Now my iMac is neat and clean again. I’m being very cautious of what apps I put back on as I don’t want to add a bunch of stuff that just ends up slowing down my machine again.

So far, here are the 16 Mac apps that I realized I can’t live without.

1Password – Most of my passwords and serial numbers are organized in 1Password. Without it, I’d be lost. I’ve tried LastPass but found 1Password much nicer on the Mac.

BusyCal – iCal is great, but BusyCal is better. Its integration with Google Calendar is fantastic and the event reminder window is smarter.

ClipMenu – I can’t live with just one clipboard. I need a running history and ClipMenu keeps that history at my finger tips along with text transformations and snippets. My review.

Coda / Espresso – I haven’t decided which app I like better so I have them both installed. Some day, I’ll pick one HTML editor to rule them all. Or maybe not.

CSSEdit – If you work with CSS, you need CSSEdit. It’s a match made in heaven.

Default Folder X - The finder needs a few super powers and Default Folder X provides them. From recent folders to currently open windows, it’s one app that Apple should buy and integrate into the OS.

Echofon – Right now, Echofon is my Twitter application of choice. Mainly for the list support, but the keyword tweet highlighting is very nice as well. My review. I’m still eagerly awaiting Twitter for Mac though.

Facebook Notifications – I’ve got to have my Facebook fix and desktop notifications are a must have as well.

Google Chrome / Safari – I love Safari, but it’s not perfect. I like Chrome a lot, but it still seems young and rough around the edges. I’m torn between the two, so I have both.

iPhoto – I’ve got thousands of baby photos that need to be organized and iPhoto is a great way to do that. Case closed.

JustNotes / MacJournal – When writing blog posts, I like to have a simple, distraction free environment. JustNotes is quick and conveniently placed in the menubar, where as MacJournal has nice full screen option & organizational features. Both work very well.

MailPlane – I’m all about the Gmail and what better way to integrate Gmail onto the Mac than with MailPlane. The way it supports multiple accounts makes it a must have for me.

Pixelmator – Quick and simple imaging editing at its best. I’m trying to transition over to it full-time, but that’s not going as well as hoped. Still it’s a great application.

Skitch – Skitch is great for taking screenshots, mocking things up and just making pretty arrows and text.

Transmit – I’ve tried many FTP apps and been pretty happy, but Transmit is the best I’ve found on the Mac. From design to usability, Transmit rocks.

One that didn’t make the list is Fireworks. I want to upgrade to Fireworks CS5 (I have CS3) but I haven’t done it yet. I don’t want to install CS3 because I don’t want to add all the files if I won’t need them in a few weeks. I’m trying to survive without Fireworks, but it’s hard. I think I need to just break down and get the latest version.

There are so many Mac applications that it’s hard to know what your top apps are until you start with a clean computer. Then you’ll soon find out what you can and can’t live without.

What am I missing? What do you think is a must have Mac app?

16 Mac Apps That I Can’t Live Without originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Teleport is a system preference that allows you to control other Macs with the keyboard and mouse that you’re currently using. Just scroll off the edge of your screen and on to the other computer. Then keep using the keyboard and mouse as you normally would and you’ll be working on the other computer.

Better yet, it can synchronize the clipboard between machines and you can drag files back and forth between computers.

Teleport is free, extremely easy to install and setup, and works well. I’ve been using it for months with no issues and it comes in extremely handy.

Easily Control Multiple Macs With 1 Mouse & Keyboard originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

The game play second is very similar to the first which means we knew what we were doing right away. However, there are lots of new additions like you can now play as rock Mario or cloud Mario. You can enlist the help of Yoshi too. Who doesn’t love Yoshi?!

Like the original, Super Mario Galaxy 2 has support for two players, however player 2 is just there to support player one. In the new version, player 2 can do more than picking up star pieces and holding off bad guys, they can pick up coins, one-ups and even kill bad guys. It almost feels like cheating.

So far, the worlds seem to have started out harder, however we are working our way though the game. Even better, some stars come with no bad guys defending them so, in some senses, it’s easier.

If you’ve got a Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a great game and worth buying!

