I'm surprised to not see Quicksilver on a list like this. It's definitely the tool that keeps me coming back to OSX. Most of the "replacements" for it on other platforms (and on OSX) implement very few of its power-user features.
I don't really understand the appeal of Quicksilver. If I want to quickly launch some random program, I just press Command + Space (activates spotlight), type in the first two or three letters of the program name, and press enter. You can also do calculations and look up words in the dictionary. Isn't this what most people use Quicksilver and Alfred for?
Most that still use Quicksilver to today are likely not "most people". The "object-action-object" command of QS is not something Spotlight is capable of (e.g. drag files on desktop to trash, open these images in Photoshop, all without involving a mouse click).
I've quit QS for LaunchBar few years ago (when the author announced the development for QS has ceased) then Spotlight then Alfred. I think Alfred did better than Spotlight as a launcher because of slightly better results (e.g. typing "pho" in my machine list Photo Booth and iPhoto but not the one I want the most: Photoshop) and few little touches here and there where Spotlight didn't get it right (e.g. "press enter to copy" for calculations).
I use file actions a lot (move these files, trash this, etc.), so Spotlight is pretty much out of question.
An archiver for OS X that actually works the way you expect, by opening a window to let you look inside and selectively extract from archives, rather than just spurting files all over the place unbidden like the built in one and all the other replacement ones seem to do.
For some reason it took me ages to find this when I switched to mac. Drove me mad.
The built one doesn't spurt anything: if the archive contains a directory or a single file it extracts that in place, if it contains a bunch of files it will create a directory with the archive name and put the files in there. This is what I want 99% of the time.
As I said: 99%. I like default tools to be optimized for the common case, corner cases are just corner cases – how often are you extracting a single file from a massive source tree?
While I agree that for the average user the default behavior is appropriate, there is still room for improvement. I use Entropy ( http://www.EntropyApp.com ) , which is similar to Springy but also includes "in-archive quick look" and mode shortcuts. So, my workflow is now similar to this:
1. By default, automatically extract like the built-in archiver
2. For "transient archives" where I just want to preview the contents (pictures/documents/crash-logs), open with the CMD key pressed to view the contents. Then press space to preview the files.
I find myself in situation #2 often enough to warrant something like this. It's a lot more convenient than "Extract all -> navigate -> preview -> move to trash".
Given my personal experience I have to warn people away from HTTP Client. It is bug-ridden and broken. Many of the UI elements break in weird ways during normal use. I had to quit and re-run the application many times just to bring it back to a usable state (only to have it break again immediately).
Spend your money on Rested instead. I don't quite understand the OP's assertion that "RESTed is a little bit more complex than HTTP Client." Considering Rested actually works I'd consider it a lot more simple than HTTP Client.
Edit: To be clear, I am in no way connected with the author of Rested. I'm just a very satisfied customer.
I thought I was the only one that witnessed slower screen updates. I don't know if it's the same thing, but for example, holding backspace to delete a few characters seems to lag (on an SSD with 2600k @ 4.5ghz and 8GB DDR3). I know I can just do C-u, but the lag is irritating nonetheless. Not to mention I actually like Terminal.app so I don't have a problem continuing to use it.
The original versions of iTerm gave me this problem, but since it was forked and called iTerm 2 I have never, ever had this problem. Are you using the newest version?
I mean things like 2>&1 or 2>/dev/null (redirecting error stream to stdout etc). This did not work for me last time I tried it. This coupled with significant lag when scrolling/listing huge dir, typing made me quickly abandon it. Terminal app does everything I really need and it's fast and reliable.
cat a big logfile on iTerm, cat a big logfile in terminal.
Then for some really screaming performance, cat a big logfile in xterm. Then, for insane performance cat a big logfile in mrxvt or rxvt.
Anti aliasing really slows things down, so performance is faster in the "native" terminal apps when that turned off, but with x11, theres way less than millisecond delays for printing stuff on the screen. I do like my terminal to be fast.
