
Ask HN: Just ordered my first Mac- what apps should I know about? - olegious
Getting my new Macbook Air on Wednesday.  I'll be using it for RoR and front end coding (not a dev but trying to move away from/add to the "Product Guy" label), VM (will run Ubuntu in a VM).<p>So far these are the apps I know about:<p>-Adium to combine all my chat accounts<p>-Growl for notifications<p>-iTerm2 seems to be an interesting terminal emulator<p>-Any Notepad++ equivalents on OSx? (I'll end up using Vim and some Notepad++ equivalent)<p>-Recommended email clients?<p>-Recommended media players? (I use VLC on Windows)<p>-Recommended calendar apps to sync with Google and Exchange calendars?<p>-CSS editors?<p>-Anything else that a Mac newbie should be told about?<p>Thanks.
======
radq
Have you seen these threads?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2147642>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2161855>

I found them pretty useful -- have a look!

Also have a look at this one: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3407705>

------
mtrn
Quicksilver <http://qsapp.com/> \- I never opened an application from Finder
or Dock again.

From their site:

Quicksilver is a launcher utility app for Mac OS X which gives you the ability
to perform common, every-day tasks rapidly and without thought. An
introduction to Quicksilver's abilities include:

* Accessing applications, documents, contacts, music and much, much more.

* Browsing your Mac's filesystem elegantly using keywords and 'fuzzy' matching.

* Managing content through drag and drop, or grabbing selected content directly.

* Interacting with installed applications through plugins.

~~~
mhenr18
I thought Quicksilver was great until I realised Spotlight does the job just
as well for app launching.

------
RodgerTheGreat
Colloquy[1] is a fantastic IRC client. TextWrangler[2] is one of my favorite
text editors. If you're familiar with Linux, you'll want a package manager-
popular options are MacPorts[3] or Fink[4]. As far as media players, VLC[5]
has a very nice OSX port.

[1] <http://colloquy.info/> [2]
<http://www.barebones.com/products/TextWrangler/> [3]
<http://www.macports.org/> [4] <http://www.finkproject.org/> [5]
<http://www.videolan.org/>

~~~
gks
Linkinus is a pretty nice IRC client as well. I believe I got it on sale on
the App Store for like $5. I'm sure it's more now though.

I definitely suggest HomeBrew over MacPorts and Fink. I've had much better
luck with it.

TextWrangler is a great free editor. I use Sublime Text 2 for anything that I
may need some standard editing. For more complex stuff or if I'm doing more
than opening a single file, I prefer MacVim.

~~~
mhenr18
It depends on what you're editing. If I'm ever writing any C/C++/Objective-C I
ALWAYS use XCode even if it's only as a text editor and not a project
manager/compiler, due to its fantastic syntax highlighting. TextWrangler's
great as a replacement for TextEdit, but it doesn't do syntax highlighting as
well as it could.

~~~
gks
Agreed. XCode is definitely the best for any Cocoa/Objective-C tool. Though
I've heard good things about AppCode lately.

I do some Ruby coding and for that I tend to use MacVim with a few nice
plugins.

------
dewitt
The first things I install on any Mac (and goodness knows there have been lot
of them):

    
    
      - Google Chrome (http://chrome.google.com)
      - iTerm2 (http://www.iterm2.com/)
      - Xcode (http://developer.apple.com/xcode/)
      - Homebrew (http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew)
        - For emacs-snapshot, zsh, git, gnupg, etc.
      - Google Drive (https://drive.google.com)
      - Flux (http://stereopsis.com/flux/)
      - TextMate (http://macromates.com/)
      - VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc)
      - Transmission (http://www.transmissionbt.com/)
    

Then, things like the Sonos controller, the Rdio and Spotify apps, Adobe
Lightroom 4, Photoshop, etc.

But the above are the ones that seem to make it onto every new machine in the
first day or two.

Enjoy!

------
mtrn
As a developer I very happy, that <http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/> exists.
It's a package manager (#packages as of today: 2024), like apt or yum - with a
very nice command line interface and a great community.

> Homebrew is the easiest and most flexible way to install the UNIX tools
> Apple didn't include with OS X.

------
jherdman
If you don't like Quicksilver, Alfred is really good too
(<http://www.alfredapp.com/>).

Sublime Text 2 is pretty great (<http://www.sublimetext.com/2>).

~~~
gks
I say go for Launchbar. The clipboard history is pretty rockin in my opinion.

