18 Killer apps I can’t live without

Someone on twitter (blanking on who) asked if I’d post about the third party apps I used (I use mail.app, ichat, iTunes, iMovie). I always love seeing and hearing about apps that people use.

Here’s a screenshot of them all launched up (except for MS Office apps and Scriv, which I’m sure you’re familiar with):

And here’s the list:

Adium:

A third party AIM chat program. I have a different, ‘work’ AIM account on this one, while iChat runs on a different ‘personal’ AIM account. This allows me to split the two identities properly.

Adobe Digital Editions:

For looking at ePubs that I create.

Calibre:

I like Calibre for turning nicely created ePubs into Mobi files really quickly. I don’t like it for creating initial eBooks and recommend against using it for that.

Coda:

For handrolling code, Coda’s pretty damn awesome.

Cyberduck:

FTP app

Dropbox:

Offsite mirroring, syncing between computers, always on access to my files. I’ve put most of my home directory into dropbox, and work off it now, for ease of mind about backups. Use this referral link to get free extra space and give me some as well.

Evernote:

I store notes, PDFs, receipts, and much more. It’s an outboard brain. Syncs between different machines, iPhone, and online access.

Firefox:

I login to a freelance client’s website with this because their code doesn’t work on Safari. Only thing I use it for, really. Nice program, I just prefer Safari. I don’t know why.

iStat Menus:

This sits in my upper right status bar and shows a graph of processor usage and RAM usage. Helps me spot programs that are chewing up too much resources or lets me know how much computer’s doing. I tend to run 15 programs at a time.

Kindle for Mac:

For quick previewing of Mobi files I’ve created.

Last FM:

For the tunes, dude. For the tunes. I used to have PandoraJam as well, but it’s flash based, and that impacts a notebook’s battery life by 30%. So I’ve, sniff, ditched listening to Pandora in order to save battery life.

MarsEdit:

My blog posting app of choice.

MS Office 2011:

The evil empire! I strongly considered going with Apple’s Pages and Numbers instead of upgrading Office 2008, and I kinda wish I had. Office 2011 is resource-hoggish and a bit slow visually, and looks like someone vomited menus and buttons onto the screen. Too late to change my mind now, but yeesh. 2008 was not nearly a GUI nightmare.

Nambu:

I do my twitter on Nambu in column view.

NetNewsWire:

Sometimes read Google RSS feeds on here, but since I can’t read starred items, I almost didn’t download it to the computer this time.

Pixelmator:

Hearty image editor I’m considering buying a copy of for Emily.

Scrivener:

The most important piece of software on this computer that you’ll pry from my cold, dead, hands.

Taskpaper:

My new todo app. I’ll be writing more about this later. Like it so far. A lot.

Filed under the topic Uncategorized on December 10th 2010 at 11:40 am. You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this entry to keep track of comments. You can also use to trackback.