Mac OS X

I love Mac OS X not because of Apple, but for its UI and UNIX origin that really let me do what I want to do.

Online Resources | Things I Like | Things that Make OS X Even Cooler

Online Resources


Chinese/Asian System & Server Admin Software & Programming

Things I Like

If you love OS X, you should try following apps in addition to Apple's. Most of them are freeware or shareware ($).

Design & Media
  Google SketchUp
3D modeler for everyone 		  GraphicConverter ($)
Designer's Swiss Army Knife
  VLC
Video player for every OS		      
Productivity
  MacJournal ($)
Best journaling app ever		   Vim (Aqua-fied)
Vintage editor for coding
  SubEthaEdit ($)
Collaborative authoring		   OmniGraffle Pro ($)
Pro diagramming
  Nisus Thesaurus
Free thesaurus, glossary service		   DEVONagent ($)
Smart web search client
  ecto ($)
Weblog editor		   Chinese Rewriter
big5-GB-Unicode converter
Development
  Iconographer
An icon master		   argoUML
UML diagramming
  Morphon XML-Editor
Free XML editor		   Morphon CSS-Editor
Free CSS editor
Network
  Firefox
The must-have browser 		  Adium
All-in-one IM
  NetNewsWire
RSS news feed reader		   Captain FTP
FTP & SFTP client
  iTerm
Terminal for 2-byte languages		   VNCThing
Yet another VNC client
Utility
  DragThing
You have 100 apps to manage?		   SnapZ Pro X
Pro screen capture
  Salling Clicker
SonyEricsson's companion		   Final Vinyl
Free audio recording app
 

WireTap
Free Audio capturing tool

      

Things that Make OS X Even Cooler

The most joyful things is to find a killer-app that makes OS X even cooler and useful and jaw-dropping.

MAX/MSP
MAX/MSP is a graphical environment for music, audio, and multimedia. But what you can do with it is unlimited -- from device control, algorithmic composition, signal processing, numerical analysis, and even for teaching object-oriented programming!

Pro users might also want to check out Jitter, a collection of MAX objects in video processing, effects, 2D/3D graphics, audio/visual interaction, and data visualization.

Related links:

  • jMAX - a visual programming environment for building interactive real-time music and multimedia applications by IRCAM.
  • OpenMusic - a full visual programming language based on CommonLisp / CLOS, also by IRCAM.
  • pd - Pure Data, real-time graphical programming environment for audio and graphical processing, by Prof. Miller S. Puckette, who was also the original author of MAX.
ToySight
If you have ever seen Sony's eyeToy technology, this is the same thing on OS X. Anyway, you need exercise, right? Instead of the mouse, you use your body and hands to control the game. I look forward to see more similar games and applications coming out on OS X based on this idea.

Apache+MySQL+PHP and WebApps

Some more links for developing web applications on OS X using Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, Python,... you name it. Isn't OS X the best web app platform?