For OS X users.
Setting up the economy Hackintosh which my buddy FU Steve built the other day made me realize just how many little applications I use which require installation on a new machine.
Several of these appear in the menu bar on my desktop and here are a few words about the ones which add greatest value.
Dropbox:
You can download Dropbox here. It provides 2gB of free cloud storage and is handy for exchanging large files with friends when Mail rejects them as attachments. Equally, it stores your 1 Password key chain allowing you to use 1 Password on any computer. MobileMe does not work properly with 1 Password, in case you were thinking of going there. Plus MM will soon be shuttered by Apple and who knows what their cloud offering will support? 1 Password availability is a tremendous time saver when setting up a new machine which invariably requires the input of many cryptic serial numbers for newly installed software.
Dropbox will install a folder in your Finder which makes it very easy to access and to move files as with any Finder folder.
Fingerprint:
When Apple added wireless printing to its iOS devices only selected printers from Hewlett Packard supported it. Given that the worst run US computer company, HP, is now getting out of the PC (and printer?) business (who knows with these jerks?), it’s not a great place to depend on for your printing needs but you can get iOS to work with any Bonjour printer using Fingerprint. Just remember to switch on Printer Sharing in System Preferences. More here.
Ralink:
If you use an aftermarket USB wireless dongle for broadband, Ralink provides updated drivers which work with Lion and allow wireless to work. This used to be an ugly dock icon but is now a discreet menu bar one. More here.
Moom:
Moom rocks! Not only can you finally get the green button in app windows to work properly – it’s still broken in Lion – you can save your favorite window arrangement in Moom and restore it at the click of a button. More here.
Air Display:
Air Display allows you to use your iPad as an additional display at a pinch. More here.
LogMeIn:
Need to access a file on your home or office machine when you only have the iPad or a notebook with you on the road? LogMeIn is the answer. It’s surpisingly fast to refresh screens and works perfectly with my three display setup, showing any one of the three or all three at once, though that’s a bit of an eye strain on an iPad display. More here.
SMARTReporter:
SMARTReporter tells you about the health of your drives – spinning disc or SSD. If a drive is failing the icon turns red. Why wouldn’t you install this? More here.
Temperature Monitor:
If you forced me to have just one menu bar icon, it would without a doubt be Temperature Monitor. This utility shows you temperatures at selected points in your machine and I have mine set to display CPU Core #1 for my Core2Quad and Core i3 CPUs. For whatever reason, core #1 in these multi core CPUs always seems to run warmest. Having lost any number of Apple’s poorly engineered iMacs and MacBooks to overheating, you can understand just how sensitive I am to proper temperature management. More here.
Airport status:
Wonder why I have this in the Menu Bar when I use a wireless dongle with Ralink software, above? Well, I also use a PCI-E TPLink internal wireless card set up to emulate Airport. In other words, I have two wireless systems working simultaneously, in case one goes down. Without wireless you are literally dead to the world, something I cannot afford in my day job. It’s like that old joke about Jaguar car owners. You always own two. One to drive, one with the mechanic. Of course, now that Jags are made in India, you only need one.
DVD ejection ‘button’:
Arrogant Apple doesn’t want you placing this in your Menu bar and makes no such option available in System Preferences. Simply follow these instructions and you can open your DVD drive regardless of the keyboard you are using.
Time Machine:
I use an external Time Machine versioned backup HDD and take it with me when traveling, in the event of fire or earthquake damage to my office location. You can invoke this icon from System Preferences->Time Machine. My backup philosophy is on display here.
MobileMe sync:
One thing MobileMe does well, when it’s not down that is, is to keep your Calendars, Address Book and Safari bookmarks sync’d across all your OS X and iOS devices. Essential to me and an incredible time saver when setting up a new machine.
Time and Date:
Not as obvious as you might think. It took Apple until Snow Leopard to finally provide a full Time
That’s it for selected Menu Bar icons. The beauty of all these apps is they work on a Hackintosh. Why, they even work on your overheating iMac. In a follow-up piece I’ll address some of the other applications I find essential in my daily OS X use.