One Man's Blog

27 Mac OSX Freeware Applications I Use and Recommend

December 1, 2009 By John P. 4 Comments

A while back I chronicled my 51 Favorite Freeware Apps for Windows because it helps me keep a list of what I need to install when I’m trying to set up a new PC. And of course I also listed the 50 Free iPhone Apps I Love and Use, and even my Free Themes and Apps for Blackberry Curve. Well, it’s about time I do the same for my Mac downloads! So here is a list of all of the various Mac Freeware I install when setting up a new machine:

System Tools

GeekTool – A very powerful panel for your system preferences which adds all sorts of command line like functionality. This is for power users only.
Growl – This is a little add in that improves just about every other application by adding instant notifications to your Mac. Works with Adium, Firefox, Skype and many more. Get it!
Skype – The absolute standard for making calls through the Internet. I use it for communicating with my partners in Lebanon as well as for doing Podcasts and interviews with others around the country.
Carbon Copy Cloner – Useful for making copies of your hard drive to upgrade to a new computer, or even for automated backups to protect your data.
atMonitor – This is a critical application, as far as I’m concerned, to manage your computer’s overall health. I primarily use it to keep an eye on my CPU usage and ensure that I don’t have an application running away with all my processing power. That heats up your machine and wastes your battery. Another option is MenuMeters if for some reason you prefer it.
The Unarchiver – Software for uncompressing Zip, Tar-GZip, Tar-BZip2, RAR, 7-zip, LhA, StuffIt and many other formatted files, common when downloading from newsgroups or other online sources.
CrossLoop – Allows you to take over a computer remotely with permission from the other person to help with troubleshooting and things like that. Good for helping the family out… (My previous review.)

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Filed Under: Computing Tagged With: Adium, Apps, Computing, Dropbox, Free, freeware, Mac, Software

NetStumbler for Mac – Free MacOS WiFi Network Finders

August 18, 2009 By John P. 10 Comments

Before I switched to Mac, I used to love to use NetStumbler for Windows. It is a tool that allows you to find any WiFi network and learn a lot about them. This tool even lets you make note of GPS coordinates and do a little thing that people like to call WarDriving. Not that I would know anything about that.

Problem is, there is no NetStumbler for Mac. However! After a lot of searching I came up with a couple of cool alternatives:
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Filed Under: Computing, Web Links Tagged With: Computing, freeware, Mac, NetStumbler, Web Links, WiFi

How to Change Time Machine’s Backup Schedule

July 9, 2009 By John P. 7 Comments

Have any of you Mac users noticed that if you have Time Machine enabled, it will absolutely drag your system down when it decides to perform a back up while you are working? It was driving me absolutely nuts until Cali pointed me to a little freeware application called Time Machine Editor 2.1.

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Filed Under: Computing Tagged With: Computing, freeware, Mac, Time Machine

50 Free iPhone Apps I Love and Use

April 22, 2009 By John P. 15 Comments

I kicked off a trend at work after I got my iPhone, so I’m putting this handy little guide together for all the new iPhone owners out there so that you don’t have to go downloading every crappy free app to try. I already did that!

So, here is my list of top apps in a wide range of categories. I’ll keep it updated as I add or delete things.

And if anyone has suggestions for other really great free apps, let me know and I’ll give them a try. Leave the name, description, and link to the app in the comments. (To get the link to an app, look it up in iTunes, then right click on the Apps icon on the top left.)
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Filed Under: Computing, Reviews Tagged With: Computing, freeware, iPhone

Tutorial: How to Burn a VIDEO_TS Folder to DVD on a Mac

April 15, 2009 By John P. 11 Comments

Let’s say that for some reason you decide to make a copy of a DVD. Like you want it for backup purposes or whatever. If you’ve got a Mac, it’s your lucky day. Here is how to do it:

Use the Finder to copy the VIDEO_TS folder to your local hard drive.
Download the DVDImager application and install it.
Stick a blank DVD in your Mac.
Launch DVDImager and then drag and drop the VIDEO_TS folder onto the DVDImager icon

The rest should be simple. Enjoy your new disc copy!

Filed Under: Computing, Tutorials Tagged With: Computing, freeware, Mac, Software, Tutorials

Tutorial: How-to Recover Windows Login Passwords

January 7, 2008 By John P. 14 Comments

Windows security is sad. Although most of you have probably already read my article about using strong passwords, even the strongest passwords won’t keep your Windows login account from being penetrated. In fact, it takes only a couple of minutes to gain complete access to a Windows system using nothing more than a free CD ROM.

Now, if there is any good news – people are constantly locking themselves out of their personal laptops and home computers by forgetting the password. And recently I’ve had two different friends do this within a period of a couple of days. So you guys know how this works… when I start getting requests, I document the solution.
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Filed Under: Security, Videos Tagged With: freeware, Hacking, Passwords, Security, Tutorial, Videos

Remote Control Computers Via the Internet with CrossLoop

December 6, 2007 By John P. 13 Comments

CrossLoop I’ve previously written about how to access your PC from anywhere for free, and my favorite tool for this purpose is LogMeIn.com. The only problem with LogMeIn is, you need to have previously installed, and have running, the LogMeIn application in order to access the machine remotely.

But what if your buddy / relative / coworker calls you out of the blue wanting you to diagnose some computer issue and you know it would be 100 times easier if you could just remote control the computer? Well, no problem! CrossLoop is the fastest, easiest method of accomplishing this.
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Filed Under: Computing, Web Links Tagged With: Computing, CrossLoop, firewall, FolderShare, freeware, LogMeIn, Remote-Access, Security, Support, Web Links

Free PDF Printer Driver

October 29, 2007 By John P. 13 Comments

Adobe PDF Folks, I just wanted to pass along a tip for a free PDF Printer Driver in case anyone was ever looking for one, or in case you don’t know what this even is!

A PDF Printer Driver is a little piece of software that installs just like a printer would, but instead of converting your printed output it saves the exact printed format as a PDF file. You might want to do this for any of the following reasons:

To e-mail a document in a universal format which preserves the exact page layout. For example, if you create a form using MS Word, you can convert it to PDF.
To preview exactly what a document is going to look like when printed before wasting paper and ink.
To post a printable version of a document on a Web site that people can access using any computing platform.
If you want to print something, but you aren’t near a printer you can print it to a PDF and then later print a hard copy. VERY useful for offline work on a laptop while traveling.

The only problem is that up until relatively recently the only way to accomplish this was to own a very expensive piece of Adobe software. But now there are a few free alternatives on the market, and I wanted to recommend Bullzip PDF Printer.
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Filed Under: Computing, Work Tagged With: adobe, Computing, freeware, PDF, Software, Work

How To Bootleg Movies, Music and Software Online

September 3, 2007 By John P. 8 Comments

Illegal Downloads I keep wondering two things, why does the RIAA continue to persecute people, and more importantly why do people do stupid enough things to keep getting prosecuted?

That organization exists for the sole purpose of suing the pants off of people, but they can only do so when people leave plenty of evidence about their activity – namely hosting content on their computers and allowing others to download it. Most of the time it seems these foolish people aren’t even aware that what they are doing by running Kazaa, eMule, Gnutella, or some other file sharing application puts them at risk.

But why in the world would anyone share their music, movie or software collections via open, anonymous connections? Especially when there are other virtually risk-free alternatives? (By the way, know your rights if RIAA comes calling.)
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Filed Under: Computing, Google Tools, Movies, Security, Tutorials Tagged With: Computing, Crime, Free, freeware, Google Tools, Movies, Music, RIAA, Security, Sex, Software, Theft, Tutorials, Videos