A DM colleague of mine, Neils Berglund noted his required applications under OS X and asked for feedback on what everyone else is using (assuming you are on OS X anyway).

The original question was what RSS reader are you using.. my preference is NetNewsWire as I was used to the Newsgator line of products when using Windows all the time so it made an easy transition for me. I also use MarsEdit to update posts on this blog – it’s not WYSIWYG but it keeps my HTML skills (if I ever had any) from drying up.

So, adding to Neils list, I also use –

  • Final Cut Express - for editing movies, I found iMovie to be too limiting.
  • CHMOX - to open and read .CHM (Windows Help) files.
  • DivX codecs - to play my 300+ .divx movies.
  • Smultron - a decent, quick color-coded text editor
  • Virtue Desktops - an awesome window manager.
  • Remote Buddy - allows the Apple Remote to be used to control other applications such as Power Point.
  • Microsoft Office - I just can’t live without Word/Excel/Power Point. I know Apple has iWork, but it just isn’t quite the same.
  • Flip4Mac - Codecs for .WMV (Windows Media), essential in a 99.999% Windows dominated world.
  • Coverflow - this isn’t critical, but it’s a fun app to show off - it let’s you view your music through the album covers in a cool, flip-3d style fashion.

I’m also trying out a .mac membership for backup purposes. Not sure I’ll stay with that, but it is automatic and seems to work even when I travel.

So, what things do you think are necessary applications under OS X?