top 10 free OS X apps

All the following applications are for Mac OS X, and at least have free trial versions that can used (and re-used...)
Some are to be used with caution, some have questionnable uses but can come in handy, and I'll provide all the website links for you.
This is a special post to celebrate post #100 on this blog!!!

1. Adium

I like Adium because you can use all your instant messaging accounts on it (msn, aim, gmail, yahoo, etc...) simultaneously. I also like it because you can download lots of Xtras, some of which I made, I like the fact that it is open-source and that it's so good that mac-users will never need to use msn's awful software!!!

2. SizzlingKeys

This is REALLY cool if you like listening to your background music while working. You can configure your own keyboard shortcuts to change songs, pause your song, etc... And you can configure the floater to look really nice on your desktop. It's free!

3. Growl

This is REALLY COOL and why Windows will never amount to anything :p... It works with iTunes, Mail, Adium, and other applications to notify you for some events. You can configure the floater to look nice on your desktop.

4. Senuti

This wonderful application will allow you to do the only thing iTunes will not: copy music from your iPod to your computer. This has many legal applications: backing up the music on your hard drive, saving space to put all your heavy developper apps which take Go upon Go of space on your poor hard drive, or even just transfering your music from your old mac to your new mac :)

5. VLC

Now illegal in France, but I don't see why. Anyway most media players are fussy. This one isn't too much. It'll allow you to read even .wma files without downloading Windows Media Player *shudders*. Excellent for watching DivX, DVDs, and home videos when QuickTime gets fussy.

6. Amnesty

Dashboard is nice. But I don't like opening it. I like having my widgets on my Desktop and closing them when I'm sick of them. You can enter a terminal command to make this possible without downloading Amnesty, but I still like Amnesty because it allows you to change your widget's size, rotate it, change it's transparency, etc... It's 20$, which is a lot, but I've been using the trial version, which works very well :)

7. ClearDock

Ever get sick of the color of your dock? Change it! You can also work on the transparency, and the border. WAY cool. Unsanity also has other cool haxies but this is the only free one.

8. HandBrake

This is a DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter. That doesn't sound very legal, but there is a legal use I like: for those of us with video iPods, it's nice to put our home videos on it without having to buy the pro version of Quicktime, or even to put a film we legally bought to watch on the plane, for example. PLuuuus, the dock icon looks really cool :)

9. CyberDuck

An excellent FTP client :)

10. Coconut apps

These are really cool to know if there's an open network in the area, or how well your battery is doing, or where your mac was built.


OK, well those are just a few of my favorites. I think with all those you'll have time to get the most out of your mac :)