Cooler than the coolest cool?

September 27, 2004 7:17 PM

What are the best free cool programs for a mac running OSX?
posted by adrober to Computers & Internet (21 answers total)

Notational Velocity is the coolest.
posted by dobbs at 7:18 PM on September 27, 2004 [1 favorite]

SubEthaEdit
Smultron
Paparazzi
Adium
SlimBattery
FuzzyClock

Notational Velocity, as dobbs suggested and without a doubt, Quicksilver. Must. Have.

A canonical list of canoncial lists is available at 43folders. Not all apps are free, but many are definitely worth a looksee. It's a great site to follow too.
posted by pedantic at 7:45 PM on September 27, 2004

Quicksilver. Personally, I could never bond with Notational Velocity.
posted by anathema at 7:47 PM on September 27, 2004

Quicksilver is the coolest. [I knew before I hit preview that I couldn't possibly be the first one to mention it]

I prefer VoodooPad Lite to Notational Velocity for my note-taking, but, hey, I'm a wiki freak, so don't trust me.

MenuMeters and uControl also rock.
posted by boaz at 7:49 PM on September 27, 2004

My bad: I forgot SideTrack (if you've got a PowerBook or iBook).
posted by pedantic at 8:04 PM on September 27, 2004

Fourth vote for Quicksilver.
posted by Remy at 8:13 PM on September 27, 2004

This thread was a goldmine for me when I bought a Mac.

Also: Notational Velocity.
posted by majick at 8:25 PM on September 27, 2004

Mail.appetizer is always neat.
posted by nathan_teske at 8:26 PM on September 27, 2004

net news wire
acquisition
anything by Omnigroup
oh, and that Quicksilver thing.

on preview mail.appetizer is great. been using it for only a couple of days...
posted by grimley at 8:27 PM on September 27, 2004

Also, this thread has lots of gems.
posted by majick at 8:30 PM on September 27, 2004

Also,

• RBrowser Lite - ftp client
• Fugu - sftp/scp client
• NetNewsWire Lite - Still the best RSS reader IMHO, well not including NetNewsWire. ;)
• VLC - Video player that plays darn near anything.
• Desktop Manager - Multiple desktops w/ pager ala X Windows. Tons of options.
• WinSwitch - user switching doodad for Panther that uses an icon rather than your full name.
• AppKido - Cocoa doc browser
• Aqualess - less replacement that launches separate viewer app
• Eclipse - ridiculously extensible Java IDE
• CocoaBooklet - makes booklets out of any print job
• MailEnhancer - A plugin for Mail.app. The only feature I use is to make it display number of unread mails in all mailboxes instead of just the inbox, but it does a couple of other things too

posted by boaz at 8:39 PM on September 27, 2004

Another vote for Quicksilver, but I also would suggest reading this introduction to the program. I had it installed for two months before I read that and figured out what the fuss was all about.
posted by revgeorge at 8:42 PM on September 27, 2004

Response by poster: Thanks guys, these are really cool... I knew I asked the right crowd :)
posted by adrober at 8:58 PM on September 27, 2004

Safari Enhancer which, among other things, can kill the omnipresent brushed chrome. SnapNDrag for easy, targeted screenshots. MacJournal for personal (offline) journal keeping. Fugu for SFTP. Sizzling Keys gives user-defined hotkey control to iTunes. Brickhouse to put a simpler interface onto OSX's integral firewall. Wiretap which captures audio from streams or any other source (good for making your own system sounds from CDs, DVDs, etc.). Escape Pod which allows for easy zapping of an app or GUI interface item that's hanging. MacJanitor to keep things tidy. WeatherPop sits in your menu bar and provides the temperature and weather condition. The freeware version is very adequate, the full featured version is only $8.
posted by Dreama at 9:07 PM on September 27, 2004

I second Wiretap. I noticed that under Windows, it's much harder to find a program like this, and many include spyware.
posted by inksyndicate at 9:43 PM on September 27, 2004

Also, the October 2004 issue of MacAddict is all about the best shareware apps.
posted by invisible ink at 9:53 PM on September 27, 2004

Meteorologist is a WeatherPop-alike and completely free. Downside: it scrapes weather.com, which is usually wrong.
posted by majick at 10:12 PM on September 27, 2004

I second Wiretap. I noticed that under Windows, it's much harder to find a program like this, and many include spyware.

There's a program called MP3DirectCut that does the same thing (except to MP3 format). It's about a 100KB download, totally free, no spyware. I wish it had a (free) equivalent on OS X.. I still go back to my PC to use it. A full MP3 editing program in 100KB is magic in my eyes.
posted by wackybrit at 12:12 AM on September 28, 2004

PDF Browser Plug-In and Word Browser Plug-In.
posted by anathema at 4:05 AM on September 28, 2004

revgeorge - thanks for the link, it's always good to know people are still using the tutorial.

Also forgot to mention in my last post:
fiwt - Safari hack for find-as-you-type. Life saver.
Teleport - rendezvous-based virtual kvm. A little buggy but works well enough.

And if you're running servers, ditch Apple's Apache install and use the packages from Server Logistics.
posted by Remy at 11:54 AM on September 28, 2004

Nobody mentioned konfabulator!
posted by ook at 7:58 AM on October 3, 2004