A decent starter list, but definitely not complete (for me at least). I'd add the following
* TotalFinder (makes the OS X finder not terrible anymore, tabs, etc)
* HandsOff/LittleSnitch (oh, you're just using the built-in firewall? that's cute.)
* Transmit (everything you could ever want in an FTP app)
* CommandQ (W and Q are way too close together)
* Mou (free alternative to Byword)
* Evernote (note-taking that syncs absolutely everywhere)
* Alfred (modern day Quicksilver)
* Growl (notify me of all the things!)
* AppCleaner (good for finding the random left-behind files)
* ClipMenu (clipboard history and saved text snippets all in one)
* f.lux (less eyestrain for marathon coding sessions)
* GasMask (easy hosts file changing)
* GrabBox (automatically saves screenshots to my DropBox public folder and copies the URL to my clipboard? YES PLEASE. replaces the need for CloudApp, etc.)
* Sublime Text 2 (cross-platform and modern TextMate/BBEdit/Vim all rolled into one amazing editor)
* SourceTree (good and free Git/hg front-end)
* Witch (finally a better Cmd-Tab)
* Moom (window tiling and profiles galore)
* Hyperdock (dock previews and drag-to-edge window resizing)
* Prey (stolen goods tracking)
* Textual (IRC)
* Adium (chats)
In terms of my actual command-line environment:
* iTerm2
* Homebrew
* (way too many individual commands to list here)
Also Chrome/FF extensions can get you some really great paid native app replacements, like RestConsole (no more need for Http Clients).
I love TotalFinder, and also can't live without flux. I don't really understand the excitement over Alfred/Quicksilver though... what does it do that spotlight can't? Just activate spotlight by pressing Command+Space, and type in whatever you want to do (you can launch a program, do a calculation, look up a word, whatever).
It's really just Spotlight on crack. Once you've done your initial search and the file/app/whatever is highlighted, you can then proceed to instantly perform actions or scripts on it. It's basically just a really nice macro feature baked into Spotlight with a new UI.
Alfred goes a step further with a built-in keyboard-based file browser, web/custom/fallback searches, email, iTunes, clipboard, Terminal, and System integration, and best of all extensions. I can't imagine using OS X without it.
* hotkey it open
* punch in the minimum to identify the application I want (usually 1 or 2 keys, 3 for rarely-used ones)
* hit enter
and be done with it in well below 1/2 of a second.
With Spotlight, I can:
* hotkey it open
* punch in the minimum to identify the application (over 2x more, almost all the time)
* wait for it to update
* it shows the wrong application / the last movie I played and finally displays the 3rd+ letters I typed
* wait for it to update again
* double-checking that it's the right application (it frequently isn't)
* hit enter
* hope it doesn't update *again*, causing me to launch the wrong application
the whole process typically taking >2 seconds nearly all the time, sometimes 5+ if it's a less-used application.
Quicksilver in particular has a nice 'open with...' method which gives you a couple keystrokes to pick the file, 'ow<tab>' to open with, and a couple keystrokes to open it in the application of choice, all generally in less than a second. Alfred might have something similar in the PowerPack (paid), but I haven't purchased it.
Unless of course you have an SSD. With an SSD, Spotlight is easily fast enough to work well. To start XCode, I hit CMD-space, xc, enter, with a split-second pause before the enter. That is enough for Spotlight to catch up to my typing and I am about as fast as Alfred or Quicksilver for opening apps.
Strange, I've never found Spotlight to be that slow or frustrating. I just tried it again to be sure I wasn't kidding myself, and find that I type about 3 keys, and then there's the app I want by the time I'm finished pressing the 3rd key.
It's speedy for the first few months, but once I build up a few dozen gigabytes of documents it starts to slow to an absolute crawl. Useful when searching for documents, absolutely, and faster than alternatives. But worthless for applications, which I open far more often than the average document (from a launcher, that is).
But that might be because my .Spotlight folder is > 1 gigabyte. And that's smaller than it has been in the past - my previous hard drive had it larger than 2 gb if I remember correctly, because I had tweaked it to index my source code. On my wife's computer it's only about 400 meg, and it finds applications in about a second (still much slower than Alfred or Quicksilver).
