My Favorite Mac Apps

Though Windows has its share of killer apps, the Mac has some of that too. True, the selection is a bit more limited, but like the PS3, the selection is also a bit more refined, unique and, for the most part, ten times better than its Windows counterpart.

I will (try) not (to) include any apps that you can find on both platforms, but if the difference between the versions are compelling enough, I might have to consider. Additionally, I will not include any Apple software as it will only lengthen the list unnecessarily.

This is not a top 10 list, this is more of a list of apps I simply use everyday without fail.

Blogo
This app that I'm using to type this post right now? This is Blogo.

With a distinct interface, auto-notifications on Twitter (every new published post creates a new tweet that announces its existence) and wide support for several blogging services (not to mention a full-screen editor!), this blog editor lets you concentrate more on what you're trying to say, rather than worrying if the browser will destroy the obra maestra you've been working for 2 hours.

The app does have its share of irritations, as my Twitter account can attest: it can run slow, it can randomly close down, and picture management can be a bitch. For the most part, however, it does work fine.

The price tag is hefty, though... Seriously, 25 bucks?

Tweetie
While people swear by Twitterrific, Tweetdeck, or whatever they get their hands on, I personally think Tweetie is the best of the bunch (but on the level of the iPhone, I think Twitterfon is the best).

One day I was looking for a great Mac app that would supplement my Twitter addiction, and it just so happened that this app just oversaw release. I loved the iPhone-esque simplicity of it, I immediately downloaded it and I never looked back.

It works damn near flawlessly, it is extremely fast and snappy, and accessing features like "conversation view" is a snap. It also does well when you have several accounts, and you can even import picture and video from within the app! Very, very good.

You can get it for free (with ads) or for 20 dollars without ads. I say, save the 20 bucks and just get it free. The ads, quite frankly, are actually very well-placed. They're not intrusive at all, and they're far and few between. Hell, they're even a great way to discover great Mac software.

XNJB
This app is not the prettiest thing out there, but it sure is useful for people who want to sync a non-iPod device with iTunes.

Since Apple is stubbornly not supporting third-party devices (at least officially) on iTunes, the only option people who prefer Walkmans, Zens, or whatnot can only access their players as if they were a USB drive. But if that doesn't work out, it means that your device is a so-called "PlaysForSure" device which only works on Windows Media Player. Since we're on the subject of Mac apps, this is the solution to the problem.

This app reads whether you have a PlaysForSure device connected, and then the device will act as if it was connected to Windows Media Player. It could even charge and everything!

Basically, XNJB accesses only the iTunes library (which I'm sure you're using), so you can just move your non-DRM iTunes music into your Creative Zens, Walkmans, or whatever else you're using.

Just make sure the music files aren't in AAC format. Oh, and Zune isn't supported because Microsoft went all proprietary on it. The explanation behind the Zune not working is a bit technical though, so I won't delve into that. Hell, do you even own a Zune?

Times
Not everyone uses RSS, but it's there if you want to. A more motivational way to use them lies in the Times app.

The app looks a bit like a newspaper, and the headlines from the RSS feeds you put there will remind you of, well, a newspaper minus the ads.

It's extremely customizable, and you can even use a "shelf" to keep your favorite news stories.

When you open a headline, it will elegantly unfold to show the whole article (if possible), and if you feel like sharing it, you can send it to Twitter, or e-mail it.

If you like keeping track of the world in an unconventional way, Times is the RSS app for you. It must be worth noting that it costs THIRTY dollars though.

Speed Download
A lot of download apps promise download acceleration, but the promise Yazsoft provides with Speed Download is actually true. When you compare two downloads from a browser and from Speed Download, Speed Download is, I'm not kidding, indisputably much faster. Rarely does an app of this kind appear, and I'm glad I found it.

Jam-packed with tons and tons of features in a relatively small package of 18MB, Speed Download is actually well-worth the 25 dollar price tag especially if you're able to utilize its overflowing feature set.

But the best thing about this app is that it's reliable, and I have yet to experience and sudden crashes or exits. The developers are quick to address compatibility issues (so expect constant updates), and perhaps this is what keeps the app so stable and fast, not to mention powerful. It is simply indispensable.

Things
Things is my go-to app for my task list. The logic of the app is a bit hard to understand at first, but watching Cultured Code's screencast certainly helps.

