Caffeine
Have you ever had a 14-hour Hulu marathon, where you had to walk up to the computer and shake the mouse every 10 minutes when the screensaver popped up? Yeah, been there, done that. By default, Apple sets your screen to turn off after a fixed time, which is nice for the environment and your battery life, but incredibly annoying if you are letting your computer do something (i.e. showing a presentation, watching a movie, or running system maintenance for your death ray) that doesn’t require moving your mouse. Of course, you can always disable the screensaver and cancel the energy savings in System Preferences, but then Al Gore would come after you.
Luckily, a middle ground exists. Caffeine, a lightweight utility designed for one and only one purpose, as a toggle for screensaver and display-sleep settings. If you activate it, it will disable the two, deactivate it and regular power-saving settings will resume. We recommend letting it open on startup. Just remember to turn it off after your movie marathon is over, as a computer that cannot dim or turn off its screen will suck up a ton of electricity.
You can download Caffeine here.
LogMeIn
Click the screenshot to embiggen!
The screen-sharing feature in iChat is great if you have friends who have a Mac and you are exchanging tech support for favors, or if you are trying to show them something on your computer, but unfortunately, it is limited to people with OS X Leopard. For everyone else, screen sharing is a tedious and excessively techy affair, involving port forwarding, IP addresses, and VNC clients. LogMeIn is technically a Web app, but its general awesomeness, and the fact that the client software runs from the menubar, forced us to add it to this list. Essentially, LogMeIn allows you to add any of your computers (or friends’ computers) to your remote sharing list. Any time that the host computer is running the client software, you can share their screen, provided, of course, you have their username and password. A more practical use, though, is installing it on your home machine so that you can access your files from work / evil lair / Starbucks.
LogMeIn has both a browser plug-in (for viewing) and a client application, and can be downloaded here.
Mail Unread Menu OR Google Notifier
If you use OS X’s built-in Mail application, you know one of the greatest things about it is that it badges the number of unread messages in your inbox on its icon in the Dock. That said, if you hide your Dock, this advantage is meaningless. Mail Unread Menu fixes this problem by putting a new mail indicator conveniently on, guess what, the menubar. It also adds more customization features, like selecting a specific folder to monitor.
Mail Unread Menu can be downloaded here.
Alternatively, if you use Gmail on a Mac but don’t like desktop mail clients, the Google Notifier for Mac offers the same functionality, but connects directly to the Web version of the service. It also offers slick Google Calendar integration, reminding you of all the tasks you put off in favor of reading this post. Don’t worry, though, it was totally worth it.
Google Notifier can be downloaded here.
MozyHome
Time Machine is great as a home backup solution because it is so simple to use -- you plug in a huge hard drive, and it backs up all your data every hour. However, those without an external hard drive or a fear of messing up the space-time continuum have other options (check out our detailed review of all your cloud backup options). MozyHome is feature rich, free for up to 2GB of storage, and runs from the menubar, backing up select folders to MozyHome’s offsite data centers.
MozyHome can be downloaded here.
fork12
May 24, 2010 at 11:03pm
i was not aware about this version.it is easy to set up and in customizing.thanks for sharing.
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Airic04
April 30, 2010 at 8:42pm
Hey i went to the website for iStat Menu and now its a 14 day trail or $10 to buy????? Anyone else run into this?
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February 24, 2010 at 2:35am
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alyssaker123
February 16, 2010 at 3:38am
This new way to read Kindle books will help Amazon stay the big dog when it comes to e-Books.
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lovestar
November 27, 2009 at 4:49pm
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ammarvvip
November 11, 2009 at 7:55am
thank you ar..is nice11
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benet
November 10, 2009 at 7:42pm
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benet
November 10, 2009 at 6:57pm
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abastian
October 04, 2009 at 4:00pm
https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTIzMTYyOTM5
use the link above to get 1/4 GB of free space for you and me
Thank you
wstokyo
July 22, 2009 at 10:22pm
I had been using the iStat widget for a long time and wasn't aware of the menubar version. It's a great app. Easy to set up, customizing is fantastic. As for Dropbox I really like the syncing and sharing.
golf25radioman
July 16, 2009 at 12:48pm
I contacted the developer and the extra 250MB was added, not a problem. Thanks for everyone's input.
Tom
Hutif
July 03, 2009 at 8:56pm
Used the link for an extra 250MB. Also @edwinblaw , I get the feeling you are just looking at the first page. Correct me if I'm wrong...
edwinblaw
July 02, 2009 at 3:21pm
Must have done something wrong .. I only see three (3) apps and the dropbox is great.Ed The only love you can buy is that of a dog.
bpettis
August 10, 2009 at 9:22am
Just click on the next button on the bottome of the pag. Below the article, but above the comments.
edwinblaw
July 02, 2009 at 3:17pm
I did the same as you but then moved that copy from my finder to trash and went back using the url given and it offered me the free space so I signed up and downloaded.A little extra trouble but you can still get the extra 250MB if you wanr ;-)Ed The only love you can buy is that of a dog.
golf25radioman
June 30, 2009 at 4:39pm
I didn't know that, to get the extra space offer, you had to set up the account with that link before installing the software and setting it up through the installer. Now I can't take advantage of your most generous offer. :(
Tom
ilikeimac
June 30, 2009 at 8:28pm
Sorry Tom. I didn't know about these offers either when I signed up and I'm pretty sure I could have found a referral link pretty easily. Anyway, you can still get extra space by inviting other people to Dropbox.
ilikeimac
July 25, 2009 at 1:42pm
Dropbox is really awesome, and if you sign up using this link you and I both get 250 MB of extra space: https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTk2MzEyNzkSo help yourself, and a fellow Mac user!
abastian
October 04, 2009 at 4:54pm
https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTIzMTYyOTM5 CLICK the link above AND CREATE AN ACCOUNT USING THAT PAGE to have you and me get 1/4 GB because ilikeimac probably has gotten 3gb, the maximum that you can get with the free account. Thank You very Much
ilikeimac
November 04, 2009 at 2:16pm
You are correct abastian, I not only got my account maxed out with referral credits, but edited the comment above and changed the link to a friend's referral link, then did it again with my brother's referral link. So 3 accounts are now maxed out. Thanks everyone who used my links.
I wonder if this is why it no longer seems possible to edit past comments on this site. Methinks I might have inspired a rule change by abusing the privilege :-D
P.S. Here's yet-another link for another brother (I'm shameless!) https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTI4NDc0MzY5