Seems like a simpler alternative here is to disable Spotlight indexing on everything but Applications and System Preferences. First thing I do on a new Mac.
Thereby losing all search for and within documents, when faster alternatives for the most-common action exists? It's a tradeoff I'd never make, but it makes sense, and then it'd probably be lightning-fast.
To add to Pewpewarrows' comment, I'll give you a couple of examples of things I do with QuickSilver.
I can never remember the IP address of my work's VPN, so I created a text file on my desktop with the IP as its name. Whenever I need it, I do: Ctrl+Space, ~/Desktop/[IP] to select the file, '.' to treat the filename as text, tab to go to the action part of QuickSilver, start typing "clipboard" and when "Copy to clipboard" shows up, I press enter. It can sound like a lot of steps but it gives me the IP address in my clipboard without reaching for the mouse, without having to open a file or an app.
I also use it for the integration with the address book. I type the name of the contact, select a phone number, tab to the action part and type "skype" to start calling with Skype. Or I would copy it to the clipboard to put in Google Maps…
If you've never used QuickSilver, that might sound too complicated for not much benefits, but it's something you learn over time. And it's not perfect either: I often time use Spotlight as well. (mostly for dictionary and calculator, though I'm sure QuickSilver can do it too :))
> I can never remember the IP address of my work's VPN, so I created a text file on my desktop with the IP as its name. Whenever I need it, I do: Ctrl+Space, ~/Desktop/[IP] to select the file, '.' to treat the filename as text, tab to go to the action part of QuickSilver, start typing "clipboard" and when "Copy to clipboard" shows up, I press enter. It can sound like a lot of steps but it gives me the IP address in my clipboard without reaching for the mouse, without having to open a file or an app.
If you don't mind a bit of drag and drop, a text clipping [1] may be even faster... simply drag the IP address text to the desktop, then drag it back when you want to pull it back in... text clippings make your desktop into a super-clipboard (only downside is the resulting files don't sync over dropbox)
Though I'm mostly-keyboard, I use the mouse where it makes sense, and OSX's drag and drop is a huge time-saver.
Quicksilver is one of those things like learning Vim or Emacs (though less complex), where the not-so-gentle learning curve gives way to a ton of functionality at your fingertips.
QuickSilver: just works, and selects correct thing you might be looking for.
Spotlight: is slow, show all kinds of crap you are NOT looking for. To add insult to injury it also requires typing way more characters to get a hit, and requires several keypresses to select that item, not just return.
I love being able to assign hot keys to apps in Alfred. I have 4-5 apps that I use 99% of the time and now I have hot keys to easily bring them up and jump between them.
I sat at one BarCamp next to a security consultant and watched all the wireshark traffic between my Mac and everyone else. Firewall was on and locked down. My Mac responded (i.e. received, processed, replied) to SMB queries for example. Its a joke. Now I use ipfw directly and my Mac is a black hole.
I'm thinking that by 'built-in firewall' he/she means the built-in firewall GUI interface. I'd be interested to know what LittleSnitch is doing if it isn't hooking into ipfw.
In my opinion Mac OS X is already pretty great and I don't need to add very many things. Focusing on all of the different apps and tools we use seems like a dangerous rabbit hole.
Man, I don't get a "developer color picker" that doesn't have a giant box with the hex color init. Fortunately, there's hex picker: http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/.
My hardware is a brand new 13" MBA with an old monitor, comfort curve keyboard, bose notebook speakers, and the magic trackpad.
For software, homebrew and perlbrew are essential. vim and tmux are how I do everything related to my job.
Adium is for OTR and annoying scripts I've written[1]. Chrome for the being Chrome. I use dropbox like an addict, too.
I tend to script everything I need with Perl, including mechanized tests and creating quick REST APIs[2]. Being able to use v5.14 in place of whatever comes natively is a nice touch.
Homebrew brings in git, tmux, haskell, racket, go, and redis.