It's nearly the same app as the one first introduced on the iPhone, but it packs more features and conveniently enough, syncs with the app. It has a simple interface that's easy to use and you can set your own hotkey in case you feel like adding a task you want to do later.

Another good thing about this app, however, is the really tight integration it has with iCal so it not only syncs with the iPhone app, it will also sync to your iPhone's calendar. If you don't have an iPhone, but you use iSync to sync data, Things also lets you sync through there, through the Calendar. Hell, the integration is so tight, I didn't even notice that my W995 got the tasks I made until an alarm came off. Very neat.

It has won several design awards, which is probably why it's pretty damn expensive though. Come on, 50 dollars is a bit eye-gouging.

The Unarchiver
What 7-Zip is to Windows, is what Unarchiver is to the Mac. It's probably the archive extractor with the most file support, and the best part is that it's free.

It melds in with the operating system, so you never notice it until you actually extract something. It's near flawless, and it's very capable. Truly, just download it now and spare yourself from having to contend with several other apps for opening those archives.

Ringer
Probably the easiest way to make free iPhone ringtones, Ringer is an app that was most likely made under the influence of the simplicity of iPhone apps. It's lightweight, it's easy to use, and it works.

You can simply drag-and-drop any music or movie file onto the huge black part and an editor will appear. If you want to use your iTunes library, it's already on the left side of the app.

It's insanely simple, as you can see. True, you can use GarageBand since it's already included with the purchase of a Mac, but do you really want to have to contend with a more complex way to make ringtones... when you can use the simpler way?

You can download it for free, but it will have a watermark. No watermark = $15. If it's worth it is up to you.

Delicious Library 2
I've covered this app in a standalone post a few months ago, and it's very good for inventory purposes.

The genius of the app comes with the awesome fact that it can accurately identify a DVD, book, video game, audio CD, software, gadgets and even clothing by scanning its barcode through the built-in iSight camera. Granted, it doesn't always work, and that's because the program works through Amazon's database of stuff.

Didn't I mention it was beautiful as well?

While the complementary iPhone app has disappeared because Amazon is a douchebag, at least Delicious Library still supports syncing for those who actually got the app (like me).

Yahoo! Messenger
It's disappointing that Apple only has relatively limited support in the built-in iChat as it supports several other services that are obscure in the Philippines. It looks amazing for video chats. While you can force iChat to support Yahoo! and MSN IM, Yahoo! has its own chat program anyway, and it's a radical departure from the Windows version.

It loads faster, it has most of the features of the Windows version, and it has tabbed chat windows. Read that last part 3 times.

Sad part is that it doesn't offer the more "Fun" features like IMVironments or Audibles or easy Photo sharing, but I rarely use them anyway. Still, I miss Doodle. Another fail is that it doesn't offer the option to change nicknames. I've never gotten to change all those 2 year old immature nicknames because I'm too lazy to open my Windows PC.

True, you can use other IM programs for Windows to achieve tabbed windows, and then some, but it's actually quite rare that the Mac version is much better usability-wise. Scores even more points for bringing Growl-like alerts even without Growl.

Growl
Growl is a lightweight app that after downloading, lies in the System Preferences.

What it does is provide subtle updates from apps that support it, whether it be a new tweet, or a status change from a buddy. It's useful, and there are a lot of apps that support it.

I love how non-obtrusive it is. True, it's basic, which is why it's free. Any more excuses?

TubeTV
The icon may not be attractive, but the actual program sure is pretty damn good.

This insanely good program reliably downloaded YouTube (and other video sites') videos and automatically converted them to iPod (or Apple TV, or iPhone) format with just one click. It's very simple, it's very useful, and I love it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't even download properly from YouTube anymore, so I've gone to iTubeX Ultimate which isn't free and automatic like TubeTV. Mactubes is a free alternative which has a great YouTube search browser, but not very reliable with downloading. TubeTV, if it worked, is still the best for me.

These 12 apps should be enough to get you on a download (and maybe spending) spree. If you're on a new Mac, then I hope this preliminary guide can serve you well in your quest to find great apps that'll replace some of those Windows apps you used to have.

Top 10 Snow Leopard Features

Despite the emphasis on under-the-hood optimization rather than end-user features, Snow Leopard still has its share of new features, and if it's not a feature, it's a bit of a significant step up that breathes life into an old feature. So with that, I give you the top 10 new stuff and adjustments I really like. (And don't worry, I'll do a Windows 7 one, although I've already covered features I really like in a previous post.)

