Quick Silver
I am not sure how i stumblled upon Quick Silver, but it should be the first App to be installed on every new mac.
Quick Silver is a utility that extend the Finder capabilities, it is a combination of a search engine (like SpotLight and GoogleDesktop) with right click abilities, and then some (Open, Delete, Rename, Mail to...).
the idea is simple (like all great things are), to allow a user from the keyboard to perform (almost) all actions on a resource (Application, File, Folder, Network share, URL, etc...)
there are many advanced abilities, several User Interface, and endless list of plugins,
Quick Silver is available for mac only, (windows users have replica like Launchy, and SkyLine) QS is available for download from these locations:
BlackTree - Home Site
SoftPedia - Mirror 1
MacUpdate - Mirror 2 (love macupdate)
VersionTracker - Mirror 3 (track versions. what a great idea)
hope you will love QS as much as i do.
RapidoStart
RapidoStart is an application launcher like QuickSilver covered in this post, only QS is more then shortcuts available faster and that is exactly what RapidoStart is.
you can donwload it from app4Mac, its free, eye candy, makes accessing applications, documents, folders, its tiger and leopard ready, after installation and execution a small icon hides in the corner of your screen.
you click on it in order to open RapidoStart, like dashboard it lands on your screen and gives you a square translucent box. (like in grid stack)
this box can be filled with alias (shortcut) to your favorites applications, documents, etc. by drag and drop icons to it.
there is also a search bar that can narrow your search and find the exact icon you want to launch, and of course a click on the icon will lunch the application/document/folder,
if there are many icons to fit one screen there is the same hidden icon at the edge of the screen allowing you to paginate/scroll the icons (this feature is really absent at stacks, beside plain old list stack),
you can control the pagination animation (3D Cube, Flip 3D etc.), you can decide if the screen contains 8,16,32 icons at a time, the animation it uses to appear and disappear, and you can categories your icons and browse them accordingly, all from a menu available at the lower part of the screen.
all in all RapidoStart is fast, neat, useful, sexy, do exactly what it was designed for, nothing more and nothing less,
there are some features needed and their absents is felt, like history, or recently opened, smart addition (if i add the application folder don't add it as a folder but add all the icons and later if another application has been installed add it automatically).
when i click outside of the application/grid/box it does vanish, much like dashboard (unless you choose enable always on top of other applications), or when you click on th X button,
on the down side you switch between categories using scroll rather then a drop down so if you have a lot of categories its disappointing, however it remembers the last category you browsed and it will display it when you call it to appear again,
when you click a letter it will not immediately narrow your selection or jump focus to the first icon starting with that letter, you need to click the search bar for that,
you cannot drag an icon out of the window in order to delete it like in the dock, but there is an X appearing if you hover on an icon and if you drag it, a trash will appear (but the trash cannot restore)
the most annoying part was that when you configure it to display 8 icons on a page, you can drag and move the screen as to where it will appear, but if you configure it to display 16, 32 and above it will freeze in the center position.
and for the last down side, there is a risky feature, that allows you to open/execute all the icons appearing in a category (not a page, category!), for some reason that feature appears as the first item of the menu, so you can imagine how angry i was to click it when i browsed applications (more then 100 apps) to discover there is no "Are you sure" dialog.
beside these few points its a great application its free,
its the addition you needed to leopard (unless you use QuickSilver),
I give it a 4 out of 5.