Combinations of these tools let me do pretty much what these other lists allow but I probably haven't had the most elegant experience, either.
I would highly endorse Slate (https://github.com/jigish/slate), a free, open source, awesomely configurable window manager for OS X. Also Vimium (http://vimium.github.com/) for browsing the web is incredible. It's made browsing much faster and more enjoyable. Both were developed by former co-workers of mine.
I am genuinely surprised at how much others spend on software. I started totaling up his list (excluding monthly services like dropbox) and stopped when I reached $500, which was right around Cornerstone.
You've already sunk money into a Computer. If you pay a little more per year on software, how much better is your computer? It's a tradeoff which depends upon how much money you have, and how much utility you will derive.
For example, unlike Windows, there is no free and convenient svn utility on the Mac. If I were using svn on the Mac frequently, Cornerstone (which is quite expensive by my standards) would be a necessity.
Twenty years ago, computers cost $5000 and $500 worth of software was no big deal. Well today, that $500 dollars will buy you just a much a productivity boost, so why is it no longer worth it? Don't compare the $500 to the price of your computer; compare it to your already-spent salary plus overhead.
In my view, most of us who love free software have a knee-jerk reaction to paying money for software. Try spending a little more per year on software and observe whether or not it improves you life. It did for me.
Productivity is much better with a decent GUI like TortoiseSVN. Want to see the diffs for multiple files you have changed? Just double click each. No mucking about with command line windows and cutting and pasting filenames or what have you.
On Windows there is TortoiseSVN which makes svn more efficient. On *nix, I used the XEmacs module. Of course I know how to use the command line also and do use it for one-file commits on occasion.
If you are using SVN routinely and do not use a GUI, you are wasting your time.
I have never understood this phrase, and I see it a lot from Windows users. When I use the command line (and I spend ~12 hrs/day on it), there is no mucking. There's no frustration with it.
I'm honestly asking: what do you mean by mucking about?
> For example, unlike Windows, there is no free and convenient svn utility on the Mac.
If you aren't command-line-phobic, svn has been included by default on OSX for a while.
However, I do agree about paying for software that improves your productivity... if you amortize it over even a year (think monthly cost vs. productivity/entertainment value), it's likely cheaper than a caffeine habit... and I usually use software for years.
Over time it isn't so bad. I'll buy a new $30-50 application maybe twice a year (and maybe a $20 upgrade another twice a year). Now, I've got a nice collection, and it never seemed like a lot of money.
> There is absolutely no reason for me to have 16GB of RAM other than to brag about the fact that I have such a ridiculous amount of memory.
16GB in a desktop really isn't that ridiculous especially as a developer that might run VMs. In a non-mac with 4 ram slots, its <$100, which is very attainable. He is running an iMac with only 2 slots, making the RAM more like $250, but for a developer, this still isn't that much.
I watched the dterm video, and it looks interesting, but the lack of an apparent scrollback (as soon as I type a different command, the previous output is gone) would bug me. (Plus, does it support history, including search, etc?)
I'm using TotalTerminal - it's not context aware, but it's easier for me to launch it with Ctrl-` than to open a new virgin terminal whenever I need to do something really quick.
The only real win for dterm is the context-aware factor, but I find it to be a big-enough win that I keep it around. If you just need a quick virgin window and are using iterm2 (as you should be) then you can go into Prefs > Keys and set the global hot key toggle and then select the 'hotkey toggles a dedicated window with profile' to get a dterm-like overlay window that is a real terminal session.
DTerm is fantastic. It's not something I use often but the times when I do need/want it are what makes it fantastic. A simple example is that I wanted to make a txt file on my desktop so I hit the shortcut, typed touch x.txt and bam, there it was.
That's definitely a plus. I currently use DiffMerge which I really like because I can use it with absolutely anything, no matter what my source control is.
I was really hoping to see a fix for OS X's mouse acceleration. It's annoying when using the OS, and completely broken when I fire up StarCraft or something else that requires fast and precise mouse movements.
