Mac Software Starter Kit

[Kaido]

Switching to Mac can be difficult for the sole reason of trying to find replacement apps. To help with this transition, or to give you new ideas for useful apps, I've put up a page on my Wiki containing a huge list of good programs, including links to the product pages and a brief description of each app. There are 12 categories and 68 apps listed so far. Most are free, but there are a few pay-for apps (price is listed next to app name). Here's the Wiki page:

http://leopardsoup.pbwiki.com/mackit

You can download all of them here: (439mb zipped)

http://tinyurl.com/b2ehm2

This also makes a handy kit if you have a friend who is setting up a Mac and needs some goodies to start out with. There are some Hackintosh utilities like the Chameleon Bootloader and MSR Tools if you've chosen to go that route. To find more new apps, I like "i use this" and Versiontracker:

http://osx.iusethis.com/

http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/

Hope you find this useful!

 

[SKC]

THANK YOU!! I'm setting up a macbook for my friend and this will come in so handy..

 

[Need4Speed]

nice little wiki ....

 

[KeithP]

Very nice work.

You may want to add FairMount as an alternative for MacTheRipper.

-KeithP

 

[sjwaste]

I'm still a Mac noob, but a couple of observations:

First, Handbrake can rip DVD's with CSS, you just have to have VLC installed. It uses VLC's copy of libdvdcss (sp?). Handbrake's queue handling is sloppy, though. Best bet is to put an item in the queue that you want, export it, and edit the text file to add more items. Sometimes it just doesn't pick up your new input file or settings. However, once you give it the right parameters, it does a fantastic job. Handbrake is pretty much like MeGUI, but in OSX convention -- simplified, not a ton of options, but you don't miss the ones you no longer have.

Second, there are some unofficial 7zip ports to OSX. EZ 7z is one of them: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19139.

I have noticed that there is far less free software available for OSX. I'm not sure if it actually sells, but people do get away with attempting to charge for some complete crap. Always try the demo, and if there isn't one, it's for a good reason most likely

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: sjwaste
I'm still a Mac noob, but a couple of observations:

First, Handbrake can rip DVD's with CSS, you just have to have VLC installed. It uses VLC's copy of libdvdcss (sp?). Handbrake's queue handling is sloppy, though. Best bet is to put an item in the queue that you want, export it, and edit the text file to add more items. Sometimes it just doesn't pick up your new input file or settings. However, once you give it the right parameters, it does a fantastic job. Handbrake is pretty much like MeGUI, but in OSX convention -- simplified, not a ton of options, but you don't miss the ones you no longer have.

Second, there are some unofficial 7zip ports to OSX. EZ 7z is one of them: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19139.

I have noticed that there is far less free software available for OSX. I'm not sure if it actually sells, but people do get away with attempting to charge for some complete crap. Always try the demo, and if there isn't one, it's for a good reason most likely

Free software compared to what? Windows or Linux?

I would agree on both counts but give you the following addenda:
Linux has tons of free software for obvious reasons.
Windows has tons of free software because it is 90% of the market and is apparently pretty easy to code for.

I have found in my time on OS X that although sure, pound for pound, it does have less free software (though it would be interesting to compare it quantitatively based on percentages, so although OS X is 1/10th the market share of Windows, does it have 1/10th the free software) what free software there is is generally better made, and looks better than the majority of what you find for Windows. There is a certain mentality amongst long-term OS X users, a mentality of 'how it should look/feel' and that which does not correspond does not get much action so to speak. There is a reason that VLC on OS X is better (IMO) than VLC on Windows. Because the OS X version modeled itself after Quicktime.

Can you give an example of the some of the 'complete crap' that you have been finding? I personally have never had much trouble finding free apps that do what I want, but I may use my system rather differently than you do.

 

[Crizza]

Bumping this; very handy stuff for newcomers.