~~~
cwebbdesign
I love Launchbar. Still need to try Alfred out.

------
CJefferson
Try standard terminal, I prefer it to item 2.

Home brew or mac ports help install unixy tools. Work on the assumption that
whichever you install, at least once a year you will have to completely remove
it and reinstall it, as sometimes they get in a mess.

Apple mail is OK, I prefer thunderbird, but it isn't very Macy.

VLC tends to play whatever you chuck at it.

General note - HFS tends to get unhappy (performance-wise) if your drive gets
more than about 85% full.

When I first got a mac I was tempted to install lots of hacks to standard apps
and the OS. These seem much less popular nowadays, but still try to resist
any, at least for a while. Mac OS X is very hard to debug if it starts to
misbehave.

finally, never install the .0 version of any new OS :)

------
shaufler
Sublime Text 2 (<http://www.sublimetext.com/>) and MacVim
(<http://code.google.com/p/macvim/>) are my preferred text editors.

Sparrow (<http://sparrowmailapp.com/>) is my favorite email client.

I can't live without a window resizer on OS X. Use SizeUp
(<http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/>) for easy window maximizing, half
splits, and quadrant resizing.

------
phr3aked0ut
– MPlayerX (<http://mplayerx.org/>) Great standalone video player

\- Perian (<http://perian.org>) Perian lets quicktime run almost any video
format. Unfortunately it's not under active development. Still useful to have
installed regardless.

– Google Chrome (<http://www.google.com/chrome>) Don't install Flash unless
you have to. Chrome has it built in. I use Safari for most of my browsing and
switch to Chrome when I want to use flash.

– If you aren't going to install Flash, then install YouTube5
(<http://www.verticalforest.com/youtube5-extension/>) It's a Safari extension
that lets you watch YouTube videos natively without Flash.

\- Day-O
([http://www.shauninman.com/archive/2011/10/20/day_o_mac_menu_...](http://www.shauninman.com/archive/2011/10/20/day_o_mac_menu_bar_clock))
Adds a drop down calendar to the menubar.

\- Alfred (<http://www.alfredapp.com/>) Another vote for Alfred. Much quicker
and more powerful than Spotlight.

\- 1Password (<https://agilebits.com/onepassword>) Remembers passwords/logins
and makes it super easy to auto login to sites.

------
gte910h
DragonDrop (shake the mouse drop stuff in an always on top window, then drag
it back out when you find where you want to drop it and it disappears)

Divy (Lay out all your windows on a grid extremely quickly)

Skitch (quickly marking up screenshots, photos, etc)

WeatherHD (Lap warming tool, also renders beautiful full screen weather for
what's happening where you are/where you set it to)

Visual JSON (JSON validator, builder)

Crash Plan Pro (a pretty reasonably non-invasive offsite backup program)

1Password (Cross platform/Smartphone password autofill manager)

Camouflage (Hides everything on the desktop when you present)

Caffeine (Keeps the laptop awake while you're presenting)

Daisy Disk (Finds the crap you can delete and clean off the hard drive,
quickly beautifully, and makes cleanup a joy)

Screenflow (Excellent videocasting/webcasting/tutorial making software)
(Currently on sale at <http://www.mupromo.com/> for half off its $99 pricetag
with other stuff included)

Screenshots (Fantastic tool for taking a picture of exactly the section of the
screen you want, and nothing more).

If you have iOS devices you like/use too, AirDisplay (makes an iPad or iPhone
an extension of the mac desktop) and AirServer (makes the mac a mirror of the
iOS screen using Airplay).

------
msutherl
Things I haven't seen here yet:

1\. Backblaze for off-site backups: <http://backblaze.com> 2\. Dash for access
docs: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dash-docs-
snippets/id45803487...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dash-docs-
snippets/id458034879?mt=12) 3\. Solarized and ir_black themes for Terminal and
all editors: <http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized> /
<http://blog.toddwerth.com/entries/13> (I use ir_black w/ Terminal.app,
terminal Vim and the sidebar fork of Macvim:
<https://github.com/alloy/macvim/wiki/Screenshots>) 4\. This fork of GitX:
<http://gitx.laullon.com/> 5\. DTerm (pop-up terminal emulator for the
occasional 'less README'): <http://decimus.net/DTerm> 6\. XScope (rulers and
stuff for UI design): <http://xscopeapp.com/> 7\. LittleSnapper (tried
everything, this is the fastest and cleanest way to collect UI inspiration –
Skitch + Evernote would be my second choice):
<http://www.realmacsoftware.com/littlesnapper/> 8\. Found (don't use this
much, but it's awesome. Indexes Gmal, Dropbox and Google Drive and lets you
search and launch files – a bit like Alfred): <https://www.foundapp.com/> 9\.
DaisyDisk (essential harddrive file visualization):
<http://www.daisydiskapp.com/>

