OSX Must have software list?

Hello!

Ordered my Mac Mini from Mac-Mall! Now comes the wait. tick, tick,
tick

Not having a Mac since my Quadra 840 AV I got as a wedding present in
the nineties I am curious what's a must have on your list of software
for OSX?

So far in my research I am looking at getting the stuff below. All the
open source stuff and proprietary software options in common
categories. Is there something you can't live with out? Any Utils that
I might need? I am trying to spread out over the spectrum of useful
progs that are reasonable in price and value.

I am totally comfortable with a Bash or C shell CLI and tweaking
Makefiles and compiler options is OK too. High end software like Final
Cut and Photoshop I probably won't need and can't afford.
Any substitutions or additions to my list below?

Commercial Software-----

ALSOFT's Disk Warrior (Utilities) < --- Is this much better than FSCK
or it's equivalent?

McAfee Virex <----- Good enough?


Open Source -------

Camino - Firefox

Thunderbird

OPEN Office <--- Anyone tried this for OSX is it stable?

PAN Newsreader

XPDF Open PDF Viewer - Adobe Reader

EasyTag Fillin Missing MP3 info

The GIMP Graphics proggie

GQView --Graphic viewer

Midnite Commander (File Manager)

Lime (MIDI sequencer)

Clutter (CD Icon gimmic)

POV Ray- (Ray Tracer)

Tinker Tool (Extra Prefs)

Thanks,

Slax

slax <slax@gmail.com> wrote:

<Snipped Text>

> I am totally comfortable with a Bash or C shell CLI and tweaking
> Makefiles and compiler options is OK too. High end software like Final
> Cut and Photoshop I probably won't need and can't afford.
> Any substitutions or additions to my list below?
>
> Commercial Software-----
>
> ALSOFT's Disk Warrior (Utilities) < --- Is this much better than FSCK
> or it's equivalent?

DW is a different ultility altogether, it rebuilds the disk directory
from scratch, fsck/Disk Utility only repair it. It's worth having.

You might also want to check TechTool Pro, it also rebuilds the
directory as well as many other functions too. A lot of which aren't
done in fsck.

> McAfee Virex <----- Good enough?

Yes, although I prefer Intego Virus Barrier myself.

>
> Open Source -------
>
> Camino - Firefox
>
> Thunderbird

Absolutely. FireFox and Thunderbird are now my default apps.

> OPEN Office <--- Anyone tried this for OSX is it stable?

It's OK, although there is a standalone version, NeoOffice that runs in
Aqua - http://www.neooffice.org/

> PAN Newsreader

Yes, very good.

> XPDF Open PDF Viewer - Adobe Reader
>
> EasyTag Fillin Missing MP3 info
>
> The GIMP Graphics proggie

Not bad, although a bit slow - even on a G5 dual.

> GQView --Graphic viewer
>
> Midnite Commander (File Manager)
>
> Lime (MIDI sequencer)
>
> Clutter (CD Icon gimmic)
>
> POV Ray- (Ray Tracer)

Never use any of that myself.

> Tinker Tool (Extra Prefs)

It's OK.

Also get Macaroni and Onyx. If you do graphics then Graphic Converter is
also pretty essential too.

--
Andy Hewitt ** FAF#1, (Ex-OSOS#5) - FJ1200 ABS
Honda Civic: Windows free zone (Mac G5 Dual Processor)
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk...itts2/index.htm
(updated Feb 21 2005)

In article <1gtdlct.eie1uz1fspvyhN%hairy.biker@spamcop.net>,
hairy.biker@spamcop.net (Andy Hewitt) wrote:

> Lime (MIDI sequencer)

And notation. $65 shareware for a nicely-done effort. But to compare midi,
notation output and price, check out Score Writer, a $49 download. Demo at
www.geniesoft.com

--
John Rethorst
jrethorst at post dot com

In article <o0t831l0jutdt0ko9u0i83iatuvvobr21n@4ax.com>,
slax <slax@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> Ordered my Mac Mini from Mac-Mall! Now comes the wait. tick, tick,
> tick
>
> Not having a Mac since my Quadra 840 AV I got as a wedding present in
> the nineties I am curious what's a must have on your list of software
> for OSX?
>
> So far in my research I am looking at getting the stuff below. All the
> open source stuff and proprietary software options in common
> categories. Is there something you can't live with out? Any Utils that
> I might need? I am trying to spread out over the spectrum of useful
> progs that are reasonable in price and value.
>
> I am totally comfortable with a Bash or C shell CLI and tweaking
> Makefiles and compiler options is OK too. High end software like Final
> Cut and Photoshop I probably won't need and can't afford.
> Any substitutions or additions to my list below?
>
> Commercial Software-----
>
> ALSOFT's Disk Warrior (Utilities) < --- Is this much better than FSCK
> or it's equivalent?

