# Good programs for a mac? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 2, 2006, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747 "2006-03-02T13:19:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/1 "2006-03-02T13:19:27Z")
So I bought an ibook, and am quite happy with it. I’ve got ms office, itunes, a chat program, and firefox. Plus most of the software that comes preloaded with OSX. Except garageband. I saved 15 gigs by deleting that! I’m not interested in making or burning dvds or movies, or music, or pictures. What else can my new toy do for me? Sorry if I’m being too narrow or broad, I just assume there’s stuff out there I don’t even know to ask for that someone could recommend. ---
**Author:** ![Sparklo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Sparklo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparklo)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/2 "2006-03-02T13:33:00Z")
Maybe you’d like to catalog all of your books, music, and movies with [Delicious Library](http://www.delicious-monster.com/). Or create really nifty diagrams and charts with [Omni Graffle](http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/). ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/3 "2006-03-02T13:50:49Z")
I’m curious as to why you use MS Office, didn’t Appleworks come bundled with it? I like it soooo much better than Office. It does the same stuff, just more intuitively. What kinds of things do you do on it? Are you mainly interested in internet related stuff, do you play games? Please don’t be like my husband, whose favorite passtime is moving or deleting things to see what will happen. It usually not something good. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/4 "2006-03-02T14:27:52Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > I’m curious as to why you use MS Office, didn’t Appleworks come bundled with it? I like it soooo much better than Office. It does the same stuff, just more intuitively. If they’re anything like me, most of the documents that are sent to me come as Word documents, and I can’t open them. ---
**Author:** ![MrFantsyPants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MrFantsyPants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrFantsyPants)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/5 "2006-03-02T14:42:13Z")
What kind of things do you want to do with your computer? It’s hard to know what other people consider ‘cool’. 3D modeling? Animating? content creation? surfing for porn? ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/6 "2006-03-02T15:16:15Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > I’m curious as to why you use MS Office, didn’t Appleworks come bundled with it? I like it soooo much better than Office. It does the same stuff, just more intuitively. Seriously!? I find Appleworks _horrendous_ to work with for anything beyond word processing (which admittedly it does quite nicely, no worse than Word, which is a nightmare). I used the presentation component for lectures for several months, and when I finally got a copy of Powerpoint, I was like, “Praise Jebus!!!” Sooo much more powerful and _stable_. (Sad to say that about a M$ product, isn’t it?) Plus, as **lawoot** says, everyone on Earth expects you to be able to read and write Word and Excel documents, which Appleworks may or may not open in a useful/readable form . . . Um, lessee, do I have anything constructive to add? I do a lot with [fink](http://fink.sourceforge.net/), which you won’t be interested in unless you’re a Unix person. Ditto [TeXShop](http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop/) (which is what I actually use to produce documents, not Appleworks or Word.) Oooh, I love my weensy [Tea Timer](http://www.herwig-henseler.de/teatimer) which I use to time . . . um . . . tea . . . but I also use it as a productivity tool, and you can set it as an alarm as well. While it’s counting down, the time remaining appears in the Dock, which is nice. When it goes off, it pops up a window plays the Big Ben chimes, much nicer than some annoying beepy thing. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/7 "2006-03-02T16:17:26Z")
> [@Silentgoldfish](#): > > I’m not interested in making or burning dvds or movies, or music, or pictures. But…but…that’s what Macs do best. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/8 "2006-03-02T16:26:21Z")
Programs I use regularly: Adium (for instant messaging) BBEdit (text editor) Graphic Converter (when I’m not in Photoshop) Fetch (ftp) BitTorrent (dl torrent files) DivX (allows Quicktime to view .AVI) Eudora (yep, still my favorite mail program) Word/Excel/Powerpoint SilverKeeper (back-up to LaCie 250GB external) SideNote (better than stickies) FreeSnap (screen captures) Frequency (audio editor) ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/9 "2006-03-02T18:34:58Z")
> [@lawoot](#): > > If they’re anything like me, most of the documents that are sent to me come as Word documents, and I can’t open them. People (not knowing any better) have been sending me Word documents for years, as if it were an open format or something. I don’t have Word (detest it passionately). I’m able to open them 999 times out of a thousand. I used to depend primarily on MacLink Plus to convert to whatever wordprocessor I was making use of at the time (MacWrite Pro in MacOS 8 days, Nisus Writer and/or WordPerfect 3.5 in OS 9 era, AppleWorks 6 in early OS X). Nowadays I just toss it to NeoOffice J, which handles Word better than the combo of translator and alternative-wordprocessor does. Regarding the OP: Really need a better idea of what you’re interested in doing with a computer. Saying “I have a Mac, what are some good programs?” is a bit like saying “I have a pencil, what can I do with this thing?” Loosely speaking though, you can: • Create, edit, and display images • House, manage, and manipulate data • Connect to the internet & exchange data via a number of protocols • Create, edit, and display video • Create, open, modify, & print text-centric documents • Construct, modify & print text + graphic page-layout documents • Monitor, control, and associate various external devices (incl. home automation) •Construct equations and calculate or graph the output •Generate, set viewing angles on, modify, and render 3-dimensional environments •Digitize or directly record, edit, and playback audio, and mix for output •Run emulators, and within them, non-Macintosh programs or obsolete Mac programs •Create, debug, and/or compile source code to yield new programs • Games In each broad category, figure anywhere from 3 to 4,000,000 programs or setups available to you. If you mention which ones are of interest to you, I’ll be glad to recommend the sw (and/or the hw & peripherals) that I’ve used or am fond of, and I suspect others would chime in as well. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/10 "2006-03-02T19:56:31Z")
