Which OS X Applications do you find indispensable?

Question

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inquestion:this Evernote

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1. Limit to one application per answer.

2. Add a short description of the application.

3. Add a link to the website in the name of the application if possible (no direct downloads).

4. Use ## [appName](link) for citing the application name.

5. Only Mac OS X (not iOS, OS 9, compatible, etc) applications. All versions of OS X are accepted, but if the application requires a specific version please note.

Answer 1

VideoMonkey

This is an open source replacement for VisualHub. It's free and lets you do all kinds of mass video conversions as well as auto-tagging your video with tv show / movie metadata.

Answer 2

Zooom/2

Zooom/2 is a Mac desktop utility that redefines how you can resize, move and align your application windows - making you faster and more productive.

On many X-based desktops (such as KDE and Gnome) you can resize windows from any side, move windows by clicking anywhere on the window, and switch windows simply by pointing your mouse. Zooom/2 brings the same functionality to Mac, and I can no longer live without it. For example, in my configuration I hold Shift-⌘ and click anywhere in a window to move it. No more hunting for the menu bar or the resize corner!

Answer 3

Clyppan

This is a really good clipboard manager.

Answer 4

Minuteur

Quick and easy to use timer. It's programmable, so you can do (10+2)*5 or the Pomodoro technique on repeating intervals.

The App is localized into English, but the linked webpage is French. The MacUpdate page is in English.

Answer 5

Final Cut Express, a discontinued video-editing software made by Apple. Final Cut Express is one step above iMovie, with up to 99 video tracks, 99 audio tracks, and 12 compositing modes. My favorite features of FCE are Chroma Key, Color Correction, and Livetype, which comes with Final Cut Express.

Answer 6

DragThing

is a utility that provides an alternative to the Dock. It is tremendously flexible and customizable in letting you design your own way to organize application launchers.

Let me be frank; I've been using a Mac every day since 1987. I cannot live without DragThing because I could never get used to using the Dock, which appeared with the first Mac OS X circa 2000 (and I was using developer builds of Mac OS X before the first version went public). While you can configure DragThing to perform many functions, what I use it for is to provide an application menu and an application launcher that behave the same way they did in Apple Macintosh System 7 through Mac OS 9. That's the way I want it.

Answer 7

SecondBar (Free)

SecondBar adds a second menu bar to your secondary monitor. Although there are a few bugs, it's a great little application.

Answer 8

Alarms

Alarms app is the reminder system you never knew your Mac was missing. Just drag the items you want to be reminded of to the Alarms menu and place them on the time line.

Answer 9

Warp

From the website:

Warp is a preference pane that allows you to use the mouse to switch between Spaces rather than using the keyboard.

Warp offers the ability to display a live preview of a space when you move the mouse to the edge of the screen, allowing you to see what you have on another space before actually switching to it. Clicking the preview will then warp you to that space.

Answer 10

Keyboard Maestro

An indispensable macro tool. Trigger a macro based on a hotkey (overriding the frontmost app if appropriate), typed strings (a la TextExpander, the status of an app, the system waking or your logging in, at certain times or dates, etc.

A macro can do pretty much anything you can do manually -- manage apps, choose menu items, click on windows or dialog boxes or whatever, display text or Growl or other notifications, etc. -- including running scripts. Macros can also include flow control (if, while, etc.) for less straightforward tasks (e.g. in Photoshop CmdDelete deletes the current layer if a layer is selected or the current group of layers if a group is selected).

One great use is unifying commands across apps, e.g. have Cmd- zoom out and Cmd= zoom in for every app that supports the concept rather than having to remember how, say, OmniGraffle does it vs Photoshop vs Numbers.

Keyboard Maestro enables you to create or record custom macro shortcuts that you can activate at any time. For example, your macros could help you navigate runnings applications or work with an unlimited number of clipboards. Best of all, every macro you create is available using simple keystrokes you choose.

Answer 11

Final Cut Express

I am so amazed no one has mentioned this!
The best video editor for the price. Unfortunately Apple has abandoned FCE to go on to FCPX. I couldn't live without FCE!

Answer 12

Boom

• provides a system-wide equalizer
• boost the overall volume of your computer
• boost volume of specific audio files
• fast access via menu icon

Answer 13

Sophos Anti-Virus Mac Home Edition

Free commercial AV software.

• Fast signature updates
• Low cpu usage
• Live scan
• Define custom scan scopes
• Define action upon treat alert (log only, cleanup, move threat, delete threat)

Answer 14

Growl Extras - Hardware Growler, Growl Mail,...

HardwareGrowler

Find out when a hardware status changes on the Mac.

Growl Mail

Notifications for incoming mail.

Answer 15

 MarcoPolo

MarcoPolo brings context-aware computing to your Mac! It allows your computer to determine its context through gathering evidence from your environment (evidence sources), using flexible rule-based fuzzy matching to make an educated guess (rules), and then performing arbitrary actions upon changing context (actions).

I use MarcoPolo to run scripts (actions) when I arrive at work, as determined by WiFi hotspots detected or IP addresses assigned (context).

