New Tech Recommendation Series
So way way back when (like back in ‘09), I pledged to start a Mac Recommendations series. I was “really” good and posted two posts on the subject.
Now I’ve decided to revitalize the effort and post about some other things for your computer and on the web in general. For things that are Mac only, make sure to visit the Mac Recommendations tag. For general tech and web type stuff, you can either go to the Mac page or go to my new “Tech Recommendations” tag which will NOT have any Mac only things on it.
Hopefully I’ll actually stick with this goal for a while.
Why Can’t Growl Actually Work?
So there’s this great application for the Mac called Growl. In my opinion this is a must have for all mac users. It adds great functionality to nearly all applications either through built-in support or through outside plugins and applications. Growl itself mimics the built in feature of outlook to pop a notification (on the right I believe) when an email is received through Microsoft Exchange email. The difference is that this service works for EVERYTHING you can think of.
Pretty much every application out there has a plugin of some sort to function with growl. For fb it can tell you when someone writes on your wall or sends you a message or whatever, for gmail it tells you when you receive an email. With iChat or Adium, when someone IM’s you and when someone signs online. There’s a plugin for iTunes to display a popup with the song info when you’re playing a new song.
Essentially Growl is really handy for notifications. However, unfortunately, it isn’t perfect. Growl freezes constantly for me (sometimes every hour, and when this happens it hogs my computer’s CPU). This is a major problem.
While I do love Growl, I wish it worked better so that I could actually rely on it successfully.
Update (June 2011): I’ve been using growl for a while, and it’s been working great!
Caffeine: Your Mac Needs Some Too
So pretty much all of us watch TV and movies on our computer or make presentations in front of large groups using a projector. It’s happened to all of us: your computer goes to sleep at precisely the wrong moment and screws everything up.
That’s why you use caffeine. It’s a small application that essentially consists of a cup of coffee on the menu bar. You click it, and your computer won’t go to sleep. Click it again and you turn it off.
The application even has a couple cool ways to customize how your computer goes to sleep so that it’s perfect.
With caffeine, you’ll never have your computer go to sleep at the wrong time.
What’s Your Mac Missing?
So after a bunch of people have asked me what apps they should get for their (usually new) macs and such, I decided I should probably start actually recording this information rather than just tell everyone verbally. That way I don’t have to keep telling everyone the same information and I can avoid forgetting awesome apps.
Therefore I’m gonna be starting a new line of posts with the label “Mac Must Have” signifying it’s an awesome app you should probably set up for your application. I’ll also comment Mac related informational posts with this tag when relevant (such as a post on how to get your google voice number ringing on your mac).
So here’s the important aspect:
Click here to see all posts on this topic.
Coming up: Caffeine.
