Making "best" lists seems to be an irresistible compulsion for many
of us. Perhaps it's a hard-wired human propensity to try to organize
order out of chaos.
In the Mac journalism community, best software lists are a frequent
topic.
For example MacTricks&Tips has a
Top 100 Essential Mac Applications feature posted, while Smashing
Magazine offers its take on
25 Free Mac Apps That Will Boost Your Productivity. MacSpecialist
has its Essential
Mac OS X Applications, and then there are LBNuke's 20
Favorite Mac Apps of the Moment and Chris Pirillo's Top 100 Mac Apps - and
that's just scratching the surface of the genre.
With this entry, I'm going minimalist, picking just five
favorite/most essential Mac apps - ones that I actually use every day
and can't imagine trying to get along without.
1. Tex-Edit Plus
I use Tex-Edit Plus more than
any other application for a wide variety of text crunching chores and
find It strikes the sweet spot between lightweight nimbleness/speed and
powerful capability. I use it for just about everything, from general
text crunching to HTML markup. It's almost infinite customizability and
expandability is facilitated by the best implementation of AppleScript
support I've encountered in any application.
Tex-Edit Plus is one reason why I thank myself every day for using a
Mac, and AppleScript is another. TE+'s AppleScript configuration could
hardly be smoother, slicker, or more user-friendly. Scripts, which, if
you're not familiar with AppleScript, are sort of mini-applets or
macros that automate a particular function (actually, they're more than
macros). As TE+ developer Tom Bender puts it: "AppleScript puts the
power of these Apple Events in the hands of the ordinary user. It's
just another insanely great advantage that we Mac users enjoy."
TE+ also has a nice inventory of text cleaning tools, a decent find
and replace engine, and it supports OS X's built-in spellchecker. It's
also something of a do-all "can opener" app - able to open a wide
selection of text formats to at least give you a look at what's
inside.
2. Eudora
I use Eudora - Version 6.2.4 on
my PowerPC Macs and the Open Source Eudora 8 on my
Intel machine as my primary email client applications. I consider
Classic Eudora to be the best POP3 email client ever devised, but I'm
getting used to using Eudora 8 (which is based on the Mozilla
Thunderbird email engine).
Eudora 8.0 is able to import your Classic Eudora account settings
and Address Book information, a process you can initiate under the
Tools menu, and I've found it quite quick and slick. You also have the
option of downloading only the configuration files from Eudora Classic
and are not obliged to bring in your email message archives if you're
just exploring, although there is an option to just import everything
in one fell swoop.
If you've already used Thunderbird, Eudora 8.0 transparently
accesses the Thunderbird user profiles in the Thunderbird folder
located in your Home folder's Library directory with no user action
needed in switching back and forth between the two email applications,
which is convenient.
A particularly important function for me is how efficiently support
for multiple email accounts works. I have 22 email accounts configured
in Eudora Classic, some with different SMTP server configs. Happily,
Thunderbird/Eudora 8 handles individual account checks gracefully,
although I find its task progress monitoring less to my taste than
Eudora Classic's excellent and informative Task Progress window.
I didn't expect to, but I've grown to quite like Eudora 8 over the
past five months or so and will likely stick with it.
3. Opera
I actually use several browsers extensively, but the one I use most
is Opera, for a variety of reasons.
I'm stuck on dialup, so Opera 10's Turbo compression
feature makes it a no-brainer - way faster than anything else when
Turbo mode is enabled. However, I've been a big Opera fan since long
before Turbo was added.
It's fast in non-Turbo mode too and also has the best and most
dependable Download Manager of any browser, plus a raft of little but
important touches like a convenient zoom magnification menu on the main
interface window. I also like the look, layout and features of the
interface.
If it hadn't been Opera, I would probably pick Firefox as first runner-up.
4. Photoshop Elements
As with browsers, I use several image editing applications, but if I
were limited to just one it would have to be Adobe Photoshop
Elements 6 (PSE), because it's the most capable and comprehensive.
Pixelmator is excellent as
well, but it has a way to go to match PSE.
I've found Photoshop Elements to be without parallel (discounting
astronomically expensive Photoshop CS) It's a digital virtual darkroom
without the mess, chemical fumes, and hassle of working in the dark.
The fact that it sells for under $100 is amazing. If you're at all
serious about digital photography, you need this application.
Photoshop Elements is intended to be a complete, end-to-end software
solution for anyone doing digital photography, whether they be a
consumer amateur or even many a professional. It is designed to offer a
user-friendly approach to fixing common photographic flaws and in
enhancing digital images by way of a few clicks. I love what this
program can do, and if there's another graphics application that comes
even close to offering as much raw image-editing power and versatility
for $90, I can't imagine what it would be.
Actually, the graphics app I use more than all others combined is
the little Japanese freeware program ToyViewer,
which seems to be ignored by all the other "favorites" lists, which is
a shame because it's just superb within its limitations.
5. MacSpeech Dictate
I have fibromyalgia and chronic neuritis, and
MacSpeech Dictate - and its predecessor iListen - have kept me in
business for over a decade now. iListen was pretty good dictation
software, but Dictate is great dictation software, and the combination
of the powerful, accurate, and fast NaturallySpeaking speech engine
with MacBook Core 2 Duo power is a marriage of software and hardware
made in heaven. Dictate running on my 2.0 GHz Unibody MacBook
isn't just convenient and helpful in a utilitarian sense - it's
genuinely fun to use. Dictate's voice transcription capability is a
dream come true, and it's so accurate that very little correction is
necessary. I also find it useful for instant messaging or composing
short emails or whatever if the program is already up and running. It's
seductively slick.
Honorable Mention
What are your five (or more) favorite OS X apps?