Video: 9 Awesome New Game Additions

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Kinda Rocks originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I did a lot of Googling and a lot of testing and came up with one solution; iRip.

iRip is a Mac and Windows application that can transfer music, movies and playlists from your iPod to iTunes. Now backing up music and movies isn’t all that special, but the fact that it can backup playlists was the one feature I couldn’t find anywhere else.

The way it works is that it imports all the songs on any given playlist into iTunes and keeps the playlist intact. The good news is that it doesn’t duplicate all your music in iTunes either. It only copies over what isn’t already in iTunes and links the songs that already exist in iTunes to the playlist being backed up.

The only downside I found was that it was very particular about exact matches between the iPod and iTunes files. It did import some duplicates, however, out of nearly 14,000 songs and 10 playlists, there were not that many duplicates that I had to clean up.

iRip does come with a price tag of $20, but it’s not a bad price seeing as it’s the only application I could find to backup my iPod playlists, and not screw up my iTunes library.

How To Backup iPod Playlists originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Here are 10 great apps I’ve found for the iPad so far that are worth checking out.

Simplenote
Forget Apple’s Notes application, Simplenote is a note pad that will sync your iPad to the web, to your computer and to your iPhone. It is simple, free and syncs. What more can you ask for?

AccuWeather
With big beautiful images, AccuWeather is one of those apps you just have to show your friends. The weather never looked so good.

WeatherBug
AccuWeather may look better, but WeatherBug makes it easy to see what’s happening outside. It’s focus is mainly on the radar but also includes the current conditions and forecast.

Yahoo Entertainment
Yahoo has a pretty nice application for checking out what’s on TV, entertainment news and watching the latest headlines. Plus it’s very well designed.

Netflix
Netflix makes it easy to manage your queue right from the couch with the Netflix app. You can even watch movies and TV shows instantly! Now I just have to figure out how to get the picture on my TV.

FeeddlerRSS
Google Reader isn’t exactly optimized for the iPad, but FeedlerRSS is. It’s the best free feed reader that I know of and syncs directly with your Google Reader account.

Doodle Buddy
Let your creativity come out and play with Doodle Buddy. You get a blank screen where you can draw, paint, glitter, smudge, and stamp whatever you want. You can also import pictures from your picture library and doctor them up. Once finished, save or email your masterpieces to friends.

Toy Story
Disney has made a few interactive books for the iPad, but Toy Story is the only free one. You can read along, have it read to you, record audio, paint, listen to music, and play games. It’s really nice and your kids will love it.

PCalc Lite
Not sure why the iPad doesn’t come with a calculator, but PCalc Lite is a good alternative with big buttons and plenty of calculator functions.

ABC Player
Why aren’t other networks jumping on the iPad bandwagon? ABC is and they are doing a great job. You can watch all your favorite ABC shows anywhere you’re connected to the internet. Now, about getting that to my TV…

Betty Crocker Cookbook
It’s a cookbook that has beautiful, and yummy, pictures. It’s organized by type of meal or ingredient or you can click the “surprise me” button and see what it suggests. Put your iPad on a stand in the kitchen and you’re all set!

Those are some of the best free iPad applications I’ve found so far.

These applications are free for now, but I can’t guarantee they’ll be free forever so go download them now if you want them.

What have you found? What should I be downloading?

11 Free iPad Apps – You Should Check These Out originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Echofon is a really nice Twitter application for the Mac. Like Tweetie 1 and Twitterrific, its kind of free as long as you don’t might a nagging window on startup and the occasional ad; which isn’t that bad. Or you can shell out a few dollars and own it outright.

The nice thing about Echofon is it has list support built-in. You can view your lists, add and remove people from lists and create new ones if you need to. This is big for me as I’m a huge fan of lists. They help me filter though my followers so I can keep up to date on my ‘real’ friends or segment people by topic.

Echofon also does a great job at showing the conversation of a set of tweets so you don’t miss out on anything. It even has a feature where it’ll highlight tweets with particular keywords so you can quickly scan a lot of tweets for certain subjects. I have mine setup to highlight anything with iPad, Mac or Minnesota so I don’t miss out on something I may be interested in.

Another thing I really like about Echofon is that to shorten a URL it’s Apple+S. That’s so easy to remember and use. Of course it also has the ability to auto shorten URLs, so the shortcut isn’t even needed.

