APPLE
UTILITIES
BACKUP
COMMS
PHOTO
NETWORK
OFFICE
MISC.
APPLE
First of all, don’t overlook the applications Apple has provided with OS X.
Time Machine.
Obviously. Ignore it at your peril.
Back To My Mac,
available with a MobileMe account. It
absolutely simplifies remote access to
your other Macs.
Dictionary: look up
any word or its synonyms in almost any
document by Control-clicking on it
iChat: the best
Mac-to-Mac video chat, plus text chat
and file transfer, able to do
conference-calling and file transfer in
Leopard
iCal: get your team’s
lives organised by sharing calendars
Mail: good, reliable,
backup-friendly and free. Say goodbye to
Entourage
Address Book: used by
Mail and many other 3rd-party
applications for contact data
Disk Utility: format
disks in one of several styles; do
software RAID 0, 1, and concatenation
(check it in Dictionary), repair disk
directories and permissions, and
sector-copy one disk to another for
identical backups
iPhoto: decent
consumer or pro-am level image
management with lots of useful
convenience features, now also
supporting most RAW formats
MobileMe: £59 p.a.
Email, file sharing, backup; calendar,
bookmarks, keychain, Address Book sync;
Web Applications, iPhone push sync, etc.
Not cheap, but good and in my view
essential if you have an iPhone
First of all, don’t overlook the applications Apple has provided with OS X.
Time Machine.
Obviously. Ignore it at your peril.
Back To My Mac,
available with a MobileMe account. It
absolutely simplifies remote access to
your other Macs.
Dictionary: look up
any word or its synonyms in almost any
document by Control-clicking on it
iChat: the best
Mac-to-Mac video chat, plus text chat
and file transfer, able to do
conference-calling and file transfer in
Leopard
iCal: get your team’s
lives organised by sharing calendars
Mail: good, reliable,
backup-friendly and free. Say goodbye to
Entourage
Address Book: used by
Mail and many other 3rd-party
applications for contact data
Disk Utility: format
disks in one of several styles; do
software RAID 0, 1, and concatenation
(check it in Dictionary), repair disk
directories and permissions, and
sector-copy one disk to another for
identical backups
iPhoto: decent
consumer or pro-am level image
management with lots of useful
convenience features, now also
supporting most RAW formats
MobileMe: £59 p.a.
Email, file sharing, backup; calendar,
bookmarks, keychain, Address Book sync;
Web Applications, iPhone push sync, etc.
Not cheap, but good and in my view
essential if you have an iPhone
MAINTENANCE &
DISK UTILITIES
Never be without Applejack and SMARTReporter. They’re free, and potential lifesavers.
Applejack*:
Free. The nearest thing to a diagnostic
and maintenance magic bullet. Now works
with Leopard, no thanks to Apple
DiskWarrior*:
£50. Nothing repairs disk directory
damage better
Drive Genius: £50.
Similar to DiskWarrior but does more.
Have it as a second string to the bow
Data Rescue
II*: £50. The first
choice to recover data from damaged
disks that won’t mount
FileSalvage: £60. Can
“learn” file signatures to search for
and sometimes recovers data such as
Hasselblad .fff file packages that Data
Rescue II cannot
SMARTReporter*:
Free. Periodically checks your hard
drives for their state of health and
warns you if a hardware failure is
imminent. Usually. Unfortunately, and
through no fault of its own, it can't
check drives connected by FireWire or
USB. For that, I recommend…
SoftRAID*:
£60. Software RAID tool to create RAID 0
and RAID 1 arrays. Live monitoring of
disk I/O gives early warning of any
drive malfunction
Onyx*:
Free. More than a hundred system tweaks,
optimisations and maintenance routines
Xupport: £10. Similar
to Onyx, but with a slightly different
feature set. Well worth a look
TinkerTool*:
Free. Change the look of the Finder,
optimise broadband connections and much
more
Macaroni*:
£5. Runs the built-in OSX maintenance
routines to your schedule
MacDrive: Enables
Windows PCs to read and write to
Mac-formatted disks. And rightly so.
GrandPerspective*:
Free. Gives you a picture of your file
system, allowing you to find those
monster space-hogging files and folders
eating your hard disk
Never be without Applejack and SMARTReporter. They’re free, and potential lifesavers.
