A bunch of (mostly) free Mac stuff for design studio productivity
One of the reasons why we choose to work on Apple computers is that they allow us a large amount of options as far as organization and collaboration are concerned. Here is a brief list of the techniques and applications we use to keep on top of our busy schedules.
First lets start with the big ones.
Mail.app & iCal – These two are as free as you get. If you’re running a Mac, you have these. ToDo’s and Notes are fantastic organizational tools when used with iCal, Anxiety (Which I talk about below.) and Apple’s sweet open source CalDAV server. (Again, mentioned below.) And, with the release of Leopard, Apple also included ToDo management in Mail.app that make life a lot easier around the office. It allows us to sync all of our tasks and calendars to our entire team without any third party apps getting in the way of the sexy OS X goodness.
CalendarServer – Believe it or not, installing this CalDAV server is a breeze, even if you’re a total Unix newbie. Just follow the quickstart tutorial that they provide, and make sure to use ./run -d to run the server as a daemon and you’ll be golden. There is bad news, however, about the servers standard XML based implementation of directory services. It fails to provide the usability that OpenDirectory provides by not allowing proper delegation, group, or LDAP access, which is a major bummer. It is, however, free and does allow you to collaborate with a group by using a single user account, so I can’t really complain.
Anxiety – This tiny app is a charmer. It is basically a simplified version of the Todo manager in Mail.app, but it hides nicely in the menu bar and allows you quick and straightforward access to all of your tasks at the click of a button. You can add calendars to iCal, assign tasks to those calendars and manage your ever growing list of Todo’s with the greatest of ease. Highly recommended.
Quicksilver – Duh. This is a no-brainer for anyone who is serious about enjoying their Mac. At first glance, it’s a lightning fast application launcher, and believe me, it’s worth the download just for that. However, the joy that you feel when you discover the rest of it’s fantastic uses makes it possibly the best free application availible on the Mac platform. It was recently made open-source by its creator, and a myriad of new plugins that increase its functionality even more have been released making it more important than ever that you jump on the QS bandwagon right away. Do it.
Onyx – The only Mac maintenance and customization tool that you’ll ever really need. There are a myriad of similar applications, which are at the same time both surprisingly NOT free and under-developed. Be sure to read the warning labels next to some commands, as some of them can definitely mess up your system if toyed with.
Secrets – This application is an interesting one. It performs a similar task to Onyx, however, it has some features that are missing in Onyx, and it works in a interesting enough way to merit mention. It is actually a tiny prefpane that allows you to access hidden or disabled system and application preferences. You can change not only the preferences of the OS, but a whole slew of other applications as well (Including Cyberduck and Adium). It grabs it’s database of preferences and tweaks from a remote server and users can suggest or add their own “secrets” via a web form, which is a pretty nifty feature.
The first “secret” I’d suggest checking out is for Mail. The auto-BCC preference is excessively handy when you want to dump every team members outgoing mail to a central location.
Cyberduck – The king of free FTP applications. All that needs to be said is that at one point I was a die-hard Transmit fanatic, and well, now I’m not. I love Panic, but don’t bother paying for something when you can get something better for free.
xSlimmer – This is the application that I had to put in the “(Mostly)” in the title of this entry for. xSlimmer is a beautifully designed little application that allows you to trim the unneeded PowerPC code (Or Intel code, if you’re still into the whole G5 thing) and unused language files from your favorite apps, adding some seriously deserved speed boosts to monsters like Photoshop and Illustrator. That by itself is great, but on top of that it has a freakin’ handy and auto-updated blacklist that stops you from bricking some programs that need the extra code to function properly. And it’s a measly $11! That’s two visits to Starbucks! Buy it! Go!
Now for the equally important (but tinier) little guys.
AppCleaner – Uninstalls things wonderfully. Has a nice GUI. AppZapper is needed no longer.
The Unarchiver – Better, faster and stronger than OS X’s built in decompression utility. Handles just about everything.
Renamer4Mac – Batch renaming things comes up much too often in our busy little studio. Use this to do it.
Perian – Play nearly every known format using Quicktime! Plus, it works with Leopard’s QuickLook functionality. Bonus!
ToolPlayer – When you don’t need iTunes being a moron and hogging all your RAM, use this sexy little MP3 player instead! When we have to render out HD footage from After Effects but still want to rock out, this is what we use.