

Ask HN: What are your must-have apps? - PostOnce

So, someone in another thread said something was one of their '5 must-have apps', and I was just about to ask what the other four were when I thought that now is as good a time as any to ask:<p>What are your Must-Have Apps? (can be more or less than five)
======
christefano

      Quicksilver

The quick application launching and various file and text manipulation actions
are great, but it's the multiple clipboards that I find invaluable. Being able
to save and search through 500 clipboards makes Quicksilver the one greatest
productivity tool I have.

    
    
      iTerm

Multiple profiles, full screen mode, sending commands to all open tabs, etc.
make it a better terminal than Terminal.

    
    
      Adium

It doesn't have video chat yet but I don't mind. It does everything else I
could want an IM client to do and the OTR encryption works right out of the
box. Plus, the next version reportedly supports both Twitter and IRC.

    
    
      Navicat

It's the best tool I've seen for accessing remote databases (I use the MySQL
version for Windows running in CrossOver). Sequel Pro and Querious both win on
looks but Navicat has the features I need.

    
    
      Drupal

Drupal is known for being a good content management system but for me it's an
absolutely great web application framework. It does nearly everything I need
my websites to do, from running wikis and OpenID providers to large social
networks, project management platforms, ecommerce sites and virtual worlds.
The Drupal community is so large and diverse that the conferences, camps and
user groups are the best I've seen around any industry or software project.

    
    
      Virtualmin and Webmin

These are web control panels like cPanel and WHM that are available as a free,
GPL version or as a commercially supported "Pro" version. I think Virtualmin
is a YC startup, too. Virtualmin and Webmin are occasionally a little rough
around the edges but they have completely taken away the pain of administering
my sites.

    
    
      GrandCentral

It used to be that using voicemail was a necessary time expenditure that
nobody really questioned. GrandCentral saves me a lot of time I'd otherwise be
wasting.

Here's a tip: don't upgrade your GrandCentral account to Google Voice unless
you want the stuff that only Google Voice has (like voicemail transcription).
All the GrandCentral-compatible tools like GrandCentral Dialer for the Nokia
N8x0 tablets don't work with Google Voice yet.

~~~
swombat
Re: iTerm, I used to use it, but then I figured out how to (ab)use Terminal
and I'm now happy with Terminal.

Have a look at my tutorial on how to create and use multiple profiles on my
geek blog: <http://www.swombat.com/setting-up-terminalapp-with-tr-0>

------
intranation
1\. Firefox w/Firebug

I hate Firefox as a browser on the Mac, but as a professional front-end
developer it's the most valuable piece of kit I have.

2\. OmniFocus

It's pretty expensive but it's also really really good, and has industrial
strength data integrity. Allows me to stay on top of everything at all times.
The apparent high cost disappears when you realise that I use it _all the
time_ and am able to rely on it 100%. In fact it's my only app with "Start at
login".

3\. VMWare Fusion

Allows me run all kinds of virtualised environments (particularly copies of
live environments, and Erlang development environments) as though they're
local folders, which means I can use the OS X desktop toolchain to work on
code, but use Linux for package management etc. Also for Windows, obviously.

4\. DropBox

One of the best services on the Internet, bar none.

I haven't listed a text editor here as I use TextMate, but am not so attached
to it that I couldn't replace it with something else.

------
JoelPM
1) Fluid. The ability to launch work GMail in one window, personal GMail in
another window, and Lala.com in a third window and have them all running in
separate processes that can't bring each other down has been a great help.

2) Eclipse. It's an 800lb gorilla but I've been using it for years (shortly
after it was open-sourced). It can do Java, Scala, PHP, and many others.

3) TextMate. Because firing up Eclipse to write a Python or Ruby script is
overkill. I also like that I can type "mate ." in the terminal and get the
current directory in the project drawer.

4) Safari/Webkit. I used Firefox for a long time, but on the Mac it just can't
compare to Webkit, especially once the Developer tools were introduced.

5) Terminal.app. I currently have 3 windows open for a total of 12 tabs. What
I really mean is the unix under-pinnings, but Terminal.app is how you get to
those.

Nothing very exciting in the list above, but those are the apps that I spend
90% of my time using.

