| Previous Shareware Picks | Current Pick | Picks 1-15 | Picks 16-30 |
| Picks 31-45 | Picks 46-60 | Picks 61-75 |
| Picks 76-90 | Picks 91-105 | Picks 106-120 |
| Picks 121-135 | Picks 136-150 | Picks 151-165 |
| Picks 166-180 | Picks 181-195 | Picks 196-Current |
FireFox 1.0  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.1 or later | Price: $0 |
| Mac OS X includes a great browser in Safari, but that doesn't mean we should not explore other options. One of those options is FireFox. Firefox is built with Mozilla technology, which is fast, stable, and secure. IT also has a nice extension feature which allows you to easily add features to the browser that the original developers never thought of. I use FireFox as my backup to Safari, but if Safari weren't around, it would be my number one browser (it is my number one browser when using Windows and Linux machines). | |
Audio Hijack 2.2  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2.7 or later | Price: $16 |
| Ever want to easily grab a sound from a movie clip, a smart sprat of a song, or maybe turn your old cassettes into MP3s? If so, Audio Hijack is for you. With this software, it is easy to record audio from any source on your computer. It has a ton of features from the quality/format of audio to record, to timed recordings, and sound enhancing tools. This software is a great all in one package for nearly all your audio needs. | |
clamXnav 0.9.01  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3 or later | Price: $0 |
| Even though Mac OS X has no viruses at the time of this writing, it's always good to have a virus checker in your toolbox just in case. This is where clamXnav comes in. clamXnav is a graphical interface for the clamnav virus checker. It's about as simple as it gets. Install the software, and check your files. If you have any Windows viruses laying around, it will even find those. Overall, this is a good thing to keep around, especially since it is free. | |
Snowflakes 1.1  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3 or later | Price: $0 |
| If the previous pick didn't add enough holiday joy to your computer, maybe this one will. Snowflakes lets it snow on your desktop. With big, fluffy flakes falling from your menu bar, it will be a white Christmas after all. This program only has a few settings, allowing you to choose if the snowflakes fall in front or behind windows, how fast they fall, and how many there are. It could use a few more features such as snow flake size as well as horizontal movement, but overall, it's a fun little program to have on your Mac. | |
X-masTree 1.1  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2 or later | Price: $0 |
| Tis the season! There are a handful of applications for the Mac that add Christmas lights, trees, etc. to your desktop. X-masTree is certainly of of the better options available. As you could guess, it puts an Xmas tree on your desktop. It allows you to have different lights (colors, blinking, fading, etc.), different color trees, tinsel, popcorn strands, and more. But the nicest feature of all is the type of window it can be. You can set it as a desktop window that is BEHIND the icons. Now that is handy. Plus, it will even display the days til Christmas if you wish. Most of these applications get taken off my computer in a hurry, but this one is going to stick around for a while. | |
Preferential Treatment 1.1.1  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2 or later | Price: $0 |
| Preferential Treatment is an Applescript that will run through both the User and System preferences on your computer, looking for corruption. If any corrupted preferences are found, it allows you to move them to the trash, or select them in the Finder. All too often, a corrupt preference file is a source of major headaches, and can be hard to track down. With Preferential Treatment, it's easy to find those problems, and fix them before they give you too much grief. This is a great utility that everyone should have in their toolbox. | |
Graph550 0.8  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2 or later | Price: $0 |
| Graph550 is a graphing calculator application for OS X. It is a fairly powerful tool, allowing multiple functions, graphs in terms of x or y or even t, works with complex equations, and more. You can export the graphs in multiple formats, including TIFF and PDF. Keep an eye out for updates, the last few added some features which brought this program from sub-par to above average. | |
ImageJ 1.33n  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.0 or later | Price: $0 |
| ImageJ is a free image editing application. It will not replace Photoshop or Graphic Converter, but will be of use as a companion to those programs. It has some unique features that those two programs do not have. It's worth a try to see if you like it, as it could be another handy tool in your toolbox. Installion instructions are kind of complex, so you will want to view these instructions. | |
Capacity Meter 1.0  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.1 or later, Powerbook G3 or later | Price: $0 |
