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10 Awesome FREE Plug-ins for OS X

Arvind Srinivasan — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:02:00 -0500

Who says you need an application? Sometimes, all you need is a plug-in to make your regular apps run harder, better, faster, and stronger. However, plug-ins don't get the respect and recognition that full fledged apps do. And while there are applications to do most things, who needs an application when a simple plug-in can do everything behind the scenes?

We introduce the ten “Flugins” (free plug-ins) that will make you forget there were ever shortcomings in your favorite OS X apps.

QuickTime Plug-ins

>>Perian Tools

If QuickTime player was a bread bowl, and your video was soup (forgive us, we're hungry), Perian would be the forks, knives, and spoons all in one. You only need one file format to play the video, but it has so many extras that you will never be caught off guard. Perian includes playback support for MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture, all within QuickTime. Yeah, we didn’t know there was a "Fraps" file format either. Technically, you could just download VLC player, but QuickTime integrates much better with other OS X applications, and it's set to be the default media player, anyways.

Perian can be downloaded here.

>>Flip4Mac

Apparently (and surprisingly) there are still a lot of people using Windows Media Player for their everyday tasks. However, there is a glaring lack of support for the Windows media file formats (WMV and ASF) in OS X. To add insult to injury, even though there are third-party solutions that can open WMV files, like the excellent Miro Player, there is no way to play windows media files that are embedded on Web pages. Flip4Mac has a solution, and even though it only does one thing, it does it well. It extends WMV and ASF support throughout the OS X ecosystem, so your compatibility worries can go away. There is a free version that merely allows playback of Windows Media files, which is enough for us, but if you want to convert WMV to QuickTime, export to WMV, or export to HD WMV, you will have to shell out some cash.

Flip4Mac can be downloaded here.

Safari Plug-ins

>>Glims

The browser wars are in full swing. Internet Explorer, once the unquestioned king of the Internet hill, finds its market share declining, while Firefox gains momentum every week. And it's no surprise, given its combination of geek-friendly extensibility and basic user-oriented stability. That's not to say it's perfect; it's notorious for being RAM-intensive, a problem exacerbated by its imperfect port to OS X. However, without comparable features, such as saved tabs and keyword searches, using Apple's native Safari feels like using a Honda while a Lexus is parked in the driveway.

Glims, a plug-in for Safari, offers a good compromise. It adds features like full screen browsing, saved tabs on close, auto-complete in search, enhanced form auto-completion, and our personal favorite, mappable keyword search, which allows you to easily query any search engine from the address bar. While Glims’ feature set won’t appease hardcore Firefox users, it duplicates the functionality of some of Firefox’s most popular extensions.

Glims can be downloaded here. However, as of this writing (6/26/09) there is no Safari 4 compatible version. We assume one is in development, but until then, it can actually increase the probability that Safari crashes on launch, so we recommend you don't download it.

>>AdBlock

Firefox users know the power of Ad-Block, the veritable defense against your computer suddenly saying “You have won a free iPod nano.” However, if you are using Safari, the only built in defense is the pop-up blocker, which, while effective, does not prevent obnoxious banner ads. Enter Safari AdBlock, which presumably takes inspiration from the Firefox version of the same name. Unfortunately, Safari AdBlock still has fewer features than its Firefox counterpart. You can’t selectively block ads, and you can’t modify the block list, save for adding exceptions.

Safari AdBlock can be downloaded here.

NEXT: Quick Look Plug-ins

Quick Look Plug-ins

>>BetterZip

Even if you have been living in a cave for the past year, you probably know the sheer awesomeness of Quick Look, the OS X tool that allows you to preview the contents of files rapidly with a press of the spacebar. However, what Apple doesn’t advertise is the plethora of Quick Look plug-ins that allow you to preview many more file formats than the default installation. One of the best is BetterZip, a Quick Look plug-in that allows you to preview the contents of zipped folders. This is especially useful to check suspect compressed folders, because you don’t have to decompress them to see whats inside. It can also be useful if you are searching for a specific file and you don’t want to decompress and re-compress folders to find it.

