Mac OS Useful Software Links

If you haven't heard of Evernote yet then it is possible you have been living under a rock. Basically it is the ultimate in note taking apps available. It is completely free but there is a pro version if you need more capacity and offline notes. It is cross platform and has versions that live on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and more. Syncing all your notes means that it really doesn't matter where you are, you won't be without them. When I say notes this actually includes text, image, voice and video notes. Head on over to Evernote to try it out.

In a similar style to Evernote in the box above, Dropbox is a way of keeping all your documents synced up across multiple platforms at all times. It lives on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and has a great web interface too. I use it to store all my web development files so I always have the most up to date version with me ready to use. Think of it as a cloud storage box available at all times. The best bit is that even though it limited in size to begin with there are loads of great ways to get free space upgrades from 'Treasure Hunts' to referrals. It's a great bit of software that I would feel lost without, check it out at the Dropbox website

There is little that needs to be said about VLC. It is the video player for pretty much any file type you throw at it. Don't carry on thinking about, just download it now.

Super lightweight BitTorrent client that makes gettings files off the net quick and simple. Grab it now at µTorrent Website

The Mac OS equivalent of Notepad++, a great FREE text editing app for anything from making basic documents to building web sites and everything inbetween. It has basic syntax highlighting, a nice tabbed layout on the right hand side document tray makes for easy management of files too. There is also the big brother version of this app called BBEdit which isn't free but adds some more useful functionality. For a free text editing app it is definitely worth installing on your system and it really is as powerful as you would like it to be. Head on over to Bare Bones software to get either Text Wrangler or BBEdit.

I've actually just moved onto this application to continue building the website from Text Wrangler and so far I am really impressed. A great website design studio which is completely free and very powerful. Tabbed layout, syntax highlighting, error identification, in browser preview, autocompletion of code and much much more. Other useful additions are built in terminal, integrated debugger and GIT integration. The best things to do is head on over to Aptana's website and download it now to try it out.

I'll put this one simply, when you download a Zip, RAR or any other packaged up file from the net it needs unpacking, the built in Apple option works well but is not customisable. With some nifty settings on Unarchiver you can quite quickly make your mac unpack, save the files to a new folder in your current location and remove the original packed up file. All without touching it. Awesomeness. You can get it from the app store or from their own site.

Believe it or not, removing apps from your Apple Mac isn't always as tidy as many would have you think. Obviously not as much chaos is caused as removing an app from a Windows PC but it still might need a tidy up. AppCleaner quite nicely lines up your applications and also provides a drag and drop interface. Select or drop it on and it will hunt down all the associated files ready for removing. Easy Peasy.Download Link.

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It is quite simply the way to encode the video or rip it. Pick it up now and stop thinking about your other options.

Apple Macs dim their screens and go to sleep in a very helpul way when they are idle but when using Skype, FaceTime or watching a Movie this isn't particularly great as you want to be able to see the screen. All caffieine does is sit in your taskbar and all it takes is a simple click to turn it on or off. On will prevent the Mac from dimming or sleeping, off will put it back to normal operation. You can also set a timer on it so it doesn't just stay on if you left the mac alone and forgot about it. Get it now.

This is much dicssion about virus protection for Macs, mostly because there is still not as much threat to Macs as Windows. But it seems foolish not to grab a free and effective method for protecting your computer from Sophos. It's lightweight, sits out the way and does what it is meant to do.

DashExpander is a lightweight and fantastic text expander app for Mac OS, it also handles code searching. Basically it allows you to save those snippets of text or code that you need on a regular basis and add them to your page or document with a simple abbreviation of your choosing. For instance, I can call in my email address simple using '@jr' which makes adding it to websites or emails quick and easy. It can also be used to add code to web pages or programming, I actually have my entire web page template as a snippet I can call in. The thing that makes DashExpander so much better than the competition, other than the fact it is free, is that you can create snippets with placeholders on them, this means that when you add the abbreviation to the page, it pops up a window, you add the content to the placeholders, and hit return to add the content to the page. Done. If you are running Mac OS I seriously suggest grabbing DashExpander from the mac store now. Oh and in case you worry that your snippets won't work on your other macs, the library for them can be stored in your dropbox!