MBP coming OSX tips

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  • stewdio0

    TextMate. http://macromates.com
    Excellent text editor for coding. It has many complex features, but if you're not ready to learn the extras they just remain out of your way; no extra visual clutter to mire through. Particularly great for working in Ruby / Ruby on Rails.

    Transmit 4. http://panic.com/transmit
    For FTP, SFTP, etc. Sure, you could just use OS X's FTP capabilities for free, but that will litter your server with OS X hidden files. Cyberduck and its brethren just don't stand up to Transmit's speed and attention to detail.

    MacPorts. http://macports.org/install.php
    This really makes managing your installed command-line software easier. It's been really helpful for me in dealing with various Ruby installs although I can see how purists might be opposed to this.

    Xcode. http://developer.apple.com/techn…
    This should come on your OS X install disc. You'll need this to do anything with the iPhone / iPad of course, but also convenient to have it installed because if you need to compile Ruby gems or similar items in the future you'll already have the GCC compiler ready for use.

    iShowU. http://store.shinywhitebox.com/i…
    You've probably heard of SnapzPro for doing video capture of your desktop. I find that piece of software to be lousy, slow, and bug ridden. A few years back after much searching I decided on iShowU and it's been absolutely wonderful. Clean, fast, and efficient. Actually... is desktop video capture taken care of now in Snow Leopard? I'm running Snow Leopard but only vaguely remember something about this as a feature...

    Sequel Pro. http://sequelpro.com
    This is the best GUI for dealing with MySQL databases. After the Cocoa MySQL project died and its various forks died there was a horrible void of bad software packages that only half worked. And then Sequel Pro popped up. Perfect.

    ShellHere. http://etresoft.org/shellhere.ht…
    If you work a lot in Terminal this will make life a lot easier. It's just a tiny script and a button for your Finder windows. It allows you to open Terminal to whatever path you're using in Finder. Stupidly simple but so nice to have.

    iWork. http://apple.com/iwork
    Definitely worth having. Never install Microsoft Office again! Here's the MS to Apple conversion: Word --> Pages. Excel --> Numbers. PowerPoint --> Keynote. And of course OS X already comes with iCal, Address Book, etc.

    Virtual Box. http://virtualbox.org
    I haven't tried this yet but it's an open-source virtualization app for running Windows, Linux, etc on a Mac. Of course you'd still have to "legally" obtain a copy of Windows.

    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

    If you're hardcore about OpenSource (which is slightly odd because we're talking about OS X, not Linux) there's http://opensourcemac.org

    Safari is still my favorite but I assume if you're developing websites you'll install FireFox, Chrome, and Opera as well. I'm becoming a big fan of Opera. They're really coming out from behind the pack with Opera 10. I'm always happy to see a software company take a hard look at their products and then go to great lengths to wow users with a new version. It's inspiring.

    I could go on and on... but best to cut it off here.

    stewdio 0Permalink
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    • someONE, is working hard to make us look bad,
      BURN HIMMMM      georgesIII
    • :)georgesIII
    • VirtualBox is brilliant - I use it on Linux, and it's top notch.
      ********
    • Hey, that ShellHere is great! Thanks!elahon
    • you can also drag & drop anything into terminal and it will print the pathacescence
    • Great post!!! Yep, Quicktime X on Snow Leopard has video capture.fyoucher1
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