
Mac OSX Applications I couldn't live without - thurn
http://www.thurn.ca/ten_mac_osx_applications_i_couldnt_live_without
======
gfodor
Ok, I'll bite. What do people actually _use_ dropbox for? All of my employer's
code is in SVN, and personal code on Github. All of my email and my calendar
is on Gmail. All my photos are on Facebook. All of my documents are in Google
Apps. My writing is on my blog. My TODO list is in Workflowy.

If my computer dies (which it has recently) all of my stuff is covered. Is
there some area of content creation that I am just missing altogether? I guess
I don't back up my photoshop or audio work I do occasionally on dropbox, but
that's probably not it.

~~~
xuki
Remember, not everyone is a hacker. For my non geek friends, Dropbox is magic.
It just works.

I could imagine the world 1000000 times better if everyone can fire up a shell
and do something with that. Sadly it's not the case.

~~~
gfodor
Yeah my point here wasn't that I don't understand how Dropbox is useful in
general, it's just that this article is by a hacker and he says Dropbox is the
"best piece of software written in the last 5 years" and I seem to survive
without using it whatsoever.

Being able to send files to people makes sense, but 9 times out of 10 e-mail
does the job there just fine. I'm still not getting it, I guess :) Maybe my
life is just too boring.

~~~
yjhall
OK, I'll give you a great use of Dropbox for hackers: Let's say you use
Mercurial instead of Subversion. If you have your Mercurial project in
Dropbox, you have at your disposal the full source control functionality
provided by Mercurial and automatic backups of your mercurial repository. Get
it now?

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xyzzyb
I much prefer Divvy (<http://mizage.com/divvy/>) over SizeUp for window
management.

~~~
PatrickTulskie
Just curious - why? SizeUp isn't as customizable as Divvy, but it does
significantly cut down on the number of key strokes required to resize
windows.

~~~
luigi
Divvy lets you create custom sizes. Once you map those sizes to a single key,
it's very fast.

------
luigi
My alternatives:

    
    
      Chrome + Vimium instead of Firefox + Pentadactyl
      MacVim instead of Aquamacs
      LaunchBar (or Alfred which is free) instead of Quicksilver
      Divvy instead of SizeUp

------
zyb09
I recently discovered Hyperdock (<http://hyperdock.bahoom.de/>). It basically
turns OSX into Windows7. Very awesome!

~~~
antidaily
this has to be a first. a windows UI feature worthy of ripping off (for OSX).
maybe I'm being too hard on windows.

~~~
tzs
There's an application called Cinch that gives Mac the Win7 window snap
behavior--dragging to left or right edge expands window to fill that half of
screen, and to top makes it full screen:
<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cinch/id412529613?mt=12>

What is interesting is that it is a paid app, $6.99, and is currently at #15
on the top grossing apps (it was at #11 last week).

Apparently, there is a market for taking the good ideas from Win7 and adding
them to the Mac.

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neovive
Great to see KeyRemap4MacBook. When I first switched to Mac from Windows,
little things such as "Home" and "End" not working the same way were quite
annoying. KeyRemap4MacBook allows you to reconfigure everything.

One very nice feature is the ability to configure different keyboard profiles
depending on your setup. I maintain separate desktop and laptop configs).
Thus, when I dock my MBP to an external monitor and keyboard (Microsoft Ergo
Keyboard), I switch to the desktop setup that remaps the Left-Alt key to Cmd
and the Windows key to Option among others. When switching to laptop mode, I
also remap the right-option key to function as a forward delete (which
normally requires two keys on the MBP).

------
makecheck
MacTelnet is an alternative terminal to iTerm 2 that supports the features you
like (256 colors and full screen), and has a lot of other useful things. But I
also developed MacTelnet, so I'm biased. :)

------
askar
Alfred makes QuickSilver run for its hype. It may not be as customizable as
QuickSilver but it does the job very well and a lot nicer than QuickSilver.

------
koudelka
JiTouch is also a vastly under-appreciated mouse gesture enabler.
<http://www.jitouch.com>

------
swombat
Try LaunchBar instead of Quicksilver. It's not free, but is worth every penny.
It's like Quicksilver, except it's actually quick.

