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My top Mac OS X tools and utilities

February 2nd, 2009 2 comments

Since I just reinstalled my MacBook and spent some time getting everything back in place, I thought I list some of my favourite apps and utilities. No ranking though, since I’m not a tonight show host:

mcfreebieonyxfrleoprd_1 Onyx

A very clever app, offering dozens of options to optimize your system, run maintainance tasks, configure hidden parameters of Finder, Dock and other apps, clean caches and remove outdated files, etc.
monolingual Monolingual

From the website: “Monolingual is a program for removing unnecessary language resources from Mac OS X, in order to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space.” For the records – on my more or less new system, I just saved 2.8 Gigs (!!).
transparent_quicksilver_icon_by_darahgna1 Quicksilver

Quicksilver once was hyped beyond believe in the Mac universe, as a revolutionary, optimized way of interacting with your operating system. Ignorant as I am, I only use it as launcher – just hit CTRL-ALT-APPLE (or whatever key combo you assigned it) and start typing the applications name, and hit enter to launch it.
120px-vlc_icon VLC

Yeah boooring, I know. One of the major annoyances for me is how Apple supports (or actually does not care much about free support for) additional codecs for Quicktime. VLC comes to the rescue, with all important codecs (and dozens more) compiled into the app, to play whatever audio or video format you encounter during those nightly easynews sessions…
120px-cyberduck_icon Cyberduck

Another Mac mystery – for reasons unclear to me, I can mount an FTP server into Finder, but only as read-only. I don’t know why I thought Fetch is the only option for a good FTP-client on the Mac – I just started using Cyberduck, and so far I’m pretty happy with it. Also supports WebDAV, Cloud Files and Amazons S3 (if you are hip enough to need that…)
little_snitch Little Snitch

Seems the defacto-standard for a personal firewall on OS X. Runs for a limited amount of time until it has to be restarted manually, unless you buy a license. Highly recommended!
adium-logo-20080128-115634 Adium

Good multi-network IM client, all in one – although I find myself using Meebo as online-replacement more and more often.
1password 1Password

A good password manager, with plugins for all major browsers, secure notes etc. Can autofill passwords and other form fields on web pages, sync with your iPhone/iPod touch or Palm (does anyone still use Palms??). A single license is $39.95, but I got it with a MacHeist package, so I did not compare it with any other free password managers that are undoubtedly out there.
istat-small iStat menu provides configurable statistics and status infos about all parts of your system – CPU and memory usage, network bandwidth, fan speeds, temperature, etc.
Categories: memyselfandi, technics, tools Tags: , , ,

I don’t need facebook

February 21st, 2008 No comments

For the record – I think I’m too old to enjoy Facebook.

I’m uberfordert with the enormous amount of new requests everday, for new applications I should install and give access to my data, just to forget about them in the next minute, for 10 variations of the same functionality put into different applications that look and sound the same, but aren’t. I don’t want to give virtual flowers, smacks, beers, hugs, ass kicks, farts, money or whatever.

I don’t need a social network to compare my taste in music, movies, games, flowers to people I have never met in real life. And for the people I DID meet, we’ve sorted these things out, already, so whats the f-ing point?

I don’t want to rate how sexy my female co-workers are (and risk being sued for sexual harassment). Oh, and that applies to male co-workers as well!!

I see the need for networks like LinkedIn or Xing (which I still refer to as “ksing”, and not “crossing”, ignoring all the comments from the wiseasses around *g*), I use them regularly, even found my current job through one of them.

I’ve used sites like tupalo.com enough to see the benefits for me, especially when wandering around in an area of a city I’m not familiar with.

But I decided I just don’t get anything out of Facebook or Myspace or any other of that “fun” social networks. Period. Twitter me an oldfashioned twat, I guess I can live with it ;-)

Categories: memyselfandi, web Tags: