Apple Macintosh OSX Applications

Introducing applications.

The standard applications on Apple Macintosh OSX computers, according to various bits of Apple publicity material. My idea here is that I'll eventually add notes about non-obvious (to me) features of these programs.

Mac OS X

Acrobat Reader

Free Adobe Acrobat PDF file display

Address Book

Uses vCard and LDAP standards. Group contacts. Send email, iChat, visit home page, print addresses as mailing labels.

Application Switcher

Apple Tab to bring up list, H to Hide current application, M to Minimise current application, Q to Quit current application.

Art Director's Toolkit

Burn

Burn button appears in Finder by name of blank CDs or DVDs when you copy stuff to them.

Calculator

Versatile calculator, with optional hexadecimal and graphics modes

Chess

Change appearance, rotate board, float board (needs patch).

Classic Environment

Mac OS 9 environment, for older applications. I'm basically trying to avoid the older applications.

Developer Tools

Disk Utility

Enable journalling on external drives. Disk copy. Software restore.

DVD Player

Supports 5.1 audio, full screen video on second monitor, display closed captioning information in a separate window, bookmark DVDs.

Earthlink

30 day trial of USA ISP

FAXstf

FileMaker Pro

Trial only

FileVault

Security preferences let you encrypt your files, and decrypt on the fly.

Finder Sidebar

Holds drives, file servers. Select items in Finder and add to Sidebar with Apple T

Font Book

Install, preview and organise fonts. Disable fonts so they don't show on Font Panel.

Font Panel

Select fonts in documents with Font panel.

Graphic Converter

iCal

Calendar

iChat

Video chat. Children use it to swap files in classrooms.

Image Capture

Allow sharing of attached scanners and cameras to other machines on the network. Check Preferences once you have shared a camera or scanner. Works with stuff like Cannon Power Shot.

Journalling

Logs drive modifications for automatic repairs.

Labels

Control Click file, or use Action button, or chose colour from bottom of File menu.

Location

System Preferences, Network

Mail

Microsoft Office v.X

Trial test drive

OmniGraffle

OmniOutliner

QuickBooks for Mac

New user edition (trial?)

QuickTime

Preview

PDF viewer

Printer Setup

Adds printer application to Library Printers folder, and these can be aliased onto Desktop and Dock.

Safari

Web browser

Sherlock

Internet search tool using optional channels.

Security preference

Password from sleep or from screen saver, disable automatic login, password protect system settings, automtic login after inactivity.

Trash

Secure Empty Trash overwrites contents of deleted files

Zip compression

Finder, select file, then Create Archive from Control Click menu. Click file to unzip.

iLife

Garage Band

Create music.

iDVD (iLife)

Burn DVDs to archive films, photos, movies, data. (requires SuperDrive).

iMovie (iLife)

Import home video and films, edit, add disolves, special effects and titles, add menus, burn DVDs to watch on TV. Pan and zoom still photos.

iPhoto (iLife)

Import photos from digital cameras, view thumbnails, slideshows, crop, resize, edit and retouch, share over web, print photos. Hardcover books of photos (USA only).

iTunes (iLife)

Create playlists, organise in various ways, burns CDs of your music. Add to photos and movies. Sync playlists with iPod. Buy music from iTunes store (USA only).

.Mac package

Address Book

Sync your Address Book.

Backup

Backup utility, to .mac storage, or external drives, CD, DVD.

Bookmarks

Store and sync your Safari web page bookmarks.

iDisk

.Mac provides 100MB of space on Mac servers, integrated into system. Use .Mac preference pane to make a local copy of your iDisk. Set to Sync automatically or manually.

Home Page

Space for 100 MB of web pages.

iSync

Syncs your iDisk space.

Mail

15 MB of disk space for imap email addressed to your .mac account name.

Slides

Slides publisher for your photos.

Virex

McAfee virus protection.