Missing Link

Earlier this week at work I had the good fortune of having a solid state drive loaned to me to test and play around with in my Macbook Pro.  Figuring that the only PROPER way to test a drive like that is to make it my system drive I had the occasion of doing a fresh install of Snow Leopard and setting up a fresh (and FAST!) system.

I don’t usually do fresh installs anymore.  With the advent of Time Machine I usually end up having all of my applications, files, directories, etc there waiting for me after a restore.   This time, however, I had no easy way of doing that as the SSD is not large enough to house all my files.  This gave me the excuse, and opportunity, to clean out the cruft, start with a clean slate and have only those files and programs that I know I’m going to use.

That, of course, got me thinking and considering what programs I would need to download and install.   What programs do I feel are essential?  Thankfully, I found that to be incredibly easy to answer, and decided I would share my list of apps I can’t live without.

1. Dropbox:  Many of the applications I use are able to be kept in sync between my different computers by using Dropbox.  Beyond that, it provides me with a place I can put things and have it appear on all of my machines.  Since I started using it in early January it has become absolutely essential for me.
2. 1password:  Like most people, I find it incredibly difficult to remember many 15+ character passwords.  I found myself greatly sacrificing password integrity and strength, and using the same password everywhere.  Enter 1Password by Agile Web Solutions. Never before has an app made it easier to have large, complex, secure passwords,   but also can help you easily identify which sites of yours are using the same password, and easily help rectify that.   If you use a Mac, you should use 1Password.
3. Things:  Prior to using this beautiful app from Cultured Code I struggled to become, and stay, organized.  I was never able to find anything that clicked quite right with me until my friend Jason recommended I take a look at Things.  I’ve been smitten ever since,   and now entrust Things with nearly everything I have to do.
4. TweetDeck:  For those of you who are big into Twitter, I probably don’t have to explain why TweetDeck is great.  Aside from the fact that it runs on Adobe Air (a sin I can forgive it), it looks fantastic, works fantastic and just plain is fantastic – it makes managing Twitter a lot easier.
5. Kindle for Mac:  We all need down time, and this allows me to read my books from the kindle store on my mac over lunch.   Stays in sync with my Kindle, and my iPhone,   pretty damn awesome.
6. CoRD:  If you find yourself having to do remote desktop sessions into Windows machines often then you can benefit from CoRD.   The main benefit I see over Microsofts RDP client is that this makes it easy to “save” servers with the appropriate settings so that you just click a server and are logged in.
7. Alfred: This app launcher is still in beta but has performed incredibly well for me over the past few weeks.  Faster than quicksilver ever was and just seems to… work.   Added ability to initiate several web functions (wikipedia / google searches, etc) make it just a little bit more useful without adding in an intrusive amount of clutter.
8. Adium:   This is, by far, the best IM client I’ve ever used.   My only complaint is that its not available on Windows/Linux.    If you have a mac and use IM with any frequency,  you owe it to yourself to try Adium.

There are other programs that I use, naturally, but these are the apps that are my go-to apps for any Mac that I own.  I like Safari, so generally don’t NEED to have another browser (until Chrome is more stable I’ll stick with Safari),  I use Feedly in my browser for RSS and Apple’s Mail.app for email.  These 8, though, are guaranteed to be on any Mac I own.