Dr. Applove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love my Macbook

So like I said before, my Macbook Pro and I are finally beginning to learn to live together, and I owe it all to the absolutely badass people that are way smarter than me with respect to computers and writing software that offer their wares either for free or as open source.  Some of these apps fix the glaring retarded errors that apple call "features" some are just so awesome that when I sit down at a computer without them I feel lost like a litter of kittens left in a box on the street in the pouring rain.  Ya, its like that.

I'll start with the best of all of these programs: Quicksilver by Blacktree Software.  I hate the Finder in OSX, and this allows everything on my computer to be accessible within a few keystrokes, rather than clicking through the finder tree.  Quicksilver can be used to simply launch applications or open folders, or you can use it to control iTunes, edit text files, IM people, or even add events to iCal.  If you have an Apple and try one program only on this list, try this one.  If you don't have an Apple, you're not out of luck, but that recommendation will come later in the week, wah ha ha ha!

Next up is a system utility called Fan Control.  This is the little app Apple "forgot" to include. What it lacks in pizzazz and features it makes up for in doing its single job incredibly well: it allows you to ramp up the fan speed so you don't set your lap on fire while doing awesome things like reading my blog.  Perfect.

Next is another app that helped me fix Apple's multi-touch "feature".  Multiclutch allows you to assign any keystroke command in any application to one of the multi-touch movements on the new macbooks.  I set all the zoom in/zoom out and rotate multi-touch crap to keystrokes that do nothing, basically turning off the horror altogether, thus making the trackpad useable again.  If you're not like me and fell in love with the multi-touch, then you can add a bunch of functionality to any of your favorite software by mapping your most used keystrokes to whatever swooshy finger thing you want to.  Its win-win.

For all of you that forget shit all the time like me and hated the stupid Stickies app that comes with OSX, there's XPad.  I frackin love this app.  Its a super fast, super lightweight, super easy to organize note taking app.  I'm using it as we speak, listing my favorite apps out on it.  I used it for notes on my thesis, I use it to write down things to do, I use it to list out the hypothetical starting lineup of the 2009 Cleveland Browns so I know what they should draft.  (RB/OLB/CB, by the way)  It even saves when you close, so if you use it in conjunction with quicksilver you can launch it, write something down, then quit it and in 5 seconds you've taken a note, saved it, and closed out again.  And it saves each "page" off to the side so you can have many different notes going, and even organize them by content.  It does even more than all that, and is way more elegant than my writing could ever make it sound, so just go get it.

While OSX is built on Unix and is inherently more awesome than Windows so there's no need to continually defrag your failing Windows hard drive, you should at least do SOME comp cleanup to keep it running at its fastest.  Onyx combines everything you would ever want to do to clean out your Apple in one awesome lightweight free little app.  Repairs disk permissions, cleans cookies, caches, etc etc etc.  And it has a cool name.  But don't confuse it with Onyx, the rap group who dominated in '93 with their hit "Slam".  Ghetto 13 year old Eddie loved that shit though.  Side note: The first CD I ever purchased was Dr. Dre: The Chronic.  I was 13.  Way to go "explicit lyrics" tag.  Way to keep that stuff away from kids.

Aaaaaand finally comes an app that isn't completely free, but is way worth it: Connect360.  With this simple $20 app I can stream all my itunes music (including playlists), itunes video podcasts, movies, iPhoto pics, and everything else in iLife to my Xbox 360.  Funny story: My Apple laptop now connects and streams media to my Microsoft Xbox better and more easily than any of my MICROSOFT computers.  Way to drop the ball on THAT Microsoft.

Well that's probably enough awesomeness to try and cram down your throats for one day, so I'll stop there.  Sorry for all you Windows users, but since Apple was leading the way in the poll I figure I'd start there.  I promise of the course of the next week I'll bust out the old XP laptop and figure out what I love on that thing and cram THAT shit down your throat too.  If you ask nicely I might even drop some linux apps on you too.  And sorry, Martin, it'll be for Ubuntu/Gnome, none of that Opensuse/KDE junk.  Mercedes vs VW my ass!

e.