[Mac-Crusader]

my two Cents is

Great app for joystick
GamePad Companion - 2.1

Automate app & file launching on unattended Macs
CronoTask - 1.3

A great back-up software will back up to any mount drive
MagicMirror

[Nobody]

browser: Chimera (mozilla.org) the fastest browser on X.
ftp: Transmit (panic.com) current fav but will try Vicomsoft's client when released for X.
fax: Page Sender (smilesoftware.com) easy and works good
Finger/Whois/Ping/TraceRoute: WhatRoute (www.whatroute.com) useful webmaster/webmanager tool.
Stock Tracking: PTHStockTicker (versiontracker.com)
Spam control: SpamStopper X (versiontracker.com)
Multi-use text macro utility: TYPEIT4ME (versiontracker.com)
launcher: Work Strip X (commercial but...) (www.softchaos.com) hide the dock and use this...can have multiple dock categories.

[Nobody]

Two I use constantly (as in: frequently, throughout the day, every day) are

GraphicConverter (of course)
and
Tex-Edit

This latter is my particular favorite because it's allowed me to finally get away from All Things Microsquash. Extensively Applescriptable, it is small of footprint but powerful, esp. when cleaning text (multi-forwarded emails or PC docs brought to the Mac).

In my office, I am the lone mac holdout. Frequently, I am asked, "can you open this file?" And when I do, they are awed. It is these two tools that do the brunt of my work for me.

[Nobody]

Two I use constantly (as in: frequently, throughout the day, every day) are

GraphicConverter (of course)
and
Tex-Edit

This latter is my particular favorite because it's allowed me to finally get away from All Things Microsquash. Extensively Applescriptable, it is small of footprint but powerful, esp. when cleaning text (multi-forwarded emails or PC docs brought to the Mac).

In my office, I am the lone mac holdout. Frequently, I am asked, "can you open this file?" And when I do, they are awed. It is these two tools that do the brunt of my work for me.

Oh, and I don't know how X-able they are: I'm sticking with OS9 'til the programs I use (FrameMaker, for example) are X'd.

[Nobody]

Let's see...

• Mozilla is my regular Web Browser. It just seems to work well and has all the features I want.
  
• I use Web Confidential to keep track of passwords, serial numbers, etc. It keeps them handy on my Mac and also syncs the data to my Palm.
  
• I use Spamfire to filter spam. It keeps most of the junk completely out of my mail reader, has its own filters, but lets me tune them as needed.
  
• I use Backup Toolkit 3. It seems to work well. Not sure why the big mags always insist that Retrospect is the only option.
  
• Transmit is my FTP client of choice. It works great, especially since they released recent updates to take it out of beta!
  
• I also use Folder Synchronizer to move files around my hard drives for various reasons.
  
• Pseudo is a great tool for running Backup Toolkit with root permissions.
  
• OmniDiskSweeper is a great tool for managing my hard drive.
  
• MacJanitor also helps with hard drive management, shrinking log files, etc.
  
• And also, I find TDF Czar to be indispensable. It is a companion to other programs for list management (as long as the lists can be saved in tab-delimited files -- hence the name). It can create Web pages from lists, create lists from Web pages (such as bookmark files), sort them, merge them, intelligently combine records with duplicate keys, etc. It can be found at the PowerSurge Publishing home page. Of course, I am partial to this program, since I am also the author! But I do in fact use it almost daily.

[The_Tick]

Lesse:

x-tunes: blank>www.pol-online.net - This is a very awesome application that directly integrates with iTunes. Basically, say you're playing warcraft 3, and you wanna hear that new song you just ripped to iTunes, but do not want to tab out. Just simply command+space bar, then push enter, it'll start playing iTunes like you had just turned on iTunes and then pushed play. Also, it's clear, the sorta clear like on my desktop when I push the sound keys or the brightness keys, or is that called alpha blending?

Chimera, Mozilla, I.E., Phoenix, and Omniweb: We all know these, web browsers, to each their own, with their own quirks. Believe it or not, most web pages now seem to render decently the same in all of these. Phoenix is still young, but a shootoff of the Mozilla project, with very fast rendering, although slow opening. Chimera and Mozilla follow the correct form of chunking (specified here: blank>http://rfc-2639.rfcl...fc-2639-60.htm) whereas last I knew of it, I.E. does not. I.E. is installed by default, and is a better implementation than the version for windows out there. A lot of people still use it because it works with most sites that will not work with Mozilla (this includes chimera and phoenix)

Hangman.app: This is an open source app by a guy named guifa. I currently have version 0.9B and it works beautifully for the most part. It helped me to learn a little of project builder, and I was even able to turn it into a brushed metal app, which was really neato. E-mail me if you want a copy. I can't seem to find his site in google any longer.

snak: irc is awesome huh? An awesome waste of time at that even, but to help me with it, I needed something that would do what I needed. Having come from a linux desktop, I was using Bitchx. I continued to use Bitchx for a while on my iBook, but eventually wanted something pretty, in which I wouldn't have to concentrate so much on. snak was it.

fink: Fink is awesome, no more needed to say, other than fink.sf.net

Other than that, warcraft 3. Oh, and iSwipe is pretty neat.

[sdeschenes]

My favorite is Fire http://www.epicware....usSoftware.html
Before Fire, I had a problem because I had friends who used ICQ, MSN and AIM. I didn't want to keep all those apps working at the same time and some of the client apps didn't work well in OSX.

Fire handles AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! , IRC, MSN and Jabber IM. It's easy to use with a clean,simple and full-featured interface. It even automatically checks for updates since the standards for the various IM change frequently. A fantastic value since it is FREE!

images/icons/grin.gif

[Nobody]

Definitely Duality. This is a great theme changing program for OS X. Version 3.1 is great, and they have a 4.0 beta that functions as a Preference Panel. The address is www.conundrumsoft.com. Try it out (my favorite theme is Brushed Metal, fashioned after iTunes).

-Jim

[bishlabadoo]

My pick is:

MOX Optimize, which supposedly speeds up the operating system. It seems to help my 800 mHz iMac. Anyone else had any experience with this one?

[Nobody]

Two highly useful utilities:

Macaroni runs Unix routines (daily/weekly/monthly) when Mac is turned on or waked from sleep after the routine was supposed to run but didn't because the Mac wasn't running.

Snard beats the Finder for opening apps, sits on the menu bar, easily configured, other features, but simple enough to just do what it should without changing your habits.

[Visions_of_them]

I reccomend DockFun it's now a free utility, that, enables you to have multiple docks like I have one for all my design apps, one for internet and one for utilities, which keeps it all nice and tidy
DockFun images/icons/grin.gif

[Nobody]

One of the more useful freeware items I have found is Pic2Icon.

It's easy to use, versatile and free!!

Click and pick it here: http://www.sugarcube...ex.php?pic2icon
images/icons/grin.gif
Phil

[iPenseur]

quote:

---

x-tunes: www.pol-online.net - This is a very awesome application that directly integrates with iTunes.

---

I'll have to echo that... it's a really awesome piece of freeware, and makes iTunes control 100x easier! To make it even better, I programmed one of my mouse buttons for the hotkey, so that I can just hold down that button to get the control screen. images/icons/smile.gif

[Nobody]

Carbon Copy Cloner gets another shout out! I love this app! It made moving to a new hard drive the easiest of things to do. It took about ten minutes to mirror a 80 Gig drive,a nd now, I have made a painless transition to a Western Digital 8 meg buffer drive.

And another word for Chimera.

These two apps have sped up my work tenfold.