a view from afar

Just got myself a shiny new 24" iMac. (Seriously - they are VERY shiny - I can see my face in it, which is not a good thing.) I transferred my user account across but decided to leave the apps - I wanted to install them by hand to see what I actually use. Well, this is what I can't live without...

(Note: I keep updating this from time to time as I add and remove programs)

Internet

• Adium - I don't think there's a better chat client on any platform, although libpurple is still missing a few MSN features
• Shiira - the current version of this browser (2.2) is buggy and still crashes, but has got some cool features Safari hasn't
• Firefox - for the web dev stuff Safari can't handle
• Transmission - cross platform BitTorrent client - but you wouldn't know it! Fanstatic Mac GUI, does everything I need, and really configurable
• Colloquy - IRC client, surely the death knell for Snak
• Cyberduck - FTP/SFTP client, and again, I don't know how shareware clients will survive
• NetNewsWire - version 2.1lite of this aggregator got me hooked on RSS feeds, the latest 3.0 blew me away

Development

• TextMate - I was almost tempted to leave this off and see if anyone would ask how I can write code without it... (Note - this link is my vote on folksr.de for my favourite text editor.)
• MacPorts - probably the most robust package management tool I've used. I wish FreeBSD would adopt it
• svnX - I do most SVN work in TextMate
• pgAdminIII - I must be spoilt by Mac software, because god do I hate this! Someone point me at a decent Cocoa Postgres client PLEASE!
• VMware Fusion - noticeably faster than Parallels Desktop, especially on disk performance. Also feels more Mac-like, which surprised me as I expected Fusion would suffer "Big Corp Mac Port" syndrome, and end up like an old version of Word (or pgAdminIII, ironically)

Music/Sound

• iScrobbler - beats the Last.fm client hands down. Everything scrobbling feature you need in 32-pixel square in your menu bar

Video

• Perian - video codec package, obsoletes most standalone ones. Play Flash video in QuickTime player!
• VLC media player - although to be honest, I think Perian will make this obsolete
• Flip4Mac WMV Products - you have to pay if you want to export though
• VideoBox - successor to FLVR, the Safari plugin that lets you download Flash videos off websites

Graphics

• Pixelmator - pretty neat image editor, although the 1.0 still feels a bit 0.9
• Intaglio - got this as part of the MacUpdate bundle - not used it much but seems like the vector equivalant of Pixelmator (although much more mature)
• Facebook Exporter for iPhoto - I'm not a big Facebooker, but it's nice to be able to get pictures straight on the site

Productivity

• OmniOutliner - absolutely indespensible, and Apple must know this since it's bundled with recent Macs
• OmniGraffle Pro - wouldn't dream of designing a database without it
• NeoOffice - essential, but I really hate this program. More the fault of OpenOffice, though, which needs more RAM than most operating systems. As soon as iWork can write Open Office XML, I'm switching.

System

• SSHKeychain - stop typing your SSH key passwords!
• OpenTerminal - open a Terminal in any Finder folder - asbolutely indespensible
• GrandPerspective - nifty TreeMap view of your hardrive. Not as many features as JDiskReport, but it's a tidy little Cocoa app
• iSlayer iStat Menus - so you can see just how much NeoOffice is thrashing your system
• SMARTReporter - monitors HD health. I think iStat Menus does this too though. I'll let you know if it works when my hard drive fails
• Diablotin - lets you nose around to see what system extensions have been installed, globally or just for your user
• The Unarchiver - lets you handle a wider range of archive formats in the Finder than the standard Apple software
• Growl - system wide notification (get the latest installer off the web, not the one bundled with Adium). Quite why Apple doesn't buy this is beyond me...
• Little Snitch - watch outgoing network connections. It's interesting to see just how chatty some apps are
• Bellhop - lets you write Mac OS X services in dynamic languages. I used this to help compile this list, see my other post here

Accounts/Misc

• FinanceToGo - I love this app, really intuitive double-entry book-keeping. A few bugs though, and still waiting on a few key features in future versions. But it's heading the right way
• LicenseKeeper - as you can probably tell, I'm pretty keen on Mac shareware software. The quality of the packages available it just astonishing - it's like being an Amiga user all over again. But I wanted a away to record the stuff I buy that was a bit more sophisticated than hoping I collected all the e-mail receipts.

Let me know if you found anything interesting here, or if there's something I might find useful that I haven't seen yet.