Ok, to say I can’t live without them is possibly a bit of an over-estimate. I have yet to see one of them save me from a life or death situation as I do my best not to put my head in crocodile’s mouths or bungee jump using embroidery thread. That said, these tools are ones I use in general every day or on a very regular basis and make my life and work a whole lot better. I could have written my top 20 but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it does it and there if there has to be a limit I go with the top of the pops top 10. A great many probably are the same for everyone, but here is my list. I have removed the obvious CS Suite as I think that along with Macromedia Flash and Fireworks really goes without saying considering my job. Feel free to put your own list in reply, it would be nice to see what your Top 10 is. Most of the software is Mac based due to the obious fact that my main machine is a powerbook.
- OmniOutliner I have a thing about mapping. Generally the thing is I do a lot of it. I love putting my ideas into organised chaos. I use OmniOutliner for most of my day to day listing and maps, but also for a range of non-map related functions. I never liked excel that much and more and more I user OmniOutliner as a substitute from basic accounts through to quotes and invoices. I store all my past, present and future blog posts in OmniOutliner and find it is an excellent way to not end up drowing in a virtual paper mountain. I love being able to start posts and develop slowly.
- Adium Point of note your Adium life will be more fulfilling if you get the Yoda Adium icon just trust me on that one. If I knew more people that used it I would probably use iChat, but that is just the way it seems to have happened for me and Adium does very well in letting me contact both clients and friends. I do plan to get an iChat account as a few clients are on that, but I am sure for a while Adium is going to be my main messenger. I would just say if you do use turning off the sounds results in less anger and wanting to thump someone – there is only so many times you can hear a digitalised duck quack before not going on a rampage.
- NewsFire I love this RSS reader and loathe it also as it pings and bounces to distract me from actual work. I love the way I can categories things.
- SafariStand There is so much I like about this. I love the sidebar view with thumbnails of the websites. The quick search is great also. If you don’t install anything else this is really one to choose with regards to Safari.
- OmniGraffe When making websites sometimes it is great to make a map of them. I was trained in Software Engineering and this may be responsible for my love of all things mapping. What better way to show someone how their site is going to work then by giving them a diagram? It is a great way of supporting reports and working out exactly what is going to happen in your website.
- skEdit I’ve had a brief flirt with textmate before and found my way to Skedit through that. I am now fully over to using this as my main coding and ftp program. I just didn’t like the idea of having to go out and use another ftp program – yes I am lazy. I guess years of forced Dreamweaver has had it’s influence on me and using a seperate ftp just seems like going backwards. It is a personal choice and for me Skedit does the job well. I like the view and the system set up – it just makes sense which to me is good user interface design summed up. I admit to having found a few bugs during working with it and a minor amount of system burps – but considering I used to use Dreamweaver this is a hell of a lot easier a ride.
- iCal From the ability to link into Basecamp to the great task list. I love this becasue unlike other calendars it does all that I want and need it to do and no more. I am a simple girl when it comes to software and if it gets the job done and does it well that is all I care about. If it happens to come free with my powerbook then all the better!
- iPhoto If you have a mac you use it most probably. It does all I need it to do, interacts with my Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P200 and lets me view easily. For me, I don’t care about most of the other features and if I want to edit I will do in Photoshop. For what I want it does the job without resulting in me shaking a fist so that has to be good.
- Cocoalicious Simple in it’s layout this is really a gem. Thanks to Jon Hicks it is now more of a gem with a NewsFire based skin.
- CoverFlow Browsing your albums in iTunes by viewing images like the days of vinyl – what more could you want?
This reads like my top 10. One exception though – Newsfire – I love how it looks and works, but can’t bring myself to buy it without some sort of syncing. So for now I’m using NetNewsWire Lite. I’m using Metal Adium, with the iChat sound set, I lasted 10 mins with the quack :)
NewsFire is worth it I think but I understand the sync problem. I think this list is common for so many which is proof of how useful they are.