Server Administration Tool for Apple Mac
If you haven't heard of Leopard Server 10.5.2 then you should know that there is such a release of leopard, a server side, note that there is no distribution yet for OSX86, but you can patch it using the old methods of brazilmac, also you can install some OSX86 release and then open the server dmg and install it (so i heard, never tried it).
but if it is the tools and apps that found on the server (and don't come with client leopard) you are looking for, then you can download the leopard server full version (about 6.5G) and extract the tools using pacifist and run them on your leopard.
iCal Server
wiki
Podcast producer
Spotlight server
iChat Server
Mail services
Web Hosting
Directory
etc.
if you are looking for the cool blue aurora desktop image, it can be found here.
also if you would like to control your server from a remote leopard client then download the remote server admin tools, you can get it for free (apple give it away), it can be downloaded from version tracker at this link or directly from apple at this link.
after download has completed mount the dmg, and install the package it will install these tools:
Server Monitor
Server Assistance
Server Admin
Server Preferences
System Image Utility
Workgroup Manager
Xgrid Admin
here are the screenshots:
X Lossless Decoder 20080816
X Lossless Decoder 20080816 is an excellent free application for OS X, that decodes, converts and plays a very large number of lossless audio files. Supported audio files can also be split into tracks with cue sheets when decoding.
This release includes several bug fixes and downloads album art for you automatically.
FORMATS SUPPORTED
- Ogg
- FLAC
- Ogg Vorbis (aoTuV)
- MPEG-4 AAC (QuickTime/Core Audio)
- MP3 (LAME)
- Monkey Audio
- Wavpack And Wavpack64
- TTA, AIFF, WAV
- Raw PCM
- Apple Lossless
- Support For Files Larger Than 2GB
- Much More
Download it here
iCursor 1.40
iCursor 1.40 is an excellent fun and free application for OS X, that allows you to animate your mouse cursor with particles that follow your mouse movements very smoothly. There are many effects that can be swapped out with others, and you can even create your own effects and share them with others.
USEFUL FOR
- Users With Big Screens
- Trouble Finding Your Cursor
- When Giving Presentations
- Users With Fading Eyesight
- Users Who Love Eye Candy
- Much More
LimeWire X 4.18.5
LimeWire X 4.18.5 is a free P2P Client for OS X. There are versions available for Windows, Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, Solaris and Linux.
FEATURES
- BitTorrent Support
- Firewall To Firewall Support
- Proxy Support
- Download From Multiple Hosts
- iTunes Integration
- Much More
Skim 1.1.12
Skim 1.1.12 is an excellent free PDF editor and note taking application for OS X, that is designed to make reading and editing PDF files very easy.
FEATURES
- Several Bug Fixes Corrected (New)
- Resize Notes
- QuickLook Plugin Support
- Smart Cropping Tools
- Gradient Drawing
- Add Circles, Boxes Or Notes
- Highlight Important Text
- Read In Full Screen Mode
- Give Presentations
- Save Password In Your Keychain
- Much More
Eternal Lands
Eternal Lands is a free 3D online role playing game for OS X. There is also a version for Windows, Ubuntu and Linux available.
Read More......
AppCleaner 1.2.2
AppCleaner 1.2.2 is an excellent free application of OS X, that allows you to completely uninstall applications from your Mac easily and quickly. It is not sufficient to just delete an application, since installing an application distributes many files throughout your System. AppCleaner will find all of the files associated with the application and safely delete them. It supports Tiger and Leopard.
FEATURES
- German, Swedish, Polish Support Added (New)
- Several Bug Fixes Corrected (New)
- Improved The Search Function (New)
- Shows History Logs
- Delete Unwanted Widgets
- Delete Preference Panes
- Delete Plugins And Screen Savers
- Much More
Download it here
Opera 9.52
Opera 9.52 is an excellent free web browser for OS X that is fast, easy to use and feature rich. This release includes a total of 29 bug fixes.
FEATURES
- Zoom And Image Control
- Improved BitTorrent Performance
- Voice Support
- IMAP Support For Opera Mail
- File Synchronization
- Tabbed Browsing And Thumbnail Previews
- Email, IRC Chat And Fraud Protection
- Download And Password Manager
- Much More
Download it here
Transmission 1.33
Transmission 1.33 is a free BitTorrent client for OS X. This release corrects several memory leaks and crashes.
Note: Make sure you have installed the latest Apple security update 2008-002, in order to run the application properly.
