Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What apps are essential for mac?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 143 posts

Re: Ask HN: What apps are essential for mac?

#121

Post by Zev »

zimbabwe wrote: post #88
ankhmoop wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're forced to regularly ban Mibbit users on Freenode technical channels due to abuse masked by Mibbit's proxying, and for that reason I must say I'm not a fan.

That's the double edge that comes from any ease of access. Mibbit makes IRC very simple and very easy, and so more people use it, and with people come trolls. That said, if you're looking to access IRC easily, that's the way to go.

It would be quite easy for axod to pass along user's IP to the server instead of masking it through Mibbit. Having the user's IP as their realname isn't a real fix..

Re: Ask HN: What apps are essential for mac?

#122

Post by jroes »

zeeone wrote: post #72
arupchak wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coda is expensive ($99) but the convenience of working on remote files via SFTP within the program is unmatched. If your session gets disconnected in the midst of editing a file, nothing to worry about, Coda will automatically log back in for you and update the file you were working on when you save.

VIM does the same for free. $99 saved is $99 earned.

emacs with TRAMP does too

Re: Ask HN: What apps are essential for mac?

#123

Post by sh1mmer »

There are lots of great suggestions here, one I haven't seen yet is Spirited Away. (http://drikin.com/spiritedaway/)

This app hides app you haven't used for a little while so the app you are using currently is the most prominent thing on the screen. I find it really helpful to declutter my screen in a non-invasive way.

You can also exclude things like video players and the like from being hidden.

Re: Ask HN: What apps are essential for mac?

#124

Post by maw »

phn1x wrote: post #11

I see a lot of people recommending virtual pc but does anyone have anything to say about vm fusion? A buddy of mine was going to hook me up with a copy. I've used virtual PC on linux quite a bit but I was always frustrated with the lack of ability to bridge the networking.

Fusion works, but its full-screen mode is rather unfortunate—this is putting it kindly. While running full-screen, when you drag the mouse to the top of the screen, the Mac menubar appears. There's no way to turn this behavior off (please prove me wrong!). I honestly can't imagine a case where anybody could prefer this, and to have no option at all to disable it is a real disappointment. When my license expires, I'll take another hard look at Parallels.

Re: Ask HN: What apps are essential for mac?

#125

Post by derefr »

Skeuomorph wrote: post #117
simonista wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all you're looking for is screen capture: Apple-Shift-3 captures the entire screen. Apple-Shift-4 lets you select an area to capture. Apple-Shift-4 then Space captures a window that you select. I don't personally use GrabUp or Skitch, so I can't comment on what they add.

> comment on what they add. Skitch adds annotations and sharing with almost the same simplicity as the built-in keystrokes. I typically use "⌘-Shift-4, Space" as well, when using the screens in my own work, but not when annotating or sharing. For quick annotations, pointing things out, highlighting things, and instantly pasting someone a viewable image URL (with one click to capture, and one click to share), Skitch i…

I find a combination of the native key shortcuts with Dropbox works for me (you can also get a viewable image URL if you drop it in your Public folder.)

Re: Ask HN: What apps are essential for mac?

#126

Post by cmac »

udfalkso wrote: post #10

Cyberduck (ftp - http://cyberduck.ch/ ) Adium (IM - http://adium.im/ )

I used Cyberduck for several years but some of the later versions became so buggy that I switched to Transmit. Haven't looked back since then. (Don't know if Cyberduck's stability has improved since.)

Re: Ask HN: What apps are essential for mac?

#127

Post by s1lversmith »

cericsmith wrote: post #120

I just went through the same thing. Follow me on twitter as I explore the world of OSX and my adventures with all things "Hackintosh": @cericsmith Here's my list: 1Password -- Perhaps the greatest piece of Mac OSX software. You must try to believe it. Password storage/sync/creation/ID management at its finest. http://agilewebsolutions.com/products/1Password Unison -- If Windows newsreaders hadn't stopped evolving aro…

Argh. Encouraging people to use Stuffit is nearly criminal. Bloated, packed with adware, greedy with filetypes - it's a menace. If you're unfortunate enough to be given a .sitx file you may be forced to use their fairly awful free Expander, but paying for the full version would surely be grounds for a psychological review. If you really need to compress things that tiny bit more than normal .zip, there's always 7zip.

Re: Ask HN: What apps are essential for mac?

#129

Post by lallysingh »

Skeuomorph wrote: post #47
boundlessdreamz wrote: post #8

I'm recommending only free software here. 1. Adium for chat. It is just awesome. http://www.adiumx.com/ 2. Quicksilver. if you just want an app launcher spotlight is already good at that. http://code.google.com/p/blacktree-alchemy/downloads/list [edit: updated link to point to the recent versions] 3. Caffeine is small program which puts an icon on menu bar on which you can click to prevent your Mac from going to slee…

This list is great. Here's some more "FREE" software (some would appreciate a donation/purchase but are not crippled): 1. This may be obvious but as of the latest version, you don't gain much from a corporate email program like Entourage. I use Apple Mail, with IMAP and Google Apps for Your Domain. One account has 3.8GB of email and another has 4.1GB, according to Google. It scales fine and stays in sync across devic…

OmniGraffle Pro + Keynote is a force to be reckoned with on the presentation front.

For major presentations, I'd also recommend looking at some of the commercial themes available. E.g. keynotepro

Post reply on HN