And, another shoutout for Quicksilver – more powerful than Alfred.

~~~
msutherl
1\. Backblaze for off-site backups: <http://backblaze.com>

2\. Dash for access docs: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dash-docs-
snippets/id45803487...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dash-docs-
snippets/id45803487..).

3\. Solarized and ir_black themes for Terminal and all editors:
<http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized> /
<http://blog.toddwerth.com/entries/13> (I use ir_black w/ Terminal.app,
terminal Vim and the sidebar fork of Macvim:
<https://github.com/alloy/macvim/wiki/Screenshots>)

4\. This fork of GitX: <http://gitx.laullon.com/>

5\. DTerm (pop-up terminal emulator for the occasional 'less README'):
<http://decimus.net/DTerm>

6\. XScope (rulers and stuff for UI design): <http://xscopeapp.com/>

7\. LittleSnapper (tried everything, this is the fastest and cleanest way to
collect UI inspiration – Skitch + Evernote would be my second choice):
<http://www.realmacsoftware.com/littlesnapper/>

8\. Found (don't use this much, but it's awesome. Indexes Gmal, Dropbox and
Google Drive and lets you search and launch files – a bit like Alfred):
<https://www.foundapp.com/>

9\. DaisyDisk (essential harddrive file visualization):
<http://www.daisydiskapp.com/>

------
block
These are the things I use daily (most are free!):

[Development] Spotlight - OSX built in app launcher etc SourceTree - GUI
Git/Hg/SVN client. HomeBrew - like apt, yum package manager MacVim - Coming
from the GUI world look at Janus iTerm2 (Zsh, OhMyZSH plugins) MAMP - Apache,
MySQL etc dev env (like XAMPP) $ CSSEdit - GUI CSS editor, mainly use vim
CyberDuck - (s)FTP Sequel Pro - MySQL GUI, SSH connection $ Parallels - VM

[Calendars] - iCal or $ Busy Cal [Mail] - OSX Mail [Office] - $ iWork,
LibreOffice [Feed Reader] - NetNewsWire [Torrent] - Transmission [Transcode] -
Handbrake

[Utilities] $ little snitch - Network monitor MenuMeters - Free limited
version of iStatMenus Flip4mac WMV in Quicktime Perian (Make QuickTime like
VLC) TwoUp - free window basic management RightZoom - Maximise zoom button
ClipMenu - Multi Copy, Paste board UnArchiver - File Decompression
CleanArchiver - File compression (sans .DS_Store) NameChanger - GUI for mass
renaming files Onyx - System maintenance and set extra OS defaults Click2Flash
- Extension in Safari blocks flash defaults to HD mp4, right click to download
video.

~~~
FireBeyond
BusyCal looked good. Until I saw it was $50. Plus another $40 to allow
syncing?!?

Sorry, I find it really hard to justify nearly $100 for a calendar app.

------
MehdiEG
Interesting - I haven't actually reviewed my Mac's config in a while - I might
pick up a few goodies in those lists myself. For what it's worth, this is what
I would automatically install on any new Mac:

\- iStat Menus: RAM, network and CPU usage right in your menu bar.
Ridiculously useful.

\- Video player: VLC

\- FTP: CyberDuck. Desperately slow to launch and not a big fan of the UI but
it's free, it works and I use FTP rarely enough to never have bothered looking
for something better.

\- gfxCardStatus - not necessarily a must-have but quite handy to see which
app is causing your Mac to switch to the battery-sucking discrete GPU.

\- Email: MailPlane (gmail / google apps only). I have to say that I've never
found what I would consider to be a great email client for my taste on either
Mac or Windows. So these days, I stick with Gmail's web interface (which I'm
not a big fan of either but there's no native app that I find any better).

\- Text Editor: TextWrangler. I still prefer Notepad++ though (in part because
TextWrangler, like so many apps on Mac OS X, is so slow to launch).

