Software On Your Mac
Well, it’s looking increasingly likely I’ll be buying a notebook before the month is out and as such I’m looking to gain some user opinion on what software everyone out there uses. To start myself off I’ll be downloading/purchasing the following
I’m also be looking to purchase Microsoft Office and the Adobe Suite. However, funds will be a bit low after I’ve bought the Mac and software above, so if you have any suggestions I’ll gladly listen.
I’ve recently seen Pixelmator and thought that might be worth a shot at temporarily replacing my beloved fireworks until I can afford it. Has anyone used this before? Or have any other image editors for the Mac which you prefer?
I’m also looking for a Mac alternative for phpmyadmin.
PHPMyAdmin can be set up on your Mac localhost (I recommend MAMP), since it just depends on PHP/MySQL.
Software:
- Twitterific for Twitter
- Adium for IM
- If you need a desktop RSS reader (which has web access as well), I recommend NetNewsWire. I’m syncing it with my iPhone, work mac and home MBP.
- Fluid.app for site specific browsers (for Gmail, Basecamp, etc).
- Crossover Games for playing Windows games within OS X
I’m still trying things out but I’ll pass on any cool software I find
Cheers Mike, I knew I could count on you.
I stupidly forgot to take down a note on the ones you told me about the other day, so I’m breathing a sigh of relief now that you’ve posted them on here haha!
How are you finding Pixelmator?
I’ve not used it much yet, any akamike redesign work I’ve been doing has been XHTML/CSS (easiest/fastest way to get things rolling). I did play about with the tools though and I think it has everything I need until, like you, I can afford Fireworks/Photoshop.
Then again, I might find myself using it so well that the 270-560 quid can go towards something more exciting. Like a nice big monitor or two
Primarily for text editing I use MacVim though I do have both TextMate and Coda. I find Coda really useful when I’m editing sites which I’m managing via FTP which is most of my personal sites. For larger application development I use MacVim and for writing (blog posts or journal or stories or whatever else) I tend to use TextMate with Markdown or Textile syntax.
Since I work mostly equally on a couple of machines I use Dropbox to keep files in sync between them.
Colloquy for IRC chat.
Quicksilver is maybe the best thing ever created though it has been largely abandoned by the developer and LaunchBar is a popular alternative.
If you develop for Wordpress or any other PHP based CMS/whathaveyou which requires MySQL I definitely recommend MAMP which is basically a self-contained installation of Apache 2 and MySQL.
If you haven’t purchased Things yet I would recommend Potion Factory’s The Hit List which I’ve recently dumped Things for.
Lastly, if you do design heavy work xScope is a spectacular little tool.
Cheers.
Well two things now. The first is I’m pretty sure your spam catcher got my last comment because of all the links in it.
The second is what I should have led my first with. Congrats on the new Mac!