Negro’s favorite free proggy’s for the iBookables

I have been promising people that I would post my favorite FREE utilities/programs for OS X. Some of these I have blogged previously and some not, either way they will get there day in the sun now.

Lets start with browsers. Now most Windoze users cant live without Firefox and Mac users are no different. In fact I have three browsers currently on the iBookables. Of coarse Safari comes with every Mac and just to be different I installed Camino right away, I had used in on my B&W PowerMac. Camino is based on Firefox, although it cant make use all of the cool extensions. Within the last week I installed Firefox because I found that I couldnt get zillow.com to work with either of my browsers. Strange, but that happens and why its a good idea, at least for the mac to have more than one browser. You can answer that nagging question when a site isnt working correctly … is it that the Mac isnt supported for some reason or just my browser.

… batting second …
FireAnt, I blogged about it HERE. Go take a look, but dont forget to come back. There is lots more to see.

.. next …
Fink. Now this is only for that hardcore geek who doesnt mind fighting with a program some. Fink and Fink Commander allow you to install Linux based programs on your Mac. I installed it to have access to The Gimp and Bluefish.

… batting cleanup …
Audion 3 I blogged about this program in the second paragraph of THIS entry. Basically it is a good Audio program that allows you to record online radio. It predates and has been completely overshadowed and outclassed by iTunes. But, its free and you know how cheap I am.

… next …
Cube is a first person shooter like Unreal, Doom, etc. Its a decent game, and I suck at it so far. But its on the iBookables and Im committed to mastering it (or at least making it through one level). More info here.

… continuing …
Cyberduck is a really good FTP program that I found on Apples site. Before I found Cyberduck I tried two or three other programs and always thought to myself, this should be easier. Well, thats what I found. If you need an FTP program, this is the one.

… yes, there are more …
Chicken of the VNC is a program I use to remotely log into and use computers on my network without having to be right in front of them. Really useful when you need to do an upgrade, or some other such thing. Whats most useful is that there are flavors of VNC for all OS’s, so you can control Windoze, Linux or other Mac’s.

… and the band played on …
BitTorrent client. I blogged about this HERE Enough said.

… this is getting ridiculous …
MacMAME. This is a little program that I only installed a few days ago and I havent been able to get it to work yet. Looks like I need to RTFM (definition). Alright, so what does it actually do? Its a game emulator for all those arcade games you played as a kid, you can also play games that were made for consoles that arent made anymore i.e. NES. Most times you can find the MAME files for free. I just want to be able to play Galaga, Galaxians, 1942 and Joust.

… and I havent even made it to programs that arent in the dock yet …
VLC is a great program that saved me $30 by not having to upgrade QuickTime. I blogged about it HERE, enough said.

… and on and on and on …
Desktop Manager is a program that I dont know what I would do without! What is DM ? It is a program that allows you to have many virtual desktops all running at the same time. Example: right now I have 5 virtual desktops running. In the first I have Camino running as I work on this post (with 4 tabs all on different sites) on the second I have the finder open looking at files on my hard drive and the BitTorrent client open catching good stuff. The next has iTunes, the next has Smultron (next program in this post) and the last has Entourage. I know, computers have been able to multitask for a looong time whats the big whoop. What makes this cool is that I never have to minimize windows to the dock to get screen realestate back. That is real important on a 12.1 inch screen, let me tell you. I can quickly click to the desktop that has what Im looking for and off I go. Even better, you can have multiple instances of the same program running in different desktops need to have your browser and file manager on one desktop and on another your ftp program and browser, no problem!

I first used a desktop pager when I first used Linux on my old desktop PC a few years ago. Let me tell you, once you use it you never want to go back. Even at work on the beautiful 17″ flat panel set to 1280 x 960 or something crazy like that to maximize my desktop I still wish I had a desktop pager!

… Im starting to think I filled my hard drive with crap! …
Smultron is a program I found recently when I found that TextWrangler (see below) didnt have the preview function I needed for my html work. Its simple, lightweight, has a nice interface and just works.

… were almost there …
Seashore is a decent little image editor program. Its not as good as The Gimp or Photoshop, but if your needs are simple and just say, want to resize a photo or do some minor editing its up to the task. I havent used it in a while, but its worthy enough that I havent trashed it, eventhough I have much more powerful programs loaded.

… I think we are at the end …
TextWrangler is an amazing freeby. At its base its a text editor. You can use it to edit config files, make a simple text file, hack together a webpage or as I found out, open pdf’s. This program is a great swiss army knife. I have found that it will open files that my Mac doesnt seem to know what to do with. Sometimes I would go around and around looking for a program to open a certain file and then try TextWrangler and be surprised that it was up to the task. Now I start with this program when I have a strange file format that I need to open. This one is worth putting in your toolbox.

My goodness, I didnt realize there were that many! And I left off some that I tried and found were decent, but were overshadowed. If you know of other FREE programs you love, let me know. Either leave a comment or email me via the contact link in the top right.

Now go out there and download away, you can always trash them if they arent useful for you! If you find yourself saying, damn! I need a program that will do X. Someone has probably made one and chances are there is a free version. You too can be a cheap bastard. Can you imaging how much $$$ I would be out if I had to pay $30 or more for each of these programs? Puleeez.