\- DaisyDisk - for later when you'll inevitably run out of disk space.

\- Parallels Desktop for Windows + Remote Desktop Connection to manage Windows
servers. I wish there was a better RDP client and a decent SSMS-like SQL
Server client.

\- Apps that used to be must-have but that I no longer use: HandBrake (DVD
ripping), LiquidCD (CD / DVD burning), NetNewsWire (RSS)

That's about it. Random stuff that you might or might not need: Acorn (simple,
cheap image editor), CoconutBattery, Hues (standalone color picker), iStumbler
(Max OS X's NetStumbler), MacHg (Mercurial client). You can try Sparrow for
email too.

That's it - have surprisingly few apps actually.

~~~
MehdiEG
BTW, I hope that you upgraded the RAM in the Air to 8GB if you intend to run a
VM on it. Trying to work on both Mac OS X and a VM on 4GB is quickly going to
get very painful.

TBH, if I was going to buy a new Mac today, I'd go for the new MacBook Pro,
purely for being able to have 16GB of RAM. Even with 8GB, my Mac still
regularly struggles to keep going when I've got my VM up together with a web
browser and XCode (and let's not even talk about Photoshop) on the Mac side.

~~~
wonderyak
I just bought a late 2011 15" MBP - stuck 16GB of RAM in it and it is so much
smoother.

------
haar

      Try out ZSH if you want to try something slightly different to Bash
      Package Manager: Homebrew - https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew
      Terminal/Emulator: iTerm2 - http://www.iterm2.com/
      Vim running in iTerm2 via Homebrew
      Chat Client: Adium - http://adium.im/
      MySQL DB GUI: Sequel Pro - http://www.sequelpro.com/
      Mail: Sparrow - http://sparrowmailapp.com/
      Git GUI: GitX (L) - http://gitx.laullon.com/
      Window "manager" : Shiftit - https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt
      General productivity: I love QuickSilver, however it's been crashing
      quite frequently on me since I installed Lion, so I'm giving Alfred a try at the moment.
    

Note: all of the above are at least free (lite), if not completely free. I was
thrown completely in the deep-end with terminal vim and just took to it as
part of my "getting used to Mac" steps, which I think benefited me with
respect to getting down with the nitty gritty of it and not complaining it was
different to my Notepad++ experience prior on Windows.

------
gks
Apps that I install immediately upon re-installation or a new Mac:

* 1Password - Password facilitator (<http://www.agilebits.com>, buy the Mac App Store version)

* OmniFocus - GTD/Todo list (<http://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus>)

* OmniOutliner - Best list makinga pp ever (<http://www.omnigroup.com/omnioutliner>)

* OmniGraffle - Great for development purposes (<http://www.omnigroup.com/omnigraffle>)

* Acorn - Quick image editing (<http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn>)

* VoodooPad - Personal Wiki (<http://www.flyingmeat.com/voodoopad>)

* Byword - Markdown editor (<http://bywordapp.com/>)

* Dropbox - Duh (<http://www.dropbox.com>)

* Fantastical - Calendar app (<http://flexibits.com/>)

* Launchbar - Launcher (<http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/>)

* Reeder - Google Reader client (<http://reederapp.com/>)

* Transmit - SFTP (<http://panic.com/transmit/>)

* VLC - Video (<http://www.videolan.org>)

Along with iA Writer, Writeroom, Sublime Text, etc etc... there are a lot of
great apps. The above is my favorites.

------
AdamGibbins
* Witch (<http://manytricks.com/witch/>) - Gives you Alt-Tab (Window switching) alongside the default Cmd-Tab (Application Switching).

* Moom (<http://manytricks.com/moom/>) - allows you to move windows around a lot easier.

* TotalFinder (<http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/>) - Finder with tabs and other useful bits.

* CoRD (<http://cord.sourceforge.net/>) - Decent RDP client (better than the official Microsoft one).

* Caffeine (<http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/caffeine/id411246225>) - Stops the screensaver activating at the click of a button.

* CleanMyMac (<http://macpaw.com/cleanmymac>) - Can strip the unwanted language packs etc from applications saving you a significant amount of space.

* Enqueue (<http://www.enqueueapp.com/>) - Decent iTunes replacement, with FLAC support.

* Flu.x (<http://stereopsis.com/flux/>) - Warmer screen during dark hours, makes it easier to work in dim light.