Serves a different purpose. It's certainly on my must-have list.


> McAfee Virex <----- Good enough?

For what? There's no active virus/malware threat for Mac OS X right now.
As a result, the primary impact of AV software is to slow down your
machine and introduce a point of instability. The most legit reason to
run anti-viral software on the Mac _today_ is that you're subject to
some authority that requires the machine you use to have such software.
(Which, in fact, is my situation.)

> The GIMP Graphics proggie

I would get GraphicConverter. In fact, I maintain 3 licenses to it.


> Clutter (CD Icon gimmic)

I might humbly suggest the freeware DockArt I released a few days ago as
well. Replaces the iTunes icon in the dock with the cover art for the
current track. Does not do online lookup/retrieval, though. It just uses
any image already present in the file

G

--
There's nothing quite like the joy of first hearing an Alvin & the Chipmunks
cover of Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut." "Not Now John" is especially sublime.

slax wrote:
> Hello!
>
> Ordered my Mac Mini from Mac-Mall! Now comes the wait. tick, tick,
> tick
>
.....
>
> Commercial Software-----
>
> McAfee Virex <----- Good enough?
for what ? you don't need them, they don't need your money.
>
>
> Open Source -------
>
> Camino - Firefox
>
> Thunderbird
Firefox and thunderbird work fine
>
> OPEN Office <--- Anyone tried this for OSX is it stable?
>
As good as on other platforms. You can try Rag Time Solo
(http://www.ragtime-online.com), it's free for personnal use.
>
> XPDF Open PDF Viewer - Adobe Reader
Apercu is very good. For some documents, I need XPDF or Acrobat Reader 7.
>
>
> Midnite Commander (File Manager)
works better with iTerm (http://iterm.sourceforge.net) than Apple's
Terminal.app.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Slax

Bernard.

In article <o0t831l0jutdt0ko9u0i83iatuvvobr21n@4ax.com>,
slax <slax@gmail.com> wrote:

> Commercial Software-----
>
> ALSOFT's Disk Warrior (Utilities) < --- Is this much better than FSCK
> or it's equivalent?

I can't speak to that, but it's damn good.


> McAfee Virex <----- Good enough?

It's probably good for scanning attachments coming from a Windows box,
but there's not yet been a detected virus/worm on MacOS X.


> Open Source -------
>
> Camino - Firefox

I like Firefox, but mainly only use it at work. I usually use Safari on
the Mac, which comes with recent versions of MacOS X.


> OPEN Office <--- Anyone tried this for OSX is it stable?

I understand it's gotten better. Dunno if it's usable. I use Word.


> PAN Newsreader

Haven't seen this. I use MT-Newswatcher.


> XPDF Open PDF Viewer - Adobe Reader

A PDF viewer comes with the OS.


> EasyTag Fillin Missing MP3 info

I'm not familiar with this one. I use iTunes for this, most of the
time, and MP3 Rage for the rest. I see that MP3 Rage has been
supplanted by something called Media Rage, but I'm not familiar with
that.

I'm not familiar with the rest of your list.

--
"It is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the
sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all." Hitchiker's
Guide to the Galaxy on the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. Does that seem
familiar to anything on THIS planet at THIS time?

In article <o0t831l0jutdt0ko9u0i83iatuvvobr21n@4ax.com>,
slax <slax@gmail.com> wrote:

> McAfee Virex <----- Good enough?

