May this blog be your solace in the flood of "After Christmas Sales."No claims of best deals ever. These offers do not expire at midnight, nor do they require you to line up in a parking lot outside a store at 3am because this offer is not limited to stock on hand.
Here is a short list of free apps for your Mac. They are all things that I use and like (and all of them should work under Tiger or Leopard.. but don't take my word for it, please read release notes and I always suggest you have good backups before installing anything on your computer.)
Happy Holidays!
(The photos are of Nick opening some last minute Christmas presents this morning. )
1. EXIF Viewer - When you just want to look at the exif data from an image you shot. It works with jpegs, and doesn't seem to work with RAW files too well (at least not Canon CR2 files.) I use it a lot when someone asks how did you shoot that, what ISO were you using, etc.It is also handy when you are getting ready to sell a camera and buyers always want to know how many actuations there are on the camera. It will share how many frames have been shot at the time you took the photo (for most cameras) (10.4 and 10.5 friendly)
2. Chax - A freebie that allows you to make some helpful modifications to iChat. It can switch you to "away" when your screen saver turns on, it allows you to modify the size and style of the font in the contacts window (really handy on laptops - my favorite feature) and you can set it up to auto-accept text, file, AV chats and screen sharing. It does even more, but there are the highlights. (10.4 and 10.5 require different versions of Chax. Both are located at the link above.)
3. MenuMeters 1.3 - A series of menu extras that will show
you hard drive activity, the load on your CPU(s), a breakdown of how your RAM is being used, and a meter that shows network activity (how fast you are sending or receiving data.) The meters show up on the menu bar at the top of your Mac (on the right side, just to the left of the date & time, airport icon, etc.)I've found this to be handy to see what's going on with your computer and if you suddenly see big spikes in CPU usage that don't match what you are doing on the machine, it can alert you to potential trouble or an app that has crashed and is using up lots of CPU resources. The network meter is nice when you are sending photos, to be able to see the quality of your connection in real time. (It definitely works in 10.4 and all indications are that it works in 10.5 just fine. I haven't had any Leopard related issues with it. I would recommend reading the latest notes before installing it in 10.5, just to be safe.)
4. Adium - Adium is an instant messaging app that works with just about every chat format under the sun. It will log you in simultaneously to all the different chat formats that you subscribe to and is very customizable. There are quite a few sound and icon sets and "styles" that you can use to change the look of Adium. It does not offer any video or audio conferencing so it is not a complete replacement for iChat, but offers quite a lot for free. (10.4 and 10.5 friendly)
5. Enemy Territory - Return to Castle Wolfenstein - having fun on your Mac is important. I love games and this is a great one... and free at that! It is a network version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein. One of the original OS X games that showed what the OS could do. It is a first-person-shooter, so it you aren't fond of shooters, I'd skip the 250mb download (broadband connection advised) (10.4 and 10.5 friendy.)6. Carbon Copy Cloner - Make bootbable backups of your mac, synchronize folders or drives, and even back up to networked drives. This is a pro level app that is given away for free. The only thing that Mike Bombich (the guy who wrote it) asks is that you consider making a PayPal donation to him. It's well worth it.
Expect another similar list here in the near future as more of my favorite freebies are updated for Leopard.
