Must have software for a Mac

Bryse Eayo

Well just got the Macbook and I'm just wondering what software I should be looking for.

Especially a word prorcessor and a bittorrent client.

Thanks alot.

supabeast

For simple stuff Apple’s TextEdit is actually a pretty capable word processor; for more complex stuff get Apple’s Pages or Microsoft Word. If you dig free/open-source software, check out Abiword.

Azureus is a great Bittorrent client for the Mac, especially now that they’ve cleaned out most of the bloat. If you don’t have much RAM or just like a simple client, get Transmission.

Video Lan Client is the best tool for watching video on the Mac. Quicktime eats up too many CPU cycles and outputs video that looks like dog shit run over twice; don’t use it if you don’t have to.

Bryse Eayo

Also another thing is i want to stream music from my windows desktop. What would be the Best method?

Shazkar Shadowstorm

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=20888

KalTorak

Bryse Eayo wrote: »

Also another thing is i want to stream music from my windows desktop. What would be the Best method?

Putting iTunes on both computers and having them on the same network would probably be easiest.

Gafoto

My setup is:

Adium X - Chat Client
Colloquy - IRC (if needed)
Firefox
Thunderbird
Limewire - P2P
Azureues - Bittorrent
iTunes
Audacity - Music editing
VLC - Movie player
Microsoft Word
iPhoto
Adobe Photoshop

Fristle

What the previous posters have said, plus:

IGrabNews (Usenet)
MacPAR deLuxe (for the Usenet multi-part downloads)
KisMac (wardriving)
Slim Battery Monitor
MenuMeters
The Unarchiver
iRoster (neat utility to browse Bonjour-aware hosts on your LAN)
Connect360 (to serve media to an Xbox360)
Xbox360 controller driver (to play emulators!)
HandBrake (DVD auto-ripper)
gDisk (free online storage mapped as a drive, via a gmail account)
VirtueDesktops
iStat Pro or iStat Nano

Things to improve the Apple OSX built-in software:
Safari PithHelmet
Flickr Export or Picasa Web Albums export (for iPhoto)
Letterbox (Mail.app 3-column view)
Monolingual (deletes foreign language support, recovering a bunch disk space)

Lodbrok

Hm, anyone else having problems with Adium after the last upgrade? It hangs everytime after the computer wakes from sleep now... very annoying.

And also:

Smultron for great free text editing.
Neooffice is a mac-ified open office suit.
Seashore for picture editing. Not as many funtions as the Gimp but enough.
Xee for watching pictures.
Istumbler for looking at wireless networks.
Cyberduck is a nice FTP-client.
Mucommander is an ok twin-panel file manager if that is your thing.

Fallingman

Slightly OT... A while back, I decided to try and use Mail with my gMail account. This however, didnt really pan out, as gMail's "discussion" way of structuring replies into conversations played havoc and didnt really work. Have there been any improvements/plugins for this?

twmjr

Here's the apps I use and would recommend. Not all of them are free:

Adium -- Best multi-protocol chat client on any operating system ever. Supports a host of options including complete skinability. Lacks voice and video chatting right now, but I don't use these features and could easily open iChat if I needed to. [Free]

VLC Player -- The only video player you'll ever need. [Free]

AppZapper -- "The uninstaller Apple forgot." It's tagline is pretty self-explanatory. This handy little App works by Drag and Drop, and removes the extra files put in place by programs you want to remove. [$12.95]

Menuet -- An iTunes extender app. Provides global keystroke controls (fully configurable), built-in Last.fm updating, playlist updates via Growl, Art Collector and a host of other useful features. [$12.95]

Shapeshifter -- Allows for the change of OS X's appearance via Themes. Themes are contributed by the community, and do everything from subtle modifications to complete overhauls. [$20.00]

NeoOffice -- OpenOffice.org port for OS X. It's a bit slow, but it does everything I want it to. And best of all it's -- [Free]

Cyberduck -- Graphical FTP/SFTP client. Has a host of features including bookmarks, AppleScript integration etc. [Free]

UnrarX -- Graphical handler for .rar files. Very easy to use, definitely better than RARLabs CLI client. [Free]

Bon Echo -- Mac optimized FireFox browser. [Free]

Some useful links:

http://www.adiumxtras.com -- Addons for Adium including themes, scripts, icons etc.
http://www.maczot.com -- One-Deal-a-Day on Mac OS X software usually from indie developers.
http://macthemesforums.net -- Forums where community members submit icon packages, wallpapers, shapeshifter themes etc.

The_Glad_Hatter

Quicksilver; it's spotlight on steroids. it's a powerfull search engine that also allows you to do various actions
eg: i type "eye tiger" and it would bring up the song eye of the tiger, i then press tab, type "ema" and it't figure out that i'd want to email it to someone. i press tab again and type "joh" and it figures i want to email it to my friend john as an attachent. the entire proces takes 2 seconds and tadaa, you've got your email ready to go.
it can also copy stuff, upload stuff via transmit to an ftp....
APple needs to buy and integrate that shit asap...

Reckless

Does anybody know of any good "learn to play chess" style programs for Mac?