RSS Feeds
Rebuild Your Mac with 20 Useful Downloads
Posted by Gina Trapani at 7:01 AM on October 29, 2007
Mac OS X only: So you erased your hard drive to install Leopard, and now you've got to load your Mac up with all your essential software. I kept a detailed inventory of the downloads I hunted down all over the internet to load on my Mac this weekend, so I thought I'd save you a few clicks. Here's a list of 21 mostly-free downloads with direct links to the download pages.
All downloads are free except when otherwise noted. In alphabetical order:
Adium (download) (more info)
Multi-protocol chat client when even iChat's improvements aren't enough
- Caffeine (download) (more info)
One-click sleep from the menubar, good for presentations and media servers
- DiskInventoryX (download) (more info)
See what files are taking up the most space on your Mac
- Firefox (download)
When Safari just doesn't cut it
- GeekTool (download) (more info)
Desktop text/image overlay
- Google Earth (download)
Mapping tools with a built-in flight simulator
- Growl (download) (more info)
Universal system notifier
- Hazel (download) (more info)
Not free: $22 license, free 14-day trial available
Clean up your Stacks with automatic rules-based file and folder actions
- InstantShot! (download) (more info)
Screen capture utility with more features than Grab
iSquint (download) (more info)
Convert video files to iPod-friendly format
- KeePassX (download) (more info)
Secure password database. NOTE: KeePassX version 1.5 is not Leopard-compatible by default. Here's how to get KeePassX running on Leopard.
MagiCal (download) (more info)
Menubar monthly calendar dropdown
- Mozy (download) (more info)
Online backup utility, 2GB space for free
- Quicksilver (download) (more info)
Application launcher and keyboard interface to your Mac. (Note: Qucksilver's main hosting site is unavailable at the moment, which means plugins are also unavailable. Use this mirror to get the initial install image.)
- TextExpander (download) (more info)
Not free: $30/license, free trial available
Global text substitution utility expands user-defined text snippets to phrases and form letters
TextWrangler (download) (more info)
Full-featured text editor that beats the pants off of TextEdit
- Thunderbird (download) ( more info)
Ok, so it's debatable whether Thunderbird is better that OS X's built-in Mail, but I tend to think so—if only for its extensibility. Here's a free skin for T-bird if you want to give it that Apple Mail look.
- Transmit (download) (more info)
Not free: $30/license, free trial available
The best FTP client you'll find on any platform
The Unarchiver (download) (more info)
When StuffIt Expander doesn't know what that .TAR file is, the Unarchiver will.
- VLC media player (download) (more info)
The Swiss Army knife of media players, VLC will play all the movie files QuickTime chokes on. It can rip DVDs, too.
Note: The excellent SuperDuper! isn't yet fully Leopard-compatible, or else we would've included it here—and it's boot cloning capability is still very useful, even with Time Machine. We haven't yet tested Carbon Copy Cloner on Leopard.
For more great Mac downloads, see our Top 10 free Mac downloads and Top 10 Mac utilities. (Note: a few of the apps in these lists are now obsolete due to new Leopard features, but most are still useful.)
Other more expensive, specialised licensed downloads and box software I installed included Parallels Desktop, Quicken, DEVONthink Pro, Photoshop CS and Microsoft Office.
How about you? What were your must-have-right-now apps that you grabbed the moment you booted up Leopard? Let us know in the comments.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
tigger6333
Posted September 14, 2008 4:59 PM
Text Expander is good but wont expand across fields like Autohotkey for Win dows.
adang001
Posted 6:25 PM 28/10/07
Don't forget Perian (play DivX in Quicktime), Joost (IPTV), Flip4Mac WMV/WMA through Quicktime), Handbrake (DVD to MPEG4) and Toast (Like Nero but better)
adang001
Chuck Cheeze
Posted 6:10 PM 28/10/07
Gina- Off to buy Leopard in about an hour. Wondering why you still use Office when iWork reands and writes Office files and has a simpler interface? I'm loving it and looking forward to not installing office when I wipe and reload tonight.
