Top Software Tools For Your Mac
John C Welch, long a Mac advocate, has published his list of the top 22 Mac Tools. Coming in at Number 22 is the blogware that I use to write all of my blogs, Ecto. I have to agree - I can’t imagine my life without this useful, simple and inexpensive little software tool. I can publish to all 18 of my personal blogs and blogs for hire in one program, without switching back and forth or worrying about logging in every time - Ecto takes care of all of that for me. Plus it allows me to drag and drop files and photos from iTunes, iPhoto and other Mac applications, and it has a built in Amazon module for entering Amazon Associate links. It even makes linking easy, and has a simple interface for switching back and forth between code and rich text editing. You don’t even have to worry about your blogging platform - it accepts all of them, from the free Blogger to the more complex and expensive platform Movable Type.
His list is divided into two parts for publishing purposes - it was too long to print all at once in Information Week. Other tools that made the first half of the list include FTP tool Transmit, SyncServices automatic data sharing (commonly called iSync), the multi-function text tool BBEdit, for those of you with windows Mobile there is Missing Sync, the dynamic duo of ConceptDraw and Omni Graffle Pro that work to recreate Visio-like interface for the Mac, the business AV and social chat tool iChat AV, the ever-present AppleScript, companion piece Script Debugger, email and scheduling software Entourage, game program SketchFighter, and the time-saving TypeIt4Me. Of these tools, I’d say I use Entourage and iChat AV on a daily basis. So out of numbers 22 - 11, at least three would make my list as well.
In part 2 of his list, he continues to awaken us to the awesome capabilities of our Macs and the software written for them. People switching from Windoze to Mac should take note of this entire list - it eliminates many of the functionality issues you have mentioned in the past as preventing you from making the switch. This list just goes to show that the Mac can do anything Windoze can do, and better. Leading off part 2 is the replacement for OS 9’s convenient and simple Location Manager feature, Network Location. To be fair, the home user won’t get much use out of this unless they are running a network of Macs, but the IT professional certainly will.
Also on the list are Apple Remote Desktop, the all-purpose Mac Link Plus Deluxe (this little program can open any file format - trust me, you want it in your Mac toolbox), Parallels for Mac (if you haven’t heard of this one yet you are living under a rock), Remote Desktop Connection (this one seems a duplicate of Parallels to me), the multi-purpose screenshot tool Snapz Pro X, dual boot tool BootCamp, PDF by Adobe (I agree with him that all documentation should be in PDF, not EXE or any other format), launch manager Lingon, and ACL handler Workgroup Manager.
Out of the second part of the list, I’d have to disagree with the inclusion of Parallels and BootCamp. That’s because I’m a Mac purist. I appreciate that the ability to run Windoze on a Mac makes it more marketable to the stubborn PC market, but why would you make your Mac as hacker-vulnerable as a PC by running Windoze on it at all? I’d wholeheartedly agree with PDF - there should be no other document format used - it is completely scriptable, and much less prone to transporting viruses than EXe ad other document formats, not to mention how universal it is. I’d never heard of Snapz. I’ve been quite happy with Apple’s built in Grab utility, but I’ll be checking out both Snapz and SketchFighter after reading this list.
What software do you consider essential for your Mac? Let me know in the comments!
Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved
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