Fugeddaboudit

> Camino - Firefox
>
> Thunderbird

They are all good, as are Mail.app and Safari which come with the OS.
>
> PAN Newsreader

MT-Newswatcher

>
> XPDF Open PDF Viewer - Adobe Reader

"Preview" that comes with the OS is better than Acrobat for reading and
searching .pdf files (it is faster) and the system can convert to .pdf
via the print dialog.
>
> The GIMP Graphics proggie
>
> GQView --Graphic viewer

First get Graphic Converter.

m-m

In article
<nospam-F3FFF8.20054813032005@netaxs.com.client.newsread.c om>,
M-M <nospam@ny.more> wrote:

> In article <o0t831l0jutdt0ko9u0i83iatuvvobr21n@4ax.com>,
> slax <slax@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > McAfee Virex <----- Good enough?
>
Why waste the cash? There are no OS X viruses.

> Fugeddaboudit
>
> > Camino - Firefox
> >
> > Thunderbird
>
> They are all good, as are Mail.app and Safari which come with the OS.

I use Firefox on XP but prefer Safari and Mail on my PowerBook.

> > XPDF Open PDF Viewer - Adobe Reader
>

slax wrote:
> Hello!
>
> Ordered my Mac Mini from Mac-Mall! Now comes the wait. tick, tick,
> tick
>
> Not having a Mac since my Quadra 840 AV I got as a wedding present in
> the nineties I am curious what's a must have on your list of software
> for OSX?
>
> So far in my research I am looking at getting the stuff below. All the
> open source stuff and proprietary software options in common
> categories. Is there something you can't live with out? Any Utils that
> I might need? I am trying to spread out over the spectrum of useful
> progs that are reasonable in price and value.
>
> I am totally comfortable with a Bash or C shell CLI and tweaking
> Makefiles and compiler options is OK too. High end software like Final
> Cut and Photoshop I probably won't need and can't afford.
> Any substitutions or additions to my list below?
>
> Commercial Software-----
>
> ALSOFT's Disk Warrior (Utilities) < --- Is this much better than FSCK
> or it's equivalent?
>
> McAfee Virex <----- Good enough?

this is crap -
get Intego Virus barrier instead.

Virex (os9) wouls scan 20g of files in 5 or 10 minutes, Virex (OSX)
takes 6 or 7 hours for the same disk!

no ability to schedule auto update

slax wrote:

> Hello!
>
>
> Open Source -------
>
> Camino - Firefox
>
> Thunderbird
>
> OPEN Office <--- Anyone tried this for OSX is it stable?

I've had success with it when reading Word and PPT files which
come my way, though for PPT I find Apple's Keynote excellent. The
only time I've seen it hiccup was when it couldn't display some
bullets correctly - easy enough to fix.

Keynote comes as part of iWork at a very reasonable price.

Other bought stuff which makes my life easier:

Quicktime Pro
Toast
iLife (bought mainly to get an upgrade for iPhoto, but the extras are nice)

Paul Sture wrote:
> slax wrote:
>
>> Hello!
>>
>>
>> Open Source -------
>>
>> Camino - Firefox
>>
>> Thunderbird
>> OPEN Office <--- Anyone tried this for OSX is it stable?
>
>
> I've had success with it when reading Word and PPT files which
> come my way, though for PPT I find Apple's Keynote excellent. The
> only time I've seen it hiccup was when it couldn't display some
> bullets correctly - easy enough to fix.
>
> Keynote comes as part of iWork at a very reasonable price.
>
> Other bought stuff which makes my life easier:
>
> Quicktime Pro
> Toast
> iLife (bought mainly to get an upgrade for iPhoto, but the extras are nice)

Quickeys

In <o0t831l0jutdt0ko9u0i83iatuvvobr21n@4ax.com>, slax wrote:
> ALSOFT's Disk Warrior (Utilities) < --- Is this much better than FSCK
> or it's equivalent?

Yes; it's much, much better, and highly recommended.

> McAfee Virex <----- Good enough?

You don't need antivirus software for the Mac; there are, at this point
in time, exactly zero viruses that can infect or affect OS X. Spending
money to buy an antivirus program is about like spending money to
protect your computer from vampires or rabid unicorns; you are spending
real money to protect against a threat that does not exist.

--
Art, shareware, photography, polyamory, kink:
http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

Here are a few more. Most of these are available through versiontracker.

