List: OS X Software I Love

This is a list of my favorite software on OS X, but some of them are opensource and already compiled for Linux and Windows too. It is what I use most and what helps me forget that I’m using a computer as opposed to a friendly pet.

WriteRoom – Raw text and no distractions is what this efficient baby is all about. A full screen mode that blocks everything else from your eyes traps you like my grandmother at a slot machine. ADD, OCD, or any other three letter disorder? This probably won’t solve them, but it will help you forget about them while you write what you need to write. I write everything here before it goes anywhere, even this.

AbiWord – When something comes out of WriteRoom and needs some formatting, it goes here next. The very MS Word-like UI isn’t pretty, but the compatibility and speed has kept me with this processor on Linux, Windows, and alas OS X.

Omnioutliner Pro + Kinkless GTD – I procrastinate, but when I need to be Getting Things Done, I use Kinkless GTD – a set of AppleScripts that run inside OmniGraffle – to keep track. OmniOutliner has served me very anytime I have called on it. Taking notes, organizing my thoughts in an outline format, making plans, I do it all here.

TiddlyWiki – My journal, my thought collector, my history, my life. Any personal or private things are put into this great… this great… application? Yeah, it is an application but not in the traditional sense. This cross-platform, out-of-the-box wiki is 1 html file you download and run locally. My favorite feature is that loading entries (tiddlers) doesn’t load a new page. Very web two-oh.

TextWrangler – I don’t spend a lot of time with CSS or web browser markup languages, but when I do I use TextWrangler. I can’t say much about what makes this app unique, but it does feel more like the reveered BBEdit than any of the other free alternatives.

Google Earth (Keyhole) + SketchUp – I have a lot of fun building the most accurate 3d models of places I know and sharing them. Also, Earth makes planing road trips and visiting places you never would in real life pretty fun.

GPG + Utils – The most elegant – once installed – implementation of PGP for OS X. Good for file encryption, great for email verification and/or encryption/decryption.

iChat – Maybe it doesn’t support Y! Chat or MSN, but I hate those services. So what if it doesn’t support tabbed chat without a haxie, I don’t use that feature anyway. Of course I hate AOL, but with iChat’s pretty interface and nifty features I don’t need to think about it. Keep your Fire or whatever client to your self, I’m happy here.

iPhoto – So quick, so easy, and powerful enough.

MacJanitor – To be a good Unix user, we should all fire up the command line once a month and do our periodicals, etc, but I use OS X so I don’t have to use the Terminal. I love knowing it’s there, but I was born after 1984 and will always love my mouse. MacJanitor does those housekeeping tasks with some good visual feedback.

QuickSilver – QS has revolutionized the way I use Jaguar. I don’t look at the dock anymore, I hardly ever open up Finder windows, I don’t even look at iTunes much anymore. QS handles most of what Spotlight can, but better. Also works great with kGTD.

Transmission – Simple BitTorrenting, but pretty stable and low on resource usage.

Camino – Remember how great Safari was? Well, the days of Safari’s superiority are numbered if they aren’t already gone. Camino is faster and uses much less resources. I use BlogLines for RSS. Spelling? Shouldn’t we already know how to spell anyway?

Automator – Automator was intended for those of us who don’ even get AppleScript’s human-esque language but still want to – for lack of a better word – automate our tasks. I use automator mostly to do simple yet time consuming tasks like renaming or scaling images and I hardly ever save my workflows. Often, they are one time tasks.

Disk Inventory X – Good for monitoring where that disk space is going.

Monolingual – Strip away extra architecture support, language support, and keyboard maps you don’t use. Saved me over 20 gigs of space.

NovaMind / FreeMind – Mindmapping is my favorite way to brainstorm, get information out of my head, and keep track of my life plans. I use freemind for quick and dirty mapping, but NovaMind when I want to make it pretty, spend more time in a creative and airy state, or when I need the extra features like screen writing. FreeMind is free. As for NovaMind… if you have to ask it probably isn’t for you.

Genius – Flash-cards where one of my favorite study tools. Before Genius, I didn’t see any digital equivalents I could work with. Genius does a great job of understanding your progress nd your troubled areas.

CoverFlow – oOo, see how pretty it looks (.mov)? Ever miss browsing your albums like they were, uhm, albums? Coverflow to the rescue. And it is pretty.

Delicious Library – “I know you have that movie, see here!” I used that line last week. Delicious is great for cataloging and managing your collection of physical media such as games, books, movies, and CDs. It is pretty too.