* SourceTree (<http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/>) - Decent GUI Git/Hg/SVN client.

* GrabBox (<http://grabbox.devsoft.no/>) - Instantly throws screenshots into your Dropbox public folder.

* iStat Menus (<http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/>) - Memory and CPU utilisation in your menu bar.

* YoruFukurou (<http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/yorufukurou/id428834068>) - Decent Twitter client with muting rules etc.

~~~
pooriaazimi
I used and loved TotalFinder, but it was _sooo_ buggy (specially when copying
large files off external drives) that I ended up uninstalling it in disgust.
I'm using vanilla Finder.app right now, and don't miss it terribly.

If you need a 'Finder Pro', I suggest PathFinder. version 6 looks promising. I
might be tempted to buy it: <http://cocoatech.com/pathfinder/>

------
kennu
I don't know if many people agree with this, but I would also recommend you to
give Apple's built-in OSX apps a try before installing replacements. I've used
Mail, Calendar, Address Book and Terminal for many years without feeling a
compelling need for alternatives. They usually work well if you're happy with
the way they've been designed and don't try to bend them too much to your old
habits.

Other apps that I always install on new Macs are Homebrew, VLC, Adium,
MacIrssi and then the usual stuff that's on any PC (Spotify, Skype, Dropbox,
Minecraft, F.lux).

And yeah it's important to install Xcode, otherwise your system doesn't have a
C compiler so you can't do much. I think Git is also included with it.

------
Jun8
DVD Ripper is an excellent tool that I use often. If you deal with video you
will want to install Handbrake, too (and of course vlc).

Geektool is an excellent tool that makes a lot of stats about your Mac on the
desktop, it's infinitely customizable, but has a steep learning curve, maybe
to be installed in the second batch.

I hate iCal, although it does integrate different calendars. I think it and
Mail tool are some of the poorest designed Mac software (e.g. compared with
Outlook) but what are you going to do.

Secrets is another advanced tool, that exposes _many_ hidden setting for the
Mac.

------
rdrimmie
I'm a big fan of Jumpcut (<http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/>), a dedicated
clipboard manager. Several other tools that include clipboard management have
been mentioned but if you don't want the rest of the functionality, this is
great for it.

iCal and Mail do a fantastic job syncing with Google and Exchange, so I use
those.

------
moocow01
* iWork - Cheaper than Office and better in my opinion

* Transmit - FTP

* Pixelmator - 90% of Photoshop without the high cost but still with a slick interface

* Cornerstone/Versions - SVN

* Textmate - Code editor

* Wunderlist - Todo list

* Fantastical - Easy way to access and add dates to your mac calendar

* Concentrate - Block HN and other stuff when you need to get things done

(Note: Most of these are not free and are between $10-$80 but well worth it in
my opinion)

------
jessor
I purchased two apps within the first few weeks after my switch to a MBP:

1) Moom (move/zoom windows) - <http://manytricks.com/moom/>

2) TotalFinder (enhances the finder) - <http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/>

Some other must haves for me:

* MacVim

* Alfred

* Cyberduck

* Homebrew

* VLC

------
riffraff
stuff I have installed

* rather than vanilla vim, try MacVim

* textmate is popular, though I don't use it

* tunnelblick for vpn management

* video: vlc, but mplayerx and MPlayer OSX Extended are popular options

* TotalTerminal (make terminal show/hide with a keystroke)

* cyberduck (ftp/s3/whatever file transfer client)

* keka as unarchiver

* xchat aqua as alternative irc client

------
Karma_Police
I don't really see the point in Growl, and it is now a payed app, so you could
skip it, unless your workflow requires you to be notified of something
immediately.

Media player: I prefer mplayerx to VLC. mplayerx is on the app store.

Text: macvim and sublime text 2.

~~~
ricardobeat
The Growl developers really messed up on this. Growl is now actually something
that developers include in their applications, you don't need to install it
_at all_.

