Download Squad

Here are my top 10 OS X applications, in alphabetical order. I had a real hard time narrowing the list down to 10, so I sneaked 5 extras on the end so you can see what nearly made it into the countdown. I think you'll see that my list reflects the fact I spend most of my working day on the internet!

What: 1password
Where from: Agile Web Solutions, $39.95
Why: 1password is the ultimate password manager! It integrates with all my favourite web applications and even has an optional iPhone companion application. I sync the database between my machines using Windows Live Sync (see below), which means whether I'm on my desktop machine or my laptop, I can just hit the 1password key combination to log in to any website I've ever logged in to before.

What: Adium
Where from: http://adium.im/, FREE
Why: Adium is simply the best multi protocol Instant Messaging application I have ever seen on any platform. It integrates every service I use (Windows Live, GTalk, AIM, Yahoo etc.) and looks fanastic with a huge range of themes, icon sets etc. While it doesn't yet support the new multiple-location MSN protocol or video chat, it is nonetheless a brilliant application at a brilliant price!

What: Coda
Where from: Panic, $99
Why: This is the most complete web coders toolkit out there. It provides a text editor with syntax highlighting, file transfer, SVN, CSS and even a terminal all packed into one application. You can even plug web books straight into Coda. Not only does the app look gorgeous (like all Panic applications) but it also just works exceptionally well. Neat little features like spellcheck that is intelligent enough to check your content but not your code demonstrate this is a client written for coders, by coders. An extensible plugin architecture means the possibilities are endless!

What: Firefox (optimised)
Where from: izyc, FREE
Why: Since I use different operating systems a fair bit (OS X, Windows and Linux), I find that Firefox is the browser for me. I can use almost all my plugins across platforms, I can sync up my bookmarks between machines and I've become so familiar with it I have no real desire / need to change! Yes, it is a little bit of a memory hog and it's not the fastest browser in terms of raw performance, but the super useful addons I have installed definitely make it a winner. I do manage to eke out that extra bit of performance (and gain the funky icon shown here) by using Intel optimised builds from izyc. When switching from the standard issue build, I did notice a boost in both performance and reliability.

What: iMovie '09
Where from: iLife '09 - free with new Macs else $79
Why: When I shoot videos, I want to edit them and get them on line as quickly as possible, with the minimum amount of fuss - and this is where iMovie delivers. It's powerful enough for me and has enough features to be able to produce good looking videos with a few clicks and drags. Perfect! Coupled with my Elgato turbo.264 HD dongle for encoding, it's a great combination.

What: NetNewsWire
Where from: NewsGator, FREE (soon to be ad supported, optional registration fee)
Why: Up until a month or two ago, I had been using Newsgator's excellent RSS service for all my feed requirements. The killer feature for me was the great applications (NetNewsWire and FeedDemon) and the fact that feed statuses were synced across devices. When I read a feed on one device, it was automatically marked read on my other machines too. I toyed with the idea of moving to Google Reader, but the lack of a really good desktop client put me off. Recently however, Newsgator announced they were 'turning off' their back end servers for personal use, replacing them with Google Reader. Perfect! I now use NetNewsWire to read my Google Reader feeds, hence getting the best of both worlds.

What: Spotify
Where from: Spotify, FREE (ad supported) or £9.99 premium subscription (select European countries only)
Why: I've been a big fan of music streaming services for a while, having previously been a paid up user of the Napster service, as well as dabbling with the Zune offering. I started using Spotify via the free service, but with the launch of the Android client, I now have a premium subscription. I have a wide taste in music, so on demand streaming of just about anything I want to listen to is great and the offline mobile sync is the killer feature for me.

What: TextWrangler
Where from: Bare Bones Software, FREE
Why: Everyone needs a great text editor and for me they don't come any better than TextWrangler. Technically a cut down version of the flagship BBEdit product, TextWranger does pack in a massive amount of features that will satisfy all but the most hardcore user's needs. I don't ever recall needing to do something in the application that it couldn't do! An incredible product, particularly at the price.

What: VMware Fusion
Where from: VMware, $79.99
Why: Sometimes i'm in Mac OSX and I want do something in Windows or Linux. While I can (and sometimes do) dual / tri boot, if you're not doing anything particularly taxing, you can't beat running OS' in Virtual Machines - and VMware Fusion is exceptionally good at this. I run Windows XP, Windows 7 and Ubuntu 64 bit in VMware Fusion on a daily basis and it's rock solid. The integration with the host OS is excellent and the whole product is very well thought implemented. I have also tried (and indeed own!) Parallels which is arguably on a par with the VMware offering. An interesting alternative product (and one that almost made this list instead!) is Sun's VirtualBox, which provides very good Virtual Machine technology for free! If you've yet to play with VM technologies, I recommend giving it a try (it makes a particularly great Linux host).

What: Windows Live Sync
Where from: Microsoft, FREE
Why: I debated whether to include this item on my list, as it is technically broken on Snow Leopard, which I happen to be running on my MacBook. Well, they say that if you dance with the devil you will get burnt - perhaps by relying on a Microsoft product for Mac I was asking for trouble! That said, Windows Live Sync is such a massively useful tool for me, it just had to be in here. Windows Live Sync allows you to keep directories on multiple machines in sync. I use WLS to keep folders of documents, music, pictures and more in sync across my Desktop, Laptop and Media Center. I also use it to share select libraries with others. It works (or worked) brilliantly, intelligent enough to replicate files around using my internal LAN when I was at home - of course it also works across the internet. Since no data is stored in the 'cloud', it doesn't matter too much if your libraries are Gigabytes in size, which is handy for music / image libraries and such. Once again, it's great that it's a free offering too, which is always good (until it breaks and you need support). Microsoft, please fix this!

The applications that just missed the cut are iTerm (free) - a great terminal replacement, LogMeIn (free) - a fantastic remote control client / server, Mailplane ($24.95) - a desktop client for GMail, Tweetie ($19.95) - my favourite Twitter client and Transmit ($29.95) - a brilliant FTP client and Ubercaster ($79.95) - an exceptionally complete podcasters toolkit.