File management applications are essential to keep your Mac running stable. I know the commercials, and the marketing BS claim Macs never crash, and are bulletproof, but c’mon. Any computer is vulnerable to crashes and lag if not properly maintained. By utilizing the below apps- it will greatly help keep your Mac in top shape.
1. AppCleaner
A nice application that makes thorough uninstalls easy. When application are installed- small files are spread out onto your Mac’s directories. App cleaner seeks out these small files, and removes them.
Just drag and drop an application icon into AppCleaner, and it will search for all references to the application, and allow you to choose the files you want to delete.
Download AppCleaner
2. AppFresh
A lot of applications don’t include their own update checker. AppFresh checks your favorite apps for updates for you. So you never have to miss an update for your favorite app- one of my favs.
AppFresh provides a central place to control the software updates available to your Mac, integrating most popular and most common update checking technologies such as Apple Software Update, Sparkle, Microsoft AutoUpdate, Adobe Updater, osx.iusethis.com and more.
Download AppFresh
3. Set Icon
Set Icon is a small application that lets you quickly and easily set a custom icon for one your drives either from an ICNS file or any old image file that Mac OS supports. To get started all you have to do is select your drive, drag an image file to the image box and click ‘Set Icon’, when you want to remove the custom icon just select the drive, check the ‘Remove Custom Icon’ box and click ‘Remove Icon’.
Set Icon applies custom icons in such a way that they appear correctly both in Leopard’s side bar and in the Boot Camp chooser. Occasionally Set Icon will fail to apply the icon to the drive on the first try, in the event of this problem occurring just click the “Set Icon” button again and everything should work fine.
Download Set Icon
4. NameChanger
This is the easiest way to rename a big list of files on the Mac.
Add the files through the GUI or drag and drop files directly onto the App. These original filenames show up in the Original Filename column. Grayed out rows indicate files that you do not have permissions to change. Next select how to change the file names:
- Replace First Occurrence
- Replace Last Occurrence
- Replace All Occurrences
- Wildcare
- Append
- Prepend
- Date
- Sequence
- Character Removal
As text is entered into the appropriate text fields the resulting filenames appear in the Renamed Filename column. As you type each row is updated to reflect the changes you will make. Finally click the Rename button, and all your files will be renamed as displayed. You will be informed of any files that could not be modified.
Download NameChanger
5. SpotLook
SpotLook is a graphical interface to Mac OS X Leopard’s Spotlight desktop search engine which features timelines showing results according to their date. These Tracks can be created, edited and customized include a search scope and attributes to search for. In addition to that found items can be viewed with Quick Look or revealed in the Finder. Give a Graphical Interface to Mac OS X Leopard’s Spotlight with SpotLook.
Download Spotlook
6. Carbon Copy Cloner
Carbon Copy Cloner is an excellent application to clone, synchronize and backup your files. CCC 3 features an interface designed to make the cloning and backup procedure very intuitive. In addition to general backup, CCC can also clone one hard drive to another, copying every single block or file to create an exact replica of your source hard drive. CCC’s block-level copy offers the absolute best fidelity in the industry.
Key features include
- Complete, bootable backups
- Simple interface for indicating exactly what you want to back up
- Restore using the same process used for backup
- Backups are non-proprietary, so you can browse them or use them with Migration Assistant
- Fast, incremental backups copy only the items that have changed since the last backup
- Archival backup archives items that have been deleted from the source
- Support for block-level disk-to-disk clones
- Support for backing up across the network to another Macintosh
- Back up to hard drives or to disk images
- Schedule backup tasks on an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis, or you can indicate that a backup task should run when the backup device is attached (e.g. an iPod). You don’t even need to be logged in for your backups to occur!
- CCC recognizes iPods specifically, allowing time for the iPod:iTunes synchronization to complete
- Built-in software update feature notifies you when updates are available
Download Carbon Copy Cloner
7. Monolingual
A program for removing unnecessary language resources from Mac OS X, in order to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space. Monolingual runs on at least Mac OS X 10.3.9 (Panther) and also works on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).
Download Monolingual
8. Punakea
Punakea is a small Mac application that helps you cope with the day-to-day struggle of managing your files. It is specially designed to complement Spotlight and allows you to tag your files and bookmarks, freeing you of the strict hierarchy of the Finder’s folder structure.
Download Punakea
9. SpotInside
SpotInside searches documents and shows previews of their content by highlighting keywords . This program will multiply the power of Spotlight and make your searches more precise.
Download SpotInside
10. SketchBox
SketchBox is the perfect application for your Mac Desktop. It works as your sticky notes manager and allows you to not only enter text but also make drawings and set individual reminders for each sticky to use them as a visual alarm clock.
