"Again, the price of $299.99 is high but worth it if a lot of video work is expected in the near future, though those wanting to edit the occasional family video may want to use iMovie that comes free with their Mac."
I find that amusing. $299 is high? Well the old Final cut was over $1000. Avids once cost $50k+. I used to work on the first non-linear, uncompressed finishing system - it cost $500k. So no, FCP X is not expensive.
1. VLC - life is too short to be worried whether Apple has decided if your video format is acceptable. Get VLC and play any video. (And put it on your iPad too, or Nplayer or some other player that is format agnostic)
2. App launching - yes. the Dock is pretty but... meh. The keyboard-centric will look to Alfred or similar, and for a better GUI launcher etc get Dragthing.
3. Finder - well, yes... finder works... just like Windows Explorer works - but have a look at Pathfinder or my choice is TotalFinder.
4. Audio - get XLD... rip your CD's to FLAC or Apple Lossless, convert to mp3 etc etc. Free and fast.
If you’re anybody writing a “must-have Mac apps” article, and don’t mention the excellent (and cross platform) 1Password, you’re doing it wrong.
Also kind of surprised Dropbox didn’t get a mention…
1Password & DropBox, absolutely!!
Evernote: same notes across all devices. Default Folder X: Streamlined navigation of Open/Save dialogue boxes. Direct navigation to folders in the Finder.
Used to be a big Evernote user here, but they slowly moved to monetising the platform and its usefulness waned considerably. Notes provided basic (very, very basic) functionality but still lacked some of the best features of Evernote (e.g. Tags!). Recently, I discovered KeepIt! and am trialling that product (both macOS and iOS versions) and it seems a nice clean tool that provides features Notes doesn't and appears quite capable.
Alfred 3 - Although Spotlight has come a long way, Alfred is still the better option since it is more configurable and to be quite honest prettier.
Carbon Copy Cloner - I usually make regular full disk images of any macs so that in a worst case scenario if the drive fails I just plug in the backup drive and boot and continue working.
Quiver - Although termed as a developers "notebook", I find it's usages are much wider. For things that I don't do often I find it is a good place to document processes. It is also good at keeping together notes of stuff that I am actively researching. It is simple to use, yet you can add cells for images, text, markdown, Latex, and of course line numbered fixed with cells for code.
Screenflow - Is very useful for recording your screen and your voice and doing rudimentary editing. I work remotely so it is useful when trying to get my point across where an email or text cannot quite do it. It can be used for How-Tos, etc.
SnippitsLab - Purely for development, I find this a great place to store all my snippits of code of code patterns that I often use.
Comments
I find that amusing. $299 is high? Well the old Final cut was over $1000. Avids once cost $50k+. I used to work on the first non-linear, uncompressed finishing system - it cost $500k. So no, FCP X is not expensive.
1. VLC - life is too short to be worried whether Apple has decided if your video format is acceptable. Get VLC and play any video. (And put it on your iPad too, or Nplayer or some other player that is format agnostic)
2. App launching - yes. the Dock is pretty but... meh. The keyboard-centric will look to Alfred or similar, and for a better GUI launcher etc get Dragthing.
3. Finder - well, yes... finder works... just like Windows Explorer works - but have a look at Pathfinder or my choice is TotalFinder.
4. Audio - get XLD... rip your CD's to FLAC or Apple Lossless, convert to mp3 etc etc. Free and fast.
Alfred 3 - Although Spotlight has come a long way, Alfred is still the better option since it is more configurable and to be quite honest prettier.
Carbon Copy Cloner - I usually make regular full disk images of any macs so that in a worst case scenario if the drive fails I just plug in the backup drive and boot and continue working.
Quiver - Although termed as a developers "notebook", I find it's usages are much wider. For things that I don't do often I find it is a good place to document processes. It is also good at keeping together notes of stuff that I am actively researching. It is simple to use, yet you can add cells for images, text, markdown, Latex, and of course line numbered fixed with cells for code.
Screenflow - Is very useful for recording your screen and your voice and doing rudimentary editing. I work remotely so it is useful when trying to get my point across where an email or text cannot quite do it. It can be used for How-Tos, etc.
SnippitsLab - Purely for development, I find this a great place to store all my snippits of code of code patterns that I often use.