BetterZip can be downloaded here.

>>Folder

Folder is like BetterZip, but allows you to preview the contents of regular folders. If you want to quickly check the organization of your file browser without having to go through Finder, this is the plug-in for you. There isn’t much more to say about it - it is built for one purpose, and does its task admirably.

Folder can be downloaded here.

>>Honorable Mention: ColorCode

If you work with a lot of code, regardless of language, you know how useful syntax highlighting is. You also know that opening up a full IDE is overkill if you just want to browse some code. ColorCode introduces syntax highlighting to Quick Look, offering support for 140+ languages (most languages that OS X recognizes as source code).

ColorCode can be downloaded here.

NEXT: Spotlight Plug-ins

Spotlight Plug-ins

>>ZipLight

If you love the idea of the BetterZip quick look plug-in (#5), but tend to find files with spotlight instead of finder, check out ZipLight, a Spotlight plug-in that lets you search within Zip files. Of course, when you eventually want to use the file, you will have to unzip the folder.

ZipLight can be downloaded here.

>>Google Importer

If you find yourself searching Google too often and would like quicker access to it, the Google Importer Spotlight plug-in will bring Google’s search engine to Spotlight. It works with regular queries, showing internet results alongside files and folders that Spotlight has indexed. Beware though, it has been known to crash if you try to search too many times in a short period - hopefully the developers will fix this bug in a future release.

Google Importer can be downloaded here.

System Wide Plug-ins

>>NTFS--3G

If you have a Boot Camp partition, you know one of the most annoying things to do is transfer files between partitions. Windows does not have read or write support for HFS Journaled, the OS X filesystem, and most external hard drives that are built for Mac are HFS Journaled. So, you generally have two options: USB sticks, or emailing files to yourself.

NTFS-3G gives you an easier solution. Using the MacFuse SDK, which was developed by a few Google employees, it allows you to mount and handle NTFS formatted drives as if they were native Mac ones. This means you can drag large files from your Mac drive to your Windows drive, and vice versa, just using Finder.

NTFS--3G can be downloaded here.

>>Growl

Growl is so widely used by different applications that you likely have it already installed, without even knowing it. However, it is so critical to the Mac experience that we felt we had to include it. Growl is a system wide notifier, of sorts, that allows different applications, like Adium, Transmission, and Dropbox, to alert you with system messages without bouncing the dock or playing an obnoxious sound. Instead, you see a bubble in a predetermined corner of your screen that disappears in a few seconds. Growl is highly configurable, and you can generally set how it is used from individual application preferences.

Growl can be downloaded here.

Have a favorite plug-in you want to share with the world? Drop the info in the comments section.

The 10 Free Menubar Apps That You Didn’t Know About (But Should)

Arvind Srinivasan — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:29:00 -0500

The OS X menubar is a strange beast. It never goes away, changes with every application, and most users couldn’t care less what is on or off it. However, there comes a time in every geek's life when the menubar is simply too...simple. Lucky for you, we have a list of the 10 best completely free applications that run solely from the menubar. Of course, if you are an organization freak, look elsewhere, because the multiple new icons WILL clutter up the otherwise pristine menubar, but we guarantee they will exponentially increase the usefulness of your Mac. To reduce the clutter, you can hold the command key while clicking on a menubar app, and drag it off. For example, unless you have a wicked Bluetooth-based secret lair, there is no particular reason why you have to keep Bluetooth in the menubar 24/7.