Don't know if the author of the post knows it is on HN, and his blog doesn't do comments...
He talks about might wanting a different diff tool than Changes. Might recommend Kaleidoscope (http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/). I like it, however the one thing that I do hate about it is the lack of a directory compare feature. It can only compare two files together.
£79 for a file merge tool!?!?! I don't really like FileMerge, but that's crazy. I still can't find a decent free(ish) tool that is better than FileMerge...Anyone got any other suggestions?
Yes, it costs money. I've used the Mac version for several years now, and the windows version for maybe 10 years before that. I think I've had my money's worth. Given that it works for me better than anything else, the cost is nothing. I don't mind paying for software that makes my life better.
It has a free 30 day trial, so give it a try and see if it is worth the money.
Its the only one that does a proper 3-way merge: it has four views. Last time I used Araxis it showed three panes: theirs, base, ours, and you merged back into the center. Hello!!! "base" isn't much use halfway into a complicated merge if I can't tell which lines are "base" and what is "merged", nor can I refer to what was there before. So frustrating.
I haven't used Appfigures, because I was turned off by my sales figures being stored online, but [AppViz 2](http://www.ideaswarm.com/AppViz2.html) is a really great app and I can't recommend it enough. Beautiful graphs, intuitive app, good customer support. etc. etc. AAA+++ would use for iTunes Connect stats again.
Childish list for people who haven't learned to use the command line.
Boot up Mac, install XCode to get gcc/clang etc, and install MacVim, but you don't have to, vim is there out of the box. Install perhaps additional tools like lynx, pgrep, pfind, ncat, ngrep, nmap, wget, seq (some are included in Lion but I don't use Lion) etc and you got standard UNIX toolchain to build everything, from "hello world" to world's most complex multi-million line applications.
I'm probably going to buy a MBA soon after working with Debian & Openbox on a dated netbook for too long.
I spend most of my time in side-by-side Vim/shell/ssh sessions inside tmux within the Guake terminal.
If MacVim is a standalone app, why do people use it? Isn't one of the nicest things about Vim that it lives in the terminal and can be launched from any root in the terminal?
The only good reason to use MacVim is support for millions of colors so color schemes look nicer. It also supports full screen mode (now in Lion Terminal does too, but before this used to be a missing feature), also it's easier to launch MacVim as external editing tool for other apps like Firefox with Pentadactyl extension (this allows you to edit any text box/area with vim). Other than that, you really don't need MacVim, unless you are very anal about colors :D.
Using the GUI version of MacVim does give you a couple of other really important features which no one will be able to do with out....
...a squiggly redline under your spelling mistakes and easy mapping of the command key for shortcuts. I think you might also be able to do more with fonts (e.g. italics for comments) too.
On a more serious note, I tend to use both MacVim and iTerm 2 in maximised windows (not full screen as such) on separate monitors. E.g. iTerm2 on the laptop, MacVim external.
I could run MacVim in a terminal but I don't get anything from it either. Of course working remotely is a different matter.
Sweet, thanks. I did a "hey, HN, check out my beta" post a few months back. When we hit 1.0, I'll probably do another. I look forward to your feedback.
looks good and like something i've been looking for (easy to set up vpn when using public wifi), but with only limited contact details on your site hard to build trustworthiness tbh.
If you click "learn more" you get a lot of information about both the company and the team, including our address, phone number, photos and bios of the three of us, and links to our Twitter accounts.
What contact information were you looking for?
We see ourselves as (in part) being in the business of earning trust. That's obviously a difficult job, so whatever suggestions you can offer we'd definitely appreciate.
OT: is LaunchBar/Alfred really that better than Quicksilver? Has been some time since I last touched a Mac, but I was totally amazed by the magic that was Quicksilver.
124 comments
[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 221 ms ] threadI've quit QS for LaunchBar few years ago (when the author announced the development for QS has ceased) then Spotlight then Alfred. I think Alfred did better than Spotlight as a launcher because of slightly better results (e.g. typing "pho" in my machine list Photo Booth and iPhoto but not the one I want the most: Photoshop) and few little touches here and there where Spotlight didn't get it right (e.g. "press enter to copy" for calculations).