*** Freeware

CarbonCopyCloner--easy way to make bootable backups in X

EasyFind or Locator--better find utilities

GUI Tar--nifty replacement for DropStuff and StuffIt Expander

KoalaCalc--better than Apple's calcualtor

Memory Stick--nice memory utilization app from Matt Neuberg, a frequent
and knowledgeable poster tho this forum

NeoOffice/J--the Java incarnation of OOo; handles fonts better than OOo,
though, if Appleworks is included w/ the Mini, you might want to just use that

PandoCalendar--nice calendar with notes and alarms; author's Sunday bible
thumping is annoying, but easily ignored

TextWrangler or BBEdit lite--for getting a 'raw' look at text files when
necessary

VLC--great alternative to Windows Media Player if you want to listen to
..wma files

*** Shareware ($10-$30 each)

FileXaminer--easy way to alter permissions and do other maintenance w/o
the terminal

PopChar X--easy selection of oddball characters

SuperDuper!--CarbonCopyCloner and a lot more


hth,

--Fred

Oops, I forgot FruitMenu. If you used FinderPop pre-X, it's essential. $10

In article <o0t831l0jutdt0ko9u0i83iatuvvobr21n@4ax.com>,
slax <slax@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> Ordered my Mac Mini from Mac-Mall! Now comes the wait. tick, tick,
> tick
>
> Not having a Mac since my Quadra 840 AV I got as a wedding present in
> the nineties I am curious what's a must have on your list of software
> for OSX?
>

OK, my list :-)


Onyx
Graphic Converter
Macaroni
Firefox
Thunderbird
NeoOffice

VLC (videolan controller)

Audacity: a free audio editing tool similar to Sound Studio.

ffmpegX -- gui for ffmpeg.

JackPilot -- incredibly cool tool to rerout audio ins and outs among
different software apps and hardware ports.

SoundFlower -- more of JackPilot stuff.

Detour : quick and simple way to route all audio outputs to different
ports.

WireTap (or other RogueAmoeba tools) -- grab any audio stream and record
it.

TextWrangler: basically a souped-up BBEditLite (by the same company).
Excellent when writing code or text documents.

Ipod Rip and Ipod Backup. Two nice tools to get songs and/or data on
and off your iPod.

Pacifist: a must-have. It's the same as TomeViewer was for OS9.

Now some system enhancers you cannot do without:

Default Folder -- enhances Open and Save dialog boxes

Ittec -- puts heirarchical menus in contextual menus and a lot of other
places. Saves you an incredible amount of time otherwise wasted opening
folder trees.

More Internet -- assign all sorts of default actions.
Services -- turn on various applications' ability to appear in the
Finder/Services submenu.




Finally: it's worth running ClamXav. Not because there are OS X
viruses, but because it'll find Win viruses in your email or news files,
so you can avoid passing them along by accident. Plus it's free :-)

On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 17:12:18 -0500, Carl Witthoft <carl@witthoft.com>
wrote:

>In article <o0t831l0jutdt0ko9u0i83iatuvvobr21n@4ax.com>,
> slax <slax@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello!
>>
>> Ordered my Mac Mini from Mac-Mall! Now comes the wait. tick, tick,
>> tick
>>
>> Not having a Mac since my Quadra 840 AV I got as a wedding present in
>> the nineties I am curious what's a must have on your list of software
>> for OSX?
>>
>
>OK, my list :-)
>
>
>Onyx
>Graphic Converter
>Macaroni
>Firefox
>Thunderbird
>NeoOffice
>
>VLC (videolan controller)
>
>Audacity: a free audio editing tool similar to Sound Studio.
>
>ffmpegX -- gui for ffmpeg.
>
>JackPilot -- incredibly cool tool to rerout audio ins and outs among
>different software apps and hardware ports.
>
>SoundFlower -- more of JackPilot stuff.
>
>Detour : quick and simple way to route all audio outputs to different
>ports.
>
>WireTap (or other RogueAmoeba tools) -- grab any audio stream and record
>it.
>
>TextWrangler: basically a souped-up BBEditLite (by the same company).
>Excellent when writing code or text documents.
>
>Ipod Rip and Ipod Backup. Two nice tools to get songs and/or data on
>and off your iPod.
>
>Pacifist: a must-have. It's the same as TomeViewer was for OS9.
>
>Now some system enhancers you cannot do without:
>
>Default Folder -- enhances Open and Save dialog boxes
>
>Ittec -- puts heirarchical menus in contextual menus and a lot of other
>places. Saves you an incredible amount of time otherwise wasted opening
>folder trees.
>
>More Internet -- assign all sorts of default actions.
>Services -- turn on various applications' ability to appear in the
>Finder/Services submenu.
>
>
>
>
>Finally: it's worth running ClamXav. Not because there are OS X
>viruses, but because it'll find Win viruses in your email or news files,
>so you can avoid passing them along by accident. Plus it's free :-)

Thanks for the input and all the friendly advice from everyone.
I made a list with all the great software recommendations.

