My list of frequently used Mac applications

Posted by Wes Perdue
Aug 10, 2010 at 01:47 AM

All,

For what it’s worth, here is my list of frequently used Mac apps and what I most frequently use them for. It seems appropriate since we’ve been talking so much lately about Mac apps.

Regards,
Wes

Mac apps I use daily:

TextMate - the most powerful and elegant text editor I’ve ever used, and I’ve tried many on the three main platforms. I draft short works here. I’m mostly a plain text guy.

Evernote - my notes repository for all aspects of my life.

OmniFocus - I manage all my projects and tasks here.

Notational Velocity captures ephemeral notes.

LaunchBar - allows me quicker, keyboard-based control of many aspects of my Mac.

Text Expander - fills in dates/timestamps and email signatures.

FireFox, as I’m addicted to a few particular extensions.

Pandora (the AIR applet) and iTunes - music.

SugarSync - backs up data automatically as I work and syncs crucial data to the work PC.

Mail.app - email.

Side note: Evernote, OF, NV (via Simplenote), iCal, and my contacts sync automatically to my iPhone.

Close to daily:

OmniOutliner - mostly simple outlines.

Tinderbox - powerful, elegant, and a challenging learning curve. I brainstorm here.

NovaMind - elegant mind maps and a powerful presentation tool.

KeyNote - presentations.

DevonThink - journaling, plus serious research.

Entourage - work email.

Excel for work spreadsheets.

Numbers for personal spreadsheets.

Every so often:

VMware Fusion - Windows XP, mostly for VPNing to work and for Outlook/WebEx meeting integration (which Entourage can’t do).

Adobe Lightroom - photography.

Carbon Copy Cloner - disk image backups. Cloning - it’s the only way to be sure. :-) Seriously, I clone weekly to an external FW drive that’s exactly the same model as my internal drive. If my internal drive fails, I’m a drive swap from being back up and running, and then a SugarSync away from having all my current data.

VoodooPad - my software inventory and other long-term reference items, like my web app subscription renewal schedule.

Scrivener - drafting longer form writing.

Nisus Writer Pro - medium-form rich text writing, and finishing longer form writing.

Bookends - academic reference management. Integrates beautifully with NWP.

Yojimbo - software license keys.