Chuck Cheeze
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor
Posted 6:00 PM 28/10/07
@Pirate-M.Lifnen: Whoops, I forgot to write that post entirely! Just added a link, post should get republished with it momentarily.
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor
Hrunk
Posted 5:59 PM 28/10/07
I'd recommend perian too ([www.perian.org]). Combined with the Windows Media Components for Quicktime ([www.microsoft.com]), which plays WMVs in QuickTime, I rarely need VLC any more. With Perian you can even play FLV files downloaded from YouTube directly in QuickTime (and if you have QuickTime Pro, you can export them to something else).
And since I'm already commenting I'll add that I also recommend Transmit over CyberDuck - easily worth $30.
Hrunk
q-bang
Posted 5:55 PM 28/10/07
skitch from plasq is still in limited beta. it rocks. can't work wiyhout it. i haven't tested it with 10.5. [plasq.com]
q-bang
landonmiller
Posted 5:47 PM 28/10/07
Transmit is definitely worth the $30 fee, CyberDuck just doesn't cut it for me.
landonmiller
sgodun
Posted 5:29 PM 28/10/07
Screw Transmit's $30 fee. Download CyberDuck. Free, open source, and works very nicely.
sgodun
Pirate-M.Lifnen
Posted 5:22 PM 28/10/07
For KeePassX, you forgot the link on how to get it working with Leopard.
Pirate-M.Lifnen
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor
Posted 7:28 PM 28/10/07
@snowmoon: Oh wait, found it! That's pretty handy. Might need a post in and of itself. Thanks!
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor
Pterror
Posted 7:21 PM 28/10/07
Caffeine is unnecessary- now you can set an Active Screen Corner to put your display to sleep. Go to Expose and Spaces prefpane.
Pterror
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor
Posted 7:19 PM 28/10/07
@snowmoon: Hmm, I don't know this trick. Poking around in International now, and don't see how to do it... but MagiCal gives you the month dropdown, that even the International tweak trick won't, as far as I can tell.
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor
snowmoon
Posted 7:02 PM 28/10/07
MagiCal is pretty useless once you figure out the trick to getting the built-in time to show the date and day as well. No third party software required, you just tweak the international settings to make the change.
snowmoon
vertigociel
Posted 6:45 PM 28/10/07
Carbon Copy Cloner works on Leopard, but it does seem to clone much more slowly than on Tiger - it will pause often on random files. A full clone of the ~90 GB of data on my drive took 1 1/2 hours with CCC in Tiger, but the same amount (plus the slightly larger Leopard install) took over five hours with CCC on Leopard.
vertigociel
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor
Posted 6:38 PM 28/10/07
@adang001: Awesome additions to the list.
@Chuck Cheeze: Mostly because I own it already, and my book publisher uses Word (and its styles and track changes features), and while I'm writing the Lifehacker 2nd edition I didn't want to risk any possible file incompatibilities passing drafts back and forth with my editor. But I do like Numbers!
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor
mattgood
Posted 8:38 PM 28/10/07
NicePlayer is a great free alternative to VLC with a nicer UI:
[niceplayer.sourceforge.net]
mattgood
Galley
Posted 8:28 PM 28/10/07
Don't forget Inquisitor... it's Spotlight for the web.
[www.inquisitorx.com]
Also, iStat Menus has a calendar and tons of other system monitors for your menu bar.
[www.islayer.com]
Galley
yesno
Posted 8:10 PM 28/10/07
@PTERROR
You misunderstand what Caffeine does.
Its purpose is to prevent your computer from sleeping or dimming the display, even when it otherwise would. For instance, when playing a long Google video, or when giving a presentation.
yesno
Mike Panic
Posted 7:58 PM 28/10/07
Skip Transmit and get the Firefox plugin FireFTP. Free and works flawlessly for me.