Slax

Fetch, Rover, Fetch wrote:


>
> Quickeys

Thanks for that tip, but I am torn. I love automation, but at the same
time don't want to get so dependant on it that I forget how to do it all
from basics.

Dilemmas eh?

In article <o0t831l0jutdt0ko9u0i83iatuvvobr21n@4ax.com>,
slax <slax@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> Ordered my Mac Mini from Mac-Mall! Now comes the wait. tick, tick,
> tick
>
> Not having a Mac since my Quadra 840 AV I got as a wedding present in
> the nineties I am curious what's a must have on your list of software
> for OSX?
>
> So far in my research I am looking at getting the stuff below. All the
> open source stuff and proprietary software options in common
> categories. Is there something you can't live with out? Any Utils that
> I might need? I am trying to spread out over the spectrum of useful
> progs that are reasonable in price and value.
>
> I am totally comfortable with a Bash or C shell CLI and tweaking
> Makefiles and compiler options is OK too. High end software like Final
> Cut and Photoshop I probably won't need and can't afford.
> Any substitutions or additions to my list below?
>
> Commercial Software-----
>
> ALSOFT's Disk Warrior (Utilities) < --- Is this much better than FSCK
> or it's equivalent?

A good program. Much different from fsck, in that it actually examines
the contents of the entire drive and builds a new directory structure,
rather than simply attempting to patch up the existing directory
structure.

OS X is very stable though, and has a pretty reliable journaling file
system, so the need for such a repair utility is becoming questionable.
If you're concerned about the safety of your data, you might be better
off putting that money toward an external FireWire drive for backups.

> McAfee Virex <----- Good enough?

Virex will catch every known OS X virus. Of course, there are no known
OS X viruses.

What I'm saying is, don't bother. If anyone ever actually bothers to
release an OS X virus, you'll hear about it, and maybe you should
consider buying something then. Although, someone will probably release
a free utility to deal with the problem -- that's what happened the last
time the platform had a virus going around, six or seven years ago....

> Open Source -------
>
> Camino - Firefox

Both good, but give Safari a shot, it's also very nice.

> Thunderbird

Apple's included mail program is quite good. I'm on a couple of
high-volume mailing lists, and it handles those just fine. It looks like
the version Apple will be including with Tiger will be even better.

> OPEN Office <--- Anyone tried this for OSX is it stable?

It's an X11 app, which is rather jarring in the OS X environment. If you
need a full-featured word processor, MS Word is still the best option on
the platform. But Pages, included in Apple's iWork package, is a very
nice alternative if you don't need all the bells and whistles (I'm using
it for most of my word processing these days), and Keynote, also
included with iWork, is IMO, much better than PowerPoint.

> PAN Newsreader

Take a look at MT-NewsWatcher: http://www.smfr.org/mtnw/

> XPDF Open PDF Viewer - Adobe Reader

Or just use Apple's included Preview program. It has some trouble with a
few PDFs that Adobe Reader handles fine, but it's *much* faster,
particularly for searching.

Here are some other suggestions:

P2P: http://www.acquisitionx.com/
(Shareware)

RSS: http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/
(There's a free version and a shareware version)

IM: http://fire.sourceforge.net/
(Free)

Thesaurus/Dictionary: http://www.nisus.com/Thesaurus/
(Free)

Collaborate text editing: http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/
(Shareware)

The best text editor anywhere: http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/
(But seriously not cheap)

Great for e-book reading: http://homepage.mac.com/asagoo/tofu/
(Free)

Weather for your menu bar: http://heat-meteo.sourceforge.net/
(Free)

A great GUI for Snort: http://seiryu.home.comcast.net/henwen.html
Not really a typical desktop item, but I thought I'd toss it in anyway.
(Free)

[snip]

--
"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply
ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table."
-- George W. Bush in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 22, 2005