Unlike other applications it lets you arrange all your notes in thumbnail view and create short storyboards/comics or simply store your daily thoughts as searchable text. SketchBox is 100% free for you to use and if you feel like donating, you can do that by visiting their website.
Download Sketchbox for Mac
June 26th, 2009
Adobe is the standard in the digital design, and illustration industry. They are also moving into the audio and video sector with Adobe Premiere, and Soundbooth. One problem, they are very expensive. A struggling artist will have a lot of trouble affording it- luckily there are some great alternatives out there for free. Here are my favorites:
Photoshop Alternatives:
Gimp
Gimp is a very popular alternative to Photoshop. It has a very different interface when compared to Photoshop, but is able to perform pretty much the same tasks. It is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows. http://www.gimp.org/
Paint.Net
An amazing photo editing software for Windows (XP, Vista). It has won many awards such as PC World Best Freebies 2007, the Webuser Gold Award, Cnet 5 Star review, and more.
I’ll let the following quotes review it for you:
“Impressive.” – PC World, #19 on “Top 100 Products of 2007″
“It raises the quality bar,” - Jeff Atwood, Coding Horror
Download: http://www.getpaint.net/index.html
Dreamweaver Alternatives:
Kompozer
This is an open source WYSIWYG HTML editor for Linux, Mac, and Windows. It does the job.
Download: http://kompozer.net/
Adobe Premiere Alternatives:
Avidemux
Avidemux is a free video editor perfect for simple cutting, encoding, and filtering jobs. It supports AVI, MPEG, MP4, and ASF using different codecs.
Download: http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/
VirtualDub
VirtualDub is a video caputure application for Windows. It is geared towards the processing of AVI files, and can read MPEG-1 (not write).
Download: http://www.virtualdub.org/
Adobe Reader Alternatives:
PDFCreator
PDFCreator allows you to create PDF documents from any Windows application that support printing. After installed, it will get added to your set of installed printers as a virtual printer. When the virtual printer is selected, for example in Word, it will output the document as a PDF file, and allow you to save it anywhere you want. Very handy for professionals.
Download: http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator
Foxit PDF Reader
A true light weight champion. This application is so light, yet so feature rick, you will never go back to Adobe Reader again!
Download: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/
June 23rd, 2009
Sick of over-priced, and mediocre applications– I present to you a list of free and useful Windows applications.
Audio and Video
1. Audacity – Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows
2. VirtualDub – VirtualDub is a video capture and video processing application for Windows
3. Avidemux – Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering, and encoding tasks.
4. K-Lite Mega Codec Pack – K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codes, needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video formats. With the K-Lite Codec Pack you should be able to play most of the popular audio and video formats, even the rare ones.
5. SUPER – If you need a simple, efficient, and ugly tool to convert any of your multimedia files into any other format, then SUPER is all you need
6. FormatFactory – If you need a simple, efficient, easy-to-use, and a not-so-hideously-ugly tool to convert any of your multimedia files into any other format, then FormatFactory is all you need
7. iTunes – iTunes Is an audio player for playing and organizing digital music files, and purchasing them from the Apple Store.
8. VLC Media Player – VLC Media Player is a multimedia player that can play most of the audio and video formats out there, including DVDs and CDs, without the need of a codec.
9. WinAmp – WinAmp is a fast and flexible music and video player for Windows
10. Media Player Classic – Media Player Classic looks like Windows Media Player 6, but with additional features, such as AVI subtitle support, QuickTime and RealVideo support, and a few built-in codec. And it doesn’t have the bloat the Windows Media Player 11 has.
Automation
11. KeePas – KeePas is an opensource password manager which helps you manage your passwords in a secure way
12. MemoKeys – MemoKeys allows you to create shortcut key combinations (hotkeys) and associate them with any text information of your choice.
13. AutoIt – AutoIt is a freeware BASIC-like scripting language designed for automating the Windows GUI
14. AutoHotKey – AutoHotKey is a free keyboard macro program. It supports hotkeys for the keyboard, mouse, and joystick.
Compression, Backup, and File Recovery
15. PeaZip – PeaZip is an open-source file and archive manager
16. 7Zip – 7zip is an open-source file archiver predominantly for Microsoft Windows OS
17. GMail Drive – GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Mail account, allowing you to use GMail as a storage medium
18. Mozy – Mozy is the industry-leading solution for online backup. Its offers 2GB storage for free.
19. Recuva – Recuva is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentaly deleted from your computer
Blogging
20. Windows Live Writer – Windows Live Writer is a desktop blog-publishing application that has many features.
21. BlogDesk – An easy-to-use desktop blogging client
Browsers
22. Mozilla Firefox – The award-winning web browser is better than ever. It’s unlimited extensibility, thanks to the hundreds of useful add-ons available, makes it an absolute must have.