> [@phungi](#): > > Frequency (audio editor) Who makes this? A Google search for “frequency audio editor” turns up 1.9 million hits, and I didn’t see anything on the first page that looks like a match. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Phatlewt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a698b9/32.png) [@Phatlewt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phatlewt)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/11 "2006-03-02T20:19:15Z")
[Quicksilver](http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/) is great. You’ll never use a taskbar, or menu again. [Desktop Manager](http://desktopmanager.berlios.de/) - virtual desktops that you can flip between [NeoOffice](http://www.neooffice.org/) - OpenOffice for OSX. Much better than running the XWindows version. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/12 "2006-03-02T21:37:27Z")
AppleWorks is something that should be dead and buried. The sooner, the better. Unfortunately, Apple’s iWorks suite isn’t a complete replacement yet, and some folks aren’t comfortable using NeoOffice/J, so MS Office still has a market. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/13 "2006-03-02T21:57:40Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > …some folks aren’t comfortable using NeoOffice/J… Including all folks using a new (Intel) Mac. NeoOffice/J doesn’t run on them yet. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/14 "2006-03-02T22:17:55Z")
> [@Silentgoldfish](#): > > What else can my new toy do for me? Sorry if I’m being too narrow or broad, I just assume there’s stuff out there I don’t even know to ask for that someone could recommend. In addition the others’ helpful suggestions, I recommend dropping by [MacUpdate](http://www.macupdate.com) or [VersionTracker](http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx) to see all that’s out there. Both sites have search facilities. I also recommend [MacGameFiles](http://www.macgamefiles.com), if you’re into gaming at all. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/15 "2006-03-02T22:29:56Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > AppleWorks is something that should be dead and buried. The sooner, the better. > > Unfortunately, Apple’s iWorks suite isn’t a complete replacement yet, and some folks aren’t comfortable using NeoOffice/J, so MS Office still has a market. Depends on what you’re using it for. It’s “Paint” module is still indispensable for FileMaker developers. Best tool in the world for selecting and copying a graphic to use as a button in a cross-platform deployment situation. Photoshop will let you copy a non-rectangular area and it behaves properly in FileMaker on the Mac, but PC users see a horrid rectangular underlay for those same button-icons. I guess the word processor is nothing to celebrate but it’s sufficient for my needs, no more often than I word-process in my post-student days. Closest thing to MacWrite Pro. Stripped-down and basic (if underpowered), lets you do what you’re trying to do without imposing its will on you. Suits me. Sure beats Word. ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2006, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/16 "2006-03-02T22:31:07Z")
Thanks for all the suggestions! Sorry to be so broad, like I said I sort of don’t know what to ask for :). It’s a laptop that I’m using in conjunction with my main computer (a PC) for portability’s sake, and cause every PC laptop I’ve had has been a bit eccentric. So far, it’s just worked and I’ve been happy. Its main purpose is uni stuff – writing and editing documents, web surfing, and chatting. But like all new toys I want to play around with it. I’m just not interested in editing home movies or pictures, or making music :). Interests include games (though it’s a mac laptop so I’m not exactly going hardcore), neat things, and stuff I haven’t heard of yet like Sparklo and Phatlewt’s suggestions. 🙂 Office is for compatibility with uni documents. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/17 "2006-03-03T00:30:58Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > Including all folks using a new (Intel) Mac. NeoOffice/J doesn’t run on them yet. Hmm. I use NeoOffice on my old (PowerPC) Mac, and I was planning to pick up a new (Intel) Mac next week. This certainly affects things. Does OpenOffice X11 run well on Intel Macs? How much difference would I see in day-to-day operation between NeoOffice and OpenOffice? ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/18 "2006-03-03T01:44:27Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > Including all folks using a new (Intel) Mac. NeoOffice/J doesn’t run on them yet. Is it? I hadn’t checked – I would have thought that the combination of Rosetta + Java would make it a non-issue. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/19 "2006-03-03T02:22:40Z")
[Pure-mac.com](http://www.pure-mac.com) has a lot of links to Mac freeware, shareware, and demo software of all types. ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747/20 "2006-03-03T04:27:03Z")
> [@Phatlewt](#): > > [Quicksilver](http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/) is great. You’ll never use a taskbar, or menu again. Wow. I’d never heard of this, but it is really blowing my mind. Thanks for sharing that. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-programs-for-a-mac/346747.md?page=2)