I’ve been pointing out a few indispensable (QuickSilver) or near-indispensable (1-Click Answers) Macintosh programs over the course of the last few weeks. I thought this time around I’d focus on those items which I think it might be worth dropping a few bucks on. I wouldn’t be recommending them if I didn’t think that they were worth it. Without further ado:
• NetNewsWire 2.0: Plenty of RSS aggregators are out there, including built-in browser-based ones in Firefox and the upcoming version of Safari. And they’re fine for what they are. If you’re really into the RSS scene though, and especially if you run a blog yourself, you’ll want to check out NNW with the accompanying MarsEdit webblog editor. $39.95 for a dual license.
• Delicious Library I’ve sung Delicious Library’s praises as a cataloger of all things book, CD, DVD, or game before, so consider this just one more effort at reinforcement. Add a $10 CueCat USB scanner off eBay to this $40 program, and you’ll be on your way toward home inventory asset management. (Why? Insurance purposes and because it’s fun.)
• Sticky Brain 3: None other than Bob “Dr. Mac” Levitus has said of Sticky Brain, “I’d sooner cut off my hand than give up my StickyBrain.” Well, that’s stupid, but you’ve got to admire the enthusiasm. Trust me, it’s not wholly misplaced, either. StickyBrain is a universal note manager that lets you capture images, text, pdfs, etc. and store them in one convenient, searchable, and easily accessible repository. I used to drag-and-drop to my desktop interesting articles from the web. You can imagine what a mess that made of my computer. Now I grab them with StickyBrain and the clutter is gone. $40, and well-worth it.
• Transmit: I used Fetch for all my FTP work for years because it seemed “good enough” and typically worked fine. Then one evening my brother Bret called me unable to log into his school’s FTP server. No matter what we did with Fetch we couldn’t get a solid connection. So I downloaded Panic’s Transmit, imported my Fetch bookmarks and solved Bret’s problem in no time flat. Not only is Transmit more solid than Fetch, it’s considerably faster too.
• Unison: I mentioned previously in this space how I bought Panic’s fabulous UseNet newsreader Unison at MacWorld, got it home, and blew through my monthly UseNet bandwidth allocation in less than 2 hours. It is simply far too cool for its $24.95 purchase price. Just make sure you’ve got the UseNet bandwidth you need. (Panic sells this too, btw.)
Got any Mac software you’d like to tout? That Comment link is there for reason! Load me up!