16 Killer Apps to Put On Your Brand New Christmas Mac

Doesn't Leopard do a lot of what Quicksilver does? I don't know, I have neither one but that's what I have heard.

No, not really. Quicksilver allows for lightning quick application launching from the keyboard, without slowing yourself down to grab the mouse, plus a whole lot more. There are plugins for just about any application allowing you to do just about anything. With a few keystrokes you can fire off an email (without ever launching your email app, or your address book, etc.), send the output of one program to the input of another, etc. It's VERY hard to describe just what Quicksilver does, and most people, upon trying it, don't "get it" at first either. It took me (and a lot of people) 2 or 3 different times of trying it out for extended periods before the lightbulb went on.

I use Gimp and Open Office on Ubuntu Linux and they both are good, I imagine they're both just as good on a Mac.

GIMP is ok, but I think there are better Mac-only alternatives (which I'll look up the URLs to later.) As for OpenOffice, there's a Mac-ified port of OO called NeoOffice which is quite good.

Agreed re: TextWrangler. Nice free editor.

Ok, here are some of my additional choices:

Flip4Mac - This is the .wmv plugin for Quicktime, necessary for playing Windows media files on your Mac.

VLC Media Player for OS X - Speaking of media players, VLC is the de-facto standard. No Mac should be without VLC.

HandBrake - HandBrake is a cross platform DVD ripper. Great for ripping DVDs to put on your iPod, etc. It's great, and it's free.

TextWrangler - This was mentioned before. If you're not a programmer and don't need the extra power of TextMate (which is far and away the best editor for the Mac, and an absolute bargain for the price), then TextMate is a great free text editor. Think of it as a more powerful version of TextEdit (the free editor that ships with the Mac.)

iSquint or VisualHub - Both are from the same company. iSquint is free and can convert some file formats to iPod video friendly files. This is one time where I HIGHLY recommend spending the $23 for the big brother, VisualHub. VH is a great utility for converting just about any file format (iPod, PSP, DV, DVD, Tivo, AVI, MP4, WMV, MPEG and Flash) to another format. This is so unbelievably easy to do with VH and very useful, particularly if you'll be creating any video podcasts and want to offer it in various sizes and formats. It also allows you to squeeze up to 18 hours of video on a single DVD (using compression, so be careful when trying to squeeze too much...)

Hazel - Another utility that's hard to describe. Hazel allows you do automate folder actions in a way that's much more powerful than Smart Folders. Hard to describe just how useful this can be, but do some googling and you'll find some examples of how people are using it. For a VERY BASIC example, let's say you have your web browser set to download things from the web into a "Downloads" folder. You can set rules in Hazel to, for example, watch for any audio files and automatically import them into iTunes. Again, that's a very basic example that doesn't even scratch the surface of what Hazel can do.

Growl - Growl is a universal notification system. Most applications have some sort of notification system to let you know when something's happened (new mail has arrives, a file has finished downloading, a new song is playing, etc.) Growl grabs the notifications for most programs and displays the notifications in the style that you choose, so that ALL your notifications, regardless of application, all look the same.

Senuti - Senuti allows you to transfer files from your iPod to your computer, rather than just the other way around. Simple as that.

Genius or iFlash - Need to memorize things? Study for an exam? These two programs will help you, using an intelligent computer based flashcard system.

Ok, now on to some drawing/graphics programs. The GIMP has already been mentioned, but personally I find the learning curve a bit steep and the interface a bit clunky. Here are some other alternatives:

Here's a great overview/review of three good inexpensive image editors: Pixelmator, Acorn, and DrawIt. The article has links to each program, so I won't duplicate them here.

If you're looking for more of an illustration/vector based program (similar to Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw), have a look at Inkscape.

Ok, that should keep you busy for a while. There are more, but this is a good start...

Here are two more that are great if you have a Macbook or Macbook Pro:

Home Zone - This is a great little app for triggering certain things to happen when different networks (or devices) are discovered. For example, mine is set so that when it detects my home wireless network, it sets my home printer as the default printer, then it launches ChronoSync (which I'll get to in a minute) to keep my iMac and Macbook Pro in sync, turns off the screensaver password, etc. When it detects my work network, it sets our networked HP laserjet as the default printer, enables the screensaver password, etc. You can have it detect things like bluetooth mice or keyboards as well, and have any number of actions take place.

ChronoSync - This is a great app if you have more than one Mac and want to keep them in sync. It's very configurable, and you can save different profiles and launch just the one you want under different circumstances using a program like Home Zone. ChronoSync is smart enough to handle moved files, renamed files, deleted files, etc.