Here’s a quick and neatly annotated compendium of 20 of the best Macintosh graphics, game, utility, productivity, video, browser, iTunes add-ons and Internet applications available. Most of these of products are free or offer free demos, plus there’re tons of links to Blorge’s huge review and best of libraries.
Graphics editors, utilities
GIMP 2.6
The open-source community’s answer to Photoshop
Another 85 percent solution for the budget minded Mac user
iCollage
Smart Mac Photo Editing Software helps you to make Scrapbook on Mac, make Card on Mac, make Wallpaper, CD Cover, Wallet Photo and Comic on Mac.
Productivity software
iWork
iWork is 95 percent solution with a free, 30-day trial
Excellent OS X + iLife + cloud integration
I’ve stopped using MS Office, choosing to use iWork, NeoOffice instead
ThinkFree Office
Windows, Linux and (PPC, Intel) Mac compatible productivity suite
Designed for the road warrior with cloud storage/sharing tie ins
Microsoft Office 2008
No, MS Office is definitely not free ($149.95 and up), though there’s a 30-day trial and it’s hard to beat the market leader for compatibility.
Mac utilities
1Password
Snow Leopard compatible, demo available
iPhone, iPod touch
version available
Roxio Toast 10
This optical disk burning and video content repurposing (i.e. VIDEO_TS to iPod) tool owns the market because it’s the best
Creamy smooth point and click goodness found throughout this powerful app
Video
VLC Player
The video codec Swiss Army knife will playback just about any and all video formats, and is necessary companion for Handbrake and Fairmount DVD (below)
Handbrake
A DVD ripper able to create just about any format except VIDEO_TS, requires VLC Player’s codecs to function
Mac DVD Ripper
The best Mac DVD Ripper to copy DVD to computer and rip DVD on Mac OS.
MacTheRipper 3
All purpose DVD ripper that does output VIDEO_TS folders. Can handle most of the encryption methods used by the movie studios
Games
QuakeLive
A real, full-featured first-person shooter with online team play
Civilization IV
For my money, still the best turn based real-time strategy game ever
Expansion packs, rabid user community, add-ons galore
Browsers
Safari 4
Super fast, great new features (TopSites, Cover Flow, etc) and the creamy smooth goodness that only comes from Apple
Firefox 3.5
It’s relatively fast and quite compatible, but the big attractions are add-ons and plugins; do it all
Check out the thousands of available add-ons for Firefox
More internet goodness
Thunderbird 2
Mozilla’s stand-alone email client, probably the best app for creating and editing .html email
Transmisions
Not the fanciest BitTorrent client available, but well featured and rock-solid stable
iTunes visualizers, add-ons
Ultragroovalicious
With its unique eye melting OpenGL 3D effects, Ultragroovalicious explodes the Mac OS X visualizer scene with fresh new styles unlike any before. Psychadelic imagery from math magic reacting to your music
Dr Glitter Music Visualizer
Explore the finest fractals and spirals with Dr Glitter, the ultimate fractal visualizer for iTunes
|