I use file actions a lot (move these files, trash this, etc.), so Spotlight is pretty much out of question.
An archiver for OS X that actually works the way you expect, by opening a window to let you look inside and selectively extract from archives, rather than just spurting files all over the place unbidden like the built in one and all the other replacement ones seem to do.
For some reason it took me ages to find this when I switched to mac. Drove me mad.
In the scenario you describe, I generally use the dtrx script.
http://brettcsmith.org/2007/dtrx/
1. By default, automatically extract like the built-in archiver
2. For "transient archives" where I just want to preview the contents (pictures/documents/crash-logs), open with the CMD key pressed to view the contents. Then press space to preview the files.
I find myself in situation #2 often enough to warrant something like this. It's a lot more convenient than "Extract all -> navigate -> preview -> move to trash".
Spend your money on Rested instead. I don't quite understand the OP's assertion that "RESTed is a little bit more complex than HTTP Client." Considering Rested actually works I'd consider it a lot more simple than HTTP Client.
Edit: To be clear, I am in no way connected with the author of Rested. I'm just a very satisfied customer.
https://github.com/gnachman/iTerm2
http://iterm2.com/
> echo "derp" > foo.txt
That has nothing to do with iterm2 and everything to do with bash or whatever shell you are using, I think.
Might you be confusing iterm2 with iterm? Iterm2 is a completely separate piece of software than iterm, it's not the second version of the same one.
Then for some really screaming performance, cat a big logfile in xterm. Then, for insane performance cat a big logfile in mrxvt or rxvt.
Anti aliasing really slows things down, so performance is faster in the "native" terminal apps when that turned off, but with x11, theres way less than millisecond delays for printing stuff on the screen. I do like my terminal to be fast.
* TotalFinder (makes the OS X finder not terrible anymore, tabs, etc)
* HandsOff/LittleSnitch (oh, you're just using the built-in firewall? that's cute.)
* Transmit (everything you could ever want in an FTP app)
* CommandQ (W and Q are way too close together)
* Mou (free alternative to Byword)
* Evernote (note-taking that syncs absolutely everywhere)
* Alfred (modern day Quicksilver)
* Growl (notify me of all the things!)
* AppCleaner (good for finding the random left-behind files)
* ClipMenu (clipboard history and saved text snippets all in one)
* f.lux (less eyestrain for marathon coding sessions)
* GasMask (easy hosts file changing)
* GrabBox (automatically saves screenshots to my DropBox public folder and copies the URL to my clipboard? YES PLEASE. replaces the need for CloudApp, etc.)
* Sublime Text 2 (cross-platform and modern TextMate/BBEdit/Vim all rolled into one amazing editor)
* SourceTree (good and free Git/hg front-end)
* Witch (finally a better Cmd-Tab)
* Moom (window tiling and profiles galore)
* Hyperdock (dock previews and drag-to-edge window resizing)
* Prey (stolen goods tracking)
* Textual (IRC)
* Adium (chats)
In terms of my actual command-line environment:
* iTerm2
* Homebrew
* (way too many individual commands to list here)
Also Chrome/FF extensions can get you some really great paid native app replacements, like RestConsole (no more need for Http Clients).
With Alfred and a well-tuned Quicksilver, I can:
and be done with it in well below 1/2 of a second.With Spotlight, I can:
the whole process typically taking >2 seconds nearly all the time, sometimes 5+ if it's a less-used application.Quicksilver in particular has a nice 'open with...' method which gives you a couple keystrokes to pick the file, 'ow<tab>' to open with, and a couple keystrokes to open it in the application of choice, all generally in less than a second. Alfred might have something similar in the PowerPack (paid), but I haven't purchased it.
But that might be because my .Spotlight folder is > 1 gigabyte. And that's smaller than it has been in the past - my previous hard drive had it larger than 2 gb if I remember correctly, because I had tweaked it to index my source code. On my wife's computer it's only about 400 meg, and it finds applications in about a second (still much slower than Alfred or Quicksilver).