Answer 16

ControlPlane

ControlPlane supports multiple contexts where a context is defined as a location or activity you are performing. Using evidence sources you can create a set of rules that tell ControlPlane what context to apply to your environment. When ControlPlane enters or leaves a context a set of Actions are performed.

In other words: it will turn off screen saver protection when You arrive home and turn it back when You leave. And so much more.

Answer 17

Simple Comic

Simple Comic is the most intuitive comic reader on the Mac. Its clean interface gives you full control of your viewing experience without getting in the way. Reading comics on a computer has never been easier.

A great program for looking any any set of archived images.

Answer 18

Yep

• I scan all my documents to PDF and use Yep to track & find them.
• No filing! Everything goes to a single target folder, Yep takes care of it.
• Tag documents
• Automatically finds all PDF, iWorks, Office, et.al. documents anywhere on your hard drive.
• Does not use a database like some similar apps. So I can access documents via finder; move, copy, delete, etc. easily.
• In conjunction with a Fujitsu Scan Snap scanner Yep is a dream to use.

Answer 19

EVE

From website:

EVE helps you to learn shortcuts, in order to increase your productivity with MAC OS X. Every time you execute an action using the mouse, EVE will show you the matching shortcut.

Great application! I use it with Cheatsheet.

Answer 20

ScreenFlow

With ScreenFlow you can record the contents of your entire monitor while also capturing your video camera, microphone and your computer audio. The easy-to-use editing interface lets you creatively edit your video, and add additional images, text, music and transitions for a truly professional-looking video. The finished result is a QuickTime or Windows Media movie, ready for publishing to your Web site or blog or directly to YouTube or Vimeo.

Answer 21

Bark

From their site:

Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Bark intelligently brings
notifications from Growl into Notification Center under OS X Mountain Lion.

Much like Hiss, Bark forwards your Growl notifications to Notification Center in Mountain Lion. The catch though is it forwards them not as "Growl Notifications", but as notifications from the actual app that sent them, making the experience totally seamless.

Screenshots might make it more clear. I reckon Bowtie and Coda 2 don't support Notification Center natively, but with Bark this is what you get:

And on notification center they look like this:

Correct icons, correct grouping, the plugin is completely free and works with the newer versions of Growl (App Store versions)... definitely worth checking out!

PS: Coda 2.0.3 I think now supports Notification Center natively, but you get the idea...

Answer 22

CCleaner

One of best cleaning utility.

CCleaner is the no. 1 cleaning utility for Windows PC. In Mac it does the same function, cleaning temp files, cookies, cache etc. for making more space available. The tools section provides utilities to uninstall an application, change startup option, erase free space and manage permissions.

Answer 23

Vienna

Viennna is a free open source RSS/Atom reader. Very flexible and version 3 will have Google Reader support.

Answer 24

Tweetbot for Mac

Though relatively new. Tweetbot for Mac is bringing the same innovation to the Mac platform that it's had established on iOS for a while now.

Answer 25

Hyperspaces

Set names and separate background pictures for different spaces. Really helps me focus on one specific project at a time and helps me avoid tangents.

Answer 26

switchDiskSizeBase

In Mac OS 10.6 disk and file sizes are measured in base 10 (one kilobyte is defined as 1000 bytes, one megabyte is defined as 1000 kilobytes, etc.) in Finder and Disk Utility. Unfortunately this has created a lot of inconsistency even when working with Apple’s own programs since most of them still define file sizes in binary units (one kilobyte is defined as 1024 bytes, one megabyte is defined as 1024 kilobytes, etc.). This utility will switch the measurement of disk and file sizes in both Finder and Disk Utility back to binary units (or if the measurement has already been switched to binary units it will restore the system back to using base 10 units).

After the switch in Snow Leopard I never could get used to read file sizes in Finder with base-10. This application patches the Foundation framework in order to get back base-2 units. I can now again compare disk space and file sizes with other operating systems or output from shell tools.

Answer 27

Podworks

I recently referred to the app in this thread. If you own both a Mac and an iPhone or iPod, this application is a must-have.

Podworks works around iTunes to allow transfer of media to/from Mac and iOS devices.

Answer 28

iMote

I use it mostly to rate songs and get Growl to display the currently playing song. From the website:

iMote is a simple, elegant, and lightweight program for controlling iTunes from just about any application. Play/pause, change tracks, select playlists, adjust volume, rate tracks, and more using fully customizable hot-keys or a universal menu bar item. iMote includes a beautiful iPod-esque floating window, indicating current track information, and Growl support if you want an even more streamlined experience with your other Growl-enabled applications. Written using Cocoa, iMote is lean and mean, consuming minimal system memory and CPU time. iMote is the original iTunes controller.

Answer 29

Pow

Pow is a zero-config Rack server for Mac OS X. Have it serving your apps locally in under a minute.

Simple to use and indispensable if you are doing any kind of Rails/Sinatra/Rack development

Answer 30

Vuze

Vuze, the most powerful bittorrent app on earth