X-Wares
Freeware and shareware for Mac OS X
- Paintbrush: A fast, free, MacPaint-like bitmap editor for OS X, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2009.07.06. Macs no longer ship with a free paint program, but the freeware Paintbrush program replaces MacPaint nicely.
- Smultron: A fast, free text editor that's great for organizing information, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2009.06.22. NotePad Deluxe didn't fully survive the switch to an Intel Mac, and Smultron became the replacement of choice.
- Seashore: A free, basic image editor for Mac OS X, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2008.09.08. Seashore is an open source image editing program for Mac OS X that uses parts of the GIMP but also integrates will with the Mac OS.
- Free mEdit text editor excels at handling and combining multiple documents, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2008.07.28. Most word processors are designed for office work and short documents. mEdit is designed to work with multiple documents and multi-part documents.
- Superior dithered images with HyperDither, Dan Knight, 2008.07.16. HyperDither reintroduces the dithering alogrithm intoduced by Bill Atkinson and creates better dithered images than Photoshop.
- Opera 9.5 good enough to 'ruin you for other browsers', Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2008.06.16. The reviewer has long considered Opera the best among a solid collection of Mac browsers, and the latest version makes it even better.
- Free Time Machine Editor does one thing and does it well, Alan Zisman, Zis Mac, 2008.05.12. If Time Machine's habit of backing up every hour is impacting your work flow, this free utility gives you control options that Apple didn't build into Time Machine.
- Adium: One instant messenger to rule them all, Leo Titus LeBron V, Collection Spotlight, 2007.08.22. Adium can replace all of your Instant Messenger clients with a single program and handle all of your threads in a single tabbed window.
- KompoZer 0.7.7: Getting Closer to a Replacement for Claris Home Page, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, 2007.08.22. KompoZer is a free, open source WYSIWYG webpage editor that has some rough edges but works well enough for full-time use.
- Name Munger 1.5 makes renaming files even easier, Dan Knight, 2007.08.17. Web servers may have problems with uppercase characters, spaces, and certain characters. Name Munger (for Mac and Windows) can quickly and easily fix those problems.
- TextSoap 4.5: Powerful text cleaning tools, Dan Knight, 2007.08.06. If you have to clean up text - smarten or dumb down quotes, remove or add line feeds, prepare text for use on the Web - TextSoap may offer all the tools you need.
- iText: Solid, lightweight, free word processing for the Classic Mac OS, OS X, and Windows, Tommy Thomas, Welcome to Macintosh, 2007.08.03. If you want a fast, easy-to-use word processor that's consistent across platforms, look no further than iText.
- Better screen captures in OS X with free Screenshot Helper, Low End Mac Reviews, 2007.08.03. Mac screenshots tend to have a lot of clutter in the background. Screenshot Helper puts a tablecloth over your busy desktop for cleaner captures.
- Bean: Free word processor is fast and lean and looks great, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 05.29. Bean is a great tool for basic word processing, but it doesn't support the kind of high-end features some users may depend upon.
- Thunderbird 2.0: A simple, powerful, free email client, Michel Munger, Macinthoughts, 2007.04.25. Mozilla Thunderbird doesn't suffer from feature bloat like most commercial email programs. It puts the focus on doing what you need efficiently.
- Opera the best browser for the Mac, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2007.02.26. "In my opinion, Opera is still the best all-round general surfing browser for Mac OS X, and Safari has a long way to go to even come close to matching it."
- Writely, Google's free word processor: What's the catch?, Adam Robert Guha, Apple Archive, 2006.08.25. Writely isn't going to replace Microsoft Word for high-end word processing, but for most users most of the time, this free program should be plenty good enough.
- InforMac: A free and better replacement for Apple's System Profiler, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2006.08.07. "InforMac works great, is very quick (except for loading the Applications pane, which takes a while), and is a lot more fun to use than System Profiler."
- TopXNotes: A user-friendly solution for creating, managing, and accessing your notes, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2006.07.05. TopXNotes is a shareware tool for managing your text notes, replacing the Note Pad of the Classic Mac OS.
- Textpander 1.2: A powerful, free text macro utility, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2005.12.05. Macro utilities can make you more efficient and productive, and the latest version of Textpander brings it head-to-head with TypeIt4Me.
- MacSword 1.2: A solid free Bible program made even better, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2005.12.05. This free, open source Bible research and study program keeps improving. This time around the search function is vastly improved.
- Eudora, the Mac's most powerful email client, Michel Munger, iBasics, 2005.12.01. If you're looking for lots of power and don't mind an unconventional interface, give Eudora a try.
- SeaMonkey Preview Internet Suite, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2005.11.07. SeaMonkey continues the legacy of Netscape Communicator and Mozilla for those who prefer an Internet suite to separate applications.
- Flock, a web browser designed for bloggers, Adam Robert Guha, Apple Archive, 2005.10.31. Built on the foundation of Firefox, Flock adds feature that make it easier to share links and update your blog.
- Monitor your Mac, the weather, and stocks for free using XRG, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 08.15. This very useful free utility monitors CPU load, uptime, temperature, battery, network and drive use, as well as the weather and your favorite stocks.
- SilverKeeper: The quintessential free backup utility?, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 05.09. LaCie's SilverKeeper is free, and it might be all the backup software you need.
- DEVONthink, a powerful information collection, organization, and analysis tool, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2005.02.07. DEVONthink helps you collect and discover connections using text, images, Web pages, bookmarks, and other types of data.
- Adium, a great free multiservice chat client for OS X, Adam Robert Guha, Apple Archive, 2004.12.20. Connect to AOL, MSN, and Yahoo messaging services with a single client program.
- Snail Mail prints envelopes from your Address Book, Dan Knight, 2004.12.16. This simple freeware application does one thing and does it well - print envelopes using information on the Address Book.
- SuperDuper: Quick, easy, efficient backup for $20, Dan Knight, Low End Mac Reviews, 2004.11.22. "If you don't have a backup system in place or are unhappy with what you're currently using, give the free demo of SuperDuper a try."
- ImageJ: Advanced image editing at a low-end price (free), Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2004.10.18. Free image editing tool good for working with bitmap images.
- ToyViewer, a cool free graphics tool for OS X, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2004.10.05. "...ToyViewer has won me over, and it's now one of the applications that I keep running all the time, even when I'm using Photoshop Elements or Color It!"
- Modem Magic boosts reliability, speed for those with less than ideal connections, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2004.09.27. If you're plagued by slow or flaky dialup connections, Modem Magic could be just the ticket for a faster, more reliable connection.
- Use a Windows keyboard on your Mac with uControl, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, 2004.05.26. Just plugging a Windows keyboard into your USB port can drive you crazy without a remapping utility to put the option and command keys where you expect them.
- Mail Beacon and POPmonitor: Spam sentinels for Mac OS 8, 9, and X, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2004.04.12. Hate downloading and wading through spam? These two shareware programs let you delete it from the server before you download.
- You don't have to leave it behind, Alan Zisman, 2002.02.11. Looking at some traditional Mac wares that have been ported to OS X.
- Broadband Optimizer, Dan Knight, 2002.02.07. Can a freeware utility really improve broadband throughput? Sometimes.
- Alan's favourite things, Alan Zisman, 2002.02.04. Five very useful freeware and shareware utilities to spruce up Mac OS X.
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