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Software we like

Posted by Linda Sharps on 08.29.06 @ 4:01 AM File Under: MISC

I thought it would be interesting to find out what non-Omni software our employees enjoy using, and share that information with the rest of you. You know, paying it forward, just like that endearing movie with Kevin Spacey. Get out the hankies!

Or…not. Anyway, via an email tangent that came about during the polling process, I learned that out of 24 employees, NINE of us are left-handed. Isn't that amazing? Aren't you totally freaking out right now?

I mean, considering 13-30% of the population is left-handed, that practically makes Omni a team of mutants. Like the X-Men. Personally, I hope my thus-undiscovered superpower has to do with setting things on fire…with my mind. I'll start with Paris Hilton. You're welcome.

Onward to the software recommendations! Note that I asked for “lesser-known” apps, because you've probably already heard of a little thing called iTunes.

Aaron: iSquint. “It's pretty awesome.”

Joel: “I used to play Tranquility a lot, nice pleasant game.”

Ryan: “My vote is for TextWrangler and SuperDuper! (sic) - I use both everyday.”

Terry: “Final Draft - script writing; Ableton Live -  audio/loops; Waves - Audio Plugins; ARTURIA minimoog V - soft synthesizer.”

Liz: “Snapz Pro X—that screenshot-grabbing app plus a little mark-up in Graffle makes it really easy for me to communicate with our engineers about bugs and UI improvements.”

James: “TextMate, Quicksilver, and Adium are 3 that I really like.”

Troy: “Here's something that I've been using a lot lately…Art Collector: a small app that makes adding artwork to your itunes library a breeze.”

Brian: Endicia, “'cause getting your face on postage is cool, especially when it's written by Pat and Aaron of buyolympia fame.”

Tim:  “The 3rd party things I use most often are pretty common and well known :/ (TextMate, Quicksilver, SuperDuper!)

Ken: “I have just one app in my dock that isn't from Omni or Apple: Quicksilver.”

Bill: “I have a lot of happy apps I love to use: Transmit, SubEthaEdit, Tensai, Chax, ChronoSync, Delicious Library, iScrobbler, LaunchBar, NetNewsWire, Teleport.” (Damn, Bill. Rock on with your software-loving self.)

As for me, the most exciting software I've used lately is Barcode Producer. It generates barcodes, like for retail packaging. Handy if you need to, say, produce a whole new size of retail box required by the Apple Stores that renders your entire line of inventory obsolete. You know. For example.

So there you are. If you're of a mind, let us know what cool apps you're using, too.

 

Comments

  1. MacStansbury

    08.29.06 6:00 AM

    Conspicuous by their absence: iPhoto, Oni.


    ...telling…


    (Yes, I live it the past. Someday I'll learn to move on. That said, I still have a destroyed 9600 on my floor that I can't bear to part with.)

  2. Vrent

    08.29.06 6:32 AM

    Keyword assistant. Love at first click

  3. Chad

    08.29.06 8:18 AM

    A couple of apps I've used today (or very recently)


    Remote Desktop Connection - Very useful in that rare case that I need to connect to a Windows PC.  Probably best product Microsoft has ever made.


    Adium - Great little IM client.


    MacJournal - Great for archiving lots of little bits of ideas and notes.


    Transmit - Best FTP client.  Ever.


    LaunchBar - Been playing around with this lately, and it's very useful when I'm lazy and don't want to move away from my keyboard to search out an App.


    WhatSize - Useful for finding excessively large amounts of files to clean up.  C'mon, when are we getting OmniDiskSweeper 2?!


    BBEdit - My replacement for pico.


    Permanent Eraser - My own little utility which I use constantly.

  4. gogo

    08.29.06 8:44 AM

    I stay away from anything that comes out of IntelliScanner/IntelliInnovations… they sold us a useless $1000 inventory system… that doesnt event do real inventory—and no updates in 10 months to fix the problem, while Barcode Producer seems to get an update every month!  That's really bad taste to rip off schools and non-profits!


    Aside from that: all of the above apps are awesome!

  5. WrongSizeGlass

    08.29.06 9:44 AM

    I installed Endcicia today for a client - though it was on Windows :-(


    My favorite lesser known app is my trusty copy of Microsoft's Non-Cat Finding Application. I used it tonight when I got home. After counting paws & ears (you divide paws by ears and hope for an answer of '2'), I realized one cat was M.I.A. I broke out my disc for MS's NCF, slid it across the floor several times, but it didn't find the missing cat.


    As it turns out, he was hiding in the basket of clean laundry (MS NCF is not laundry compatible) ... which reminds me, I need to wash that basket of clothes again.

