5 Great Mac Apps You Gotta' Try!

With the holidays approaching and money being tight, sometimes it's fun to discover new applications for your computer.  It's a lot like unwrapping a new present without the need to write a thank-you note or smile at a relative while you secretly loathe the fact that they bought you a years membership to the Steak-of-the-Month Club even though you've been a vegetarian for the past 12 years.  These applications are free and open source.  They cost nothing and make you feel good knowing that you are supporting free software.  Let's take a look...

Seashore (a Mac image editor based on GIMP with a simple and useful set of features)


Seashore is an excellent image editor for OS X.  Seashore is based on the popular image manipulation software known as GIMP.  Unlike GIMP, however, Seashore is very simple to use and navigate. There are many times when I've using my Macbook Pro that I've found that I need to edit and image or screenshot.  Seashore makes all of this stuff really easy,  You can save in many formats including the same format that GIMP uses natively.  When you first start the app, it offers you the chance to set defaults for image size, resolution and color. The interface will be familiar to anyone who has used Photoshop, GIMP, or other good editors.  It has a lot more tools than you might expect to find in an open source image editor. Seashore features plugins, gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes and supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. Effects include blur, Gaussian blur, invert, greyscale and posterize options and more.  Seashore has a fantastic comprehensive PDF help manual.  Grab Seashore here!

Electric Sheep (an awesome trippy and dynamic screensaver)

Simply put, I love Electric Sheep.  The "sheep" are absolutely mesmerizing kaleidoscope style movies which dance around your screen when your Mac or PC is idle.  I know this is a Mac OS X article, but Electric Sheep is actually available for Linux and Windows as well!  Here's a great description from the Electric Sheep web site:

Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver created by Scott Draves. It's run by thousands of people all over the world, and can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep". The result is a collective "android dream", an homage to Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

Visit the Electric Sheep web site and learn more!





Adium (instant messaging application)

I admit, I use instant messaging every day to keep in touch with friends, vendors, and colleagues from all over the world.  I get really annoyed when my IM client doesn't have the features I need.  I have not been a big fan of iChat lately since there are some features that other IM clients have that iChat doesn't.  Adium is an instant messaging client for OS X that works with multiple chat protocols such as AIM, Googletalk, Yahoo, MSN, Bonjour, MySpace, and many more!  One chat client to "rule them all"....


Check out Adium here!



Handbrake (an open source DVD ripper and MPEG-4 / H.264 encoder)

Let's get one thing straight, I'm not advocating anyone using Handbrake to rip DVD's they don't own.  Now...here's how I use Handbrake.  I have a Nokia N800 Internet Tablet that I like to take along with me when I travel.  The 800x480 resolution of my little N800 is perfect for viewing movies while flying or riding the train.  I find that watching movies tends to shorten the trip quite a bit...at least for me.  Handbrake is an awesome and easy to use program for ripping my DVD's into just about ANY format.  I've ripped movies for my own computer, my kids iPod Nano, as well as a PSP!  Apple TV support is now also part of Handbrake.  Given the noise on an airplane, I often find it helpful to rip my DVD's with the English subtitles included.  I highly recommend Handbrake for getting your movies on to your portable devices and computers.  Like Electric Sheep, Handbrake is also available for Windows and Linux!


Download Handbrake here!

Burn (Simple CD and DVD Burner for OS X)

Are you sick of using Disk Utility for burning CD's?  Don't have the $$$ for Toast?  No problem!  Check out Burn!  Burn is an awesome, simple, and easy to use CD and DVD burner.  Audio, data, and video...Burn handles them all with ease. 

Check out Burn here!