| Capacity Meter is a battery checking tool for iBook and PowerBook users. It provides valuable information such as capacity, current, voltage, and a capacity history. If your laptop's battery feels like it can't hold a very good charge, this utility will help diagnose the problem. You can also track capacity over time, so you can estimate when your battery will fail. Finally, there is an alert feature which lets you know when your battery capacity falls to a level below what you prefer. | |
MenuMeters 1.1.1  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2 or later | Price: $0 |
| Menu Meters is a great tool for keeping an eye on how your system is performing. It has the ability to show four different types of statistics in the menu bar: CPU use, disk activity, memory information, and network activity. Each group has a multitude of different settings, from how the information is displayed, to how often it is updated, to what kind of display you like. It's an extremely handy tool that takes up very little system resources and has not caused any conflicts. Modified version (by me) that includes border around CPU graph: Download (728k). |
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Pizza Cooker 2.0  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3 or later | Price: $0 |
| Ever leave something in the oven too long only to come back to a black, inedible brick? Almost everyone has. You put your food in the oven, set the timer, and head to your computer wear you can't hear the timer go off. This is where Pizza cooker comes into play. This little application let's you set a timer on your computer, so you have less chance of burning your delicious dinner. It's definitely worth a shot if you burn burn food more often than you like. | |
Cocoa Account 1.0.5  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.1 or later | Price: $0 |
| Cocoa Account is a very simple utility to help you keep track of your checking, savings, or whatever else account you may have. The all in one window interface allows you to easily debit and credit your account using checks, credit cards, date, and categories. The program will then keep a running list of your past transactions, so you can check them against your bank statement for accuracy. This is not a Quicken replacement by any means, but it is an easy way to keep track of your money. I took off a few points for no auto-save ability, and a few other features I would like to see. | |
Control Freak 1.5.1  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3 or later | Price: $0 |
| The world of Mac OS X maintenance utilities is ever increasing, and trying to sort out the good from the bad can be tough. Control Freak is one of the good ones. Not only does it provide the standard cron tasks, repair permissions, and clear caches that seemingly every utility does nowadays, but it also include a bunch of OS and application features. What to change the dock to your liking or the finder to speed it up? This utility makes it simple. However, the most unique feature is the ability to extract Quicktime movies from the movie cache. This makes it possible to save movies you view on the web, on of the features that Quicktime Pro offers. Overall, a good utility with many features. | |
Temperature Monitor 2.1  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2.5 or later | Price: $0 |
| Temperature Monitor is just what what it's name suggests, a utility to monitor the temperature sensors built into your Mac. There are many such utilities available, but this is the only one that will report the CPU Die temperature on PowerMac G5 computers, telling me this program is better than the rest of the pack. Plus, it has many more features and options than other temperature monitoring utilities. For instance, you can view the sensor info in a standard window, floating window, menu bar item, in the dock icon, as a history graph, or even hear them spoken out loud. Plus, it has alerts and a handy system information overview which gives some information System Profiler doesn't. This program is hands down the best temperature reporting utility for the Mac. | |
Gimp.app 2.0  | |
| System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2 or later, Apple's X11 | Price: $0 |
| So, you want a program for image manipulation but don't have the money for Photoshop. If this is the case, Gimp.app might be just the answer. This open source image editing program is very easy to install, unlike most other open source application. However, it is not as easy to use. It will take a little to get use to how everything works, but once learned, this can be a powerful tool. I recommend it to anyone wanting a good image editing application, without breaking the bank. | |
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Arbitrary Quote - I finally came up with a punishment for the boy. First, no leaving the house, not even for school. Second, no egg nog. In fact, no nog period! And third, absolutely no stealing for three months!
Mac, the Mac logo, Mac OS, the Apple logo, and other Apple product names are trademarks of Apple, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. The Made on a Mac Badge is a trademark of Apple, Inc., used with permission.
Additional company names, company logos, product names, and product images may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
Arbitrary Quote - I finally came up with a punishment for the boy. First, no leaving the house, not even for school. Second, no egg nog. In fact, no nog period! And third, absolutely no stealing for three months!