Comments on: Attention: all Mac nerds

By: Ralf

Ralf — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:03:18 +0000

Here is a quick recover of the links I’d found earlier from my safari history. Not quite as much commentary this time, sorry…

Website to check for daily (or otherwise regular) package deals
http://www.mupromo.com/
http://www.macheist.com/

Some of these things are built in, some are free downloads, some are quite cheap or available on mupromo occasionally.

I use Spaces, the built in virtual desktop manager, a lot, and I recommend making category folders (audioVisual, games, etc) in your /Applications folder for when you install new applications, and colouring these for easy navigation (and migration to new machines eventually)

extra video support stuff to get
http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv.htm
http://perian.org/

nice way to make websites more shiny quickly and easily
http://www.aquafadas.com/en/bannerzest/

tools
http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/index.html
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
quicksilver from http://www.blacktree.com/
http://www.derlien.com/
http://growl.info/
http://pathway.screenager.be/download
http://unsanity.com/haxies/wsx

By: Ralf

Ralf — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:48:52 +0000

I wrote a long post but it disappeared when I hit submit. Might try again later…

By: Ralf

Ralf — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:47:35 +0000

Now, let’s see what’s on my machine.

Installed and used a lot, or cool but not well known
- spaces. I have 16 and use them…
- applying colours to files and folders. Particularly, I put any new applications into category folders (e.g. audioVisual, games, …) which are a different colour, making looking for something or migrating machines a LOT easier.

Free:
- quicksilver from http://www.blacktree.com/
Just try this one and you’ll fall in love.
- menumeters from http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters for your techie geek urges
- http://growl.info/ I used it for a while, don’t at the moment but lots of people do…
- vlc of course
- neooffice
- azureus
- pathway http://pathway.screenager.be/download
- disk inventory x http://www.derlien.com/
- grandperspective http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
- handbrake http://handbrake.fr/
- perian http://perian.org/ for extra video file support
- flip4mac http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv.htm for wmv support

Cheap (I got a lot of these through mupromo, see below)
- windowshadex from http://unsanity.com/haxies/wsx
Even with spaces I find this really worth it…
- dvdremaster http://www.metakine.com/products/dvdremaster/
- istopmotion is a lot of fun http://boinx.com/istopmotion/overview/
- yflicks http://www.manytricks.com/yflicks/
- bannerZest for easy shininess when making websites http://www.aquafadas.com/en/bannerzest/

Sites to check
- http://www.mupromo.com/ has daily specials on software, and the occasional package deal
http://www.macheist.com/ also has occasional package deals worth checking out

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:41:48 +0000

Looks awesome, Mike – thanks for the tip!

No other hot tips? Aren’t you a Mac tragic from way back? C’mon, I need help here!

By: Mike Shapiro

Mike Shapiro — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 22:36:58 +0000

I’ve been organizing my life with Things (http://www.culturedcode.com/things/). It’s a great program, and at the moment it’s completely free!