Mike Panic
AnthoMacP
Posted 11:35 PM 28/10/07
@technel:
1. Wine Doors - easy install of commonly used windows apps.
2. Pidgin - Multi-protocol IM client
3. gFTP/Filezilla - ftp clients
4. Audacity - free audio editor
5. VLC - media player
6. Thunderbird - if u don't like evolution
7. Rhythmbox - great media player (media applet great for controlling it via a panel)
8. Deluge - nice torrent app with great plugins
9 DeVeDe - create and burn DVD's easily
10. Deskbar - built in but works similar to quicksilver
I could go on but i've taken up 12 lines already :P.
AnthoMacP
technel
Posted 11:05 PM 28/10/07
Now it's time to create an alternative list with 20 useful downloads for Ubuntu 7.10 :)
technel
Tank
Posted 12:15 AM 29/10/07
Darn. Larger pics.
[static.zooomr.com]
[static.zooomr.com]
Tank
Tank
Posted 12:14 AM 29/10/07
Gina,
Here are some pics of the settings for adding the date to the menu bar.
[static.zooomr.com]
[static.zooomr.com]
Tank
UnStatusTheQuo
Posted 1:36 AM 29/10/07
I actually find the arguments at this site pretty compelling. [rixstep.com]
3 of the programs mentioned here get torn a new one on that site. 2 in the very ugly section and 1 in the bad.
I really enjoyed the Quicksilver, Cocktail, Transmit, and MacJanitor info. Never knew some of that stuff before.
UnStatusTheQuo
Brajeshwar
Posted 3:09 AM 29/10/07
I agree with LANDONMILLER, Transmit is worth every penny of it. With the new Amazon S3 Capability, it rocks. Cyberduck can quack no-where near it.
@CHUCK CHEEZE, iWork '08 (Numbers) ain't that good as Excel, it tends to become sluggish, very sluggish when opening a 3 or so sheets Files. However, I love Keynote and Pages. I wish I could say the same for Numbers.
Btw, don't you guys use xPad. I don't but somehow that was the perhaps the first Textpad kinda Utility when I switch to Mac (from Windows) and I love every bit of it. (It is currently Free).
Brajeshwar
crazylady
Posted 3:32 AM 29/10/07
Aww, I really like TextMate over TextWrangler. I guess this is a general purpose kind of thing though? Biased as a code monkey, but TextMate has replaced everything as my general purpose code/text/whatever editor until I am forced to use Word for compatibility reasons :(
Also, VMware Fusion beats the pants off of Parallels in every way, including that the Fusion virtual machines are usable on any other computer you might happen to have with [the latest] VMware software on. Surprised Parallels even came up :)
crazylady
mliubinskas
Posted 6:01 AM 29/10/07
Absolute top of my list would be Skitch from Plasq
It lets you do screen shots and quick image manipulation. You can drag and drop images to Skitch from anywhere (web, desktop, powerpoint) and drag from Skitch to anywhere (desktop, mail, powerpoint), or upload to Flickr or myskitch.
It's so simple and it works.
mliubinskas
abeckstrom
Posted 9:17 AM 29/10/07
ANTHOMACP, I'm looking for Mac OSX native versions of Wine Doors, Rhythmbox, and DeVeDe. Do you know if Universal Binaries exist for those packages or did you compile from source. Any tips?
abeckstrom
Dirk
Posted 10:28 AM 29/10/07
Here's another vote for Transmit over CyberDuck. Transmit is well worth the $30.
Personally I'm waiting until SuperDuper is fully compatible with Leopard. SuperDuper has become the cornerstone of my daily back-up procedure and will not work one day without it.
Dirk
murph
Posted 10:17 AM 29/10/07
anyone having problems with MagiCal and Leopard? i can't open the preferences, it crashes everytime.
murph
ResearchZilla
Posted 12:04 PM 29/10/07
can not live without SMULTROn - he just released a special "leopard only" version...it's free. also: scrivener (leopard version, andthere's a free version)...so many not sure where to start...
