My favourite Mac tools.
I have spent around 7 hours a day (a likely underestimate) on my computer over the past five years for work (where it’s my primary tool) or screwing around.
That represents over 12,000 hours of usage which I don’t see slowing down in my current role (unless mobile phones truly take over with better input mechanisms).
So here’s a list of tools that have withstood the test of time and usage that has helped me be more effective and efficient while working. Whatever these applications cost becomes negligible over the usage period so I hope a little $ up front doesn’t impede common sense.
In no particular order they are:
- QuickSilver
- Calca
- Better Snap Tool
- 1Password
- Caffeine
- Flux
- ZSH
QuickSilver
I use this tool everyday and it’s ridiculously useful. Similar to the preinstalled Spotlight, QuickSilver serves as a search / quick application & file opener that is tuned for speed.
It excels in being much quicker and accurate than Spotlight and has become my primary way of opening anything from folders, documents, applications and even search queries (routed on Chrome). A host of plug-ins extends this applications into other areas of use as well.
It may seem a bit nerdy at first, but once you try it and use it a few times I doubt you’ll ever go back to navigating directories or using Spotlight. I never did after @reed showed it to me many years ago.
QuickSilver | Cost: Free* | Usage: Daily
Calca
There are calculators for simple arithmetic and then there’s Calca, a much better tool for doing more involved math but without excel or pulling up a vim window.
I think of Calca as a feedback-oriented calculator. You can set variables or untis (of which Calca will keep consistent as you use them) and run with experiments.
The folks on the team elegantly describe it as “the text editor that loves math” and that’s about as good of a description as I can muster.
Calca | Cost: $4.99| Usage: Weekly
Better Snap Tool
Anyone that uses more than one window (in any set of applications) at once should have Better Snap Tool on their computer. It’s easy to understand and use: it auto-sizes windows into useful layouts when you drag windows to hot points around the edges of your display.
It has been invaluable when programming as one tries to organize and sort the many windows (terminal, resource, ide) associated. My friend Dan, however, would tell me to simply buy more monitors to solve this problem.
Better Snap Tool | Cost: $1.99| Usage: Daily
1Password
I’ve spent significant time trying to handle passwords in my life. If you think about all the passwords you’ve generated, across all the sites you use — I’d be quite afraid that your services are already or easily compromised.
1Password is the closest solution I’ve found yet to helping me navigate the lack of security on the web, and although it’s not infaliable it’s better than what I was doing.
Previously I would have one password for *all* of my logins. It was easy and I never thought about ‘hackers’ growing up on the web 10–15 years ago. My password to my hotmail account was the same password to my Geocities account.
Later, I became smarter and had two to three passwords of varying complexity. For sites I didn’t think important they got my ‘C’ password. And my most important sites, like email or banks received my ‘A’ password. This of course, was foolish as well since using the same password across ‘A’ accounts could all be compromised at once.
I started getting even more ‘smarter’ by generating passwords with a formula based on the site itself. This kept my passwords different per account but with a formulaic way of generation so I could ‘remember’ (re-imagine) the password. But even this method became cumbersome.
1Password, based on my research is so far the best application I could find to help password management and generate strong passwords for websites. It’s helpful and enforces a higher minimum password security.
None of this matters if the site itself is hacked and your data is dumped, but this will be an ongoing battle in the data age. I suspect some of the authentication issues will be resolved by looking at large sets of data (password, location, time, biometric sensor data, user-behaviour and more) but until then this is a better start.
1Password | Cost: $35–49| Usage: Daily
Caffeine
Arguably you don’t need this tool if you set your screen to never shut off (or dim / go to screen saver), but most people have some sort of limit (30, 60, or 90 minutes). This is a great tool to use when watching a film to keep your screen on.
Caffeine | Cost: Free | Usage: Monthly
Flux
Flux is one of those tools that is useful but damn annoying. Kind of like safety goggles. You need ‘em , but it’s no fun either.
The application dims your screen while removing blue light in the hours before bedtime to help you transition to sleep. Studies have shown being on computers and receiving strong light stimulus prior to sleep degrades the quality of sleep greatly.
I use the app as much as I can but sometimes the yellow hint wears my patience and I’ll shut it for a particular evening.
Flux | Cost: Free | Usage: Daily
ZSH
I would not like to enter a debate on shells.
ZSH is an awesome shell service that helps in any way you need it to. I particularly like it for its navigation help and readability, along with it’s immense autocomplete features for files and commands across Git and Python.
Some of the more awesome developers I know require no help in these matters but I’m a forgetful person — so if a shell that helps forgetful people shows up I’m all for it.
This presentation summarizes why Bash on your mac is old and ZSH provides a much needed upgrade (globbing, nav, autocomplete, paths etc.)
http://www.slideshare.net/jaguardesignstudio/why-zsh-is-cooler-than-your-shell-16194692
ZSH | Cost: Free | Usage: Daily
Are there tools I should be using? I’d love to hear them.
Shoot me links / apps I should check out to @niket
