Free Mac Apps
In the past few weeks I’ve had two friends get an Apple MacBook, so in light of that I thought I might share a few applications I use on my iMac, and they’re free!
Adium: The instant messenger that does everything! Not only can you customize this little app to your hearts content, but it also connects to a majority of the messenger services we all use. Including; AOL, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, Mobile Me, Bonjour, MySpace, Live Journal Chat, Facebook Chat, Lotus Sametime, Novell Groupwise, QQ, & Gadu-Gadu.
AppCleaner: Although it is true that you can drag any application you no longer use to the trash bin, there are still files left over by doing this. By using AppCleaner you’re sure to actually delete all of the files associated with the application you want to delete. This is also a good idea if you decide to install the same application later on, otherwise your old settings may still be installed and could mess up what you thought was a fresh install of the application.
Bowtie: If you listen to music a lot, which I’m sure most of us do, then this app is right up your alley. Not only does it show up on your desktop, which is customizable, but it also submits your tracks to Last.FM, and has built in shortcuts to allow you to control iTunes in any number of ways. There is also an iPhone app that goes with Bowtie if you have one, this isn’t free though, but only costs 99ยข.
DivX: DivX has been around for years, in fact there’s a lot of consumer DVD players that support this format, and although it was short lived, there were movies that came in this format only at your local video store. Now a days though, it’s used to decode your .AVI, .Divx, .MKV, & .XVid files. It comes with it’s own player, but for the Mac I suggest just downloading it and using QuickTime as your default player, as it will install the necessary codec to allow you to view the files on QuickTime.
DoubleTwist: If you don’t own an iPod, or an iPhone, but still want to sync your iTunes library, then this is a must have. Neither of these I own, but I do have an 8gb Android phone, and with DoubleTwist I can just as easily sync all or my chosen list of music to my phone. You can also use this for your PSP, Palm Pre, Blackberry, and hundreds of other devices. Also if you don’t want to purchase music through iTunes, DoubleTwist is setup for purchases through Amazon’s MP3 service.
Dropbox: Now there are a lot of online storage services, but Dropbox has options for every platform just about. You can upload your files, up to 2gb free, from your Mac and access them from a PC, Linux, Android, or iPhone. Or vice versa for that matter. There’s also an option to share files with family or friends right from the interface, in fact, my brother and I have a shared folder where we tend to share our World of Warcraft addons and pictures with one another.
Evernote: I consider this app an extension of the brain! Ever see something online and forget to bookmark it? Or find an article you want to read later, or maybe just a snippet of an article you want to save? Then Evernote is for you. Type a note, clip a webpage, snap a photo, or grab a screenshot, and keep it accessible from anywhere! Mac, PC, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre & Windows Mobile. If you want to see everything Evernote can do, check out the learn more page.
Flock: This is web browser, but not just any browser, it’s social! Built with the Firefox Framework for reliability, but integrates all of your social apps including; Bebo, Facebook, GMail, YouTube, MySpace, Digg, Flickr, Twitter, WordPress, PhotoBucket, Blogger, Yahoo! Mail, Del.icio.us, Blogsome, LiveJournal, Xanga, Typepad, AOL Mail, Picasa, & Tinypic. It’s also compatible with most Firefox Add-Ons and is available on Mac, PC & Linux. So if you’re looking for something other than Safari, give it a go!
Hulu Desktop: Functioning much like Front Row on the Mac, and Windows Media Center on the PC, this little app pulls in all the great content from Hulu. All the television shows you enjoy on the website, and all of the movies as well are available from this app. It’s also compatible with a PC Remote, or your Mac Remote, and like a lot of apps, also available on PC & Linux as well. You can share with this too, like MySpace, Digg, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, StumbleUpon, & Del.icio.us.
Slipcover: So, if you download movies, television series, games for your emulators, but aren’t satisfied with the default icon or preview, then grab Slipcover. For instance, say you have a copy of Watchmen on your computer, you can turn the preview picture into a case with the actual movie cover on it. But that’s not all, there’s support for all sorts of media, Blu-Ray, DVD, HD-DVD, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, XBox 360, and many more made by the community.
Transmission: Torrents are a wonderful thing are they not? And there’s a lot of choices out there for which application to use, for me there’s only one, and it’s Transmission. Out of all the other clients available, Transmission uses the least amount of system resources and is pretty compact as well. It also has the ability to use add-ons, and supports the use of Magnet links. If you’re looking for a good torrent search engine, I’d recommend Kick Ass Torrents.
WMV Player: Even on a Mac we still have to use some PC only files, one of which is WMV, the windows only movie file. This is still available by using the WMV Player by Flip4Mac, it does come with it’s own player but again I recommend just using QuickTime as it installs the necessary codecs to play WMV files.
