I love my new Mac (list of cool utilities from Twitter)

April 5, 2007 By

I just switched my life over to a 17-inch MacBookPro. Don’t worry Microsoft fans. I still have Vista and Office 2007 loaded too.

I asked the 2500+ people following me on Twitter what their ideas were for me to load up and in just the first minute got dozens of suggestions. Here’s some of the first:

@kirkmarple says “Vista.” Heh, already got it loaded. With both BootCamp and Parallels.
@rpechler says “start with iUseThis.”
@davewiner says “audio recorder, brain dead simple MP3 recorder and azureus, bittorrent client”
@endacrowley says “transmit by panic software for ftping, aperture for more advanced photography, adium for chat and twitteriffic for Twitter).”
@cbee says “Transmit, Onyx, iClip, WhatSize, DeskTopple, Typeit4me.”
@CamonZ says “optimized binary of firefox for Mac.”
@MHJohnston says “Quicksilver.”
@FANLESS says “icecoffee, menumeters, copypaste & Growl, all found via http://www.macupdate.com.”
@davewiner says “graphicconverterpro – paint program.”
@matthendry says “Triple Boot via BootCamp.”
@DonMacAskill says “AdiumX, NeoOffice, Yojimbo, Spanning Sync, Missing Sync (if you use a SmartPhone or Windows Mobile), iTerm, Twitterrific.
@johncruz says “You better get twitterrific.”
@pierre says “LaunchBar is a must if you prefer keyboard to mouse.”
@derrickpeters says “‘tickr‘ for flickr.” (now replaced by Slide).
@cbee says “Amadeus and/or Audacity, Wiretap Pro, Flip4Mac, File Juicer, Pipette.”
@autodidactus says “Where do we start, Scoble? Twitterific, VLC, WireTap Pro, Transmit, Adium.”
@autodidactus says “I’ve found myself quite hooked on Monocle lately.”
@lightandshadow says “Letterbox, plugin for Mail.app.”
@joshowens says “perian.org — a nice codec pack for all those lovely bittorrent TV shows, etc.
@edwardsterkin says “seismac.”
@tuz says “Appzapper for uninstalling, Colloquy for IRC if you do that, NetNewsWire for free reading, write room for uninterrupted writing.”
@edwardsterkin says “VoiceCandy.”
@R2C13 says “I like pathfinder.”
@edwardsterkin says “ChatFX.”
@parislemon says “Definitely have to check out delicious library to organize your media: http://www.delicious-monster.com/”
@kevinrailsback says “Synergy.”
@tuz says “Disco for a light weight burner, Paparazzi for screenshotting entire Web pages to jpeg or pdf, transmission for torrents.”
@bigwebguy says “virtuedesktops (at least until leopard spaces).”
@kevinrailsback says “Desktopple (hides all the icons/files on your desktop for a clean look).”
@MHJohnston says “Growl is also a good bet for notifications– ties into a lot of apps.”
@rpechler says “my ‘must have’ Mac apps.”
@derrickpeters says “Sailing Clicker turns phone into remote for computer and a second vote for Growl.”
@jaseone says “TextMate is the best text editor out there.”

This is all in the first 10 minutes on Twitter. Lots of very passionate people hanging out on Twitter lately. Oh, and can you pick the SmugMug CEO out of the list above?

What about you? What utilities or apps or services do you think every Mac user should load?

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  • http://www.chuckburt.com/ chucksense

    I highly recommend Camino. It’s gecko power and versatility built specifically for the Mac.

  • http://www.chuckburt.com Chuck

    I highly recommend Camino. It’s gecko power and versatility built specifically for the Mac.

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  • mika

    I know two amazing apps not on your list (both OS X)..

    - AppFresh: automatic software update tool for any mac application. http://metaquark.de/appfresh/

    - Homezone: Monitors Airport networks and Bluetooth devices, and you can automatically trigger any actions you’d like http://metaquark.de/homezone/

  • mika

    I know two amazing apps not on your list (both OS X)..

    - AppFresh: automatic software update tool for any mac application. http://metaquark.de/appfresh/

    - Homezone: Monitors Airport networks and Bluetooth devices, and you can automatically trigger any actions you’d like http://metaquark.de/homezone/

  • tim
  • tim
  • jk

    Dump MS Office for Mac. GO NeoOffice. I bet you could easily live w/o your crap.

  • jk

    Dump MS Office for Mac. GO NeoOffice. I bet you could easily live w/o your crap.

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  • lookmark

    ‘grats on the new purchase, Robert. Lots of suggestions there. ; )

    Personally, I’d use OS X for at least just a little while without downloading anything just to get a feel for it, but once you’ve done that: Quicksilver FTW. Also Adium if you need a multi-protocol IM client (which I’m sure you do).

