So I got a Solid State Drive for my computer this holiday season and wanted to do a completely fresh install of Snow Leopard since it’s been quite some time since the last time I did one of those. So instead of transferring the old data and apps over I downloaded everything and started from scratch. I was thinking ahead when I did this and wrote down the apps that I knew I’d have to install. The following is a list of apps that I couldn’t live without.
Also, the OCZ Vertex 2 is excellent. I’ve got a three year old macbook and it’s zippy again. This is easily the best thing you can do for a performance upgrade on any system.
Anyway, this list:
- Adobe CS5
As a creative professional, there’s no way I could live without this suite. I mean, I probably could, I just wouldn’t want to. Photoshop and Illustrator are my main tools, but I get my fair share of time in Premiere, After Effects, and the rest of the suite. A hidden gem in this pack is the media encoder. Gold. - Audacity
- BusyCal
Now with TaskSync this one of the really important things I use on my computer on days that I need to get stuff doen. If you use Google Calendar, and you should if you want an easy way to sync your calendar everywhere, BusyCal is the way to do it. TaskSync is a bonus and will even work with normal iCal. - Chicken of the VNC
I don’t use it all the time, but it seems to come through in those crazy situations where standard OSX VNC cannot. - Cloud
Seriously the easiest way to share anything I’ve ever seen. Dropbox is nice, and there are some Mac scripts if you want to do this stuff through your Dropbox public folder, but Cloud app has been awesome so far. - Coda
I’m wearing a Coda t-shirt right now if that says anything. For awhile I was back on the Textmate/Transmit bandwagon as my editor/ftp team, but Coda does it all. I’d love to see a version 2. - DropBox
Nothing I can put here that won’t be incredibly obvious at this point. If you’re a student, activate your edu email address for double referrals and up to 16GB storage. - Firefox
- Google Chrome
- GrowlTunes
Growls when a new song plays. Pro Tip: If you really like distractions, the music video is an awesome skin for this one. It’s actually not that distracting and all your friends will be amazed when song names are popping up music video style every time a new song plays. - iChat with Chax
I know adium is the Chat client I’m supposed to be using in OSX, but there’s something I just don’t like about it. If you haven’t seen Chax, it handles the couple of things that I wish iChat did out of the box. Growl support is the big one. - HardwareGrowler
Growls when I plug in hardware or mount a new dmg. That’s pretty much it. You can actually turn off the dock icon by editing the plist. - Kindle
- Last.fm
One of my favorite websites that I never go to. I’m seriously in love with stats and music and the combination is awesome. With almost 5 years of “scrobbles” it’s fun going through the stats that have been recorded. - Reeder
My new favorite way to read the news. I’ve always wanted a desktop application for reading my Google Reader feeds and it’s nice because it all stays in sync on the web. - Remote Desktop
- RightZoom
Even though I’ve been using a Mac for 2.5 years, I’m still not satisfied with the default action of the zoom (green) button. This fixes it. - Skype
- SuperDuper!
Awesome backup program, although it doesn’t really make a ton of sense for me anymore since I’m split across two different drives for my OS and files. - TextMate
The best text editor on the Mac. Period. - Textual
IRC Client. Customizable and all the functionality makes sense to me. Simple layout that’s not too over-the-top for an IRC client. - Transmission
- Transmit
Seriously the best FTP client I have ever used. I still wish they would turn it into a Finder extension because everything about it is awesome for managing files. - TotalFinder
Since Transmit is not actually a Finder extension, TotalFinder will have to do. It’s not half bad either. - Tweetie