Echofon also supports multiple accounts, image uploading, ties to your bit.ly account, has Growl notifications, the ability to view profile information, follow un-follow block or mark someone as spam, and pretty much everything Tweetie does plus more.

I decided a few weeks ago that I was going to give Echofon a try for one week and I haven’t looked back. It’s an excellent Mac application and well worth checking out while we all await Tweetie 2 Mac, or Twitter 2 Mac, or whatever they are going to call it.

While Waiting For Tweetie 2 Mac, Check Out Echofon originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

When the iPad first came out, a lot of people said it was just a big iPod Touch. Sure, it’s similar, but it’s so much more. The screen size alone makes a huge difference. You have no idea how small an iPhone or iPod Touch really is until you play with an iPad. It makes me look at my iPod Touch and think ‘how can I even use this?’

iPad Size vs iPod Touch

Another great thing about the screen size is that everything look so good. Upon firing up AccuWeather, the icons are beautiful and the presentation is fantastic. Apps can become so much more than they are on the iPhone as more screen real estate makes a big difference.

AccuWeather

The iPad also makes me feel as if I’m Tom Cruise from the Minority Report. You know, when he’s swiping screens left and right and clicking on things all in the air. I walk by my desk, swipe the screen and click on an app and it makes me feel like I’m from the future.

There are some downsides, as with any gadget. The virtual keyboard is great, but you’ll still type with your thumbs. If you want to write a paper, or long blog post, I’d suggest getting a bluetooth keyboard or the USB adapter.

Strangely enough, the F and J keys on the iPad keyboard have the little lines on them just like regular keyboards so your fingers know where to be, except you can’t feel them. Odd.

Also iPhone apps run, but run in iPhone size. So Tweetie Twitter works, but you don’t get to take advantage of the whole iPad screen. Sure, you can enlarge the app to 2x the size, but the quality is less as it just stretches the app bigger. More companies need to create iPad versions of their apps as the iPhone versions just don’t do the iPad justice.

2x Scale Up Sample (click to see detail)

Then there is charging. I’m not sure how new your Mac has to be, but I haven’t found one yet that will charge my iPad when plugged into USB. Instead, it must be plugged into the wall.

Overall I love the iPad. It’s fast, does pretty much everything I want, and works great as a little laptop. Especially when my iPod Touch was a first generation so just having sound built into the device is a huge feature for me. It’d be even better if it had a camera, but I think it’d feel awkward taking pictures with the iPad.

I think the iPad will only get better and more and more apps get created for it. There are lots of iPad apps out there, but there are also a lot of publishers that haven’t updated their iPhone apps to take full advantage of the iPad screen.

To me, the iPad is an entertainment system. I can play games, watch movies, go online and stay connected with everyone and I just love it.

My iPad Review – It’s Fast, Fun & So Pretty originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

To be honest, it’s hard to know if the series finale was satisfying or not. It was in some aspects, but left a lot of unanswered questions. Then again, how could they have answered them all?

I was very satisfied with how they ended the show and I kind of get it. I guess I’ve always kind of got it this season, but for some reason, I want more answers. I want it all spelled out for me.

Here is my take on it all.

The Island was purgatory. That place where some go when they die that is in-between heaven and hell. They then had to figure out themselves before they could move on. Plus, the candidates could only move on as a group. They needed each other, and the love they found on the island, before they could truly be happy and enter the light.

If I knew the bible more, I could probably tell you more. It was a religious story, even if we didn’t realize it. Good vs Bad. God vs Devil. Heaven vs Hell.

It’s not clear when who dies or if anyone survived Oceanic flight 815 but they would have had to. I think that the survivors were the Oceanic 6, but I’m not sure.

I also still don’t know why the island moved in time, what Charles Widmore had to do with it, why Desmond was so special, if purgatory still exists or what happened to it, who Richard Alpert was, what the numbers meant, what the dog had to do with it, and so many other questions.

It’s things like that don’t make sense. There are hundreds of unanswered questions, but yet seeing Hurley & Libby, Sawyer & Juliet, Charlie & Clair and so many more re-united at the end made for a very good ending.

I think that as the days go on, and I read other peoples takes on LOST, that more pieces will start to fall into place.

And, chances are, we may just re-watch the whole series some day.

What’s your take on LOST?

