Surf-Bits: Surfing For Great Mac Freeware
2. Essential Mac Freeware?

Tim Verpoorten
(Apr 08)

When a new Mac user finds their way to a local MUG or listens to a podcast, or maybe even reads a Mac blog, they have a ton of questions to ask about switching to the Mac. We're responsible for trying to help them feel comfortable with the Operating System, and accomplish what they need to get done. I know that I receive a lot of email every month from new users that want to know exactly what applications for the Mac can do what they did on their PC. It seems that the same groups of applications cause the new user the most consternation. I'm asked about FTP programs, graphic apps, text editors, apps to delete other apps, you get the idea. We all know that there are core applications all users seem to need when they work with a computer, either Mac or PC. Therefore our subject for this article is "Essential Mac Freeware?"

Quicksilver

First let me start with the Granddaddy of Mac Freeware. In fact, this app has been said to have converted more Windows users to Mac users then any other application. It's Quicksilver. Most folks start using Quicksilver as a launcher, but that's just the start. When opened, it will create a catalog of applications and some frequently used folders and documents. Activate it, and you can search for and open anything in its catalog instantly. The search is adaptive, so Quicksilver will recognize which items you are searching for based on previous experience.

Quicksilver's greatest strength, however, is not search. Any item you are able to find, drag, or otherwise pull into its universe is endowed with many potential uses. Hitting <tab> takes you to the action field, where you can use the same adaptive search to select what you would like to do. Among other things, files can be emailed, copied, compressed. Text can be modified, transmitted between programs, or searched for on the web. Some actions even support an indirect object, so you can send an item to a person, move files to another folder, or open files with a specific application. Quicksilver can be given the ability to understand the data inside of files, allowing you to work with data in new, faster ways. Plug-ins add both new items and new actions, allowing you to run scripts, send instant messages, dial phone numbers, look up words in a dictionary, queue up songs in iTunes party shuffle, and much more.

FireFox

The reason that Firefox is my browser of choice is that it's cross platform compatible so that my Firefox on the PC at work looks and acts like my Firefox on the Mac at home. I can share add-ons and plug-ins. The bookmark syncing add-on works perfectly to keep my bookmarks and bookmark toolbar has the exact same links in the exact same place. FireFox works and has always worked for me. I could live with Safari, but after this long with FireFox, I think I'll stay with it. Us old folks are slow to accept change sometimes. Also if you put FireFox on a new Mac user's machine, and they've had it on a PC before, they'll feel right at home. Sometimes a familiar face is all it takes to overcome a switcher's initial trepidation.

Here's another freeware application that may seem like a duplication, but believe me, any Mac user will be happy to have this chat application installed whether they use iChat or not.

Adium

Adium is a free instant messaging application for Mac OSX, released under the GNU GPL and developed by the Adium Team. With Adium, you can connect to any number of messaging accounts on any combination of supported messaging services and then chat with other people using those services. We all know that most folks are using chat services that their friends or family uses. If someone is on MSN, or Yahoo messenger, they'll feel lost on iChat alone. Adium is the answer. The services that are supported in Adium is AOL, ICQ, .Mac, Jabber, GoogleTalk, MSN, Yahoo, Bonjour, MySpace, Gadu-Gadu, and other lesser-known clients. It has OTR encryption, tabbed messaging, file transfer, and webkit message display.

VLC Media Player

We know QuickTime can run many of the video and audio formats that a Mac user can encounter, and if you add, Perian (a free, open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats) you'll be ready for almost all the codex's out there. But sometimes I want more from my video player. That's why I like to have a copy of VLC media player on my Mac. VideoLAN was originally designed for network streaming but VideoLAN's main software, VLC media player has evolved to become a full-featured cross-platform media player. There was never a video that I found that I could not run in VLC. The features and the speed makes it my favorite media player.

I also suggest that all new Mac users learn how to backup their favorite DVD's and video. With AppleTV along with other methods to stream and watch movies, TV shows, and online videos on your computers, iPods, iPhones and TV's it's important to understand how to distribute and create content. Therefore, I suggest downloading and using:

MacTheRipper

MacTheRipper is a freeware DVD ripper (extractor) for Mac OS X. It is dependent upon the open-sourced libdvdread and libdvdcss libraries. This product is made to backup DVDs you have legally purchased for personal use. MacTheRipper is also able to extract DVDs that have been damaged or improperly mastered.

I'll finish off this essential Mac Freeware column with a couple utilities that we all seem to need at one time or another. The first one is an FTP client. There are several choices, I like to recommend:

Cyberduck

Cyberduck is an open source tool that can handle both FTP and SFTP. Multiple connections are supported. Drag and drop is supported for transferring files between a server and your Mac. A transfer queue keeps track of the pending file transfers and supports resuming of both downloads and uploads. A simple bookmark manager ensures that you always keep track of your favorite servers. Core system technologies such as the Keychain and Rendezvous are supported. Cyberduck integrates seamlessly with external editors such as SubEthaEdit and BBEdit. Simple and full featured, what more do you want from an FTP client.

You need to know what your Mac is doing. You need to know if the transfer speeds are fast or slow, is your CPU getting eaten up by some rogue application or process, and what about the temps inside you Mac and the fan speeds of your laptop, are they running at their highest efficiency? There are several nice freeware solutions for you try, last edition we looked at iStatMenu. I really like this solution, but rather then belabor the point here, I plan on doing a whole article soon on Freeware maintenance utilities for the Mac.

So let's finish with a backup solution that everyone needs to incorporate into their daily routines. There are several good solutions, but the one I like is the freeware application from Mike Bombich called:

Carbon Copy Cloner

The key to a successful backup plan is to actually do the backups regularly. When left to most Mac users, the task often gets tacked on to the end of a very long list of other things to do. When you eventually have a hard drive crash, the data is simply gone. You know that feeling -- you just lost six years of family photos. Your kids being born, their first birthdays, their first everything. The answer to this is consistent and regular backups, placed on a schedule and handled automatically by your computer. Carbon Copy Cloner can accomplish this and the back-up it creates is boot-able and fully functional when needed.

Well that's it for this month. Spreading the gospel of Mac is something we all do at one time or another. So when we're asked about what we recommend for this task or that task, remember our essential Mac Freeware apps. In the coming months we'll look at maintenance, text and graphic freeware apps that will make your switch to the Mac simple and easy. You can catch my freeware of the week segment and more reviews or shareware and commercial apps for the Mac every week on the MacReviewCast podcast.