Applejack*:
Free. The nearest thing to a diagnostic
and maintenance magic bullet. Now works
with Leopard, no thanks to Apple
DiskWarrior*:
£50. Nothing repairs disk directory
damage better
Drive Genius: £50.
Similar to DiskWarrior but does more.
Have it as a second string to the bow
Data Rescue
II*: £50. The first
choice to recover data from damaged
disks that won’t mount
FileSalvage: £60. Can
“learn” file signatures to search for
and sometimes recovers data such as
Hasselblad .fff file packages that Data
Rescue II cannot
SMARTReporter*:
Free. Periodically checks your hard
drives for their state of health and
warns you if a hardware failure is
imminent. Usually. Unfortunately, and
through no fault of its own, it can't
check drives connected by FireWire or
USB. For that, I recommend…
SoftRAID*:
£60. Software RAID tool to create RAID 0
and RAID 1 arrays. Live monitoring of
disk I/O gives early warning of any
drive malfunction
Onyx*:
Free. More than a hundred system tweaks,
optimisations and maintenance routines
Xupport: £10. Similar
to Onyx, but with a slightly different
feature set. Well worth a look
TinkerTool*:
Free. Change the look of the Finder,
optimise broadband connections and much
more
Macaroni*:
£5. Runs the built-in OSX maintenance
routines to your schedule
MacDrive: Enables
Windows PCs to read and write to
Mac-formatted disks. And rightly so.
GrandPerspective*:
Free. Gives you a picture of your file
system, allowing you to find those
monster space-hogging files and folders
eating your hard disk
BACKUP
If you have no data backups you will one day live to regret it. Use SuperDuper! to maintain a bootable backup of your Mac’s boot volume on a FireWire drive to reboot from should your main drive fail. Update it daily. Use Time Machine, on the same drive if necessary, to recover deleted or damaged data. Keep backups of all of your data drives with ChronoSync. There are lots of backup applications; none are perfect, most are useful.
SuperDuper!*:
£15. Incremental bootable backups.
Erase-and-backup for free. Technically
the most complete backups, including all
permissions, Access Control Lists, etc.
etc.
Carbon Copy
Cloner*: Free. A
good alternative to SuperDuper! for
bootable backups and the fastest way to
make identical clones
Synk Backup: £15.
Scheduled bootable backups plus
incremental data archiving
Backup Simplicity:
£25. As above, but can automatically
start backups when target disks are
connected
ChronoSync*:
£15. One of the very best for everything
except bootable backups
If you have no data backups you will one day live to regret it. Use SuperDuper! to maintain a bootable backup of your Mac’s boot volume on a FireWire drive to reboot from should your main drive fail. Update it daily. Use Time Machine, on the same drive if necessary, to recover deleted or damaged data. Keep backups of all of your data drives with ChronoSync. There are lots of backup applications; none are perfect, most are useful.
SuperDuper!*:
£15. Incremental bootable backups.
Erase-and-backup for free. Technically
the most complete backups, including all
permissions, Access Control Lists, etc.
etc.
Carbon Copy
Cloner*: Free. A
good alternative to SuperDuper! for
bootable backups and the fastest way to
make identical clones
Synk Backup: £15.
Scheduled bootable backups plus
incremental data archiving
Backup Simplicity:
£25. As above, but can automatically
start backups when target disks are
connected
ChronoSync*:
£15. One of the very best for everything
except bootable backups
COMMUNICATIONS
iChat: Free. Haven’t
we mentioned this already?
Skype*:
Free. Cross-platform video conferencing,
SMS and VoIP telephony
iGlasses: £5. Improve
your webcam picture when displayed in
iChat, Skype and others
X-Lite: Free. VoIP
softphone for making free phone calls
over the Internet
iSoftPhone*:
£20. Better-looking, nicer softphone
than X-Lite
iChat: Free. Haven’t
we mentioned this already?
Skype*:
Free. Cross-platform video conferencing,
SMS and VoIP telephony
iGlasses: £5. Improve
your webcam picture when displayed in
iChat, Skype and others
X-Lite: Free. VoIP
softphone for making free phone calls
over the Internet
iSoftPhone*:
£20. Better-looking, nicer softphone
than X-Lite
PHOTOGRAPHIC
There’s more to this than just Photoshop and the big RAW developers.