AirRadar 1.0.5, Wireless Scanner
AirRadar 1.0.5 is an excellent free application for OS X, that scans for wireless networks and much more. You can view detailed network information, graph network signal strength, and automatically join the best network in range. You can setup a scan frequency, and have new open or closed networks have their name spoken, play alerts, or display notifications.
Read More......
MacTracker X 5.0.4
MacTracker X 5.0.4 is an excellent free application for OS X, that provides detailed information on every Apple computer ever made. It includes items such as processor speed, memory, optical drives, graphic cards, supported Mac OS versions, expansion options and much more. Also included in the application is information on Apple mice, keyboards, displays, printers, scanners, digital cameras, iPhone 3G, iPod, Apple TV, iPhone, AirPort Base Stations, Newton and Mac OS versions. Search by processor type, date introduced, comments and much more.
This release adds 5 new features.
VERSIONS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD
- Leopard
- Tiger
- Windows
- iPhone/iPod Touch
- iPod Classic/iPod Nano
Download it here
Adium X, multi chat application
Adium 1.3 is a fast, free instant messaging client for OS X which supports AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Yahoo! Japan, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Novell Groupwise and Lotus Sametime. It supports a beautiful WebKit message display, tabbed messaging, encrypted chat, file transfer and more. It is fast, lightweight, customizable, and has been translated into 20 languages.
Read More......
Bootcamp
BootChamp 1.0 is a free utility for Leopard that allows you to quickly boot into Windows.
How is this different than selecting your Windows volume from within Startup Disk in System Preferences? Using Startup Disk actually changes your startup disk permanently so that each time you restart, it boots into whatever you have selected. This application only requires a single click and your admin password, then it restarts your computer into Windows. It does not change your startup disk permanently.
Read More......
Yahoo! Messanger, on Leopard!
Yahoo! Messenger 3.0b3.126432 is a free instant messaging client for OS X. You can chat, send files and much more with each other. It also includes webcam support, calendars, mail, Growl notification and voice calling.
Note: This is a beta version.
FEATURES
- Leopard Crash Bug Fixed (New)
- IM Windows Live
- PC To Phone Support
- Phone To PC Support
- Photo/File Sharing
- Web Conference And Chat Rooms
- Stealth And Webcam Support
- Tabbed Conversations
- Message Archiving
- Much More
Download it here
WinClone
Winclone 2.0.8 is a free application for Leopard only, that allows you to clone your Apple Boot Camp partition quickly and easily. Simply create an image as your would for a backup. Winclone will create the Windows partition, and restore the OS and the data onto the new partition.
FEATURES
- Several Bug Fixes Corrected (New)
- Clone FAT32 Or NTFS Partitions
- Mount Images In Finder
- Fixes Boot Issues Automatically
- Creates Image Documents That Can Be Stored On Any Media
- Clone Windows XP Or Windows Vista
- Restore A 10GB Image In Less Than 10 Minutes
- Much More
Download it here
Like HDTV--LiveStation
Livestation is an excellent free application for OS X, that allows you to watch hundreds of the worlds leading TV and web channels in the highest quality for free. You can also download versions for Windows Vista and Windows XP.
The OSX troubleshooting utility
AppleJack 1.5 is a free troubleshooting assistant utility for OS X. With AppleJack, you can troubleshoot your Mac, even if you are unable to load the GUI or do not have a Mac OS X Install Disk available. AppleJack only runs in Single User Mode.
To use AppleJack, restart your Mac in Single User Mode, by holding down the Command and S keys at Startup, and then type applejack or applejack auto - (which will run through all the tasks automatically) or applejack auto restart - which will restart your Mac automatically at the end of the processes.
NEW FEATURES
- Leopard Compatibility Added (New)
- Better Console Output (New)
- Better Logging (New)
REMEMBER - AppleJack is designed to be run in Single User Mode ONLY at Startup.
Download this application here
