All the Mac OS X freeware here is top-notch, highy recommended and of interest to a wide variety of Mac users. And when we say freeware that truly does mean free — no demos or tryouts. If you have any suggestions — especially for cool Mac freeware we may not have heard about — please contact us.
Macworld is reviewing a low-cost or freeware app every day for the next month. Apparently they want to clear out a backlog of candidates for their Mac Gems column. They start off with Lingon — a graphical user interface for creating launchd tasks. The thing I like about Mac Gems is that they stick with the really good stuff — there’s no filler just so they can say they posted that day.
Quinn is far and away the most popular freeware app here at thriftmac, so we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to let you know about a menubar item that has recently become available. Click on the Quinu icon to get a list of servers where you can face off against opponents in this Tetris-based game. Yes, it makes it even easier to feed your addiction.
Freeware lists keep crossing our desk here at thriftmac headquarters. Here are two more:
RMX has a fairly long list of favourite freeware, but be warned — some of it, such as Journler, is not actually free. Update: link has gone dead.
Macworld has reprinted an article from business-oriented CIO.com that lists seven must-have open source programs. AbiWord, especially, receives high praise as a good alternative word processor.
BravoBug claims to have the greatest free Mac apps of all time. You’ll likely find yourself agreeing with everything on the list. But HexFiend? Let me put it this way — if you don’t know what this program is for, you likely don’t want to know.
Infinite Loop has details on the latest upgrade to Adium, one of the top three (along with Quinn and Quicksilver) Mac freeware programs. Among the new features for chatting are a redesign of the contact inspector, Facebook chat, and a search field built into the contact list window.
The Mac freeware lists have been coming fast and furious lately. Here are three more:
MacNoob is the blog of a Windows engineer trying his first Mac. No doubt he’ll be fully converted soon. He’s chosen some kinda geeky stuff, as you might expect.
Rants//Raves is the “bitchin’ playground of a pregnant designer.” Her picks are a mix of the familiar and not-so-familiar. *Update: link dead”
And geenius, who claims to combine inspiration with nonsense, has a list of Leopard apps he can’t live without.
Celtx, which is easily one of the best Mac freeware apps around, has hit the version 1.0 milestone with a huge number of new features listed at MacUpdate.
They refer to it as “the world’s first all-in-one media pre-production software.” But you might want to think of Celtx as scriptwriting on steroids as it takes your story from concept to production.
This one has been around for a couple of years, but it’s the first we’ve seen of it — Keynote Bingo. And it’s been “optimized” for Apple’s WWDC 2008 taking place June 9-13. Just punch in a random number and you get a bingo card with items arranged in a five-by-five grid. Each item predicts an event that will take place during Steve Jobs’ keynote address. For example, if the rumours flowing hot and heavy about me.com come true, you get to click on the me.com item. Some — like the crowd cheers — are easy. Some — like Mac OS X free — are highly unlikely. In any case, if you get five in a row, you get to call bingo.
Just when you thought a Jobs keynote couldn’t get any more mind-bending, along comes Keynote Bingo to throw some silliness into the mix.
Firefox is one of those programs that I’ve long wanted to like but could never quite get there. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a poor second-cousin to the Windows version — kinda sluggish, kinda ugly. This feeling was reinforced when compared with Camino, which is based on the same rendering engine but manages to be both speedy and good looking.
Firefox 3, which is at the release candidate stage, attempts to address both these issues — and by and large succeeds. The interface is much more Mac-like, and will make you feel at home. Of course, it’s tough to compete with the Apple-designed elegance of Safari, but Firefox 3 makes a serious effort.
New to the Firefox interface is the somewhat controversial back button. It’s been made more prominent than the forward button and fits into a sideways keyhole shape. This has created a tempest in some circles, with advice exchanged on how to revert to a more conventional design. But don’t listen to these naysayers — the big back button is actually a nice innovation and you’ll be glad to have it.
But how about speed? More than interface design, it’s been speed — or lack thereof — that has held me back from using Firefox on a regular basis. Compared with Safari or Camino, it always seemed ponderously slow to the point of exasperation. Although it’s only a release candidate, Firefox 3 appears to have overcome this limitation. Pages seem to render every bit as fast as with Safari, although in some cases the page starts off as a blank for a few seconds. If you’re the impatient type, this could be frustrating.
There is a whole slew of new features, but perhaps the most outstanding is the location bar. Type in a few letters, and you get a drop-down list of suggested matches. Some of the matches might seem odd at first — why would “mac” match with PayPal? — but it is supposed to get better over time as it learns your habits.
This feature is much more powerful that it appears at first glance. It may be that in the future, browsers will depend less on bookmarks and more on databases. Let’s face it, even the most carefully organized bookmarks can become an unruly mess after a while. And the Internet has become such a firehose of information that it may be impossible to create a bookmark for every site you find to be of interest. Firefox 3 takes the pressure off and lets you surf more intuitively.
Conclusion: With Firefox 3, thriftmac can at last recommend it without reservation on an equal footing with Safari and Camino. It now really comes down to personal preference. But that doesn’t mean we’ve reached a plateau in browser innovation. An up-and-comer called Flock — No. 6 in PC World’s top products of 2008 — could wind up blowing them all out of the water.
CrabApple Forest has posted a list of favourite Mac freeware. Let’s see — Smultron, check; Cyberduck, check; Delivery Status, whoa! Just when we thought it was getting predictable the list veers off into uncharted territory. See for yourself.
A major update to this program for creating photo galleries includes many new editing features, better image organization and an RSS media feed. In addition, JAlbum offers free hosting and a variety of skins to give your album the look you want.
Here’s one from the suggestion box: Cateye
Five sets of effects for iChat and Photo Booth include RetroPixels, Love For 80s, Bent Pels, BoobToob and FewTile. There are plenty of variations on the Space Invaders theme, but the one I like most is VHS Playback.