10) Improved Stacks
When Stacks was introduced in Leopard, it was a pretty convenient way to access files, not to mention it looked pretty cool. But not being able to access other folders through the Stacks interface (and just through the Finder instead) was a bit inconvenient, not to mention that if the number of items present in a folder exceeds the items the monitor can display, you'd still have to open the Finder anyway. Now, Snow Leopard eliminates all these cumbersome processes by introducing some subtle, but immensely helpful adjustments to this feature to make it much more elegant than before.

BEFORE

AFTER

9) Put Back

It has been, for a few versions of Mac OS X, extremely cumbersome for me to just conveniently get trashed items back to its default directory. I'd have to recall its former location before being able to just open two windows and dragging and dropping the file. In Windows, this would've been resolved with just a press of the Restore button, and now, Snow Leopard introduces (and apparently marks the return of) a feature called "Put Back", which finally lets you return a deleted item with one click of the mouse. It's been a long time comin'.

BEFORE

AFTER

8) Intelligent Ejection
It's not a really big deal, it's just that it's pretty convenient, especially in 2009, that both Windows and Mac are finally introducing an ejection mechanism that actually tells you what app is using the USB (or whatever) device you're trying to remove. About time!

7) Smaller footprint
It has been reported that people have been genuinely freed up of a significant 10GB chunk of their hard drive space, and that alone is actually pretty amazing. Come on, an upgrade that doesn't take up more space than the last version (wink, wink, Windows)? It's hard not to love it.

6) Multi-touch activation
Even though there are a few Macbooks that are capable of the basic multi-touch gestures introduced in the first generation Macbook Air, they don't support the more complex four-finger actions introduced last year. Snow Leopard finally "unlocks" these gestures for the older multi-touch capable Macbooks without hacks.

5) Text Substitution/Correction
The iPhone's native correct-as-you-type mechanism gains form in the Mac, and I think the world is all the better for it. I mean, people just don't know how to spell right anymore. This feature is also the same feature on Microsoft Word that replaces "1/2" into "½", but at least this one is a bit more spread out within the OS. It's not truly applied to the whole OS as well as third-party apps, but I think you can set for it to be like that or something.

4) Individual device settings
While I don't have a big issue with my devices, I do like the option of setting the defaults for devices individually instead of having to adhere to a universal rule. I mean, I constantly hate having to close iPhoto every time I connect my iPod (or my dad's iPhone), but if I had it stop opening iPhoto, it wouldn't open when an actual camera was connected, so yeah, a bit of irritation. Now, at least, you can set settings for each individual device, so next time you connect an iPhone, it won't have to open iPhoto, but with a real camera? It'll open.

3) Quicktime X
The thing about Quicktime was that it was totally not free, which sucks a lot of balls because the only thing the paid version ever offered was a frigging Full Screen mode, and copy-paste basic clip editing. Fortunately enough, Apple has finally gotten some sense into their heads and bringing Quicktime into the 21st century with this reinvention. Hmph, took long enough.

Now, the focus of Quicktime has been re-aligned to make it a much better experience for the average consumer to use. Though it is free, it at least gets a few features like the Full screen mode, the basic trimming, and the exporting! Granted, it doesn't work with as many codecs as Quicktime 7, which is surprising. Even worse is the stubborn reluctance of Apple to natively support WMA and WMV on the app, and this is while Microsoft is already putting Quicktime support natively onto Windows 7!

A few upgrades to the software will definitely come, and hopefully, we won't ever need to re-download Quicktime 7 when the need arises. The fact that people will have to contend with the crippled software at one point or another is also just plain stupid in Apple's part. Of course, that is unless we're talking about a legacy codec that Quicktime 7 supports, but has long been dropped by all the other players.

2) Chinese Handwriting, Improvements to Pinyin
I make Chinese reviewers so being able to just write a word I don't know on a trackpad instead of skimming through the (IMO pretty well thought-out) Character Palette is a huge step-up for me. The "Changes" page of the Apple website also detail a few improvements to the Pinyin dictionary used by OS X. Hopefully, it won't have to crash every time I type "Yiyi"-- something I'm very optimistic will happen.