  6. Mike

    08.29.06 12:54 PM

    Being a developer-type, TextMate is awesome. I've recently discovered Curio.

  7. Alex

    08.29.06 5:13 PM

    WebNoteHappy ... superior bookmark organiser with de.licio.us integration.  Pure genius.

  8. David

    08.29.06 11:09 PM

    I've used Ecto a bit, and it looks really good, but mostly I haven't had time to post anything to my website and so haven't really hit it hard.


    Also Shoebox.  The only app that I've found that lets you use a really rich hierarchical tagging system—though my biggest complaint is that it's single-system, single-user.  (I'd prefer a central share/DB system so it's not limited to my account on one system).

  9. overtype

    08.30.06 2:50 AM

    I use Textmate, Transmit, Adium, Newsfire, and Bulter everyday.

  10. overtype

    08.30.06 2:51 AM

    ** Edit **

    Should say “Butler”. ;)

  11. David

    08.30.06 7:11 AM

    Huh, my comment didn't post. :(


    Ecto, for blogging (not that I have time to), and Shoebox, for organizing pictures (again, not that I have time to).  Neither is quite Omni-quality (if you ever do your own hierarchical-tagging photo-organizing centralized-DB-storing multiple-computer-in-the-house accessing software, I'll be the first in line for it!)


    A few other things, too, but those are the coolest / most “Mac” like ones.

  12. David

    08.30.06 7:11 AM

    grr.  I'm an idiot.  it did post, I just didn't see it.  sorry for the repeat.


    (maybe I need OmniGlasses!)

  13. [...] Lots of good stuff here: OmniGroup’s list of their favourite Mac shareware. [...]

  14. Matthew Barker

    08.31.06 7:51 AM

    Aside from Omni everything:


    CircusPonies NoteBook

    Chicken of the VNC

    NovaMind

    Transmit

    Fugu (ssh, sftp, etc.)

    iPhoto

    Adobe Lightroom (beta)

  15. Bill Lovallo

    09.01.06 1:45 AM

    The comments on SuperDuper got my attention.

    Does any one have comparison experience with Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper?  I use Carbon Copy, but SuperDuper looks like the GUI is more user friendly.

  16. Rachel

    09.01.06 5:04 AM

    Deadly Rooms of Death (DROD) is a fun and addictive puzzling-solving game.

  17. Barry

    09.01.06 6:46 AM

    FinderCleaner: gets rid of .DS_Store files on thumbdrives.

    Flip4Mac: play WMA in Quicktime.

    Formulate: paste text directly into PDFs.

    Gcal/Webmail: webkits for Gcal and Gmail.

    iTunes Publisher: looks through your library and creates an HTML, Text, M3U, or QTSS of your Library.

    OurTunes: a .jar that lets you take music off of iTunes networks.

    OnyX: access the hidden bits of OS X.

    PandoraMan: listen to Pandora in this little webkit.

    Senuti: take music off of iPods.

    Schoolhouse: for school assignments.

    VLC: play any audio or video ever made.

    Paparazzi!: take screenshots of full websites.

    Skype: for free computer-to-computer phone calls.

    Backlight 2: set a screensaver as your desktop (I've got Flurry as mine).

    Alarm Clock 2: wake up with iTunes music, and wake your sleeping computer.

  18. Andrew S

    09.01.06 4:41 PM

    I like <a href=“http://iterm.sourceforge.net/” rel=“nofollow”>iTerm<a> for all the reasons I don't like Terminal.


    My Dock at the moment also includes Firefox, Camino, Fire, Toast 7, and RDC.

  19. Vero

    09.01.06 8:08 PM

    Favourites are Quicksilver, <a>Mori</a>, BBEdit, Last.fm, and far from lesser-known, but Skype and NetNewsWire.

  20. [...] The Omni Mouth » Software we like (tags: osx software) [...]

  21. Len

    09.03.06 6:06 AM

    Stuff I use:


    Pacifist: Browse .pkg files.

    CanCombineIcons: Make directory icons without being an artist.

    Solitaire Till Dawn X: More games than you can shake a stick at.

  22. [...] Banksy, not a bad job eradicating a few albums, but can’t you just make her disappear altogether? The Omni team and I would all be pleased. Plskthx. [...]

  23. RickL

    09.03.06 10:00 AM

    Any idea what's happened to Formulate (Barry's message, 3 up)? It doesn't seem to be downloadable anywhere.