My Thoughts On The Series Finale of LOST originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

We had some wallpaper borders to take down and avoided doing it, for years, due to the fact that we didn’t want to spend all day scraping. Then a friend told us about Dif and it’s awesome.

You just spray on some Dif, wait 15 minutes and the wallpaper border pealed right off. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

You can get some Dif on Amazon or check your local hardware store. We found our s at Home Depot and are very glad we did.

Remove The Freakin Wallpaper With Dif originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Ok, so it wasn’t love at first sight. Something about it wasn’t right when I first tested it out. I didn’t give it a chance. Lucky for me, I gave it a second chance a few months later and realized how powerful it really is.

ClipMenu is more than just an app that remembers your clipboard history. There are four things it does, and it does them well.

First off, it remembers your clipboard history. From text to images to HTML or whatever you copy. You set the number of items, you set the layout, and you are in control of quite a bit of how this application looks and works.

The second thing it does is snippets. You can add chunks of text to ClipMenu to ensure that they are not far away when you need them. Very handy when you re-use the same content, or code, over and over again.

Third is the keyboard shortcuts. Mastering these really makes the program shine. I have Shift+Apple+V setup to bring up ClipMenu; and it does, right where my curser is. I can then select from my history or access my snippets. Everything comes to me. Granted, it also has a menu bar icon if you’d rather go to it.

Fourth is the actions. This is one area I’m still exploring but the actions allow you to do more with the text. For example, you can right click on any clipboard history item and paste it as plain text, change the case, or do pretty much anything with the text.

And you get all of this for free!

ClipMenu is a fantastic clipboard application for the Mac and one you should check out if one clipboard just isn’t enough for you.

Master Multiple Clipboards & More with ClipMenu originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Lets start with Twitterrific, if you’ve used it, you know that it doesn’t even have a re-tweet option. I’m not talking about the new fancy one either, I’m talking about just re-posting someone elses tweet with an re: in the front of it. It hasn’t been updated in years and lacks many features. It’d also be nice to separate into tabs DMs, RTs, and have an area for search.

Echofon and Tweetie are better. Both have support for multiple accounts, separate tabs for mentions and direct messages, but both lack lists; which is one of my favorite new features. Tweetie has also yet to add the new re-tweet feature and Echofon is missing saved searches. Again, they’re better, but the iPhone versions are so much better.

Now I still have faith in the desktop version of Tweetie and Echofon coming out with new versions with all the latest features, but I’m thinking Twitterrific is unfortunately as good as it’s going to get.

Update: Less than 24 hours after I wrote this post, Echofon updated with list support! It also includes an updated icon.

Ohh and then there is TweetDeck. The desktop version does have all the same features, but the iPhone version is just so much nicer. I’m not sure if it’s the layout, the unified look, or iPhone technology, but rocks on the iPhone.

Do you suppose that it could be that the iPhone versions make more money? Is that what this is all about? If so, then developers should think about lowering the price on the desktop version to encourage more people to purchase. At $3 for a desktop app, I wouldn’t think twice. But price it at $15 or $20 and I’m not so sure and can deal with a few ads.

Now don’t get me wrong, all four Twitter apps are great, but I find it surprising that they put so much time into the iPhone version and let the desktop version take a back seat. If the desktop version of Twitterrific was anything like the iPhone version, I’d be in love. Unfortunately, that just doesn’t seem to be in the cards.

Why Do Twitter Apps On The iPhone Rock, But Are Lacking On the Desktop? originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

One browser I’ve started really liking is Stainless. Stainless is a Mac browser that runs off of Safari’s rendering engine, but has its own personality.

Stainless features include:

Sidebar Bookmarks
The bookmarks are in a vertical bar on the left side of the screen and they are just favicons so they take up much less room. It’s a new approach to bookmarks that focuses on the favicon and I love it.

Private Browsing
All browsers seem to be hopping the private train lately and Stainless is right there with them. You can have private sessions where no tracks are left behind when you are done.

Single Session Tabs
This means you can login to the same site with multiple accounts in multiple tabs. Two Gmail accounts, multiple Twitter accounts, you name it. This is the only browser that has this ability as far as I’m aware and it’s one of my favorite features.

Individual Process Tabs
Meaning each tab is independent of other tabs. If one crashes, the others remain in working order. Chrome was the first to come out with this idea and most other browsers are still trying integrate this functionality.