Photo
Mechanic*: £75. By
far the fastest application for
ingesting from card (with backup),
applying IPTC to and selecting your
images
ImageIngester*:
Free. Does almost everything Photo
Mechanic does except the selecting
Microsoft Expression
Media*: £150. Son
of iView MediaPro, the all-round best
image and digital asset manager
LensFix*:
£15. Advanced lens distortion and
aberration correction
Noiseware
Professional*: £35.
Excellent, fast digital noise reduction
PhotoRescue*:
£30. For when your CF cards crash…
There’s more to this than just Photoshop and the big RAW developers.
Photo
Mechanic*: £75. By
far the fastest application for
ingesting from card (with backup),
applying IPTC to and selecting your
images
ImageIngester*:
Free. Does almost everything Photo
Mechanic does except the selecting
Microsoft Expression
Media*: £150. Son
of iView MediaPro, the all-round best
image and digital asset manager
LensFix*:
£15. Advanced lens distortion and
aberration correction
Noiseware
Professional*: £35.
Excellent, fast digital noise reduction
PhotoRescue*:
£30. For when your CF cards crash…
NETWORKING &
FILE TRANSFER
There’s more to life than simple file sharing.
FileChute: £8. Send
large files to people without clogging
up their email
SingleWrench:
subscription. Optimised for
photographers and available with an AOP
Discount
YouSendIt:
subscription. Another
large-file-transfer alternative
Papaya: £25. Instant
password-protected web file sharing for
clients to download your pictures
ShareTool: £15.
VPN-like secure, encrypted access to
your network and everything on it
iGet*:
£25. Fast, encrypted file transfer. The
best choice for remotely accessing files
on another Mac over the Internet
ExpanDrive: £20.
Similar to iGet, but mounts remote
drives in the Finder
Transmit*:
£10. The best-looking and usually
best-performing Mac FTP software
BwanaDik*:
Free. Tells you your external and
internal IP addresses and can email you
if they change
Lighthouse: £6.
Port-forwarding utility opens ports in
your Internet router to let you easily
run things such as web servers,
file-sharing applications, Back To My
Mac, etc. without having to mess around
with your router’s ugly user interface
iChat: Free. Here
again because of its file-sharing
capabilities
iStumbler*:
Free. Search for and find wireless
networks
Desktop Transporter:
£15. Remote-control other Macs on your
network, or over the Internet. Run an
old Mac without a monitor as a file
server and remote-control it with this.
MobileMe/Back to My Mac is a better
choice for Leopard users
WakeOnLan*:
Free. Find the IP addresses of other
devices on your network, and wake them
up if they're asleep
Address-O-Matic: £10.
Share and sync Address Books on your
network without requiring MobileMe
Bonjour
Browser*: Free. See
what’s running on your network
Postfix Enabler: £5.
Configure and turn on your Mac’s
built-in mail server in Panther and
Tiger. Leopard users should use…
MailServe for
Leopard: £10. Never forget, though,
that if you know your email username and
password, mail2web.com will
always allow you to send and receive
email, wherever you are
There’s more to life than simple file sharing.
FileChute: £8. Send
large files to people without clogging
up their email
SingleWrench:
subscription. Optimised for
photographers and available with an AOP
Discount
YouSendIt:
subscription. Another
large-file-transfer alternative
Papaya: £25. Instant
password-protected web file sharing for
clients to download your pictures
ShareTool: £15.
VPN-like secure, encrypted access to
your network and everything on it
iGet*:
£25. Fast, encrypted file transfer. The
best choice for remotely accessing files
on another Mac over the Internet
ExpanDrive: £20.
Similar to iGet, but mounts remote
drives in the Finder
Transmit*:
£10. The best-looking and usually
best-performing Mac FTP software
BwanaDik*:
Free. Tells you your external and
internal IP addresses and can email you
if they change
Lighthouse: £6.
Port-forwarding utility opens ports in
your Internet router to let you easily
run things such as web servers,
file-sharing applications, Back To My
Mac, etc. without having to mess around
with your router’s ugly user interface
iChat: Free. Here
again because of its file-sharing
capabilities
iStumbler*:
Free. Search for and find wireless
networks
Desktop Transporter:
£15. Remote-control other Macs on your
network, or over the Internet. Run an
old Mac without a monitor as a file
server and remote-control it with this.
