Amazing and Free Mac Utilities

16 Oct

“teleport”:http://abyssoft.com/software/teleport/ — I frequently work with more than one Mac, and always get annoyed by having to switch mice and keyboards. The most common setup at my desk is my PowerBook G4 in front of my iMac G5, each doing their own thing: PowerBook for writing and school stuff, iMac for photo post-processing, Garageband, and BT(Bittorent) tasks. In the mangle of wires, computers, and keyboards, and the constraint of space, I hate having to shift my PowerBook to type on the iMac, or to reach over in the already limited space on my desk to use another mouse (which I don’t like as much). “teleport”:http://abyssoft.com/software/teleport/ comes to the rescue. Activation is simple: simply activate its preference pane on the computers you’d like to control, then drag and drop the layout of your computers. Mine looks something like this. With this setup I simply move my mouse to the right and I am able to control the iMac G5 (named Amelie) using the keyboard and mouse on the laptop. Even better: you can use Quicksilver on the other Mac, using your present keyboard and mouse, synchronize pasteboards, and…! Drag and drop files across! Very, very insanely cool and I am in heaven.

teleport
teleport: Configuring the layout

“The Unarchiver”:http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html — Mac OS X’s built-in archive unpacker works okay. Sometimes you just need more power. “The Unarchiver”:http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html is a replacement for the built-in BomArchiveHelper.app. Unpacks a great number of popular and obscure formats, including StuffIt, Zip, 7-Zip, Tar-Gzip, Rar. My favourite part about this utility: making it automatically open the folder after unpacking, as well as automatically deleting the archive, and setting destinatino to extract to. Can’t live without it.

“Dropcopy”:http://10base-t.com/dropcopy.html — if you use multiple Macs you’d appreciate the built-in networking wonders of Mac OS X. But “Dropcopy”:http://10base-t.com/dropcopy.html makes it even better. I use this on a daily basis sharing files across several Macs and users. Use it with “Growl”:http://growl.info/, it gets even better (Growl notifications when files are received, etc).

“Screenshot Plus”:http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/business/screenshotplus.html — sure, there already are a great number of ways to take screenshots on OS X; Shift + Cmd + 3, Shift + Cmd + 4 being the simplest; the built-in app that is Grab, but if you have Tiger there is a great way to do it. With “Screenshot Plus”:http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/business/screenshotplus.html in your dashboard, screen capture becomes even more simple and powerful.

Screenshot Plus
Screenshot Plus and its various options: full screen grab, timed full screen, grab a window, grab a widget, drag a picture. Option to save, or send to iPhoto, after screen capture is made (with preview).

“iStat Pro”:http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/istatpro.html — everything you need to know about your system, at a glance, in your dashboard. Enough said.

iStat Pro
iStat Pro

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  • Thanks! I use an iMac G5 at home and a MacBook and PC at work. I'd love easier ways to move between the Macbook and iMac - thanks for these suggestions.
  • mo
    The geek in me is verily pleased with your answer. For your services to humanity, I bless you. You shall have multitudes of little ones little gadgets that will bring joy bling to your life.
  • Ah :P

    First number, I think, is the average of the last minute, the second over the last five min, and the third over the last 15. I'm not very sure though.
  • mo
    mo – define: load average

    Oh, yeah, I knew that. I just wanted to know why you had three numbers instead of just one (for CPU usage).
  • sounds fishy still, han. stuffit is evilz!

    swissfondue: thanks :) as for bt.. make a guess :) let's just say tv in my part of the world is not as advanced as in yours?
  • Han
    poppy:

    I download files that need to be broken up into many smaller segments and need to be password protected lor, sister ;D
  • swissfondue
    Thanks. Didn't know about teleport and dropcopy. I'm looking forward to playing with these apps as I've almost the same setup as you do (replace iMac G5 with G4).

    um, those BT tasks, are they school related ? ;)

    and late b-day wishes. In the US you'd now be legally able to buy a drink in a bar! In CH it's 16 yrs in a restaurant (for beer and wine), unless you're with your parents and they let you drink at an earlier age.
  • j.m. - it's called i am very bored at 4am and everybody is asleep.

    han - hehehe. i don't know what kind of files you download, brother. ;)

    mo - define: load average — "Load, in computing, is a measure of the amount of processing a computer system is currently performing, usually in the form of a scalar and as some variation on a percentage. They come in different forms in the cases of differing operating systems. The average load of a computer system is known as the load average."
  • mo
    Ubercool.

    Curious -- what's that last thing called "Load Average"? I last had my own Mac many moons ago (OS7.5!) so if this is something from the Mactionary, I humbly and fervently beg for forgiveness and enlightenment.
  • DropCopy is awesome -- I've been getting a taste of just how awesome now that I have two Macs.
  • Han
    The Unarchiver doesn't work with password protected .sitx files.
  • Woohoo! Our very own Phill Ryu!
  • Tony
    iStat pro's a great app! so's the Unarchiver. not too bad a list you have there!
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