Tabs at the Top
Safari tried to pull this off and failed, but Stainless seems to have it down without issues.

Cookie Management
Stainless has a nice cookie management option that allows the browser to toss out any cookies for sites that are not bookmarked. Still not as nice as picking and choosing what cookies to keep, but it’s better than all or none.

Search from Address Bar
I’m not a fan of having an additional search box when the address bar can do the same thing. Much like Google Chrome, Stainless allows a user to put keywords into the address bar and it’ll search Google instead of throwing an error.

Better Tab Management
Stainless has the ability to open new windows in tabs and opening child tabs next to the parent. This really helps keep your browser window organized.

Hidden Status Bar
The status bar shows you only what you need to see when you need to see it. It’s not always visible taking up screen real estate.

Themes
There are no themes yet, but it’s rumored that they are coming.

Colored Page Source With Line Numbers
For developers, it’s nice to see color coded source code and line numbers to help dig though code.  It also includes Safari’s web inspector which is also very valuable for reverse engineering HTML code.

Overall I’m a fan of Stainless. It’s got a lot of nice features and is adding more all the time.

Stainless is a free browser for the Mac and it’s definitely worth checking out. Visit http://www.stainlessapp.com/ to download.

Stainless – A Mac Browser With Unique Features originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Getting the local news on an iPhone or iPod Touch meant loading an overly busy, and usually slow, website or a very basic, and usually ugly, mobile version.

Now however, WCCO, the local CBS station, has come out with an iPhone application that is beautiful! See for yourself.

WCCO iPhone App

WCCO Mobile Website

WCCO Website

I’ve actually thought that WCCO has had the best designed news website in the Twin Citites and it’s great to see them taking the lead again with not only an iPhone application, but also an Android app.

You can download the WCCO iPhone app in iTunes for free.

WCCO News Comes To The iPhone In Style originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Gruml includes:

• Share this article.
• Star this article.
• Like this article.
• Mark as Unread, which also marks the item un-read in Google Reader.
• Tweet this article.
• Send this article to Digg, Delicious, Instazaper, Tumblr, StumbleUpon, Posterous, MySpace and more.
• Write a note to go along with an article.
• Mange labels and organize your labels.
• Keeps the Google Reader keyboard shortcuts.
• Shows you articles from people you follow in Google Reader.

Basically, if it’s possible in Google Reader, it’s possible in Gruml.

I’ve been very happy with Gruml and it’s nice to see a desktop application that actually integrates into Google Reader and all its features.

If you’re on a Mac, and use Google Reader, it’d suggest checking Gruml out.

Gruml – Google Reader Desktop Application for Mac originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Apple just introduced Safari 4. It has ‘remarkable’ new features as is the world’s fastest web browser according to Apple.

Firefox 3.5 will be here soon, and it’s shaping up to be by far the fastest Firefox yet: more than twice as fast as Firefox 3 and 10 times as fast as Firefox 2. That’s some serious speed.

Opera 10 Beta sports a surprising array of new features, a fresh look and feel, and enhanced speed and performance.

Google Chrome (alpha) is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier. Not yet perfected on the Mac, but fun to play with none the less.

Camino 2.0 Beta is out too. No talk about speed enhancements, but I’m sure that’s implied.

As you can see, we not only have upgraded browsers coming out all across the board, but they are also all faster.

So which one is fastest? Well that’s up to speculation. I think each machine is different and speed tests are not very accurate. Try them all and see what you think. Then let us know below what you think is the fastest Mac browser.

5 Mac Browsers, Racing To Be The Fastest originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

The good news here is that Google Chromium works pretty well. I’ve been running it for a few days with no crashes. It seems speedy, renders pages well and really impressed me for a pre-alpha browser.

The bad news is it’s still largely in development. There are a lot of missing and incomplete items. It’s no where near ready for prime time, but it is fun to play with and works well with Ajax heavy sites.

Here are a few Google Chromium features and incomplete items; as of today.