    Also, it’s interesting you got this machine just 2-3 months before Apple will release the Leopard (whose “secret” features are still an enigma wrapped up in a mystery). Was that a factor at all in your decision? Will you be upgrading if you like what you see?

  • lookmark

    ‘grats on the new purchase, Robert. Lots of suggestions there. ; )

    Personally, I’d use OS X for at least just a little while without downloading anything just to get a feel for it, but once you’ve done that: Quicksilver FTW. Also Adium if you need a multi-protocol IM client (which I’m sure you do).

    Also, it’s interesting you got this machine just 2-3 months before Apple will release the Leopard (whose “secret” features are still an enigma wrapped up in a mystery). Was that a factor at all in your decision? Will you be upgrading if you like what you see?

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  • http://buzzmedia.com.my/ David Wang

    You’ve probably had a lot of people recommend you Quicksilver. Here’s a good screencast for an intro and how to get started with Quicksilver:

    http://mymacbuzz.com/2007/01/28/tutorial-introduction-to-quicksilver/

  • http://blogjunkie.net blogjunkie

    You’ve probably had a lot of people recommend you Quicksilver. Here’s a good screencast for an intro and how to get started with Quicksilver:

    http://mymacbuzz.com/2007/01/28/tutorial-introduction-to-quicksilver/

  • Randolph Kirkpatrick

    SuperDuper – Lot’s of people are recommending it, but not saying why.

    SuperDuper and an external drive is the perfect backup solution. Keep a complete BOOTABLE clone of your machine at all times. (Maybe more than one)

    If my drive fails, I could firewire my machine to my backup drive and boot right up and keep working.

    If my machine dies completely, I could get a new one, Boot it up to the external drive, run SuperDuper, and be back exactly where I was in a few hours.

    I think anyone who’s not maintaining at least a complete clone of their drive for back-up purposes is insane.

  • Randolph Kirkpatrick

    SuperDuper – Lot’s of people are recommending it, but not saying why.

    SuperDuper and an external drive is the perfect backup solution. Keep a complete BOOTABLE clone of your machine at all times. (Maybe more than one)

    If my drive fails, I could firewire my machine to my backup drive and boot right up and keep working.

    If my machine dies completely, I could get a new one, Boot it up to the external drive, run SuperDuper, and be back exactly where I was in a few hours.

    I think anyone who’s not maintaining at least a complete clone of their drive for back-up purposes is insane.

  • Mart

    err… that’s “stock” experience ;-)

  • Mart

    How about just using the stuff that came with it for a while before you load all kinds of crap on it?

    Mail.app
    Safari
    iMovie
    iTunes
    iPhoto
    iChat
    Pages
    Keynote
    Address Book
    iCal
    Stickies

    Seriously – the great thing about the Mac is that it comes ready to do real stuff… it’s not like Windows where you have to load 300 crappy sharewarez on it… please get a feel for the stick experience first…

  • Mart

    How about just using the stuff that came with it for a while before you load all kinds of crap on it?

    Mail.app
    Safari
    iMovie
    iTunes
    iPhoto
    iChat
    Pages
    Keynote
    Address Book
    iCal
    Stickies

    Seriously – the great thing about the Mac is that it comes ready to do real stuff… it’s not like Windows where you have to load 300 crappy sharewarez on it… please get a feel for the stick experience first…

  • Mart

    err… that’s “stock” experience ;-)

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  • http://www.devicescape.com/ Alissa V.

    download for Mac OSX that enables automatic Wi-Fi connections to hotspots, muni networks….

  • http://www.devicescape.com Alissa V.

    download for Mac OSX that enables automatic Wi-Fi connections to hotspots, muni networks….

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  • http://www.net.typepad.com/ Netanel Jacobsson

    Hey Robert : add MacJournal (fantastic) and MindManager for Mac – Proteus (IM) works better for me than Adium

  • http://www.net.typepad.com Netanel Jacobsson

    Hey Robert : add MacJournal (fantastic) and MindManager for Mac – Proteus (IM) works better for me than Adium

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  • WinXP fan

    For editing documents and listening to iTunes, a Mac is fine. Oh, and surfing the net…

    for those of us who want something with style and substance, there’s the Asus carbon-fiber laptops.

  • WinXP fan

    For editing documents and listening to iTunes, a Mac is fine. Oh, and surfing the net…

    for those of us who want something with style and substance, there’s the Asus carbon-fiber laptops.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    WinXP: you’re funny! I guess you didn’t understand that if you have a Mac you can run both MacOSX +AND+ Windows (either XP or Vista).

    I have two OS’s on my machine. Are you saying having only one is better? Sounds like sour grapes to me.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    WinXP: you’re funny! I guess you didn’t understand that if you have a Mac you can run both MacOSX +AND+ Windows (either XP or Vista).

    I have two OS’s on my machine. Are you saying having only one is better? Sounds like sour grapes to me.

