Comments on: Essential software for Mac OS X

By: Robert Nyman

Robert Nyman — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:12:06 +0000

Tom,

Cool, thanks for the tip!

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:14:28 +0000

Not free, but a super timesaver. A system preferences thingy that alters the default save and open dialogues to give you easy access (via menu or shortcut keys) to the folders you’ve most recently used as well as to windows that are open in the Finder.

Also a lot of other nice touches, like that when you’re in an Open dialog it remembers not only what folder you last had open in that particular application but also what *file* in that folder.

Let’s say that you have to upload 10 pictures from a folder via an annoying web interface. With DF, every time you hit “Browse…” to bring up the file selection dialog it highlights the last file you selected, so you only have to hit arrow key down (once) and then Return for each file.

I’ve been using it daily since like 1993 or something and always miss this when I’m on a machine where it’s not installed.

By: Goodbye 2007 - Happy New Year! - Robert’s talk

Goodbye 2007 - Happy New Year! - Robert’s talk — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:42:39 +0000

[...] Essential Software or Mac OS X [...]

By: Robert Nyman

Robert Nyman — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 08:10:42 +0000

Frances,

I agree with your experience. One way, tht works most of the time, is using QuickTime and Perian for codec and subtitle support.

By: Frances

Frances — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 07:06:49 +0000

I came across this blog looking for an alternative to VLC. For the past 2 years that I’ve used a mac, I’ve felt crippled in terms of my media watching experience. VLC is incredibly unstable, it’s better than it was on my power PC which wouldn’t even let me skip ahead without quitting unexpectedly, but on intel it stills crashes all the time and it also forces subtitles to do very very odd things like overlap lines and display subber’s comments.

I feel so frustrated because I can do everything else beautifully on my mac, I used to use cyberduck but it crashed, so instead I got fireFTP which is a beautifully stable and intuitive firefox plugin. Dreamweaver got hideous bloat and took up so much memory, easy peasy, switched to the lightweight and super stable smultron. But with VLC I feel completely stuck….

By: Robert Nyman

Robert Nyman — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:18:28 +0000

gzamba,

Great! Please note everyone that the above is a direct link to a ZIP file.

By: gzamba

gzamba — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:45:03 +0000

Found Apple Remote Helper for VLC (ARG)
http://www.bluap.nl/bmsweblog/images/2006_apple_remote_helper.zip

By: Robert Nyman

Robert Nyman — Fri, 11 May 2007 22:00:53 +0000

Anthony,

Nice, thanks for the tip!

By: Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 11 May 2007 20:00:36 +0000

I just discovered MacFuse and MacFusion (MacFuse GUI) which makes it possible to mount filesystems like SSH and FTP on the desktop as external drives.
I just set it up to access my webserver via SSH, and I have it as an external drive on my desktop, with read and write privileges.
So my need for a FTP client may just not have a reason anymore…

By: Robert Nyman

Robert Nyman — Fri, 11 May 2007 07:40:52 +0000

Anthony,

Cool, that’s great!

By: Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 11 May 2007 07:32:20 +0000

Concerning VLC and the Apple Remote, it seems that VLC supports it out of the box (and has since version 0.8.6-test1).
While I was watching Futurama with VLC, I pressed a button on the remote and to my surprise, the playback paused!
After looking for information about the Apple Remote support in VLC, I found this article in Wikipedia.
So no more needs for Apple Remote Helper!

By: Harmen Janssen

Harmen Janssen — Thu, 10 May 2007 03:43:18 +0000

@Shonk: Xee was exactly what I was looking for!
Thank you very much

By: Tulipe.Moutarde

Tulipe.Moutarde — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:51:00 +0000

Shonk, simply go with the finder in the directory containing your pictures, select all the files (with apple-a or by selecting them with the mouse) and open them with Preview ( apple-o ).

Hope that solve your problem

By: Essential software for Mac OS X

Essential software for Mac OS X — Wed, 09 May 2007 21:55:52 +0000

[...] Essential software for Mac OS X [...]

By: shonk

shonk — Wed, 09 May 2007 16:24:32 +0000

For instance, when browsing a folder with images, how would I walk through the directory and view all images without having to close Preview and double-click the next image? Windows default Image Viewer does this, although Iâ€™ve always used the outstanding Irfanview for image browsing. Still looking for a Mac equivalentâ€¦

Xee might be what you’re looking for.

By: Robert Nyman

Robert Nyman — Wed, 09 May 2007 13:15:28 +0000

Harmen,

Actually, regarding Preview, what you can do if you use the Terminal is to open all images in a folder and its children folders with just one command.

Nowadays, I use muCommander for my FTP needs.

By: Harmen Janssen

Harmen Janssen — Wed, 09 May 2007 13:05:09 +0000

Robert, thanks for the heads-up on Preview, I should’ve known!
You’re right about Transmit by the way, it’s not impressive. It’s just that there are so little proper FTP applications around for OSX, that I really like this one.
Before, I was goofing around with Cyberduck, and you and me both feel the same way about that app…

By: Robert Nyman

Robert Nyman — Wed, 09 May 2007 07:00:21 +0000

Nick,

Thanks for the tip!

Remy,

Well, Hand>Brake is interesting for ripping certain parts, but I’ve found MacTheRipper to be the best solution to completely rip an entire DVD.

Brenda,

I used Sage a while ago, but personally I’ve come to prefer stand-alone applications over it.

By: Brenda

Brenda — Tue, 08 May 2007 23:49:33 +0000

I use Sage for RSS - it integrates with Firefox, is a brilliant tool. http://sage.mozdev.org/

By: Remy Sharp

Remy Sharp — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:59:05 +0000

My tuppence worth:
Cyberduck - very good, very simple SFTP and SCP client. It’s freeware with the option to donate.
Also an alternative to Mac the Ripper - HandBreak - does a great job and can convert to specific file sizes, formats and resolutions (plus - you can queue, so if you’re ‘backing up’ a TV series, you can queue each episode).