• Each tab is a separate process, however the activity viewer says they are all ‘not responding’ when they actually are.  Just ignore Google Chromium in the activity viewer for now.
• Spell check works for text fields, but not single line input boxes.
• You can bookmark pages, but you can’t un-bookmark them.
• No plug-ins work.  This includes Flash, however I think that makes the browsing experience better at times.
• It can download files, but shows no download window or progress bar.
• The find bar works well, but scrolls badly.
• Pages load pretty fast, except for every now and again when it get stuck waiting to connect to a site.  Not sure why that’s happening.
• It looks very pretty.  I love the Google take on the browser.  The tabs even animate when you open a new tab.
• Has a great built in source code viewer with color coded HTML and line numbers.
• Comes with a handy debug feature much like Firebug or Safari’s web inspector.  Actually I think it’s exactly like Safari’s.
• You can drag and drop tabs.
• Incognito, or private browsing, works, but lacks the cool little incognito icon.
• You can search Google from the address bar.  It also gives you Google search results and browsing history in the address bar which are very handy.
• Your history is saved and displayed beautifully in the browser.  It’s separated by date and shows favicons to help jog your memory.
• Has the cool Google Chrome start page with bookmarks, search history, recently closed tabs and most visited sites.

There are a lot of cool features in Google Chromium and I can’t wait for a beta to come out.  However, that could be months away if not longer.  I’d love to say it’s coming at WWDC, but I highly doubt that based on the development builds.

With that said, the development builds of Google Chromium are coming along very nicely.  You can download yours here (scroll down to the last folder in the list) and take it for a test drive yourself.  New builds are being added almost hourly it seems which means that Google is working hard on getting Google Chrome for Mac ready for the public.

Hello Google Chromium for Mac originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Since the bathroom is small, it’s hard to get before and after picts, but here are a few.

I also shot video afterwords. I should have shot one before, but I didn’t think of that.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Anthony helped us pick out everything and gave great opinions. For example, we had picked a cool designed shower door but never thought about if it’d fit or not; which it didn’t. Instead we got a clear one and it makes the shower feel bigger. Great idea!

Throughout the whole process Anthony Raduenz Specialty kept us informed and educated. We were very happy with Anthony and will definitely call him for future projects. If you are in the Minneapolis, or west metro, and need some work done on your house, I’d recommend Anthony Raduenz Specialty 612.462.4428.

Bathroom Remodel – From Ok to WOW! originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Bluebird
Simple and pretty, this app has the ability to be one of the nicest looking Twitter apps.  It also comes with three built in themes which are very nice and supports multiple accounts.  This one is one I haven’t played with much, but am loving it the more I use it.  Only downside so far is no way to distinguish between read and un-read tweets.

Canary
Still in beta, Canary is said to be the sexiest Twitter client out there.  It’s a nice start and will be one to watch.  No support for multiple accounts but has all the other features you’d need.

EventBox
Not only for Twitter, EventBox also integrates Facebook, Flickr, RSS and Google Reader.  More services on the way too they say.  It’s a bit big for me, but yet I really like it.  Would love to see it get multiple Twitter account support.

Lounge
Lounge made quite an entrance recently.  It looks good, has nice features and supports multiple accounts.  It’ll be a good one to watch as it grows.  Also available for the iPhone.

Nambu
Nambu is my favorite Twitter client right now.  It’s visually appealing, has the ability to clear out read tweets, a menu bar icon for easy access, and makes managing multiple accounts extremely easy.  Even comes with three different ways to view your timeline.  Nambu also plans to add Facebook support.  Highly recommended.  Also available for the iPhone.

NatsuLion
Nice Twitter client with the necessary features.  Makes keeping track of read and unread tweets easy by just mousing over the tweets.  I don’t see a way to re-tweet though.  Humm… Also available for the iPhone.

Pwitter
Pwitter has a nice simple interface.  It reminds me of Twitterrific only with a lot more features.  Has a nice menu bar icon for hiding and showing the main window which is always nice.  Missing the ability for multiple accounts though. If you use Twitterrific, this would be a great step up.

Syrnix
Nice Twitter client but lacks re-tweet capabilities.  You can bookmark your last read message so when you come back, you know what you’ve read and what you haven’t.

Tototl
Don’t know a lot about this one.  Tototl looks like a simplistic Twitter client but is not one I’ve tried.

Twitterrific
Probably the most popular Mac Twitter client.  Works under 10.4 and 10.5 and comes in a very small footprint with a menu bar icon for easy access.  Downsides are that it doesn’t segment out direct messages and replies into their own area and doesn’t have a re-tweet option. It doesn’t work with multiple accounts either. Also available for the iPhone.