ResearchZilla
BrisketKid
Posted 1:38 AM 29/10/07
I myself find CyberDuck to be an excellent FTP client, though I do switch between that and FireFTP.
BrisketKid
brian71
Posted 1:20 AM 29/10/07
Backstage from
[www.widgetfab.com]
lets you quickly and easily copy files from any iPod to your Mac. Great for moving your music across several computers, or recovering your music library from your iPod in the event of a hard drive crash, lost/stolen laptop, etc.
It rocks!
brian71
breath12
Posted 1:06 AM 29/10/07
Does anyone know of a program like quicksilver or deskbar that works for 10.3.9? I use launchy on my pc, and not having an easy app. launcher on my mac hurts my heart.
breath12
gnaihc
Posted 7:07 PM 28/10/07
Don't forget about iStat Menus [islayer.com]
IMHO it's way better than MagiCal.
gnaihc
inkledoo
Posted 6:25 PM 28/10/07
I can't seem to find which of these downloads is the orange pylon icon. I keep seeing it on Life Hacker screen shots and have been wondering this for a while. Can anyone tell me?
inkledoo
aceinthehole
Posted 6:06 PM 28/10/07
Do a Google search for iSerial ... it may take care of some of these pesky money requirements ... but ssshhhhhhhh -- you didn't hear that from me ...
aceinthehole
aseriesoftubes
Posted 12:23 PM 29/10/07
@inkledoo: VLC is the app you're looking for.
aseriesoftubes
crazylady
Posted 5:30 PM 29/10/07
@kenbolton: I'm liking NetBeans and IntelliJ over Eclipse nowadays...you should check those two out if you haven't already, and you don't really have a particularly good reason to use Eclipse (bloated crash-happy app :( ). Nowadays I only use it for Aptana, all my java stuff in IntelliJ (not free, but IMO well worth the price), and NB 6 is shaping up nicely.
Also, unless you really dig the other features in iTerm, Terminal in Leopard has tabs now.
crazylady
AnthoMacP
Posted 6:23 PM 29/10/07
@abeckstrom: I know Wine itself can run on a Mac but I'm not sure about wine-doors, I know rhythmbox has binaries out there that can be installed thru Fink [www.simplehelp.net] but I don't think there are any for Wine Doors or DeVeDe. Atleast not that I know of.
AnthoMacP
rstrb8r
Posted 6:54 PM 29/10/07
This list needs Flock!
rstrb8r
Jigzila
Posted 5:06 PM 30/10/07
@breath 12 try namely. Not sure if it works with 10.3 but worth some investigation
Jigzila
breath12
Posted 9:55 PM 30/10/07
@Jigzila: Namely works great on 10.3, thanks a lot
breath12
macwingnut
Posted 7:41 AM 31/10/07
1Password from Agile Web Solutions.
Fantastic piece of software that I use everyday.
[1passwd.com]
not free, but $29 very well spent!
macwingnut
scoobydooxp
Posted 2:19 AM 31/10/07
I did not see NeoOffice get a mention. My school and publisher both "required" Office but I used NeoOffice just fine. Never had a complaint as long as I saved in the proper formats.
scoobydooxp
thurana
Posted 12:09 AM 2/11/07
Actually, you can get 1password for free. Legally. Just go to [www.agilewebsolutions.com], fill in your name and email address, and they will send you a license card.
Don't know how long the promotion will last, but as everybody says it: "Grab it while you can." (And send me the $29! ^_^ -grin-)
thurana
SonOfMagicFact
Posted 5:44 PM 28/10/07
Frankly, I can't live without QuickSilver. Greatest thing to come to Mac since the GUI. Also, I like MenuMeters from Raging Menace: [www.ragingmenace.com] and You Control [www.yousoftware.com] Really really useful. Finally, iCyclone is a great fan controller for people like me, whose MacBooks Pro (I'm thinking that's the correct way to pluralize the noun) get hot enough to not only fry an egg but actually vaporize it. Here it is: [www.alitacrew.org]
SonOfMagicFact