~~~
skinnymuch
Wow. Fluid is awesome. I lost a huge basecamp message I was about to submit
yesterday and threw a fit that resulted in a broken monitor. Never again!

Thanks :)

------
bcx
1\. terminal / putty 2\. textmate / vim 3\. quicksilver 4\. firefox + firebug

Whenever I use any computer, I find myself installing all of these programs,
in order to get anything done.

------
mahmud
Nearly all of my "must have" apps run on either the Mozilla or the Emacs
platforms. If you give me a java runtime, I know where to get a ssh applet and
from there I will find my way home, including a remote emacs session running
under `screen` :-)

Mozilla effectively functions as my desktop; I use firebug, scrapbook,
chatzilla, Pencil sketching and prototyping GUIs, SQLite manager to design
databases, and web developer plugin (along with things meant to keep the web
safe and sane)

But other than that:

5) a PDF reader.

4) Skype.

3) Open Office, or similar package with good Arabic support.

2) the unix toolchain, including GCC.

1) A Common Lisp implementation (sbcl, lispworks, or CLISP.)

0) putty or any other ssh client. Without SSH I can't function.

[edit: readers may note that I treat GCC as a "tool" ;-]

~~~
vorador
You should consider using irssi, (<http://irssi.org/>) a console irc client
which is _way_ better than chatzilla.

------
8-bit_Blaster
The following five programs are some of my favorite staples to install on a
fresh copy of Windows XP:

1) Notepad++

My favorite free, open source text editor. Gets the job done.

2) Mozilla Sunbird

Sunbird helps me keep track of what I have to do with calendar and to-do list
features. Open source!

3) Google Picasa

Whether on Linux or Windows, I have yet to find a photo organizer and image
manipulator that is as easy-to-use and feature-packed as Picasa.

4) 7-Zip

When it comes to [un]compression I like this one because it can do 7Z, ZIP,
RAR, and GZ. Also open source!

5) KeePass

Great way of keeping track of hundreds of silly passwords and software serial
numbers. Open source!

------
warfangle
Believe it or not? After attempting interface development on all three
platforms, as much as I hate it and all of its idiosyncrasies, I fall back to
windows on the operating system standpoint. Everything I need is there, and in
some cases nowhere else (without running a VM).

\- Visual Studio 2008 Express. has some of the best Javascript support out
there. Sorry, but TextMate doesn't have anything to check for stupid syntax
errors on the fly - and NetBeans is bulkier, imho. The only thing you're
missing is third party add-ins, and I haven't found much use for them yet. If
I need to step into some ruby, I'm fine with TextMate. It's not the best tool
for JavaScript though.

-IE6 and

\- IE7. Developing for them is an interesting challenge. And a necessary evil.
Because you're developing on the same machine you're debugging IEx on, it's a
lot easier to use Visual Studio to place breakpoints, watches, and so forth
than to use the mostly useless default script debugger.

\- Safari or Chrome.

-Firefox, with Firebug. And YSlow!. And the Web Developer toolbar.

\- Pandora. (I find I only listen to my music collection when I'm commuting)

\- Photoshop.

\- Google Docs

\- Skype

\- Pidgin (ugh; it's horrible on all platforms...)

So as it happens, Windows unfortunately is the only platform I can run all my
tools on. Sucks but there it is (I'd rather be on Ubuntu. I can do stuff like
pin a stationary translucent terminal with no decorations to my desktop. And
the terminal app for AWN is fairly spiffy for quick one-offs).

~~~
jpcx01
Textmate has the awesome Javascript Tools extension
[http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200901/javascript_tool...](http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200901/javascript_tools_bundle_for_textmate/)

shift+control+v and it runs it through Doug Crawford's lint engine. It also
has the option of running it on every file save.

