Mac Links

Here are some nice Apps for OS X that I find very useful. Most of them are free, but there may be some commercial gems in there too.

coconutBattery

This nifty little tool is a must have for Apple notebook owners. It will tell you what the current maximum capacity of your battery is and let you log a history of the capacity.

SlimBatteryMonitor

The default battery monitor that comes with OS X is a bit of a space hog. This free replacement takes a minimal amount of room, and uses color to help convey the battery status.

HandBrake

Want to take your DVDs with you, but tight on space? This tool converts your DVDs to high quality MPEG4 files, squeezing a two hour movie into about 1 GB of space.

Hex Fiend

If you’re a developer or a hacker, you probably need a hex editor. Hex Fiend is free and has plenty of features.

BitPim

I got a new cell phone that iSync doesn’t support, but BitPim does. I was able to configure the phone to talk to BitPim via Bluetooth, in spite of the documentation that came with the phone. It is not the most intuitive piece of software, lacking features like sync’ing with the Apple Address Book, but it’s FOSS, so I can feel free to contribute improvements, what with all the massive free time I have.

Storyist

This novel writing software is packed full of useful features, like keeping track of writing statistics, section sheets, story board, and linking. I’m glad a friend pointed it out to me before I started writing my own software. This is commercial software, but I think it’s worth the money.

Temperature Monitor

If you ever wondered how hot that notebook on your lap really was, this software is for you. It tracks all the little temperature sensors in your notebook or desktop. It can really help you when experimenting with cooling systems for your Mac.

Perian

This plugin for QuickTime adds support for many popular video formats.

MacVim

I found this new port of Vim to run properly on the Mac, and it is already my default editor. Kudos to the author.

JDiskReport

JDiskReport comes in really handy when you are trying to figure out what is using up all your disk space. It gives you navigable charts of which directories are using the most space, so you can drill down to the real problem spots on your drive.

Updated Dec 28, 2008 by Isaac Foraker

Tags: