember, maybe a little better.

• GLTerminal, a full screen terminal. Cool but clunky.

• Google Earth remains very cool, but its utility is debatable. (It was helpful when looking for a house, but that’s over now.) Bandwidth hog.

• I use iTunes XHTML Playlist 4.2.3 to now publish my iPod playlists, although I’ve got an AppleScript that can do it too. Looks like version 5.0 has been a while in coming.

• Every time I try iWork, I like it. But I so rarely use it, it’s not worth buying. (Yet.)

• I like JDarkRoom, a full-screen simple text editor. The fonts are great, it’s easy to write in… but I don’t use it very often anymore. It is a great creative writing tool, something to really focus you down on what you’re doing. It’s also readable from across the room. (Perhaps I’m just shy? I bet that comes as a surprise.) GLTerminal has more old-skool cred with the flicker and arc, but JDarkRoom is a clean, straightforward app.

• I have a PowerBook with a motion sensor. I therefore have MacSaber. It’s inevitable. (It’s also been used exactly once.)

• MarsEdit, tool for offline posts to weblogs. I haven’t decided about this one - I haven’t even really tried out the trial version.

• OggDrop X, for converting OGG music files. I, uh, don’t use OGG anymore. Everything’s MP3 or AAC.

• OTR Proxy might see some use, if I ever IMed with someone who used it too.

• pearLyrics is still around, but I haven’t used it in ages.

• Stellarium, planetarium software. Sweet.

• Think is another one that I’m trying out that I’m not sure if I’m going to keep. It blacks out everything but what you’re working on, which is nice. A separate app to do it, though… I’m not sure about this one yet.

• VLC for those media files that Quicktime can’t hack. Haven’t had many of those.

Finally, we have the discard pile. These just weren’t for me, thank you, come again.

• Growl may come as a surprise for the die-hard Mac readers, because it’s an honestly good program and wildly popular. I’ve simplified my routine, though, and when I’m on my Mac I don’t need notifications about every little event. Mail arrives? I’ll get to it. New song plays? Okay, I’ll listen to it. This is definitely a “good, but not for me” program. <ploink>

• Seamonkey, Shiira, and SunriseBrowser were all deleted a while ago. <ploink ploink ploink>

• I tried out Flock and liked it well enough (Camino + Flickr + del.icio.us is a good combo) but got a little wigged out by the unknown TCP/IP traffic I saw going out of it. So: <ploink>

• Armagetron and Armagetron Advanced, Tron Cycle games. <ploink>

• Battle of Wesnoth, still great, I’m still not playing. <ploink>

• Browsejour. Why did I think I needed this? <ploink>

• Disk Inventory X. It was useful when I was searching my old drives. Done now. <ploink>

• Flickr Uploadr, er, uploads files to Flickr. Replaced with jUploader. <ploink>

• iPodDisk. I have a 512 MB first generation shuffle. I don’t need this app yet. <ploink>

• IPScanner. Never used it. <ploink>

• MyTunesRSS. Great idea, not for me. <ploink>

• NeoOffice, the OpenOffice.org port to OS X. A 350+ MB app is not a utility. No need, so: <ploink ploink>

• Yahoo Widgets, too much memory required. I’ll use them on my Windows machine, but not on my Mac. <ploink>

• XJournal, offline posting for LiveJournal. Don’t use LJ, so no need for this one. <ploink>

• XNmap. Never used it. <ploink>

Next up, I’ll have to document my love affair with the command line.