TwitterPod
TwitterPod seems to have had a great start, but development has stalled.  Missing are quite a few options, but it’s still a nice basic client.  Would love to see it advance a bit more.

Twucket
I think Twucket is a different take on Twitter clients. It doesn’t seem to have a lot of options, just the basics.  Not having used it, I don’t know a lot about it.

Bonus Round! Twitter apps that are coming soon.

Beak
This one is not out yet, but I signed up for the beta and hope to try it out soon.

Adium
Again, not out yet but eagerly anticipating.  Adium rocks at IM, can it do the same for Twitter?

Those are the 14 Mac Twitter applications that I’ve looked into.  There are probably more out there as I discover new ones all the time.

There are also additional Adobe Air based Twitter apps, Firefox extensions and Dashboard widgets that work on the Mac too.

Which one is your favorite?  What did I miss?

14 Mac Only Twitter Applications originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

What I have setup is Facebook mobile, Weather Underground mobile and Plurk mobile all loaded into one application and stored in my menu bar. When I click on the blue F, I not only see the weather conditions, but also any Facebook updates and Plurk updates.

You can customize Fluid and put in any URL you want into each of the three spaces. If you have more screen room, you can split the main window into as many windows as you want. You can eve split them on top or bottom or have free standing multi-window applications. Myself, I prefer the menu bar apps as they are out of the way, yet easily accessible.

Fluid’s main window user agent can also be set as iPhone so you can use iPhone optimized Google or Meebo. It’d be ever nicer if all the split windows could be set to iPhone user agents too.

Now I’m not saying that splitting up one window into four, or more, mini browsers works well, but for two or three sites it comes in very handy.

Fluid is a really cool piece of freeware for the Mac. I find myself creating individual apps for Facebook, Plurk and Ping.fm to name a few. Now that I figured out how to combine them, they take up less space in the menu bar and give me all the information I want.

Get Quick Updates On All Your Favorite Social Sites With Fluid originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I know what a lot of Mac users are thinking, what about Time Machine? Well, as great as Time Machine is, if my house were to burn down, so would all my backups. An off site backup solution is the only way to ensure that my files are safe. Time Machine works well for local backups, but really isn’t the best solution overall and that’s why I looked into other options.

Backblaze costs $5 month per computer and works for Mac and Windows machines. They give unlimited space and you always have access to your files via a web browser. Want a copy of your computer? Backblaze can send you a USB drive or a DVD with all your files for an additional cost.

So how does it work? Once you sign up, you install the application on your computer, put in your account information and let it go!

For those that haven’t backed up over the internet before, it takes a long time the first time. Why? Because you have a lot of files that need to be uploaded. It took days for my first backup to complete. Yes, the initial backup seems to take forever, but that’s based on how many files you have, your file sizes, your computer, your internet connection and a lot of other things. Chances are, any online backup system will take just as long. I found myself leaving my machine on 24/7 so it could work all night and all day long. However, once the initial backup is done, you never have to worry about it. It only backs up files that are new or have changed since the last backup and doesn’t slow down the machine.

There are a number of preferences to play with if you want too. I used these to control and prioritize my initial backup; plus make sure I’m not backing up stuff I don’t want or really need.

Throttle Preference

Throttle lets you control how many system resources Backblaze uses when backing up. I usually set this to Faster Network when I wanted to use my computer and then Faster Backups when I went to bed or to work. Backblaze might as well work as hard as it can when I’m not on my computer. After the initial backup, I just leave it somewhere in the middle and it’s all good.

Exclusions Preference

You can also filter out folders or file types that you don’t care to have backed up with the exclusions preference. For me, I had a bunch of old files and folders that I just hadn’t gotten around to removing and don’t really need. I also chose not to backup my Parallels drive and some random other folders. You can use this to prioritize backups too by adding the less important folders to the exclusions list so that everything else gets backed first. Then go back in and remove the exceptions.

All Backed Up!

I’m very happy with Backblaze and would recommend it to other users. I’ve had no issues and no complaints. I now don’t even have to think about backing up my computer as all my files are automatically backed up and safe!

Backblaze Lets You Forget About Backing Up – It’s That Easy originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com