Apple Improvements: 3rd Party Applications
Over the next 2 posts I plan on helping you have a better apple experience by upgrading your workspace and enhancing your Mac without spending too much money
Today I am going to focus on 3rd party applications, these applications will help increase the productivity of your workflow, keep your Mac in tip top shape, and also applications that I think every mac should have.
Quicksilver
Quicksilver is this 3rd party app that I use the most. It’s exactly like spotlight but only better. You type what you want to and it will find it for you extremely fast. Not only does it find it, it asks what you want to do, for example: Let’s say I want mail, I type in mail then I have the options to quit it, delete it, send new mail, and etc. I have my quicksilver hot keyed so I can open any application I want within seconds.
iStat
iStat lets you really monitor your computer, I use this whenever I am using big applications. It tells me the temperature of my CPU, HD space, memory used, CPU usage and many more. Like I said, it’s really helpful when using big applications because if it’s causing my computer to get to hot, I can close the application; cooling down the processor until it is a cool enough temperature. Monitoring your Mac this way will definitely extend the life of your Apple Computer.
Flip4Mac
This is a really useful application, instead of downloading Windows Media Player, you can view all of you Windows Media in quicktime. Saving you the time and hassle, plus I think Windows Media Player is extremely slow on Apple. This is one application I cannot see my Mac without now! Flip4Mac
Other thoughts
What applications do you think enhance your Mac Experience the most. Remember to check back tomorrow for the final installment of Apple Improvements. If you want to see what I have in store tomorrow subscribe to the RSS Feed!
Comment by Alex Palma on 25 March 2008:
Hey Travis, I don’t think I could function properly without Quicksilver, it is just one of those applications that you just think “Gosh, why didn’t Mac include something like this with the OSX in the first place” I’s fantastic, heavily recommended although there is a bit of a learning curve indeed.
I also use istat pro, the widget form because I believe there is the one where you can install to always be on your menu bar at the top as a drop down menu app. It is convenient to see which programs are resource hogs and which are not.
Great tips bud.