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  • http://www.nosnivelling.com/ Dave Schappell

    Robert — I searched your blog before asking this question, but didn’t find an answer to my upcoming question. And, I know that I can run Windows on my new MacBook Pro, but I’d prefer to not do that.

    My question is, “what is the best replacement for the new Mac user for Microsoft Outlook?”

    I asked more than 20 people this same question at Web 2.0 Expo and noone had a good/crisp answer. I also have done a number of google searches, and noone seems to agree. For all its warts, the ease of use/single app functionality of Outlook and its synchronization across Exchange Server to phones, etc. is really a timesaver for many people.

    Do you know if there’s a consensus on the best way to approximate (or transcend) this utility?
    – Entourage
    – Mail / iCal / Address Book synch?
    – Gmail / Cal / Mail / iCal synch?
    – Zimbra
    – other?

    Thanks,

    Dave

    p.s. A good post on this by someone with your blogosphere outreach would be really helpful for converts, which I expect will only be increasing post-Vista…

  • http://www.nosnivelling.com Dave Schappell

    Robert — I searched your blog before asking this question, but didn’t find an answer to my upcoming question. And, I know that I can run Windows on my new MacBook Pro, but I’d prefer to not do that.

    My question is, “what is the best replacement for the new Mac user for Microsoft Outlook?”

    I asked more than 20 people this same question at Web 2.0 Expo and noone had a good/crisp answer. I also have done a number of google searches, and noone seems to agree. For all its warts, the ease of use/single app functionality of Outlook and its synchronization across Exchange Server to phones, etc. is really a timesaver for many people.

    Do you know if there’s a consensus on the best way to approximate (or transcend) this utility?
    – Entourage
    – Mail / iCal / Address Book synch?
    – Gmail / Cal / Mail / iCal synch?
    – Zimbra
    – other?

    Thanks,

    Dave

    p.s. A good post on this by someone with your blogosphere outreach would be really helpful for converts, which I expect will only be increasing post-Vista…

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  • http://www.foothillmedia.com/ Steve Traversi

    In the last month, business associates are all beginning the Mac switch. When my XP workhorse died, I bought an iMac with Parallels to run the windows apps I can’t live without. Now, I’ve fallen in love with how everything just works and does so with panache. For me, Vista put me over the edge…I bought a notebook with a gig of ram that runs the hard drive incessantly for nearly an hour with no apps running. I’m thinking I should sell it for a macbook…

    Dave Schappel: .Mac might be the answer for you

  • http://www.foothillmedia.com Steve Traversi

    In the last month, business associates are all beginning the Mac switch. When my XP workhorse died, I bought an iMac with Parallels to run the windows apps I can’t live without. Now, I’ve fallen in love with how everything just works and does so with panache. For me, Vista put me over the edge…I bought a notebook with a gig of ram that runs the hard drive incessantly for nearly an hour with no apps running. I’m thinking I should sell it for a macbook…

    Dave Schappel: .Mac might be the answer for you

  • justG

    I couldn’t do without WebnoteHappy (http://happyapps.com), a utility I’ve not seen mentioned. It’s a bookmark manager that integrates del.icio.us. I have loads of bookmarks that haven’t been tagged/categorised/cleaned up/annotated from before del.icio.us came along, and WnH lets me search my library without differentiating between “del.icio.us” and “local.” I can quickly add stuff to it and then post it to del.icio.us at my convenience. The searching bit is key for me, since searching del.icio.us is so slow. I’ve also configured NNW to post to del.icio.us using WnH, which is handy.

    I never had a need for a bookmark manager when I used Windows, because I only ever used one browser. Not having found a favourite on OS X yet, I frequently switch between Safari, Camino (lub), Firefox and OmniWeb (lub), depending on the task at hand. I’ve added a global keyboard shortcut to system prefs that makes cmd-d add an URL to WnH instead of the browser I happen to be using at the time. Works a treat.

  • justG

    I couldn’t do without WebnoteHappy (http://happyapps.com), a utility I’ve not seen mentioned. It’s a bookmark manager that integrates del.icio.us. I have loads of bookmarks that haven’t been tagged/categorised/cleaned up/annotated from before del.icio.us came along, and WnH lets me search my library without differentiating between “del.icio.us” and “local.” I can quickly add stuff to it and then post it to del.icio.us at my convenience. The searching bit is key for me, since searching del.icio.us is so slow. I’ve also configured NNW to post to del.icio.us using WnH, which is handy.

    I never had a need for a bookmark manager when I used Windows, because I only ever used one browser. Not having found a favourite on OS X yet, I frequently switch between Safari, Camino (lub), Firefox and OmniWeb (lub), depending on the task at hand. I’ve added a global keyboard shortcut to system prefs that makes cmd-d add an URL to WnH instead of the browser I happen to be using at the time. Works a treat.

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