23. Opera – A full featured Internet browser, Opera includes pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, integrated searches, and advanced functions like an email program, RSS newsfeeds, and IRC chat.
24. Google Chrome – Google Chrome combines a minimalistic design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier. As with all things Google, Chrome is in beta.
CD and DVD Tools
25. CDBurnerXP – Free CD Burning software
26. Ashampoo Burning Studio Free – If you’re looking for a fast, responsive, and high-quality burning software that does not cost a dime, then Ashampoo Burning Studio Free is for you.
27. DeepBurner – DeepBurner is a free CD and DVD burning tool
28. DAEMON Tools Lite – DAEMON Tools is a virtual CD/DVD-ROM emulator
Cleanup, Tuning, Tweaking, and Updating
29. Defraggler – Defraggler lets you defrag individual files, without having to process the whole drive, and it allows you to schedule runs
30. CCleaner – CCleaner is a system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused temporary files from your system, allowing it to run faster, more efficiently, and giving you more hard disk space.
31. Startup Delayer – Startup Delayer allows you to setup how many seconds after Windows has started, to load each program.
32. RevoUninstaller – RevoUninstaller can be used to uninstall programs, and scan for leftover registry keys, files, and folders.
33. Eraser – Eraser is a secure data removal tool for Windows
34. SUMo – With SUMo, you’ll be able to keep your PC up-to-date by detecting required updates for your software.
35. RadarSync – Stop searching for drivers and app updates, update your PC for free with RadarSync
36. FileHippo Update Checker – The Update Checker will scan your computer for installed software, check the versions, and then send this info to FileHippo.com to see if there are any newer releases. These are then neatly displayed in your browser for you to download.
Desktop, System & UI Enhancements
37. Samurize – Samurize is a popular advanced desktop enhancement engine for Windows
38. Yahoo! Widgets – The Yahoo! Windget Engine lets you run small utilities called ‘widgets’ on your desktop.
39. TaskSwitchXP – TaskSwitchXP is an advanced task management utility that picks up where the standard Windows Alt+Tab switcher leaves off. Aside from providing the functionality of Alt+Tab, it adds visual styles to the dialog, and enhances it by displaying a thumbnail preview of the application you want to switch to.
40. Launchy – Launchy allows you to launch programs with just a few keystrokes
41. ObjectDock – ObjectDock is a program that enables users to add a mac-like dock to their Windows desktop
42. RocketDock – RocketDock is a smoothly animated, application launching dock similar to ObjectDock
43. Google Desktop – Google Desktop makes searching your computer as easy as searching the web with Google
44. Visual Task Tips – Visual Task Tips is a lighweight shell enhancement utility that provides a thumbnail preview image for each program in the Windows Taskbar.
45. Microsoft TweakUI – This Microsoft PowerToy gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface , including mouse settings, explorer settings, taskbar settings, and more.
Developer Tools
46. FileZilla – FileZilla is a powerful FTP client that is easy-to-use, has many features, and is fast and relaible.
47. SmartFTP – Aside from the usual features any FTP client has, the unique thing about SmartFTP is that multiple FTP connections can be opened at the same time in different tabs. You can also copy files from one remote host to another.
48. Kompozer – WYSIWYG HTML and CSS editor derived from Nvu
49. HTML-Kit – HTML-Kit is a full-featured and customizable HTML text editor that can be used to create and edit web pages.
50. Ades Clr Picker – AdesClrPicker is a very easy-to-use, yet powerful color picker application for web designers.
51. PuTTY – PuTTY is a free telnet and SSH client for Windows and Unix platforms
52. Notepad++ – Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.
Download Managers
53. Internet Download Manager – Internet Download Manager is a tool that can increase download speeds, resume, schedule, and manage downloads.
54. FlashGet – FlashGet is a free download manager that allows you to spit the files you’re downloading into different sections.
55. Free Download Manager – Free Download Manager supports resumable downloads and multiple simultaneous downloads.
Imaging
56. Picasa – Picasa is a software that helps you find, edit, and share all the pictures on your PC
57. GIMP – The GIMP is a multiplatform photo manipulation tool. It’s suitable for a variety of image manipulation tasks, including photo retouching, image composition, and image construction.
58. IrfanView – IrfanView is a very fast, compact, and innovative graphic viewer for Windows
59. Paint.NET – Paint.NET is an image and photo manipulation software. It’s meant to be a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with all Windows operating systems.