MobileMe/Back to My Mac is a better
choice for Leopard users
WakeOnLan*:
Free. Find the IP addresses of other
devices on your network, and wake them
up if they're asleep
Address-O-Matic: £10.
Share and sync Address Books on your
network without requiring MobileMe
Bonjour
Browser*: Free. See
what’s running on your network
Postfix Enabler: £5.
Configure and turn on your Mac’s
built-in mail server in Panther and
Tiger. Leopard users should use…
MailServe for
Leopard: £10. Never forget, though,
that if you know your email username and
password, mail2web.com will
always allow you to send and receive
email, wherever you are
OFFICE &
PRODUCTIVITY
There’s more to this than just Microsoft Office and FileMaker Pro.
JABMenu*:
£10. Quick menu-bar access to your
Address Book contacts, almost as good as
the now-unavailable iAddressX
Snail
Mail*: Free. Good,
versatile envelope and label printing
from the Address Book database
Mail Factory: £20. If
Snail Mail can’t do it, Mail Factory
probably can
DayLite: £75.
Heavy-duty CRM, scheduling and contact
management
BlinkBid*:
£45. A good choice for an integrated
estimating, paperwork and invoicing
system. The AOP has negotiated a
member’s discount with the developer
iBiz: £25.
General-purpose estimating and
invoicing. The one I use
Billings: £30.
Similar to iBiz, but with fancier
invoice templates
iRatchet: £25. Again
like iBiz, but also tracks expenses
iBank*:
£25. Companion to iBiz; track your
accounts and categorise transactions.
Good at tax-return time
PDFLab*:
Free. Edit PDF’s and join them together
iGTD*:
Free. Advanced To-Do list manager based
on David Allen’s “Getting
Things Done” system
EEAX: £15. Archive
your Microsoft Entourage data, freeing
up space and speeding up Entourage
MailSteward: £30
upwards. Do the same for any email
application
TNEF’s
Enough*: Free.
Extract the contents of those dumb,
useless winmail.dat files that Microsoft
Outlook users keep sending you
OMiC*:
Free. Add-on for Apple Mail that also
extracts the contents of those dumb,
useless winmail.dat files that Microsoft
Outlook users keep sending you.
Currently Panther and Tiger only:
Leopard support due soon in OMiC 2.
There’s more to this than just Microsoft Office and FileMaker Pro.
JABMenu*:
£10. Quick menu-bar access to your
Address Book contacts, almost as good as
the now-unavailable iAddressX
Snail
Mail*: Free. Good,
versatile envelope and label printing
from the Address Book database
Mail Factory: £20. If
Snail Mail can’t do it, Mail Factory
probably can
DayLite: £75.
Heavy-duty CRM, scheduling and contact
management
BlinkBid*:
£45. A good choice for an integrated
estimating, paperwork and invoicing
system. The AOP has negotiated a
member’s discount with the developer
iBiz: £25.
General-purpose estimating and
invoicing. The one I use
Billings: £30.
Similar to iBiz, but with fancier
invoice templates
iRatchet: £25. Again
like iBiz, but also tracks expenses
iBank*:
£25. Companion to iBiz; track your
accounts and categorise transactions.
Good at tax-return time
PDFLab*:
Free. Edit PDF’s and join them together
iGTD*:
Free. Advanced To-Do list manager based
on David Allen’s “Getting
Things Done” system
EEAX: £15. Archive
your Microsoft Entourage data, freeing
up space and speeding up Entourage
MailSteward: £30
upwards. Do the same for any email
application
TNEF’s
Enough*: Free.
Extract the contents of those dumb,
useless winmail.dat files that Microsoft
Outlook users keep sending you
OMiC*:
Free. Add-on for Apple Mail that also
extracts the contents of those dumb,
useless winmail.dat files that Microsoft
Outlook users keep sending you.
Currently Panther and Tiger only:
Leopard support due soon in OMiC 2.