  24. RickL

    09.03.06 10:06 AM

    My general workflow for writing papers revolves around:

    MindCad Incubator, to write quick notes and then drag them around to create a rudimentary structure, then export to OPML for…

    OmniOutliner, to do the actual writing, with a column for references, which come from…

    Bookends or Sente (can't decide which is better). This is all exported to…

    Mellel

    In the meantime, I'm pulling in information from my…

    DevonThink database, and putting quotes therefrom into my…

    Circus Ponies Notebook.

  25. RickL

    09.03.06 10:07 AM

    ... And this is all aided by TextWrangler and CombinePDFs (which I use for deleting the pages I don't want).

  26. Martin Pilkington

    09.03.06 11:45 PM

    Nisus Writer Express - Take that Word

    SubEthaEdit - good for light text editing

    TextMate - good for heavy text editing

    Cyberduck - nice little FTP app

    AppKiDo - Easy way to search cocoa API docs

    OmniOutliner - Some really obscure app for doing outlines ;)

  27. Barry

    09.04.06 1:10 AM

    @Rickl: here's a link for it. http://osx.iusethis.com/tag/Formulate

  28. Tommy Weir

    09.04.06 6:25 AM

    I love Path Finder by Cocoatech.  It's qualities creep up on you and it seems now a part of the OS to me. Finder is just too primitive…


    Quicksilver is irreplaceable at this point. I love it to bits.


    Soulver, an oddity in someways, a calculator, a minispreadsheet / wordprocessor for numbers…has become immediately a steady partner.


    I use Miniteur, a simple timer to keep my GTD head screwed on sometimes.


    EasyFind, a freebie from Devon, is a great alternative to Spotlight, it just grinds through your disk the oldfashioned non-indexed way.


    I like AppZapper for cleaning up after I've been checking out shareware.


    I like SnapNDrag/EasyCrop for screenshots but I think I'll end up buying Flysketch from Fresh Meat, a really great screengrabber/annotator.


    I want Delicious Library…


    I have You Control Desktops which offers what Leopard will call Spaces.  There's other free alternatives, I got it on special and it runs very sweetly.


    I use Bookit, a bookmark synchroniser/organiser which gives me the same set of bookmarks in OW, Safari, FF and on .Mac.


    I like WriteRoom from (ahem) Hog Bay.  It's a completely barebones free typing program which allows me to emulate the heady days of amber text on a black background.


    I use xPad as a simple notetaking thingy, the autosave and relative simplicity of it appeal. It's my jotter/scribble pad.


    I love Pzizz, another odd one, it generates these audio streams/files which are designed to aid sleeping or napping. I was pretty cynical but I have to say, I love it now, they really work, I take a Pzizz 20 minute nap each afternoon, it's bloody great…  And my 17-year old goes to sleep with it every night.


    PDFLab is a great free PDF file manager, you can combine files, delete pages, shuffle pages around.  Apple should have something like it in their OS.


    Screen Cleaner Pro from Ambrosia is a wonderful little free program which will rejuvenate the most tired of Powerbook screens… Let it run and wait for that sponge.  But if you want more control there's always the excellent SuperCal.


    Carbon Copy Cloner was my favourite backup program until I got a .Mac account and I have to say Backup has taken over.


    SpamSieve is my friend for all the obvious reasons.


    DiskWarrior has saved my ass too many times not to be my very best friend.


    I have three Intego products, NetBarrier, ContentBarrier and VirusBarrier, they're okay… They seem a bit overkill for the level of attacks on Macs, and the ContentBarrier pisses off my 10 year old, so it must be working.


    I have a bunch of my job specific software, Final Draft, Move Magic Budgeting and EP Scheduling, they all suck but they are industry standards and I wish some developer would come in and kick their asses.

  29. Tommy Weir

    09.04.06 6:31 AM

    Oh… and I've developed a really bad maczot habit.


    http://www.maczot.com/


    It's hard to say no when it costs less than a coffee…

  30. Matthias

    09.06.06 10:31 AM

    Try my software called GimmeSomeTune, it's free and does a lot of things for you if you like iTunes.

  31. michael miller

    09.06.06 12:53 PM

    ryan - seriously dude, textwrangler? over bbedit? what the hell are they feeding you at that joint?

  32. BBC

    09.14.06 9:03 PM

    Love the new OmniWeb (if only it worked with Reuters.com)

    -Quicksilver

    -Nisus Writer Express

    -Yojimbo

  33. disk eraser

    12.13.06 8:21 AM

    be clean disk cleaner…


    I wouldn't use a computer without it!...

  34. liza

    12.13.06 8:24 AM

    be clean disk cleaner…


    I wouldn't use a computer without it!...

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