1) Dock Expose
Ever since owning a Mac, the first thing I fell in love with was Expose. It let me switch through windows much quicker than I can ever do in Windows, and it lets me go to my Desktop without having to minimize windows one by one in case I need to get something from there.

In Snow Leopard, Apple introduces an enhancement called Dock Expose. What it does is that if you happen to have a lot of windows open in a single program, you can just click the program's dock icon and all the application windows will show. Granted, pressing F10 unleashes a bit of the same effect, but this one also reveals the windows that are minimized to the Dock. Ever since its introduction in WWDC, I've had several cases wherein I desperately felt the need for the feature "now, now, now!", and this is why it's #1 for me.

BEFORE

AFTER

A few of you may have noticed that I've omitted the fact about Microsoft Exchange being natively supported. Frankly, I could care less. If Mail was able to support free Yahoo! Mail accounts like its iPhone counterpart, call me then.

5 Reasons to Get Chrome

If you haven't heard about Google's entry into the browser market, then you might be missing out on a potentially very hard hitter to the industry. While it still doesn't have the extensibility and customizability of the comparably famous Mozilla Firefox, Chrome's simplicity, like Safari before/after it (however you view it), is just one of the things it has going for it, and I wouldn't have any problem recommending that you adopt it as your default browser.

Here are 5 reasons why you should adopt it as your default browser:

1) Security

Security is the primary reason we stay away from browsers like Internet Explorer. While the 8th version of the formidable browser has some unique security features, it's far from being the most secure. In fact, in the recently held Pwn2Own contest, only Chrome was left standing. What's Pwn2Own? Well, it's a competition where people find security flaws in various browsers, and when they do discover those holes, they get to win the computer they exploited the browser upon. 

The other browsers in the competition namely IE8, Safari, and Firefox (Opera was not in the competition), were all exploited in just seconds. Clearly the security alone is enough for a recommendation? (Just uncheck the box that lets you agree to Google spying on your every move in your time with the browser... or go Incognito?)

2) Minimalist design lets you concentrate

The bad thing about Firefox, in my opinion, was the clutter you'd get when you install so many extensions. True, you could simply uninstall them and start fresh, but what if I liked them extensions?

This is where Chrome's "limitation" becomes a real benefit to your browsing. Its minimalist interface forces you to concentrate on the web, and not on the multitudes of toolbars that sit on the browser. Heck, the whole thing could just pass as the Full Screen mode in Internet Explorer- minus the admittedly annoying auto-hide.

3) Don't break down when it crashes

We've all been there before. Firefox would crash and we would simply wish that its auto-recovery feature would be able to save all the other tabs we had open. True, most of the time, the restoration did its thing, but there are times when not all the tabs you open are restored.

Fortunately, we don't even need to contend with such folly with Chrome's unique tab management (and yes, this is the feature Microsoft ripped off from Chrome, but it would be unfair to say that the feature should only be limited to Chrome, because it's valuable) as it treats every tab like an individual program in the Windows taskbar.

For example, Flash would cause a website you're viewing in this one tab to slow down and eventually not respond. You could still switch to another tab and open the browser's own Task Manager by right clicking the top part of the browser. You can kill the pesky unresponsive task and resume reading all those other tabs without a sweat.

4) It Opens FAAST

I'm serious when I say that it very snappily opens itself as soon as you finish double-clicking. True, there might be a few seconds of loading at times, but for the most part, this is one of the biggest draws of Chrome for me: how insanely fast it opens. You could say that it opens as fast (or faster) than Internet Explorer, but it's more secure (and hogs less memory than Firefox).

5) Newbie friendly

It's not that my dad is not computer illiterate because he very much is computer literate, it's just that he has this habit of typing URL's into the search bar- and I might be right to assume that my dad isn't the only one. Well, Google Chrome's Omnibar changes all of that. Not only is it just another Firefox Awesome bar, it's also a search bar as well.

So next time my dad enters in "www.yahoo.com", I'm pretty sure that the result won't be a Google search page, but the real thing. No offense, dad.

These are just my top 5 reasons to download so I might have missed a subtle feature or two that adds a lot to the user experience. Not all people will like Chrome's barebones approach and its lack of extensions (which will be "fixed" in a newer version), but there's a market for Chrome, I'm very sure of that.

Bookshelves become cool again

Since last year, we decided to make organizing our bookshelves (and the multitudes of ahem, back-up DVDs) an annual affair. Last year, we had to list them all down, type them all on MS Word and print about 40 pages total.

