my mac essentials

whenever i see somebody’s list of essential mac applications, i am always a little surprised at how little overlap it has for me. now that i’ve mostly switched over the new macbook pro, here’s the list of applications that i have installed:

  • acorn ($50): this is a nifty little image editing application. in the last few days, i have been using it to mock up shelving layouts for the store.
  • bzr (free): this is the distributed version control system of choice at mysql these days.
  • busysync: it would be nice to keep my google calender and ical in sync. after giving spanning sync a try for a bit, i am giving this a try as an alternative.
  • delivery status: this dashboard widget is great for tracking the way-too-many packages that i get from amazon and other places.
  • google notifier (no cost): now that i have switched almost entirely to using gmail, this is useful to let me know when i have new mail.
  • linkinus ($20): i use this irc client for accessing the company chat server to connect with my mysql coworkers.
  • menucalendarclock for ical (no cost or $20 for more features): i like this replacement for the date/time display in the upper-right of the menu bar, which drops down a full calendar, including upcoming ical events.
  • myob accountedge ($300): this is for doing the books for the store and gallery.
  • mysql (free): i have the standard mysql server package installed for testing.
  • twitteriffic (ad-supported or $15): this is a not-too-obtrusive way of participating in twitter nonsense.
  • virtualbox (free): i used parallels on my last machine, but i figured i would give sun’s own virtualization technology a spin. i use it to run a windows xp image for development using the microsoft toolchain and for accessing sun’s vpn.
  • xcode (no cost): i don’t really use xcode itself, just many of the unix development tools that come along with it.

of the bundled software, i regularly use address book, ical, iphoto, itunes, mail (for my sun/mysql email), preview, safari, and terminal. and i use time machine, but i hope i don’t have to regularly use it.

comments

How do you like virtualbox compared to parallels?

Also check out Colloquy for IRC. It's free and really slick.

» Dave Bullock (link) » july 16, 2008 12:28pm

virtualbox seems to get the job done, but i don’t really use it often enough to pass much judgement.

i have used colloquy before. i think i switched because of bugs that kept bothering me, and it was rather slow to start up when i had a large backlog of messages being dumped on me by dircproxy.

» jim winstead (link) » july 19, 2008 3:26pm

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