Dropbox

It seems as if every service is going to the cloud, with cloud backup, cloud operating systems, and most popular, cloud storage. There are a number of options in the cloud storage game, like SugarSync, Windows Live Sync, Windows Live Mesh, and Syncplicity, but Dropbox is the most feature rich, and is incredibly simple to maintain. When you install it, it creates a folder on your hard drive (you can also choose an existing folder) and will keep that folder in sync with all the Dropboxes on your different computers. Of course, you will need to install the Dropbox application on each computer you want to sync to, but with builds available for OS X, Windows, and Linux, it is an easy affair. If you are running Amiga OS, we can’t help you. Dropbox also has some additional features worth mentioning. You can share public links (albeit with slightly slow download speeds of about 75-100 kb/s) to any of your files, create a photo gallery viewable on www.getdropbox.com, and package and download your files easily from the Web interface.

Quick tip: If you want to sync files or folders to Dropbox without having to put them in the Dropbox folder, contrary to popular belief, you can. You need to use Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal) and type in the following command:

ln -s {Path to file or folder you want to sync} {Path to Dropbox directory}
For example, if we had a folder called ToBeSynced in my Documents folder, the command would be:

ln -s /Users/Arvind/Documents/ToBeSynced /Users/Arvind/Dropbox

VERY IMPORTANT - Keep a space between the two paths

You can download Dropbox here.

Visor

Nothing says “geek cred” like firing up the Terminal and controlling your friend’s computer with SSH. Nothing says “über-geek cred” like having the Terminal drop down, and then controlling your friend’s computer with SSH. Visor is essential for anyone that uses the Terminal frequently, as it allows you to assign a hotkey to bring it onto the screen. It will save your Terminal window without keeping the window open or having to keep it in the Dock. Visor requires the SIMBL plug-in, and full installation instructions can be found here.

iStat Menus

Some call us the RAM Nazi, and for good reason. We obsess over memory usage. Thus, we find ourselves in a conundrum, because if we keep Activity Monitor open to track application memory usage, we waste RAM by having it open. Also, we don’t like to admit to being neurotic. iStat Menus keeps track of not only RAM usage, but also CPU usage, hard drive temperature, hard drive space used, network usage, read/write speed, and a plethora of other esoteric information. There is probably a module that lets you monitor the Mars Rover (no promises). All of this information can be accessed through the menubar, and you can pick and choose exactly what to monitor. We liked the calendar and clock in iStat so much that we replaced the default OS X clock with it.

iStat menus can be downloaded here.

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.

Echodio

Dropbox is great for syncing files that don’t require any particular organizational structure, but can be a pain if you want to sync things that require structure, like iTunes libraries. Echodio offers the same essential syncing functionality, but integrates seamlessly with iTunes, meaning that you can sync playlists and music while preserving the metadata and tagging information. This means the Hannah Montana album you renamed to show up as Iron Maiden will stay that way, saving you from embarrassment (no promises -- if you listen to her music, it is bound to catch up with you someday).

Echodio is free and can be downloaded here.

EverSave

While OS X is not as prone to crashes as, say, Windows, there are still times when you wish you had saved that document but forgot to. EverSave is there to save you every time, automatically saving documents for you. It is very customizable, as you can set it to save on timed intervals or on every application switch, and decide which applications it will monitor. We would only suggest that if you are saving on intervals, you set the interval to a sizeable number, so it’s not saving constantly. If you are using an application like Pages, for example, every time you save a document, a progress bar pops up that renders the application useless.

EverSave can be downloaded here.

pulpTunes

While the developers may be a tad confused with their nomenclature, their product itself is great. It has nothing to do with oranges or pulp, even if the logo suggests otherwise, and instead creates a webpage that can stream all of your iTunes music (or a select amount) in Flash. The application is simple: You launch it, designate a port for it to listen to (15000 is default) and then you can navigate to it in your favorite Web browser and listen to your music. Obviously, it is of no use to listen to it on the same computer that the music is actually stored on, but if you forward the port to that computer, and set up a domain for yourself, you can listen to your music anywhere. You can choose to share this website with anyone, or create user accounts for people to log in and listen. Once on the website, you can download any of the music on the site, search for specific tracks, and filter by genre, artist, and song. However, with great power comes great responsibility. Don’t download tracks that will make the RIAA come after you with a pitchfork and torch.

pulpTunes can be downloaded here.