MacSupport-Helper Applications

Macintosh OS X Helper Programs

Little Applications that Sweeten your Computer Experience

Here is a list of some of my favorite utilities or helper applications for the Mac.

All of them can be found at http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/ which is the place to go to find and download any applications that you want. Even if you don’t know if exists or not, go to version tracker and search for the subject. Perhaps someone made something to do what you want.

CopyPaste   http://www.scriptsoftware.com/copypaste/

CopyPaste has been my favorite Mac utility for over a decade.

It’s Clip Recorder Palette records the last 20 clipboard entries and makes all of them available to paste multiple times, in any order. Say you want to copy and paste someone’s first name, last name, street address, city, state, zip, phone and email address from an email, web page or other document and put them in to the appropriate fields of Address Book. Without CopyPaste, you would copy one item from the email, go to Address Book and paste it, go back to the email and copy the second item, go to Address Book and paste it and continue. With the CopyPaste Clip Recorder Palette, you copy each of those items with a succession of C’s from the email and then go to Address Book and paste into each field. Big savings of time and effort. The Clip Recorder can record anything from one word to a whole document, pictures or anything that is copy-able. There are thousands of uses for this.

The Clip-Set Palette stores up to 100 clips for use anywhere, anytime. For instance, I use it to store the title, location and body of my Craig’s List ad, I keep my return address, one of my credit card numbers, a commonly used password, the ⌘ symbol, so they are easily retrievable.

There 2 little quarter inch square “palettes” on my desk.

When my mouse hovers over them they open they open and allow me to click the P to choose which one I want to paste.

CopyPaste +y Type or CopyPaste Lite both work great. $30 or $8. Download and pay on the web. There is a trial period.

SuperDuper!            http://shirtpocket.com/

My favorite backup utility and the current favorite of VersionTracker and MacWorld.

With today’s inexpensive external hard drives, an external drive plus SuperDuper! will enable you to make a bootable clone of your whole hard drive. This means that if your had drive failed, if your computer were stolen or run over by a bus, you could start up from the cloned drive and be up and running immediately. All of your software would be there, properly installed with their serial numbers. All of your emails and addresses would be there. It would be exactly the same as using your computer before the catastrophe.

To restore to a new hard drive you could just do a reverse clone. To restore to a new computer, you can use the Migration Assistant to bring everything over from the external drive.

The Smart Update feature means that the next time you backup, only the modified files are added, so it takes only a few minutes. Schedules can be set to backup regularly.

Pay on the web and download for $27.95

Bookdog       http://www.sheepsystems.com/bookdog/

One of Safari’s most glaring omissions is the ability to sort bookmarks alphabetically. If this is a problem for you, Bookdog is the answer.   $15

CoconutBattery      http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/

iClip                http://inventive.us/iClip/

iClip does a similar thing to CopyPaste; some people like it better.

I prefer CopyPaste. $20

e2Sync          http://www.e2sync.com/

e2Sync enables Entourage to synchronize with other Macs or mobile devices such as a Treo, mobile phone and other software such as the Address Book, iCal and others.      $39.

iClock            http://www.scriptsoftware.com/iclock/iclockmac.php

iClock enhances the functionality of the Menu Clock that came with your Mac. It gives you both the time and date on the Menu Bar and has an alarm feature, an hourly chime, a count-down timer and multiple time zones. Any of these features can be turned on or not. Made by the same people who make my favorite Copypaste.        $20.

LaunchBar   http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html

LaunchBar is a sweet little utility that opens any application with a couple of keystrokes. Very fast. Sort of a limited Spotlight for Panther.         $9.

Senuti            http://wbyoung.ambitiouslemon.com/senuti/

Senuti allows you to move tunes from your iPod to your computer.

Several times, I’ve seen people loose all of their downloaded and purchased music on their computers and find that even though they had the music on their iPods, they couldn’t move the music from iPod to computer. Senuti accomplished this simple job… and it’s Free.

WireTap Pro             http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/wiretap/

WireTap Pro is an all-purpose digital recording device to record your old tapes or vinyl, voice, things from iTunes or any audio input to MP3 format. $19.

Call me at 415-927-2289 or email MacSupportX@mac.com.

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