MISCELLANEOUS
Odds and sods that don’t fit into any of the above categories, in no particular order…
Undercover:
£20*. Track and recover
your stolen Mac
1Password:
£20*. Secure password
and login storage with browser and
iPhone integration: the one I now use
Web Confidential:
£10. Password, personal info and serial
number manager using encrypted database
PithHelmet*:
Free. Ad-blocker for Safari
TextWrangler*:
Free. Advanced text editor
FireFox*:
Free. If a site won’t work with Safari,
it’ll work with FireFox. Forget Internet
Explorer
NetNewsWire: £15. The
best RSS newsreader
Flip4Mac*:
Free. Supersedes the awful Windows Media
Player and allows you to view most
Windows Media within QuickTime
RealPlayer*:
Free. Watch and listen to the BBC
QuickTime Pro: £20.
Unlocks functionality within QuickTime,
turning it into a surprisingly useful
media format converter and editor
Perian*:
Free. Allows QuickTime to show more
media formats
LCDTest*:
Free. Expose banding and dead pixels in
your LCD
Stuffit
Expander*: Free.
Decode most compressed archive formats
Hazel: £8. Very
clever automatic rules-based file
manipulation
Default Folder: £16.
Finder Open & Save dialogue-box
enhancer, making the Finder rather
easier to use
Little
Snitch*: £12.
Alerts you when an application wants to
make a network connection, e.g. to send
your credit card details to the Russian
mafia (or Adobe)
Default
Apps*: Free. Allows
you to choose your default mail and
browser applications and select which
application opens (or not) when you
double-click on a file, amongst many
other functions
Virus Barrier: £35.
Anti-virus, not that we really need it
except as a defence against Microsoft
Office macro viruses
ClamXAV: Free. Most
of what Virus Barrier does
CDRevolution: £15.
For cloning CDs, something the Finder
doesn’t do
Toast: £50. Advanced
CD, DVD and Blu-Ray disc burning for
when the Finder’s built-in burning won't
do what you want
Odds and sods that don’t fit into any of the above categories, in no particular order…
Undercover:
£20*. Track and recover
your stolen Mac
1Password:
£20*. Secure password
and login storage with browser and
iPhone integration: the one I now use
Web Confidential:
£10. Password, personal info and serial
number manager using encrypted database
PithHelmet*:
Free. Ad-blocker for Safari
TextWrangler*:
Free. Advanced text editor
FireFox*:
Free. If a site won’t work with Safari,
it’ll work with FireFox. Forget Internet
Explorer
NetNewsWire: £15. The
best RSS newsreader
Flip4Mac*:
Free. Supersedes the awful Windows Media
Player and allows you to view most
Windows Media within QuickTime
RealPlayer*:
Free. Watch and listen to the BBC
QuickTime Pro: £20.
Unlocks functionality within QuickTime,
turning it into a surprisingly useful
media format converter and editor
Perian*:
Free. Allows QuickTime to show more
media formats
LCDTest*:
Free. Expose banding and dead pixels in
your LCD
Stuffit
Expander*: Free.
Decode most compressed archive formats
Hazel: £8. Very
clever automatic rules-based file
manipulation
Default Folder: £16.
Finder Open & Save dialogue-box
enhancer, making the Finder rather
easier to use
Little
Snitch*: £12.
Alerts you when an application wants to
make a network connection, e.g. to send
your credit card details to the Russian
mafia (or Adobe)
Default
Apps*: Free. Allows
you to choose your default mail and
browser applications and select which
application opens (or not) when you
double-click on a file, amongst many
other functions
Virus Barrier: £35.
Anti-virus, not that we really need it
except as a defence against Microsoft
Office macro viruses
ClamXAV: Free. Most
of what Virus Barrier does
CDRevolution: £15.
For cloning CDs, something the Finder
doesn’t do
Toast: £50. Advanced
CD, DVD and Blu-Ray disc burning for
when the Finder’s built-in burning won't
do what you want
The List 2008: Useful Software
Software I find useful and that I recommend you to
have copies of. It’s categorised by function and
accompanied by a sentence of explanation, approximate
price and, where feasible, a free alternative. All
prices are sterling, and approximate. Some of the
links earn me a few bob if you buy by clicking on
them. If you don't want to do this, simply Google the application's
name, find the vendor's site and buy it that
way. Click on the icons below for
recommendations.