You only need to install the app for backwards compatibility with apps that
haven't upgraded. Since it was open-source, there is a fork that you can
install for free: <http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/41038/growl-fork>

~~~
Karma_Police
Well, you may still want it if you want to build some custom scripts that need
notification, so the fork is probably your best option.

------
tbeseda
Can't recommend Sublime Text 2 enough.

Same with Sparrow for (non power use) GMail.

Currently enjoy Found (over Alfred and Quicksilver) as a Spotlight (native to
OS X) replacement -- it's free in the "App Store"

------
ricardobeat
This is my current setup. The real _essentials_ are Dropbox, ST2 and Homebrew,
but these are all amazing pieces of software:

\- Sublime Text 2 editor (even has a vim mode)
(<http://www.sublimetext.com/2>)

\- Sparrow, but you might be happy with the native Mail app
(<http://sparrowmailapp.com/>)

\- Media: iTunes and Quicktime do a good job, VLC occasionally.

\- Handbrake for encoding (<http://handbrake.fr>)

\- Transmission (<http://www.transmissionbt.com/>)

\- Dropbox (<http://getdropbox.com>)

\- Cloud app: instant, easy uploads (<http://getcloudapp.com>)

\- Twitter's official client
(<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twitter/id409789998>)

\- CSS: uh? There is Coda/TopStyle/Espresso, but ST2 is enough

\- Github for Mac (<http://mac.github.com>)

\- Versions for SVN (<http://versionsapp.com>)

\- Sequel Pro (<http://www.sequelpro.com/>)

\- Homebrew package manager (<http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/>)

\- ImageOptim (<http://imageoptim.com/>)

\- CodeKit or LESS.app for LESS/Coffee compiling
(<http://incident57.com/codekit/>)

\- MS Office: yeah (it's much better than the windows version). Just hide the
cruft away (MSN etc) after installing.

\- Wunderlist to-do app (<http://wunderlist.com>)

Nice to have / superfluous:

\- Mou markdown editor (<http://mouapp.com/>)

\- Cathode: vintage terminal emulator
(<http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/>)

\- Lidpop: make noises when you close/open your lid
(<https://shinyplasticbag.com/lidpop/>)

------
stan_klimoff
For the last six years I used to sit down with my Mac newbie buddies helping
them to get essential tools that make life on Mac productive. This culminated
in a short list that I recently put on my blog. You might find it useful:
[http://live.stanklimoff.com/post/22395549588/ten-first-
thing...](http://live.stanklimoff.com/post/22395549588/ten-first-things-i-
install-on-a-virgin-mac-os-x)

------
digitalengineer
For security:

PREY: <http://preyproject.com/> KNOX: <https://agilebits.com/knox>

Don't set your Mac to auto-login on your main account. I use an empty account
that starts up automatically. It has no real data and Prey is installed on it.
Set the screen to lock after 1 min of not using it. I keep important stuff in
it's own Knox vault.

------
mproud
As far as graphic editors go, my favorite is Pixelmator.

Most people don't need Photoshop but still want something that supports
layers, does image manipulation basics and feels like a happy OS X citizen.

On the other hand, GraphicConverter is the Swiss army knife of image formats
and is even more powerful. GC can read virtually any image file ever created.
It's a little more buggy, and the UI is less modern/fancy, but oh so handy.

------
billyvg
Janus MacVim distribution - editor

VLC - video player

iTunes - music

Alfred - launcher

Divvy - window management (can create hotkeys for resizing/positioning
windows)

Kaleidoscope - great diff tool

I use the default Mail and Calendar apps

------
bdwalter
I'm a big fan of fluid <http://fluidapp.com/> which lets you containerize web
applications into a single app like thing. Also for mail, I'm a big sparrow
fan.

If you need flowcharting/diagraming similar to Visio, Omnigraffle is great.

------
zio99
1\. For Notepad++: I use TextWrangler (decent syntax highlighting for PHP,
Python, Perl, Ruby, JS, C++, HTML)- for CSS see footnote.

2\. But you said you wanted to move away from coding? If you're into design, I
recommend: InkScape and GIMP as must-haves on any fresh Mac install.

3\. For email, I stopped using email clients a long time ago, and this isn't
really Mac specific, but I'd recommend OtherInbox to organize your mail in
your browser, on an iPhone (if you're getting one of those), which leades me
to...

4\. Google Chrome for your browser.

5\. (Apple's built-in) Spotlight's pretty good for searches (use command +
space to access spotlight search), google desktop isn't required.

