Cool Apps

Utilities

Lingon is a graphical interface for creating launchd configuration files and controlling them through launchctl for Mac OS X Tiger.

MoRU is a very nice Spotlight UI. It provides for far greater control over search parameters, as compared to Apple's supplied UI.

SnapzPro is the coolest screen capture util ever. Grab static images using a variety of selection criteria, or video / audio tracks. Good video capture performance.

MovieSync allows you synchronize audio and video in QuickTime movies. You can also synchronize other QuickTime readable media, such as AVIs, MPEG-4, and, with appropriate codecs, even WMVs. I find this most useful to fix up quicktime movies captured with SnapzPro. For decently long video captures with SnapzPro, you may notice that the audio and video start to lose sync. This app will fix it right up by resizing one of the tracks to fit the other.

VirtueDesktops is a virtual desktop manager for Mac OS X. It offers features, eye candy and configurable options that no other desktop manager on the mac has added yet, and is under active development. It is based upon DesktopManager, which is a lighter, less feature-packed virtual desktop application.

MenuMeters is a set of CPU, memory, disk, and network monitoring tools for MacOS X. Everything is displayed in the menu bar. MenuMeters uses Apple's private API for menu items, so you need to install Menu Extra Enabler to allow MenuMeters to gain access to that API.

QuickSilver, a unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data. I use it to get fast keyboard access to things like applications or preference panes, and also because there are various modules that do cool things, like let you bind keyboard shortcuts to controlling itunes, or binding keyboard shortcuts for arbitrary actions on arbitrary data. Particularly useful is binding hotkeys to pasting specific chunks of oft-repeated text (useful for anybody who has to do any sort of tech support, heh).

Plugins / Enhancements

iChat

Chax is a collection of minor modifications and additions that make iChat more enjoyable. Notable features: tabbed chat windows, preference to not pause AV sessions during file transfer.

iGlasses provides access to video controls for you iChat AV video source. Cave dwellers can jack up the gain, etc.

Conference Recorder (also from Ecamm) does what the title suggests for iChat AV conferences.

ShowMacster lets you use other things as sources for your iChat AV video, such as quicktime movies, static images, or live captures from your screen (with easily adjustable capture frame size / position).

Authoring

WriteRoom is a pretty simple yet nifty text editor. It sports a nice full-screen mode to get rid of distractions ;)