background preloader

80 Of The Most Useful Mac Tools and Utilities

80 Of The Most Useful Mac Tools and Utilities
Macs are awesome straight out of the box, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make them a lot better with a few quality downloads. Today we’ve rounded up eighty of the most handy utilities to improve the basic functionality of your Mac in a number of ways. Below you’ll find almost every kind of utility you could need, from hardware controllers to maintenance software and file organization tools. Hardware Utilities Dimmer for Mac – Dimmer is a free application that allows you to adjust the brightness of your display. Don’t worry… I know that there’s two special keys on the keyboard that do that for you, but currently there are 17 different brightness options for you to select on a Mac which, by all means is enough. Dimmer for Mac Display Maestro – Display Maestro gives you full control over attached displays, allowing the usage of all available resolutions and bit depths. SMART Utility – SMART Utility is an application to scan the internal hardware diagnostics system of hard drives. Breeze

Daring Fireball 10 Coolest Mac OS X Apps You Might Not Know About Important aspects of your life are stored within the data on your computer, the loss of which can turn into a nightmare. Some of these important files include photos, music and videos, e-mail archives, business related documents, financial records, and more. To protect yourself from hard drive crash or human error related data loss, back up your files. Get Backup gracefully combines various backup capabilities, such as disk cloning, scheduling, compression tools, the ability to restore an archive on any computer without necessarily using Get Backup, and much more. And, more amazingly, all of this comes free of charge. In addition to creating backup archives, Get Backup offers tools that allow you to automatically synchronize files and folders in two different locations. For hardcore users, and those in need of more tools, Get Backup Pro is available. View Movies about Get Backup Why use Get Backup? Features at a Glance: Diverse Backup Methods: Get Backup vs. More features…

Skout™ • resources + for designers + by designers 20 Beautiful Mac Apps Mac OS X is known for housing an amazing graphical user interface. Not only is the operating system beautiful in every way, but a large portion of the applications developed for Macs have great usability along with a stunning “face”. Below you will find 20 Mac Apps With Beautiful User Interface Designs for your inspiration. This is also a great reference for those that are looking to develop their own applications. TuneUp If you iTunes collection is a mess this app is a must buy. Download TuneUp Here Things The Things interface offers very easy navigation and simple flow of tasks. Pixelmator Pixelmator’s GUI uses a mix of transparent features, glossy Icons and sleek hover effects to capture the attention of the users. Daisy Disk This disk visualization tool takes disk analytic’s to the next level, while keeping usability and simplicity at its highest. iStatMenus iStatMenus has a dark and sleek interface. CleanMyMac For a cleaning application it sure has a clean and well organized GUI. Fontcase

protonic.com - Fast, Friendly, Free Computer Help and Support; Trusted. Free Downloads. 20 Free Mac Apps For Web Designer’s Toolkit Nov 12 2009 Professional web designers on the Mac platform rely on commercial heavy-hitters like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, and InDesign for their graphic design needs. And when it’s time to slice and dice, some depend on the excellent Dreamweaver CS4 for WYSIWYG design/development; while many Mac code jockeys swear only by editors like Coda, BBEdit or TextMate. Others prefer to mix, match or blend. Designers also rely on various supporting apps to accomplish every day jobs like FTP uploading, cross-browser testing (important if you’re designing/developing on a Mac platform only), screen-shot snapping, pixel measuring, and the like. While many of these programs are slick, they also of course cost … money. Free Photoshop alternative GIMP (Mac)In a nutshell, GIMP provides designers with the power to accomplish almost any task that Adobe Photoshop is used for. Also check out: SeashoreBased on GIMP, Seashore is a pure cocoa app which makes it very OS X friendly. Paparazzi!

NameChecklist - Find your name the easy way! 35 Mac Apps to Improve Your Web Browsing Experience – Mac.AppStorm Now that widespread connectivity means you’re rarely without a web connection, the Internet has become a huge part of the way in which we use our computers. Out of the box, your Mac is a powerful machine for making the most of everything the Internet has to offer, but there are a few tweaks, plugins and applications that can make it go a little bit further. Today I’ll be taking a look at 35 different plugins and applications that will help improve your web browsing experience. Both Safari and Firefox will be covered, along with a few tools relating to networking, search, bookmarking, and – of course – taking a break from the Internet! Safari on Speed Safari is undoubtedly the most popular browser on the Mac, and also a fairly difficult application to extend. Click to Flash – Click to Flash is a plugin for disabling Flash on every webpage by default, providing a simple placeholder instead. Fully Functional Firefox URL Fixer – A plugin that corrects typos in address bar URLs. Taking a Break

100+ Alternative Search Engines You Should Know If someone asks you, off the top of your head, what search engines you use or know off, chances are you’ll be naming the regulars: Google, Bing, Yahoo. The Internet however is a really big place and there are plenty more search engines out there that can cater to very specific requirements. General Search Engines We’re skipping the search engines that everyone know about so you won’t be seeing Google, Yahoo or Bing in this list. Aol – Aol offers search results combined with content from AOL. MyWebSearch – MyWebSearch is search engine that shows results from Google. Regional Search Engines Search Nigeria – Search Nigeria is a web based portal and search engine. Kid-Safe Search Engines These search engines provide children with a search service that keeps out age-inappropriate materials unfit for consumption for young ages. Social Media Search Engines Pixnet – An online mobile photo sharing and networking service. Image & Icon Search Engines Knowledge Search Engines Private Search Engines

The Ultimate Mac Setup for Web Designers (60 Apps) – Mac.AppStorm There’s little doubt that OS X is a popular platform for web designers – it offers an enormous range of software for designing, managing, developing and publishing websites. Whether you prefer to use an all-in-one environment for designing websites or a range of different applications, there’s a tool to suit you perfectly. This article will round up 60 different web design apps for every different conceivable need. And don’t worry if design isn’t your area of expertise; much of the software covered is fairly multi-purpose, suited to a variety of tasks. Client & Project Management Billings – An excellent tool for managing the details of clients, billing, and tracking payments and receipts.iCal – Bundled with OS X, iCal can offer a simple and inexpensive method to track projects and deadlines. Creating an Asset Library Designing: All-in-one Designing: Images Designing: CSS & HTML Audio & Video Testing Publishing Version Control Databases Monitoring & Statistics Backup Conclusion

Amazon discount codes at ProBargainHunter.com Ever since I wrote about Amazon shopping tips and hacks last November the article has been the most visited page on ProBargainHunter. In case you missed it -- the post describes how you can browse discounted merchandise on Amazon (by messing around with the URL's) and lists a few other useful tips. The article featured on LifeHacker and Consumerist and even prompted some people to create tools for easy URL building. Below is my own attempt to summarize the information from that blog post into a more usable format. Click on the links with discount codes below to browse Amazon merchandise, and let me know if you notice any broken links. Take the results you see with a grain of salt though. The table layout idea is courtesy of Brand-Name-Coupons (via Digg)

Related: