Before I begin, it’s good for you to know that I don’t have the new OS Leopard. I know, it’s pretty damn depressing. Also, this is my first post on gadgets, and I’m quite a huge leap from being a computer genius. I don’t own the lastest technologies, I certainly can’t do crazy stuff like stress-test them, and I don’t go around meddling with microchips and what have you. I freak out when I have to pry the keys off my MacBook to clean them for fear they’ll break. Long story short, I am your everyday MacBook owner and technology consumer. Everything you’ll read here will be from the point-of-view of a consumer, and my opinion is certainly not law. Ready? Here we go.
Tiger comes with fairly useful applications, but you know how it works: the people over at Adobe and Microsoft Office are hell bent on getting some profit for their hard work, so you can either get a legit copy and pay a mighty sum for them, or download a copy somewhere else. I don’t aim to promote piracy, but S$2,000 for Final Cut Studio? I don’t operate a bank here.
There are, thankfully, other apps that come free. Below is the list I’ve compiled, and how useful I think they are. But who cares what I think? Try them out yourself!
- Adium: This is the Mac version of Microsoft Messenger or Windows Live Messenger on a PC. Of course, there’s still MSN for Mac, and I confess to having two just in case I run into network problems (the school I used to go to somehow stopped me from signing in to MSN), but there are other reasons to have Adium installed as well. First, Adium works with many other messaging platforms, like AIM, iChat and MSN. Second – and this is most relevant to me and for anyone else having to communicate via a shared airport signal – Adium allows iChat entries to appear together with your MSN list, so you don’t have to open iChat at all. I believe that saves some RAM, but even if it doesn’t, you have one less application to clutter your screen.
