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    Must-haves on a MAC?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by BlazingSkies, Apr 28, 2011.

  1. BlazingSkies

    BlazingSkies Notebook Consultant

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    What are the commercial/free software that is a must-have?

    I want the best!

    Thanks for the help
     
    BlazingSkies, Apr 28, 2011
    #1
  2. shriek11

    shriek11 Notebook Deity

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    sophos and smart sleep.
     
    shriek11, Apr 28, 2011
    #2
  3. Blinged Out

    Blinged Out Notebook Enthusiast

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    vlc player , u torrent, firefox
     
    Blinged Out, Apr 29, 2011
    #3
  4. CitizenPanda

    CitizenPanda Notebook Deity NBR Reviewer

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    Bettertouchtool for window snapping (Windows 7 like) and more gestures

    Growl for notifications

    Sparrow for Gmail

    Plex is good for media center/Netflix integration

    Dropbox is your cloud access point
     
    CitizenPanda, Apr 29, 2011
    #4
  5. shriek11

    shriek11 Notebook Deity

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    Funny thing that you get growl when you install dropbox.
     
    shriek11, Apr 29, 2011
    #5
  6. shriek11

    shriek11 Notebook Deity

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    Ban this poster NOW! ;)
     
    shriek11, Apr 29, 2011
    #6
  7. Malifiss

    Malifiss Notebook Guru

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    VLC - Media player

    Handbrake - Video ripper/encoder (uses the vlc engine to strip dvd encryption)

    Alfred - Launcher

    Burn - disc burning

    Bean - word processor

    Bowtie - iTunes addon, depending on theme can display cover art, track info and control itunes

    Carbon Copy Cloner - disk cloning software

    Cyberduck - FTP (as well as a ton of different connection methods)

    Evernote - cloud-based note app

    The Unarchiver - replacement for the built-in decompression program, supports a lot more file types

    Transmission - bittorrent client

    TrueCrypt - encryption app

    ---- All are free. Some are ad-supported (Evernote) but Evernote has a subscription option as well, that removes the ads.
     
    Malifiss, Apr 29, 2011
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  8. Malifiss

    Malifiss Notebook Guru

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    Oh...1password, perian, growl, hazel, cocktail, delicious library, kismac, knox, mindnode, notational velocity, pixelmator, skitch, steam, swacket, textwrangler, trillian, twitterific, vmware fusion.

    Those are all worth checking out. I have each of those installed. It's probably easier to google them than to decipher my explanation.

    If you have a core i-series laptop with a dedicated GPU, then gfxcardstatus and smcFanControl
     
    Malifiss, Apr 29, 2011
    #8
  9. doh123

    doh123 Without ME its just AWESO

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    gfxCardStatus, very nice to force the Intel graphics to stay on to conserve battery since Apple's method is a bit faulty in logic.

    smcFanControl... be a bit more proactive on fan cooling

    Wineskin... I'm very biased on that one, but I love being able to port Windows apps and games into Mac apps :)
     
    doh123, Apr 29, 2011
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  10. Blinged Out

    Blinged Out Notebook Enthusiast

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    L0l my bad :D
     
    Blinged Out, Apr 30, 2011
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  11. OldJim

    OldJim Notebook Guru

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    Quicksilver - even better launcher. :p
    TextWrangler - for text crunching (regular words or programming)
    Quietube - to get rid of the comments and ads on Youtube
    Monolingual - saving some space if you only use one language
     
    OldJim, Apr 30, 2011
    #11
  12. taelrak

    taelrak Lost

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    taelrak, May 2, 2011
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  13. shriek11

    shriek11 Notebook Deity

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    I wasn't talking about the program itself, but what it is used for.... :rolleyes:
     
    shriek11, May 2, 2011
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  14. Deathwinger

    Deathwinger Notebook Virtuoso

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    You mean being an efficient way of transferring large files using the capabilities of p2p sharing that many developers and software makers are now using?

    Sounds to me like its used for a good purpose. :D
     
    Deathwinger, May 2, 2011
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  15. shriek11

    shriek11 Notebook Deity

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    Tell that to the anal admins on this site...
     
    shriek11, May 2, 2011
    #15