6\. VLC has a good Mac OS X port for video playback.

7\. The other stuff you need to know about, are screencaptures are done via
Command (apple key) + Shift + 3 for the whole screen, or replace 3 with 4 for
snipping part of the screen

8\. Since your new Macbook Air will come with Lion with the new scrolling
paradigm, I would change the swipe under System Preferences > Trackpad options
(you can find this via spotlight or the mac icon on the top left corner of
your screen) and uncheck Scroll Direction: Natural, so you get back to your
usual way of scrolling things. (First main annoyance with the new Macs).

P.S. vim is still available in Mac OS terminal.

.css files are by default loaded in (Apple's) Dashcode, which suffices for
syntax highlighting and editing.

Links:

<http://www.barebones.com/products/TextWrangler/>

<http://inkscape.org/>

<http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/>

<http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html>

<http://www.otherinbox.com/>

[http://scottlinux.com/2011/07/20/os-x-lion-how-to-reverse-
sc...](http://scottlinux.com/2011/07/20/os-x-lion-how-to-reverse-scroll-
direction/)

<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61544>

<http://www.google.com/chrome>

------
pooriaazimi
(Haven't read other suggestions. Certainly all of these have been suggested
before, in that case bump the vote count on those apps!)

\- _First thing_ you should do: Install Homebrew:
<https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/>

\- IRC: Colloquy - <http://colloquy.info>

\- Editor: Sublime Text 2 - <http://www.sublimetext.com/2>

\- Launcher: QuickSilver or Alfred

\- Lion's Mail.app is great. I used to use Sparrow
(<http://sparrowmailapp.com>) on Snow Leopard, but don't need it anymore. It's
a little buggy and I like Mail.app's UI better.

\- IMPORTANT: Check <http://gpgtools.org> for a simple app that lets you
manage PGP credentials and use them in Mail.app and elsewhere (don't miss this
one)

\- RSS reader: Reeder -
<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reeder/id439845554?mt=12>

\- You're new to Mac, so install CheatSheet
(<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id529456740?mt=12>) to learn keyboard
shortcuts by heart (press down CMD key for 2 seconds to get a list of all
shortcuts)

\- Check this blog out - it has plenty of great stuff about OS X that even
veteran OS X users don't know (trust me, I know a lot of them):
<http://www.macyourself.com>

\- You'll inevitably wonder what 'ocspd' or 'mdworker' are, when using 'ps
-Ac' or 'top' (spoiler: ocspd is for certifications, and mdworker, or
_metadata-worker_ is a process that gathers information about files and feeds
them to Spotlight for search), so install atMonitor
(<http://www.atpurpose.com/atMonitor/>) instead of searching for process names
on the Internet. It offers tons of other cool features.

\- Markdown Pro (<http://www.markdownpro.com>) and Mou (<http://mouapp.com>)
for Markdown.

\- As much as I despise iTunes, nothing comes close to it (unfortunately) in
terms of media management.

\- Bartender - tidies messy menu bars: <http://www.macbartender.com>

------
kls
If you do anything with a lot of private network web development Gasmask is a
must. It is a great little host file switcher.

<http://code.google.com/p/gmask/>

------
arn
<http://sites.google.com/site/yorufukurou/home-en>

Yorufukurou - hardcore twitter client

------
tjr
You might like Things, if you're into stuff like that:

<http://culturedcode.com/things/>

------
markburns
thoughtbot laptop script <https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop>

------
NonEUCitizen
Xcode -- don't you want to write iOS apps?

------
var
once mountain lion releases, I don't think you need adium and growl

------
johncoltrane
* Adium is great.

* Growl works very well but the whole notification business (emails + builds + IM + song details…) can be counter productive. Use it lightly.

* iTerm2 is the most modern terminal emulator you'll find on Mac OS X. I use it only because I wanted 256 colors and I'm not on Lion. I've never used its more advanced features.

* I don't know Notepad++ but I would say Sublime Text 2 (<http://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/sublime-text-2-beta>) and TextMate (<http://macromates.com/>) may do. You could also try a full blown IDE like Aptana (<http://aptana.com/>) or RubyMine (<http://www.jetbrains.com/ruby/>). If you already know Vim, MacVim (<https://github.com/b4winckler/macvim>) is the way to go for both the GUI and the CLI.