Definitely depends on your usage patterns :)
I can never remember the IP address of my work's VPN, so I created a text file on my desktop with the IP as its name. Whenever I need it, I do: Ctrl+Space, ~/Desktop/[IP] to select the file, '.' to treat the filename as text, tab to go to the action part of QuickSilver, start typing "clipboard" and when "Copy to clipboard" shows up, I press enter. It can sound like a lot of steps but it gives me the IP address in my clipboard without reaching for the mouse, without having to open a file or an app.
I also use it for the integration with the address book. I type the name of the contact, select a phone number, tab to the action part and type "skype" to start calling with Skype. Or I would copy it to the clipboard to put in Google Maps…
If you've never used QuickSilver, that might sound too complicated for not much benefits, but it's something you learn over time. And it's not perfect either: I often time use Spotlight as well. (mostly for dictionary and calculator, though I'm sure QuickSilver can do it too :))
If you don't mind a bit of drag and drop, a text clipping [1] may be even faster... simply drag the IP address text to the desktop, then drag it back when you want to pull it back in... text clippings make your desktop into a super-clipboard (only downside is the resulting files don't sync over dropbox)
Though I'm mostly-keyboard, I use the mouse where it makes sense, and OSX's drag and drop is a huge time-saver.
[1] http://macstarter.com/2011/01/21/text-clipping/
Z does for cd what QuickSilver does for the Finder. It's totally awesome: https://github.com/rupa/z
I recently had to re-install Lion on my MacBook Air - here's what I installed after: http://milesmatthias.tumblr.com/post/14366026639/i-re-instal...
Nice time saver
Also, here's a script I use that turns color picker into an app: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2006040805092015.... (But only sort of, it's still one of those weird windows OS X has that you can't close the normal way.)
For software, homebrew and perlbrew are essential. vim and tmux are how I do everything related to my job.
Adium is for OTR and annoying scripts I've written[1]. Chrome for the being Chrome. I use dropbox like an addict, too.
I tend to script everything I need with Perl, including mechanized tests and creating quick REST APIs[2]. Being able to use v5.14 in place of whatever comes natively is a nice touch.
Homebrew brings in git, tmux, haskell, racket, go, and redis.
Combinations of these tools let me do pretty much what these other lists allow but I probably haven't had the most elegant experience, either.
[1]: http://www.adiumxtras.com/index.php?a=xtras&xtra_id=4187 [2]: https://metacpan.org/module/Test::WWW::Mechanize
For example, unlike Windows, there is no free and convenient svn utility on the Mac. If I were using svn on the Mac frequently, Cornerstone (which is quite expensive by my standards) would be a necessity.
Twenty years ago, computers cost $5000 and $500 worth of software was no big deal. Well today, that $500 dollars will buy you just a much a productivity boost, so why is it no longer worth it? Don't compare the $500 to the price of your computer; compare it to your already-spent salary plus overhead.
In my view, most of us who love free software have a knee-jerk reaction to paying money for software. Try spending a little more per year on software and observe whether or not it improves you life. It did for me.
What's wrong with doing "brew install svn" ?
On Windows there is TortoiseSVN which makes svn more efficient. On *nix, I used the XEmacs module. Of course I know how to use the command line also and do use it for one-file commits on occasion.
If you are using SVN routinely and do not use a GUI, you are wasting your time.
I have never understood this phrase, and I see it a lot from Windows users. When I use the command line (and I spend ~12 hrs/day on it), there is no mucking. There's no frustration with it.
I'm honestly asking: what do you mean by mucking about?
If you aren't command-line-phobic, svn has been included by default on OSX for a while.
However, I do agree about paying for software that improves your productivity... if you amortize it over even a year (think monthly cost vs. productivity/entertainment value), it's likely cheaper than a caffeine habit... and I usually use software for years.