Also, I'd suggest using IE8 instead of IE7. It has way way better dev tools,
and built in support for IE7 (using the compatibility mode button). As for
IE6, you should do us all a favor and drop support for that ASAP.

~~~
warfangle
No can do. 8% of our userbase still uses it. Not my decision to make,
unfortunately.

I've used the javascript tool. "1 error, 2 warnings," with no explanations?
I'd rather copy/paste the code into jslint and run it manually. It also
doesn't find some of the things that the original jslint tool does.

Really, it's "awesome," but only if you haven't used something like VS's
Javascript support. Sorry, but it's lightyears away. It's kind of like the
difference between using nano and using gnome's default text editor...

------
makecheck
1\. A text editor that is powerful, stable, and basically good for
programming. I rely on "vim" almost always, but Xcode is a nice fallback.

2\. A powerful terminal. On Linux, "aterm" is the best I have ever found. On
Mac, I prefer MacTelnet but Apple's Terminal is pretty good.

3\. A suite of infrastructure tools. I've been in the Unix universe for many
years, so it's hard to imagine anything except the usual suspects: ls, find,
grep, awk, xargs, etc. all joined through shells, Perl and Python. These are
definitely "must have"; even if they don't qualify as a single app, they
certainly qualify as a single entity I couldn't live without. (And having
stumbled my way through Windows' inadequacies, I now know this painfully
well.)

4\. A web browser, and by extension, Google. I like OmniWeb the most, though I
use Firefox at work. I've even been known to use Lynx, or the occasional
automation through "wget". There is simply no faster way to get information
anymore; I'm more likely to web search for tools than run "man" pages, even.

5\. E-mail. I prefer a trivial "send" interface (I like basic command line
"mail" sometimes, though "pine"/"alpine" are my favorite). I do use
Thunderbird and Apple's Mail quite a bit. I am not a fan of overly complex
tools, but the ability to tag and search/filter mail by tag is a really
compelling Thunderbird feature.

~~~
duskwuff
Argh... you had me hoping there that MacTelnet might be an improvement on my
beloved urxvt. Sadly, it isn't VT100-compliant: it fails to render my 'screen'
status bar properly.

Who wants to write a better terminal app?

~~~
GeneralMaximus
There's iTerm for OS X (<http://iterm.sourceforge.net/>), although I find
Terminal.app more than adequate.

~~~
duskwuff
Neither is fully VT100-compliant, though, nor does either one fully support
mouse input. Terminal.app also has a few rendering bugs that show up
occasionally in screen. (Noticing a pattern here?)

~~~
KC8ZKF
Perhaps you have a problem with terminfo?

------
kirubakaran
1\. e

2\. m

3\. a

4\. c

5\. s

~~~
huhtenberg
1\. v

2\. i

:-P

~~~
sharkbrainguy
you should try 'm', it'll work really well with the rest of your tools.

------
GeneralMaximus
I'm guessing you mean apps that allow me to be productive. Not considering
Twitter and IM clients, here's my list:

* Terminal.app

* The Python interpreter (I use Python for things like automating tasks, renaming and reorganizing files and even as a simple calculator)

* TextMate

* A nice little todo app called Anxiety (<http://anxietyapp.com>)

* iCal

* A web browser. I prefer Opera, but I really don't care as long as it's not IE6.

* xPad (sweet and simple note taking program)

And, of course, XCode and Interface Builder for writing Cocoa apps.

There's only one app from Linux that I miss on OS X: AmaroK (or something
equally powerful). I know I can get AmaroK on OS X, but there are way too many
dependencies. I'm also not willing to sacrifice 400MB of disk space for a
media player.

------
JesseAldridge
1) Dropbox

2) Firefox (with StumbleUpon and AdBlock Plus)

3) Scite

4) Leo (<http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/front.html>)

5) My own tools

------
fsilva
For linux users, a very useful app: BasKet Note Pads. It's an organization
tool, you write pages with notes, format text in those notes, dragndrop files
into the page, and the killer feature: at any time you can capture a part of
the screen and it goes directly to that page. (e.g. you can be writing notes
about a PDF and capture text/a graph/an image from it, directly, in a second)
I can't live without it. Out of curiosity, does anyone know similar apps? (in
any OS)

link: <http://basket.kde.org/>

------
mping
ClipX - ClipX allows for mulit copy/paste functionality.

