10 Essential Productivity Apps For Your Login Items

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

10 Essential Productivity Apps For Your Login Items

Posted on 10:23 AM by -

Apple has done an incredible job with Mac OS X and has made great improvements since Mac OS 10.1 was first released. However, Apple still haven’t managed to include essential productivity apps in Mac OS 10.6 such as a clipboard viewer, a note-taking app with keyboard shortcuts, an app to store your code snippets, etc.
For that reason, we’ve listed 10 very useful Mac apps for productivity that will help you greatly in your day-to-day tasks. I wouldn’t suggest that you launch all 10 every time you login, but one or two may seem particularly helpful.

iStatMenus

iStat Menus

With iStat Menus, you can quickly take glances at how your CPU, Memory, Network, Disk and Heat Sinks are doing just from the menubar. No need to open new windows to monitor them anymore.
In addition, you can now format your menubar’s clock the way you want it to. This means you can finally include the day and date in the menubar to avoid clicking the clock first to see them.
Price: Free
Developer: iSlayer
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or higher

urlWell

URLWell

Admit it, you bookmark everything on your browser or other social bookmarking sites but at the end, you never read them. With URLWell, you can simply drag-and-drop URLs from a browser to its menubar icon and it’ll bookmark it for you on your hard disk.
It comes very handy when separating the important bookmarks from the less important ones. It’s a shame that the development team (http://enigmarelle.com) suddenly shut down without any word.
Price: Free
Developer: Enigmarelle (no longer active)
Requires: Mac OS X 10.3 or higher

Anxiety

This is probably the fastest way to view your iCal to-do list. You can see it by clicking Anxiety’s menubar icon.
Having a to-do list app that syncs with iCal helps you have one centralized and uncluttered calendar and tasks (very useful when synching with BlackBerries and iPhones).
Price: Free
Developer: Model Concept
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or higher

timeOut

TimeOut

This app is one of a kind. It does one thing — remind you to take breaks from the computer.
Most of the time, we unconsciously spend devoted hours on the computer which can lead to migraines and lightheadedness. With TimeOut, you can set time intervals for when to get off the chair.
Price: Free
Developer: Dejal
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 or higher

Text Expander

TextExpander

Do you keep making the same typos? Well, you can set that typo as the abbreviation for the actual word in TextExpander and it will automatically replace the typo with the true spelling.
Developers, you can also use TextExpander to store code snippets. Set “lorem” as an abbreviation to a full paragraph of a dummy text and it will ‘expand’ it for you (no need to copy paste!).
Price: $29.95/Free Trial available
Developer: SmileOnMyMac
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 or higher

Namely

Namely is an application launcher that does not require any learning. What does this mean? Basically, it’s faster than Spotlight.
Best of all, Namely can actually analyze the apps you use the most and will give them as suggestions for even faster launching.
Price: Free
Developer: Amar Sagoo
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or higher

Sticky Windows

This is truly a revolutionary software, you can now transform the windows on your desktop to tabs on the sides of your screen.
Sticky Windows adds to what Exposé has to offer, it reduces windows clutter for good. And it also works flawlessly with Spaces.
Price: $19.95/Shareware
Developer: Donelleschi
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 or higher

Sapiens

Another fantastic software from Donelleschi. Sapiens is an application launcher that can be activated by moving your cursor in a circle!
To make it even better, it has a ‘brain’ that memorizes which apps you use the most, in return, those apps are displayed in front of Sapiens’ panel.
Price: $19.95/Shareware
Developer: Donelleschi
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 or higher

Sidenote

Apple’s Stickies app is nice but it has no keyboard shortcuts and it adds clutter to your desktop.
Sidenote stays hidden on either side of the screen until you hover your cursor over the side which you put it at, better yet, you can set keyboard shortcuts to call it out.
Price: Free
Developer: Pierre Chatel
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 or higher

Jumpcut

Possibly the best clipboard viewer available for OS X. When it’s running, you can access Jumpcut via the menubar where you will see a list of the clipboard contents.
When a clipboard text is selected, it will automatically paste the entire text to the document you are currently typing in. Using keyboard shortcuts to traverse through your clipboard is also possible.
Price: Free
Developer: Snarkout
Requires: Mac OS X 10.1 or higher

Internet Dumper

Wednesday, October 7, 2009