~~~
geuis
I used to use Quicksilver 3 years ago when Spotlight was unbearably slow on
Mac OS. So what is the reason people use things like Quicksilver today? I
personally find Spotlight to be everything I need. I can quickly open any
application or system preference within seconds, all from the keyboard with
Spotlight.

~~~
swombat
Spotlight still takes a few seconds, rather often, to open up and receive
keyboard input. I _HATE_ waiting a few seconds for something that's a part of
my thought process. When I think "Open chrome" and I move my fingers into the
magic incantation needed to make that happen, it should be opening, now, RIGHT
THIS FUCKING MOMENT. Not three seconds later.

I don't care if it's fast enough most of the time. It needs to be fast enough
every single time.

Launchbar is _always_ there within 200ms, no matter what my computer is
chugging on at the moment. That's well worth the 20 bucks.

~~~
dilap
I've found spotlight to be reliably instant since moving to SSD. That might
explain the difference in experiences here.

(I also don't index docs -- just apps and prefs.)

~~~
evgen
Even on a SSD spotlight can be slow if you have not turned off doc indexing. I
tend to use LaunchBar and Spotlight as a combination team for specific
purposes: LaunchBar to get apps fired up quickly and Spotlight to do search
within documents and as a general indexer.

------
jollyjerry
I was also a big fan of remapping capslock to control. Fortunately, in OSX
10.5+, it became a configurable option in the keyboard prefpane. Thanks for
posting your list! I'm looking forward to giving Lyx a try.

------
AdamN
Skitch (<http://skitch.com/>) is my favorite Mac app in terms of usability. Of
course, I need simple screen capture software (not everybody does).

~~~
peng
I prefer CloudApp (<http://getcloudapp.com>). There's almost no UI it at all:
it just captures OS X screenshots and uploads them.

I gave Skitch three minutes and gave up. Its UI is far too complicated for
what it does.

~~~
gte910h
I use an app called Screenshots on the appstore:
<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/screenshots/id402728913?mt=12>

------
bingaman
I use Terminal.app + Visor, but I'll give iTerm2 a try after reading this.

~~~
rdonahue
I recently switched to iTerm2 from Terminal.app. The main reason for switching
for me was that iTerm2 has great full-screen support. Just hit Cmd-Enter and
you're immediately greeted with a full-screen terminal.

------
drivebyacct2
>SizeUp is not free, but it's only $13 and worth every cent. It adds keyboard
shortcuts to OSX to move windows around.

Only? Compiz has a plugin for this and it's baked into Windows. I couldn't
imagine paying $13 for that feature. Also, not sure why Chrome got called out
when it has similar extensions to Pentadactyl. (Probably the same
misconceptions that have people thinking that ABP can't block downloads in
Chrome. [It can and has been able to for nearly 7 months])

~~~
callahad
ShiftIt (<https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt>) is a capable, open-source
alternative to SizeUp and Divvy.

~~~
rkudeshi
Love ShiftIt. Nice, simple, and if you disable the menubar icon, completely
out of the way.

(Use it at least 10x a day just for putting any two windows side-by-side.
Seriously, changed my Mac OS X life).

------
yjhall
I agree that Dropbox is ...hmm... "MARVELOUS". Please tip them a goldspot at
Spottiness.com. It's a site where the real perception of things emerges
through anonymous messages and opinions.

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iPadDeveloper
Articles like these confuse me. Who is the audience, tiny children?

You use Firefox. Everyone does. You use Dropbox. Everyone does. You don't like
Terminal or want some features that other people have.

Perhaps we need to elevate our discourse. Move on at some point?

At the same time, I just posted about my favorite iPhone apps, so it's
confusing.