16GB in a desktop really isn't that ridiculous especially as a developer that might run VMs. In a non-mac with 4 ram slots, its <$100, which is very attainable. He is running an iMac with only 2 slots, making the RAM more like $250, but for a developer, this still isn't that much.
[1]: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1423#1
Just kidding. Actually MacVim, too.
The current gen i7 MacBook Pro is an insanely great machine.
- I pretty much can not work without VMWare Fusion.
- Tower for git, Cornerstone for svn
- Sparrow, for I want a second mail client beside Mail.app that does not suck
- TextExpander is pretty useful
- Pixelmator. It's enough for what I need to do.
- Reeder, my favourite RSS client
- The Unarchiver, in case anyone did not know that one
- Spotify
- Outbank, for European bank accounts
- Transmit. Awesome FTP client.
* Jumpcut - http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/ - simple and unintrusive clipboard history
* dterm - http://decimus.net/DTerm - popup terminal
* bwana - http://www.bruji.com/bwana/ - man pages in your browser
* Grand Perspective - http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/ - disk usage program
I'm using TotalTerminal - it's not context aware, but it's easier for me to launch it with Ctrl-` than to open a new virgin terminal whenever I need to do something really quick.
I recommend DaisyDisk instead - http://daisydiskapp.com
* Parallels. VM. Use it primarily for testing web apps in older versions of IE.
* Netbeans. Great search tools (search in files, search for classes, functions).
http://versionsapp.com/
I sadly still have to use SVN for some things and have been using Versions for quite some time now. What does Cornerstone do that Versions can't do?
(I'm using a Microsoft mouse on a Mac Mini)
I personally use a Logitech and it seems to do the same.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=194...
He talks about might wanting a different diff tool than Changes. Might recommend Kaleidoscope (http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/). I like it, however the one thing that I do hate about it is the lack of a directory compare feature. It can only compare two files together.
http://www.araxis.com/merge_mac/index.html
It does directory comparison. Kaleidoscope seemed pretty, but not as powerful.
It has a free 30 day trial, so give it a try and see if it is worth the money.
Its the only one that does a proper 3-way merge: it has four views. Last time I used Araxis it showed three panes: theirs, base, ours, and you merged back into the center. Hello!!! "base" isn't much use halfway into a complicated merge if I can't tell which lines are "base" and what is "merged", nor can I refer to what was there before. So frustrating.
Does directories too.
http://www.elliecomputing.com/products/merge_overview.asp
PDFpenPro: Preview can save your signature and add it to a PDF for you
Boot up Mac, install XCode to get gcc/clang etc, and install MacVim, but you don't have to, vim is there out of the box. Install perhaps additional tools like lynx, pgrep, pfind, ncat, ngrep, nmap, wget, seq (some are included in Lion but I don't use Lion) etc and you got standard UNIX toolchain to build everything, from "hello world" to world's most complex multi-million line applications.
I spend most of my time in side-by-side Vim/shell/ssh sessions inside tmux within the Guake terminal.
If MacVim is a standalone app, why do people use it? Isn't one of the nicest things about Vim that it lives in the terminal and can be launched from any root in the terminal?
...a squiggly redline under your spelling mistakes and easy mapping of the command key for shortcuts. I think you might also be able to do more with fonts (e.g. italics for comments) too.
On a more serious note, I tend to use both MacVim and iTerm 2 in maximised windows (not full screen as such) on separate monitors. E.g. iTerm2 on the laptop, MacVim external.
I could run MacVim in a terminal but I don't get anything from it either. Of course working remotely is a different matter.
Fun!
If you click "learn more" you get a lot of information about both the company and the team, including our address, phone number, photos and bios of the three of us, and links to our Twitter accounts.
What contact information were you looking for?
We see ourselves as (in part) being in the business of earning trust. That's obviously a difficult job, so whatever suggestions you can offer we'd definitely appreciate.
Cheers, Dave
OT: is LaunchBar/Alfred really that better than Quicksilver? Has been some time since I last touched a Mac, but I was totally amazed by the magic that was Quicksilver.