it really doesn’t matter what applications you install first, but over time, i’ve grown used to a few applications that make the experience of using my computer unique, efficient and enjoyable. there’s no easier way to roll through what apps i use than to show you.
anti RSI is an app that i discovered soon after a 100 hour work week. it helps prevent repetitive stress injuries by interrupting your work schedule. annoying at first, but helpful in the long run
currently using firefox with firebug as the go-to development browser, but these notes for webkit were very handy in tiger. not sure if this works with leopard.
set up a crontab with cronnix to make webkit download and install automatically
ie6 and ie7
currently, vmware fusion or parallels remain the best way to use ie6 or ie7. you’ll essentially have to install windows on your mac in what’s called a virtual machine – luckily it’s pretty easy with this software. I have three images, one with ie6, one with ie7 that’s set to auto update, and one with ubuntu, for linux testing.
curator search, find, and copy album art to itunes. this makes cover flow amazing.
ipod itunes allows forward and backward syncing of ipod. since i have an iphone now, and i can’t copy files directly to the iphone, i don’t use this very often.
i let superduper create a bootable disk image of my machine. if i ever need to restore a file, i can just open the diskimage, find the file, and roll with it. if something really bad happens to my machine, i can always use apple’s disk utility to restore my entire hd from the backup.
i keep two backups on hand. one that’s a week old, and one that’s done every night at 3am. if anything goes wrong, i install something that hoses my system, i have options.
quicksilver
have not tested quicksilver in 10.5 yet, i miss it already, but in defense of apple, their new spotlight search really is a lot better. it works as an application launcher now, so it’s got that going for it. still, no hotkeys and twittering from it – yet…
using terms from application "Quicksilver"
on process text tweet
tell application "Keychain Scripting"
set twitter_key to first generic key of current keychain whose name is "Twitterrific"
set twitter_login to quoted form of (account of twitter_key & ":" & password of twitter_key)
end tell
set twitter_status to quoted form of ("status=" & tweet)
set results to do shell script "curl --user " & twitter_login & " --data-binary " & twitter_status & " <a href="http://twitter.com/statuses/update.json">http://twitter.com/statuses/update.json</a>"
-- display dialog results
return nothing
end process text
end using terms from
simplifymedia for itunes music sharing, though don’t see the point
remote buddy for remote management of osx machine with phone
marco polo for better location switching still a little buggy, but much better for laptops with external disks, etc
14 Nov 2007
offsite and online backup solutions
i’ve been playing with http://mozy.com/ but am currently pretty disappointed with the service. two months of backup time, and i’m only at 2.8% complete – also, the software runs all the time, i’ve noticed my computer slows when it shouldn’t
NOTE: if you’re setting up a new mac, first check out our initial setup guide
if you’re setting up a mac for web dev, check out our osx dev setup guide
there’s an updated version of this page for leopard and later