Seeing as I’ve been talking about some of my favourite Mac software on here lately, and FreeMacWare.com is running a contest involving free sofware for the Mac, I thought now would be a good time to write about by Top 5 Free Mac Software that you too could use for free if you switch to a Mac!

Up first is Camino. I use this as my everyday (actually every minute) browser. It’s built off the same engine as FireFox and has the feel of a Mac program. It also has the nice side effect of feeling “snappier” on my Powerbook than Firefox.

This is about as easy as Bittorrent gets on a Mac. With Transmission, you just download and start the torrent file - that’s it! No frills, no messy interface, just an easy download.

If you want a player that can handle virtually any audio and video file out there, look no further than VLC. This player is available for many platforms and seems to “just work” for almost every file.

Audacity is a great (and very powerful) audio editing program. We use it every week to edit The Skinny on Sports Podcast and it comes in handy for trimming lots of other audio files. A must have tool for anyone doing audio work.

Last, but certainly not least, is Cyberduck. It’s a simple FTP program with drag and drop support. Can’t ask for much more from an FTP client - especially for the average user with very simple FTP needs.

That’s my list! These little free applications make me realize everyday that I definitely made the right decision switching to a Mac!

Technorati Tags: apple, audacity, camino, cyberduck, freemacware, freeware, transmission, vlc

This is another one of my picks and LaunchBar is an application that I can’t live without (sorry to all you windows users, it’s Mac only). Someone recommended LaunchBar to me when I first got my Mac and I checked out the website, but I didn’t really get it. I thought, sure, it looks interesting, but is it really a necessity. Then I started using it and then it just clicked, and I realized why I needed it. Instead of having to clutter up my Dock, I can keep the bare minimum of items, and then use LaunchBar to quickly launch anything else that is on my computer with quick keyboard shortcuts.

LaunchBar is smart. For instance, if you type “ITU” it will give you a list of everything starting with those letters in a drop-down menu. Then, after you choose iTunes from the list, it remembers this and next time you type the shortcut, it becomes the first item in the list.

LaunchBar is fast. You would think that having to go through everything on your computer and remember what you picked last would slow everything down. Not at all. LaunchBar is always there when you need it and quickly makes itself invisible when you don’t.

LanchBar searches. You can even setup shortcuts to search templates. For instace, when I type “G” it selects the Google search template, then I just press the spacebar, enter my search term, and my web browser launches with the search results. This is especially useful when multitasking since you don’t have to keep switching between windows, it just does it. I’ve also setup other shortcuts for Wikipedia, IMDB, Pubmed, and many more searches.

LaunchBar emails. (Or at least launches email). You can configure LaunchBar to search the email addresses in your address book. When you select the address from the list, it launches a new message in Mail with the address already entered.

LaunchBar rocks! If you aren’t convinced yet, you just need to try it for yourself. At $19.95 it’s a steal considering how much I use it. You can configure LaunchBar to do as little or as much as you want (I haven’t even talked about launching iTunes playlists or bookmarks in your web browser). Once you “get it”, it will change your Mac experience forever!

Technorati Tags: apple, launchbar

I use iTunes for my podcasting needs, but I found that I didn’t like it as much for video podcasts. It just seemed a little slower to me and I wanted a bit more control over the content. That’s when I found a great application called FireAnt. The application is still in development, but even with a few minor bugs, I’m using FireAnt as my everyday video podcasting client. The developers are also very responsive to email about problems and suggestions and I’m looking forward to upcoming changes. If you’re looking for a new way to manage all of your video subscriptions, give FireAnt a try!

Technorati Tags: fireant, podcasts, video podcasts, videoblog

I’ve made a new category on the site called My Picks that I will use to give “my picks” on things around the internet. Think of it as recommendations of new things to check out. Hopefully you’ll like them and this won’t become a list of things to avoid.

For this first installment, I thought I would mention a podcast that has just recently started called The Onion Radio News. If you’ve ever read The Onion then you probably know what to expect from this podcast. Aside from being extremely smart and witty humor, it’s great that it’s less than one minute long each day. Everyone has time for one minute don’t they?

You can check it out here and get your quick laugh of the day! You can either listen directly from their site, or subscribe - all the links are on the site.

Technorati Tags: podcast, the onion