This year, we change things a bit. So I discovered this new piece of software called Delicious Library 2 for Mac OS X, and it is stunning how much it streamlines our work. All we had to do was put the book's barcode onto the built-in webcam's line of vision (and in a proper way), and 9 out of 10 of the guesses are extremely correct. The Mac would read the title out loud so you can sort of multitask. I mean, I remember one time when we scanned a few Harry Potter books. The Mac said "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling...", and in a different voice it said, "Voldemort!". That was pretty cool and pretty ROFLWTFBBQ.

Granted, Filipino books and several books are either not in the database (it uses Amazon as a base) or the barcode might be obscured too much that the camera shot gets misinterpreted (usually it becomes Tae-Bo or Lone Ranger 2), but for the most part, it works like a real charm.

It may remind you of Shelfari- only with offline access- but the program also goes beyond books.

You can also scan the barcodes of original DVDs (and at times VHS's but never VCD's)...

Audio CDs (once again, original)...

Original video games...

Hell, even gadgets!

This really makes for a great way to see if, for example, we have a certain book at hand, and it could be found in an instant due to per-letter search.

Of course, manual adding of those items is also supported.

Still, Delicious Library 2 is not just an inventory app glorified, it's also something you could use to remind yourself that, for example, item A should be returned to friend Z, or if you get robbed, you have all information in your hands with regards to purchase date, cost at the time, etc. Heck, you could also be able to see the selling value of a certain item were you to resell them on eBay or Amazon!

The program is not without its quirks, especially stability-wise and camera-wise, but this is a really impressive piece of software that deserves its own shelf in your Mac's drive.

Rating: 8.7/10

Safari opens 4 beta

It's the proud granddaddy of the Private Browsing mode... it's Safari!

The public beta for the newest version of Apple's browser Safari is available for download for both Mac and Windows. There are some interesting new features that may somehow resemble other browsers such as:

Top Sites

Taking a cue from Chrome's home page and Opera's Speed Dial, Top Sites gives you an elegant view of the sites you visit the most.

This twist here, however is the fact that you can display up to 24 thumbnails, you can pin a site you like into a position so it will stay and place and you can see whether a site has new content when a star is clipped on the top-right of the website's thumbnail! That sounds really cool for people who usually go to sites like Twitter, Blogger, or any news site.

Cover Flow

While highly unnecessary, it's still pretty nice to be able to browse your history, bookmarks, etc. on this view. This way you are able to actually get a huge thumbnail of the website in question.

Full History Search

This feature lets you search your history as you saw it. If you remember a caption from a photo you viewed, or a shred of text in that site, you can type it and Safari finds it for you. Does it work well? Who knows, especially for Flash sites?

Tabs on top

Safari takes another page from Google Chrome- it puts its tabs on top to save precious screen real estate. Hell, it even adds the effing Plus button!

Spanking New Engine

Safari already renders sites pretty fast but the new Nitro Engine renders sites faster (theoretically, at least). Apple has some benchmarks, but why trust the benchmarks released by Apple itself? Let's wait for some third-party to do so.

Still, if you're interested in how much faster Safari is from the competition, it claims to be 30 times faster than Internet Explorer 7, 3 times faster than Firefox, and slightly, very slightly by just the thousandths digit, faster than Chrome. Don't know if this is true for real world conditions, but we'll see.

Native Windows Look and Feel

This is a big, big, big plus for Windows Safari users. Now Safari will adapt to Windows Aero or Windows XP's themes,a s well as their native fonts. Still, if you like the grey anti-aliased look of past Safari versions, you can choose that.

ABOVE: Windows Vista. BELOW: Windows XP.

Developer Tools

HTML coders can test web code on the spot with Safari's developer mode.

The Quintessential Awesome Bar

Firefox first offered the option for people to use the address bar to do almost anything. It can get you sites by name, by address, or by a snippet of the address.

Search Suggestions

Mac Safari offers the Inquisitor plug-in for this feature. Now, you probably wouldn't need it. Powered by Google, Safari automatically suggests search terms and search addresses.

Zoom ala iPhone

Multi-touch gestures on the new MacBooks are able to zoom text like the iPhone's version of Safari. You can also use this feature by clicking the Font increase button.

Better Standards Compliance- made even better

It passes the famous ACID test. A perfect 100.