My Ultimate Mac Software Setup

I got my first Mac, a unibody 13" Macbook (aluminum, just before they became Macbook Pros), a little over a year ago. In that time, I've fallen in love with the quality of the hardware, the usefulness of Mac OS X, and - especially - the software available for the platform. In this post I'll show you the software that I've come to rely on in my daily work.

1. Espresso - I picked up a copy of this program as part of the MacHeist bundle. It's an IDE for web design, handling HTML/CSS editing (with autocompletion), a built-in WebKit browser for previews as you work, FTP syncing, and project organization. Plugins called "sugars" even let you extend Espresso's support for other languages. If they added preview support for PHP, it would be even better, but as is it's still hard to beat for productivity.
2. Mail.app / iCal / Address Book - The Mac OS dream team. Newer versions of Mail.app finally have solid support for Gmail over IMAP, and it integrates smoothly with iCal and Address Book for managing tasks, appointments, and contacts. Together they do everything I might use a more heavyweight program or webapp for.
3. Photoshop CS4 - Some designers prefer to use Fireworks for creating site mockups and graphical elements, but Photoshop is the tool I turn to again and again. I usually start by creating a mockup in Photoshop, and then slicing out discrete graphical elements, tiling backgrounds, and gradient fills for use in Espresso.
4. NetNewsWire - This program quickly became my RSS feed reader of choice. It syncs with my Google Reader account, and it has fast and intuitive keyboard controls that let me get through mountains of news in a fraction of the time it would take with even Google Reader's webapp.
5. TweetDeck - If you're a Twitter power user, you will use this program. End of story.
6. iTerm - A fast and flexible replacement for the built-in Terminal.app, iTerm supports tabbed terminal windows, a fullscreen mode, and keyboard shortcuts for switching between tabs, letting you turn your Mac into something much closer to bare Unix when you need to work with a remote server, without having to boot a Linux virtual machine.
7. WriteRoom - A distraction-free writing environment, WriteRoom hides all of the clutter of your computer and lets you focus on writing - without even having to worry about formatting. Great for when you just want to get words out and edit them later.
8. Klok - This program isn't perfect, but it's still the best time-tracking program I've ever used. Set up projects and then click a button to start tracking time for that project; click again to stop. Klok will then automatically make weekly and monthly timesheets for you, along with pie charts showing you the ratio of time spent on your various projects. Having all of this work done for you makes invoicing a snap.

These eight programs are far from the only software I use on my Mac, but I'd consider them the "must-have" list that I would rush to install on a new computer. What software can you not live without? Whether Windows, Mac, or Linux, leave your own list in the comments below; I'll make a round-up of crowd favorites in a later post. Photo by guidosportaal