Circle Six on OS X Utilities

As part of our current series of software roundups, here are our must-have utilities for OS X. These range from maintenance to productivity, simple and useful to downright powerful. Leave us a comment and let everyone know what you think should be on the list.

System Utilities

Probably the most deserving of this list, and thus the first on it, QuickSilver for OS X is by far my most used utility. Putting all of my apps at my fingertips is only the beginning. I can access and manipulate everything from my Backpack pages to Email, my Headdress powered local sites, Google searches, Address Book entries and more with the extensive list of plugins. A gorgeous interface (with multiple choices and customizable options to suit your tastes) makes Quicksilver a prime candidate for the Macintosh app Hall of Fame. There are quite a few tutorials available on Quicksilver from a variety of sources. The possibilities seem to be endless.

Second on my list of must-haves would be the Growl notification system. Once you install it, you don’t have to do anything. Just about every program I use has its hooks sunk into Growl. Growl pops up small notification windows to let you know that events have happened, from the completion of an FTP transfer to a new email in your inbox. Once you have it, you have trouble remembering life without it. And as I mentioned, most software will automatically register with Growl and just start notifying you automatically. There’s even an addon for Firefox to notify you about download completions. If you use it in tandem with the Download Statusbar, it cleans up the download process and makes it quite transparent.

iTerm is a powerful Terminal replacement. My favorite feature is that it adds tabs. It also has an anti-idle function that can keep your sessions from being disconnected. Beyond that, I might as well list Terminal itself as one of my most used utilities. A few bash_profile tricks and you’re on your way to command line Nirvana. A couple of requisite tips include directory colorization, case-insensitive tab completion, and prompt customization.

File and Disk Management

An often unmentioned and highly useful Finder replacement, PathFinder is an extremely powerful file manager for OS X. I can’t begin to list all of its features here, but a few highlights are its great compression engine integration, an awesome search utility, file filtering, tabs and bookmarks, a “stack” for file operations, a great preview window, awesome integration with tools like TextMate and a great interface with drawers and configurable panes. It improves on Finder’s burning, trash handling, process management, recent files/folder stacks and other refinements. It’s got a price tag, but I’ve paid for it for both of my computers and have never regretted it.

This is a triple threat. Maintenance and OnyX are free utilities from Titanium Software that help keep my computer running in tip-top shape. Maintenance runs the default cron scripts and optimizes the system, while OnyX provides a ton of useful disk and system operations. It’s a great free alternative to programs like Mac Pilot. And Disk Warrior keeps my directory (B-Tree) optimized and recovers damaged data. I also own the Micromat Protogé which comes with TechTool, which does the same along with a plethora of other optimization and rescue utilities (it boots from Firewire and is a great rescue tool). Running Maintenance (or any of several programs that do the same) on a regular basis is a highly recommended Mac maintenance routine. Directory optimization, on the other hand, is a little controversial. It’s akin to defragging a Windows disk, and according to Mac lore, the Mac OS doesn’t need defragging. I can attest to the fact, however, that if you regularly deal with large files (1G+), a program like Disk Warrior can significantly speed up an ailing Mac. I’ve been amazed at the results. Fair warning though, you should ALWAYS back up first…

Which leads, inevitably, to the mention of SuperDuper! The exclamation point is part of the name, which makes it an easy find on Google ;-). SuperDuper! can make an exact, bootable, duplicate of your drive on a second disk or external Firewire drive. Or if you have infinite patience, an external USB drive. It comes in a free flavor, but the paid version allows for Smart Updating, which will just scan for changed files and update your backup, saving a ton of time after your initial duplication. It’s probably the most useful backup utility I’ve found thus far. And the backups I keep have saved my butt more times than I care to count. Because despite the party line, Macs do crash, especially when you’re a power hungry, terminal-mad envelope-pusher like so many of us seem to be.

Installing and uninstalling most Mac apps is a breeze. However, just like Windoze, some apps leave a few remnants behind. There has been a recent burst of free utilities to do the same thing, and admittedly I haven’t tried them because I paid for AppZapper a long time ago. It makes uninstalling applications as simple as drag and drop, locating application support folders, preference files and other leftovers and erasing them cleanly off your system. I find keeping things tidy prevents a lot of confusion later. It does offer you a checklist before wiping an app, so you can uncheck a preference file if you plan to reinstall or upgrade an application and don’t want to lose your settings.

Input Related

I use the Logitech S510 Cordless Desktop on a couple of my workstations. It’s a PC keyboard that I love because A) it’s wireless, B) it’s got great key response, C) it’s relatively inexpensive for what it does. The pitfalls of using a PC keyboard are many, though and there are a few utilities that can soothe the pain. My most required is DoubleCommand. It allows me, at its most basic, to swap the Alt and Windows key on the keyboard which has the effect of putting the Command(⌘) and Option(⌥) keys where they should be. It runs as a preference pane and I can set different options for different users and can easily remap the keyboard depending on where my laptop happens to be plugged in. It also supports about 20 other keyboard remappings that I rarely use but find comfort in knowing they’re available ;-).

Ever wish you had more Hot Corners on your screen? Wish you could do more with them? CornerClick to the rescue. Assign different actions depending on modifier keys, hover durations, etc. And you can have a popup selection list of actions in a corner. Not a required utility, but a handy one. I find it nice to have all of the Exposé functions in one corner, and all of the Hide functions in another. I can pull the mouse into a corner and choose to hide all applications, all other applications, the current application, etc. Once you get used to using it, it becomes pretty natural.

& scrapbook for Mac OS X" >I got & scrapbook for Mac OS X">iClip for free. It’s really nice, giving you a stack for your clipboard, as well as multiple clipboards for storage of text, images and other clippings, reminiscent of the Scrapbook functionality of OS 9 which somehow disappeared. There are a few other utilities that do the same thing in different ways, all of which I’ve found useful. Somehow iClip became the one I use, although I can’t say there’s anything wrong with utilities like PTHpasteboard or ShadowClipboard. I think iClip just had the prettiest interface so I gave it the longest trial run and got used to having it around. Now I use it pretty regularly.

Spell Catcher and I have a love-hate relationship, but it’s not entirely Spell Catcher’s fault. I hate that it doesn’t work with TextMate. I love that it works with Photoshop and InDesign. And I absolutely love that it works with Mail. It’s not just the spell checking that I love, it’s the built in thesaurus and pop-up auto suggest and auto-completion of learned words and dictionary matches. Spell checking in Photoshop is huge for me. I spell pretty well, but somehow always seem to let one error slip through any time I’m required to set more than 5 words of text in Photoshop. I don’t know how it happens. And having an auto suggest function in InDesign is just plain handy, and the spell checker outperforms the built in one by a couple of lengths. It works as an input method, so you can turn it on and off, and you can set application specific settings. You can choose to have a popup next to your cursor or have suggestions and corrections appear in a window off to the side. It’s another paid program, but ultimately worthwhile.

Still to Come

I know this series is getting long, but what I love about Macs is the amount of really great, relatively inexpensive software available. I mean really great. I was never this excited about software before I switched to Mac. Anyway, I have a couple more posts planned, including my favorite Design utilities and programs, Firefox extensions, Multimedia Software and Internet applications. Once it’s all over, I’ll put together a post that links to all of them and hopefully it can serve as a more centralized reference point.

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