Adium

Multi-protocol instant messaging

I have instant messaging accounts on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Jabber, ICQ and probably a few others. But what nobody really likes is having to run a special program for each instant messaging client. Fortunately for me, Adium is available for Mac users. And though I've whittled my use down to essentially two protocols (AIM and MSN), one program lets me log into each of my accounts; but I only have to deal with one contact list. Best of all: it's free.

BBEdit

Powerful text editing for Mac OS X

BBEdit from Bare Bones Software is a world-class text editor for Macs. It was one of the first programs I ever purchased for my Mac, and haven't been without it since. I use it for most of my web development coding, along with several other small things. It's not free. Heck, it's not even cheap. But it's got bells and whistles I haven't even figured out how to use yet. That's gotta be worth something.

Camino

A great browsing alternative for Mac

While the rest of the world is using Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or Opera, I'm using yet another browser for Mac. It's essentially Firefox, but built to feel more Mac-like. I've been using it for a number of years now, and it's just the browser to which I've grown accustomed. It's free.

Capture NX 2

Photo management for Nikon by Nikon

Some people use Apple's Aperture to manage and manipulate their photos. Some people use Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom. And I'm sure that more than one person will tell me I should be using one or the other. But, at this point, I'm trusting Nikon software to properly handle/interpret the raw images from my Nikon camera.

Delicious Library

Nice book and media library program

If you have a Mac and have been keeping your list of movies, CDs, and/or books in a Word document, a spreadsheet, or – heaven forbid – a paper notebook, you might want to take a look at Delicious Library. It's a very nice program that helps you keep your books and media collection organization and easily searchable. One of the biggest "tricks" is that the program can use your iSight camera (either build-in or external) to recognize the barcodes on the products. Once it grabs the barcode, it will go out to the internet and attempt to retrieve the proper information for you. If it doesn't success, it's very easy to just type in the essential information yourself.

Microsoft Entourage

Real email, real contacts, and a lot more

I recently tried Apple's Mail, AddressBook and iCal – since they're part of the operating system. But after years of using Entourage as an all-in-one solution, I didn't like what I considered to be limitations in the Apple-provided three-program solution. So back to Entourage I went.

Adobe Fireworks CS3

Adobe has already Creative Suite 4 (CS4), so the links to Fireworks will deal specifically with that newer version. I haven't made the financial jump to purchase the upgrade, so I still have the ol' CS3. It's not as powerful as Photoshop or Illustrator. But Fireworks is the program I've been using since I bought my first Mac in 2003 to create graphics for web pages, among other things. I can dabble in Photoshop or Illustrator, but they each have a significant enough learning curve, that I haven't taken the time to really master them like I probably should.

Apple iTunes

Don't you use this, too?

I know some Apple/Mac-haters who think iTunes is the worst media-playing program on the face of the earth. But I have found that it organizes my music intuitively enough. My music sounds just fine. I can watch some TV shows or videos if I choose. I can listen to podcasts. And I can transfer rather seamlessly my entire media collection on to my iPod.

Quicken 2007

"Industry standard" personal financial management

I included this software with a bit of reluctance. I've been using Quicken since before 1996, although my current records only go back as far as August 1996. I certainly don't use all of the features in Quicken. I do use it for basic account reconciliation, however, and have tracked every transaction to go through my checking and savings accounts, Visa cards, as well as personal and car loans. So why would I be reluctant to include Quicken in this list of software that I use, since it's quite obvious that I use this program very regularly?

I have sort of a love-hate relationship with the makers of Quicken: Intuit. For years, they had an annual practice of releasing a newer version of Quicken, even though updates were typically fairly small. I typically upgraded every two years, even though I don't recall ever being wow'd by a newer version. But since switching to the Mac, Intuit has treated its Mac customers like the proverbial red-headed stepchild. The most recent version of Quicken for Mac is 2007, which still is not up to date with regards to "standard" Mac user interface, and which still has a number of small bugs. Intuit seems to be preparing some new gee-whiz product for Mac, but I'd just like a better, more bug-free version of the same product that I've used for years. Oh, and I'd like it sooner than later, which doesn't seem terribly likely as Intuit keeps pushing back their timeline for product lease.

There are several other personal finance programs available for Mac, but they all try to do things just a little differently than Quicken. That's fine, but I'll keep using what I have for the time being.

Numbers

Great spreadsheet for Mac from Apple

I've used Microsoft Excel for years as my primary spreadsheet program for number crunching. It's difficult to explain without showing you how Excel limited my workflow. Excel is still the industry standard for spreadsheets, despite the release of Numbers and the (free) availability of OpenOffice.org's Calc. I still have to use Excel at my office, which is fine. I still like the program in general, and acknowledge that it has more features and functionality than Numbers. But for my personal number crunching, I prefer the less-restrictive workflow that Numbers provides.

Transmit

Excellent FTP program

There are many different programs I could use to move files from my local computer to my web server. Some are free, some are not. Some have an easy-to-use interface, some do not. I chose Transmit by Panic, Inc. – whose slogan says "Shockingly Good Mac Software." I use a couple other programs by them as well, and have to say that I tend to agree: their software really is quite excellent. I've tried other open-source or freeware FTP programs, but I still prefer Transmit over all of them.