* Apple's own Mail.app works well. I've never felt the need to use another app. Microsoft's Outlook is pretty good, too.

* VLC is the obvious choice on Mac OS X too. You might want to install Perian (<http://perian.org/>) to add support for many exotic formats to Quicktime. For audio, Cog (<http://cogx.org/>) is nice.

* You don't need a CSS editor. Just use your code editor.

\---

You might be interested in a few other apps:

* ClipMenu (multiple clipboards) <http://www.clipmenu.com/>

* Burn (disc burning) <http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html>

* Charles (http debugging) <http://www.charlesproxy.com/>

* DejaMenu (access the menubar from a contextual menu) <http://homepage.mac.com/khsu/DejaMenu/DejaMenu.html>

* HTTP Client (http debugging) <http://ditchnet.org/httpclient/>

* Notational Velocity (the most elegant AND efficient note taking app ever) <http://notational.net/>

* Quicksilver (Quicksilver) <http://qsapp.com/>

* ShiftIt (window positioning) <https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt>

* The unarchiver (opens exotic archive formats) <http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html>

* Yummy FTP (the best FTP client on Mac OS X) <http://www.yummysoftware.com/>

* VirtualBox (virtual machines) <https://www.virtualbox.org/>

* SourceTree (Git/Mercurial GUI) <http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/>

------
WalterSear
bootcamp

------
medusa666
F.lux and Clipboard make my life better.

------
nerdfiles
I prefer Alfred (<http://www.alfredapp.com/>) over Quicksilver.

Recommending:

1\. <https://github.com/Lokaltog/vim-powerline>

2\. <https://github.com/revans/bash-it>

3\. <https://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive>,
<https://github.com/tpope/surround>

4\. The <https://github.com/scrooloose/nerdtree>

5\. <http://bywordapp.com/>

6\. <http://bbt2.drikin.com/>

7\. <http://willmore.eu/software/isolator/>

8\. <https://gist.github.com/2260182> (OS X for Hackers)

9\. Cathode (<http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/>, for shits and
giggles)

10\. DiffMerge (<http://www.sourcegear.com/diffmerge/>)

11\. Electric Sheep (<http://www.electricsheep.org/>)

12\. Gridwars (<http://gridwars.marune.de/>)

13\. Integrity (<http://peacockmedia.co.uk/integrity/>)

14\. httrack (<http://www.httrack.com/>)

15\. iSoul (<http://code.google.com/p/isoul/>)

16\. LittleIpsum (<http://littleipsum.com/>)

17\. KeyCastr (<https://github.com/sdeken/keycastr>, more shits)

18\. LiveReload (<http://livereload.com/>)

19\. Mactracker (<http://mactracker.ca/>)

20\. Onyx and/or Maintenance (<http://www.titanium.free.fr/>)

21\. MAMP (<http://www.mamp.info/>)

22\. MacVim (<http://code.google.com/p/macvim/>)

23\. Patterns ([http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/patterns-the-regex-
app/id4294...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/patterns-the-regex-
app/id429449079?mt=12))

24\. Mou (<http://mouapp.com/>)

25\. mutt (<http://www.mutt.org/>)

26\. Pixelmator (<http://www.pixelmator.com/>)

27\. ProCSSor (<http://procssor.com/>)

28\. Reeder (<http://reederapp.com/>)

29\. Skim (<http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/>)

30\. Slammer (<http://ringce.com/slammer>)

31\. Q (<http://www.kju-app.org/>)

32\. svnX
([http://www.lachoseinteractive.net/en/community/subversion/sv...](http://www.lachoseinteractive.net/en/community/subversion/svnx/features/))

33\. SSHTunnel (<https://github.com/primalmotion/sshtunnel>)

34\. localtunnel (<http://progrium.com/localtunnel/>)

35\. The Unarchiver (<http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html>)

36\. Homebrew (<http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/>)

37\. VLC Player (<http://www.videolan.org>)

38\. Compass/SASS/LESS (<http://compass-style.org/install/>, <http://sass-
lang.com/>, <http://lesscss.org/>)

39\. Pandoc (<http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/>)

40\. <http://code.google.com/p/zen-coding/>

~~~
ricardobeat
Isn't Electric Sheep taxing on bandwidth? Running that + Cathode +
Transmission should drain your battery in a couple hours...

~~~
nerdfiles
Agreed. I rarely use Cathode. I played with it for a weekend, but the vintage
floss is quite distracting and sensationalist. Depending on the settings you
use, it can run the GPU like a mad horse. So you're right on that.

Electric Sheep is graphics intensive for sure. One can regulate Electric Sheep
by many means, and the app allows for the prevention of downloads. It usually
does 40MB/day after downloading the first flock.