60. Photo Story 3 – Photo Story 3 allows you to create video slideshows of your digital photos with music and tites
61. Google SketchUp – Google Sketchup is an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program
Messaging and Chat
62. Mozilla Thunderbird – Thunderbird is a great email client from the same people who brought you the Firefox browser
63. Digsby – IM, email, and social networking in one easy-to-use application
64. Pidgin – Pidgin is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows
65. Skype – Using Skype, you can make telephone calls over the Internet, and calls to other people using Skype.
66. SAM – SAM is a simple voice answering machine for Skype users
67. XChat – XChat is an IRC program for Windows and Unix operating systems
Office and News
68. OpenOffice – OpenOffice is an open-source, multi-platform, and multi-lingual suite comparable with MS Office.
69. AbiWord – AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word and is rapidly becoming a state-of-the-art word processor.
70. PowerPoint Viewer – PowerPoint Viewer lets you view full-featured presentations created in PowerPoint 97 and later versions.
71. CutePDF – CutePDF installs itself as a printer subsystem and enables any Windows application that can print to create professional quality PDF documents.
72. PDFCreator – PDFCreator can create PDF files from almost any Windows app
73. BullZip PDF Printer – BullZip PDF Printer allows you to create PDF documents from Windows applications.
74. Adobe Reader – Adobe Reader, the original PDF software from Adobe, let’s you open, view, search, and print PDF files.
75. Foxit Reader – Foxit Reader is a free PDF document viewer and printer. It’s incredibly small (just a few MBs), with a breezing fast launch speed and a rich feature set.
76. FeedDemon – Looking for a great way to view and manage your RSS feeds from your desktop? Look no further than FeedDemon, the most popular Windows RSS reader.
77. RSS Bandit – RSS Bandit is a free desktop news aggregator for Windows built on the .NET framework.
78. ReadAir – ReadAir is an OSX themed desktop RSS client for Mac or Windows
Screen Recording/Screenshot Taking
79. CamStudio – CamStudio records screen into standard AVI files. It’s an ideal tool for creating software demonstations.
80. Gadwin PrintScreen – Gadwin PrintScreen is an easy-to-use utility that allows you to capture any portion of the screen, and save it to a file, copy to Windows clipboard, print it, or email it to a friend.
81. Screenshot Captor – Screenshot Captor is a program for taking screenshots on your PC, with many features.
82. FRAPS – FRAPS is a benchmarking, screenshot capturing, and video capturing software for games.
Security
83. AntiVir Personal Edition – The AntiVir Personal Edition offers effective protection against computer viruses.
84. Avast Home Edition – Avast Home Edition is a full-featured anti-virus package designed exclusively for home users
85. AVG Anti-Virus – AVG AntiVirus is a well known anti-virus tool that is easy-to-use and doesn’t slow the system down
86. BitDefender Free – BitDefender Free Edition uses the same scanning engine found in other BitDefender products, allowing you to enjoy basic virus protection for no cost at all
87. Comodo Internet Security -
88. ZoneAlarm Free – ZoneAlarm Free is one of the best and well know free firewall software in the market.
89. Ad-Aware Free – Ad-Aware provides protection from spyware
90. Spybot Search & Destroy – Spybot Search & Destroy can detect and remove most spyware from your PC.
91. HijackThis – Hijack This is a tool for in-depth scanning of your computer for spyware
92. Windows Defender – Windows Defender is an anti-spyware program from Microsoft
Torrents
93. uTorrent – uTorrent is an efficient and feature-rich BitTorrent client sporting a very small footprint.
94. Vuze – Vuze is a java BitTorrent client offering queing/priority systems, start/stop seeding options, and more.
95. BitTorrent – BitTorrent is a BitTorrent client and a good alternative to uTorrent
96. PeerGuardian – PeerGuardian is the premier IP blocker that protects your privacy on P2P. You can’t go without this one, if, um, you’re downloading stuff you’re not supposed to download.
Others
97. Mozilla Sunbird – Sunbird is an open-source, cross-platform calendar application.
98. BitMeter – BitMeter is an Internet Bandwidth monitoring app.
99. Google Earth – Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps, and the power of Google Search to put the world’s geopraphic information at your fingertips.
100. nLite/vLite – nLite is a tool for pre-installation Windows configuration and component removal at your choice.
101. FreeMind – FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java
Please mention your favorites in the comments section- thanks!
June 22nd, 2009
We all search for information using search engines. A lot of us have come across a forum we need to access for that information, but the forum may require us to register and sign in first. This is annoying- signing up to a forum, just for a 1 time visit. I decided to make this post, which will guide you around doing this mess.
The highly awaited free anti-virus software from Microsoft is now in public beta. Codenamed Morro- Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is set to replace Live OneCare, and supersede Windows Defender. There are a limited number of download slots- it is capped at 75,000 downloads. Get this fast before time is up.
What is RSS?