Favorite (Mac OS X) software

[Hypersphere]

BetterSnapTool
ChemAxon Suite
ChemBioDraw
Chimera
Crossover/Wine
Dropbox
EasySIMBL
Filezilla
Forklift
Fugu
Funter
Gimp
GoogleDrive
GraphPad Prism
JMP Pro
KeyboardViewer
KeyReMap4MacBook
LibreOffice
MacPyMOL
MagicNumber2
Mendeley
Meteorologist
MS Office
NAMD
Parallels
PyRx
Shredder 12
Stata/SE
Synergy
Terminal
TextWrangler
Transmit
VMD
Xboard
Xcode
YASARA Suite

[Muirium]

Notational Velocity is essential for deftly organising a ton of notes. Absolute genius. And if you want even more of that then there is its offspring.

Dropbox for sync of course. Works fabulously for tiny plaintext files, naturally.

And another quick vital one is The Unarchiver. You'll know it when you need it!

[Hypersphere]

Forgot one that is helpful, especially when using multiple monitors:

MouseLocator

Thanks for the tip re: Notational Velocity; I shall give it a try.

There are so many great things that are part of OS X, such as Preview, but perhaps this doesn't count.

[Muirium]

Another vital one: Jumpcut. Multi clipboards system wide (think copy/paste with history) with both a mouse and keyboard driven interface. Forget juggling with a leaky clipboard, now it's got your back. When in doubt: just copy, safe in the knowledge that you can retrieve it later.

My launcher has aiways been Quicksilver. Highly recommended. Yosemite's Spotlight is a treat, though, so I may finally just use that. But not on my G4! Yet Quicksilver is such a lightning bolt it's even instant there!

[mr_a500]

Yes, Quicksilver is good. With the latest Mavericks update, it seems to be using much more CPU for some reason though.

I also use:

Pathfinder - a file manager that doesn't suck as badly as Finder
Carbon Copy Cloner - make bootable system backups
Audacity - audio file editor
VLC - audio/video player to replace that piece of shit known as iTunes (though it still has problems)
Blender - 3D
GrandPerspective - find out where your disk space is going
Little Snitch - see what programs are accessing the internet without your permission (WHY isn't this kind of thing part of the OS??)

[Muirium]

Why? Way too technical / paranoid for Apple's sensibilities. (I used to run Lil' Snitch way back in my early Mac days when I still had the software pirating habit I'd long indulged on Windows. What else is it for but nixing Adobe's phone home etc.?) They'd prefer you do everything via the App Store, natch, where they (hopefully) sniffed all that out…

[mr_a500]

That was more of a rhetorical question because I know why. Half the programs I have to block are Apple programs.

[scottc]

Tired of looking at a high-res screen with lots of things on it?
Want the real experience like the computer that your keyboard originally came from?
Cathode: http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/

I don't own a Mac OS X machine, but when I'm using one this is the first program I install.

[Muirium]

Much like keyboards, there's no match for the original hardware:


http://deskthority.net/photos-f62/volke ... t7744.html

Fortunately, I've not gotten a hankering for old CRTs (or mice or printers…) yet, or I'd be in real trouble for storage space. Keyboards are my weakness, not the rest of the experience…

[wheybags]

You posted that image in the other thread!
You think you can just waltz around, posting images in multiple threads huh?!?

[Muirium]

A delicious little evil! But it's on topic, I think.

[Mr.Bean]

alfred

[mr_a500]

Fortunately, I've not gotten a hankering for old CRTs (or mice or printers…) yet, or I'd be in real trouble for storage space. Keyboards are my weakness, not the rest of the experience…

I've got a hankering for old CRTs. Ironically, back in the day I couldn't wait for LCDs to improve so that I could be rid of CRTs forever. Now, though, I long for the old phosphor glow and scanlines. I've even recently started collecting mini B&W CRT televisions:

Technics.JPG

(Photo from http://www.visions4.net/journal/time-line/page-two/)

[Muirium]

Apparently, I need the screen from one of those (got any 9 inch tubes?) if I'm ever to fix up my SE/30. Its motherboard is busted, and I have a spare Core 2 Duo Mac Mini I could put in its shell, but the original screen is no good for greyscale.

While I'm not against yanking out the 68k guts, there's something about giving up the curved screen that doesn't seem right. LCDs don't match the compact Mac look at all.

[mr_a500]

Apparently, I need the screen from one of those (got any 9 inch tubes?)

You talking about colour CRT? I'm not that advanced. I've got about 8 B&W and 7 monochrome, but besides Amiga monitors the only colour CRT I have is this 3.7" Trinitron from 1980:


(Photo from http://www.visions4.net/journal/time-line/page-two/)

(How did this thread become a CRT thread? I blame Muirium. )

[Muirium]

Actually, greyscale is what I'm after. I saw a Japanese guy's mod that was just peachy, and he used a security camera greyscale CRT of the same dimensions as the Mac's original. You just can't reuse the stock one because its analogue electronics are explicitly binary black and white, for some reason I've never heard gone into.