~~~
sundarurfriend
I too would highly recommend this app (it's for Windows by the way). It has
made several things much easier - for one, I can now copy the different parts
of a post (here or at proggit) at a go before replying, and paste them one by
one as I need to cite them.

It can also save your file copy operations, so you can copy the same set of
files to different places at a go and do many other things you wish Windows
had native support for.

~~~
pasbesoin
I use a similar program, Ditto (Windows only). Ditto is very configurable,
including allowing one to specify what clipboard formats are captured. It uses
SQLite for the datastore and supports searching of the clip history.

I agree with the parent; a clipboard manager is great for assembling
information while minimizing context switches. In particular, I've worked in
environments offering rather limited screen real estate. In those, Ditto helps
keep me from overdosing on Alt-Tab. It's also useful for parking "I may need
this" snippets for longer term reference. With the search facility, as long as
I remember some aspect of the snippet, it's usually only a second or three
away from my fingers.

------
justlearning
i believe you mean desktop apps? does browser count as app? if so, then all I
need is chrome. I have several desktop apps created from chrome for various
web apps. other than that,

skype,

intellij/netbeans/eclipse(one of them running)

notepad++ (anything and everything -editor)

sumatrapdf

dropbox

tiddlywiki

flashnote (for windows) else evernote

------
lleger
These are my top 10 in no particular order. They're basically what reside in
my dock. I think you can really tell a lot about a person based on what apps
they keep near.

1\. Textmate 2\. Transmit 3\. Espresso 4\. Adium 5\. Tweetie 6\. The Hit List
7\. NewsFire 8\. Safari/WebKit 9\. Terminal + VIM 10\. Pages

------
noahlt
1\. emacs (incl. shell, irc, personal wiki) 2\. firefox (incl. email, blog)
3\. wmii (tiling window manager)

~~~
sherl0ck
I really like wmii, but too bad, wmii doesn't playing nice with dual monitor.
trying to setup for week with no result.

------
yason
Emacs, Firefox, Python, Clojure, Totem.

------
ashleyw
1) Webkit (Safari)

2) Ruby

3) Terminal

4) Textmate

5) Photoshop

6) VMware (Windows Vista image running on 256MB RAM)

7) Spotify (used to be iTunes, but who needs that when you have practically
every song you may want for free?)

------
brianto2010
My top 5 are:

* Firefox

* Office Suite

* PDF Viewer

* Vim

* Winsplit Revolution

My other favorites (not "must-haves") are:

* Media Player Classic/MPlayer

* GNU Octave/Maxima

* Midnight Commander

------
windsurfer
1\. gnu coreutils

It's a little more than 5, but they're all required :)

------
biotech
\- Putty/OpenSSH

\- RealVNC

\- VMWare Server

I love being able to sit at one [desktop] computer and control 6 others. Some
run embedded software, some are servers, some are virtual.

------
cvboss
1\. FAR manager (this one tops them all, can do also SSH/FTP stuff, text
editing, archiving etc)

2\. Notepad++

3\. Firefox

4\. skype

5\. eclipse

6\. the bat

7\. adobe photoshop

------
mstefff
desktop only right?

1) firefox

2) music player (itunes, rhythmbox, songbird, etc)

3) geany (or some other great code editor)

4) terminal (linux shell equivalent - does that even count?)

5) ssh/sftp client (ubuntu built-in works fine)

6) torrent client (ktorrent is great, miro for rss)

------
jpcx01
1\. Launchbar / 2. Fluid / 3. Firefox & Firebug / 4. Querious / 5. Photoshop

------
grah
Quicksilver, Firefox, TextMate, Terminal & Adium.

------
travisjeffery
Emacs, Safari, iTunes, VLC and Terminal.app.

------
hboon
1\. OmniFocus 2\. Safari 3\. Xcode

------
wyclif
vim + screen + urxvt

------
ftse
Textmate

Transmit

Sequel Pro

OmniFocus or OmniOutliner for GTD

I'm finding I use Nambu more and more for reading Tweets