[Hypersphere]

I like the old oscilloscopes with the round CRTs.

[Compgeke]

I do as well. Too bad my Heathkit IO-10 needs some work to be functional again, I believe it needs a recap and work from there :L.

[Hypersphere]

Speaking of oscilloscopes, is there any decent scope software for Mac OS X? There's Bitscope for the USB/LAN scopes of the same name, but I am looking for software for a standalone bench scope.

[Compgeke]

Not sure if direct software but something like Windows inside of VMWare Workstation (Player might work as well) with USB passthrough would work. I do the same to use my old scanner with a USB to SCSI adapter except I'm using XP in the VM on Windows since there's no 64-bit drivers for the USB to SCSI adapter.

I don't know what other companies use but I know Tektronix's Wavestar only works on Windows.

[Hypersphere]

Not sure if direct software but something like Windows inside of VMWare Workstation (Player might work as well) with USB passthrough would work. I do the same to use my old scanner with a USB to SCSI adapter except I'm using XP in the VM on Windows since there's no 64-bit drivers for the USB to SCSI adapter.

I don't know what other companies use but I know Tektronix's Wavestar only works on Windows.

On the Mac, it would be VMware Fusion. I have done some comparisons of running Windows 7 or various linux distros in VMs on the Mac using VirtualBox, VMware Fusion, and Parallels. Overall, Parallels works best, especially with any applications that have demanding video requirements.

As for scope software, it seems that the only product available for the Mac is Bitscope, which is the software for the USB/ethernet computer-based scopes. Bitscope is cross-platform (Mac, linux, Windows, and Raspberry Pi), but it seems limited in its capabilities compared to standalone bench scopes. Among PC-based scopes, it appears that the upper-end Picoscopes might be fairly good, and their software has some linux support in addition to Windows (but no Mac). Bitscope and Picoscope software is free to download.

For standalone scopes, I have heard that Agilent's BenchVue is good, as is the scope software from Tektronix, but the Tek software is expensive. There is also VISA from National Instruments (NI) and various scope modules for Matlab. Although Matlab has a Mac version, I am not sure about the availability of instrument drivers for Mac. Here again, although not ideal, it might be possible to run everthing through a VM on the Mac using VirtualBox, VMware Fusion, or Parallels.

[Compgeke]

Tektronix's Wavestar is free if you use the older version. It works well enough for any of the older (and as such affordable) 'scopes that offer computer control and also works on 64-bit OSes. It's the only one I have experience with as I've never worked with anything other than tektronix and heathkit stuff.

[Hypersphere]

Tektronix's Wavestar is free if you use the older version. It works well enough for any of the older (and as such affordable) 'scopes that offer computer control and also works on 64-bit OSes. It's the only one I have experience with as I've never worked with anything other than tektronix and heathkit stuff.

Thanks. Maybe I will look for a used Tektronix scope, although with the number of models it will be a daunting task.

[Muirium]

Ignoring the X part of the topic, best software ever:

The computer lab teachers at school grew to truly loathe that one. He kept coming back! Like the Talking Moose with a banjo…

[sth]

[Grond]

I use MPlayerX as a video player. VLC still has better compatibility when it comes to weird video codecs/formats, but MplayerX has a killer feature for me: it automatically resumes playback, meaning I may watch part of a movie tonight, and when I open the file tomorrow playback will start just where I left it. Nice support for subtitles too.

I also use Calibre for managing and converting ebooks. I find it a bit messy, there's a lot of features I'll never use and there are so many updates it's annoying, but overall it's the best I could find.

Transmission is still my choice for torrents, while if you're looking for a powerful video transcoder I suggest HandBrake.

And I agree Keyremap4macbook and TheUnarchiver are essential.

[Hypersphere]

<snip>
And I agree Keyremap4macbook and TheUnarchiver are essential.

KeyReMap4MacBook! -- Yes!

[Grond]

I haven't tried Aimersoft DVD-ripper, but the old MacTheRipper used to do the job fine. Actually I haven't been ripping a DVD for a while, as most of the time it's just faster to download a movie these days – and chances are you may find a higher quality BR rip.

[Muirium]

TextWrangler / BBEdit is no less than essential. I don't even code, but they are that well designed even nontechnical sorts like me can use their powers. Other apps could learn a thing, or hundred, from Bare Bones' extensive menus.

[Grond]

NoSleep is also a nice utility that just keeps your macbook working when you close the lid. This is the kind of option that should be integrated in the system, but isn't. I need this because I use my macbook with an external monitor and I don't care using the macbook screen as a secondary monitor.

Besides, does anybody know a good disc burning software which is not as bloated as Toast? Actually I find myself burning discs so seldomly nowadays, I could probably live with the system built in burning software. But you know, that one is very basic.