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Killer Software That's Either Free or Inexpensive

by

Episode 66
August 25th, 2006

There's nothing I like better than great software that's either free or inexpensive; here are a few of my current faves:

Mouse Locator (Free; www.2point5fish.com)

My office Mac has two huge displays; my desktop measures a whopping 2,880 x 1,024 pixels. Both of my screens are almost always covered with a plethora of windows, docks, menus, documents, icons, and who knows what else. That makes finding the little arrow cursor among all the flotsam and jetsam a challenge, as shown in Figure 1.


Figure 1: It's kind of hard to see the arrow cursor…

Thank heaven for Mouse Locator, a free utility that helps you find the cursor by encircling it with two brightly colored rings (mine are bright fuchsia).


Figure 2: With Mouse Locator it's EASY to see that pesky cursor...

The rings are displayed whenever I wiggle the mouse after my Mac has been idle for a predetermined length of time. So when I wake up my sleeping Mac, the cursor is always highlighted in fuchsia. Or, I can press Mouse Locator's hot key and display the fuchsia rings at any time.

I love this little utility and you can't beat the price -- it's free.

Witch (Donationware; www.petermaurer.de)

I usually have 8 or 10 applications running at any given moment. Using the built-in Mac OS X application switcher -- Command-Tab -- I can switch to any open application without touching the mouse. That's good, but it's not good enough… You see, many of those applications have more than one open window. What I really want is to choose which window becomes active when I switch to an application. And that, my friends, is what Witch does. It works like the built-in application switcher but it lets you choose any open program as well as any of its open windows. It may not sound like much but I find it extremely convenient.


Figure 3: Notice the window names for Mail, Skype, and Safari...
(Click the thumbnail for a larger image.)

Plus, it's much prettier than the built-in application switcher and offers a bunch of additional window management options as shown in Figures 4 and 5.

AppleMark?
Figure 4: Unlike the Command-Tab application switcher, you can specify all kinds of behavior for Witch.
(Click the thumbnail for a larger image.)

AppleMark?
Figure 5: And unlike the Command-Tab application switcher, Witch provides almost total control over its appearance.
(Click the thumbnail for a larger image.)

Try it -- I think you'll like it!

Synergy ($10; http://wincent.com/)

When I'm at my desk working, chances are I'm listening to music with iTunes. The only problem is that if I want to play, pause, skip a song, see what song is playing, or do anything else with iTunes, I have to make it active and bring it to the foreground. Or at least that's what I used to have to do before I discovered Synergy.

AppleMark?
Figure 6: Synergy lives in my menu bar.

With Synergy I can control iTunes from the menu bar or the keyboard without switching applications.

AppleMark?
Figure 7: Synergy's keyboard shortcuts for controlling iTunes.
(Click the thumbnail for a larger image.)

So I can choose the next song, the previous song, play, pause, add a star rating, or see the song title and artist in a transparent overlay (see Figure 8), all without touching iTunes.

AppleMark?
Figure 8: Synergy's floating transparent overlay tells me what song is playing.

Synergy rocks (pun intended).

MenuMeters (Donationware; www.ragingmenace.com)

MenuMeters lets me know what's going on with my CPU, hard disks, RAM, and network connection, all without using up a single millimeter of valuable screen real estate.  I'm a geek and I like to know what my Mac is doing; MenuMeters tell me more about my Mac than Activity Monitor while taking up almost no screen space.


Figure 9: MenuMeters display a lot of information in a little piece of your menu bar.
(Click the thumbnail for a larger image.)

The MenuMeters are all the icons to the right of the Help menu beginning with the number 73%. From right to left:

  • 73% tells me that roughly three quarters of my processor is being used at this very moment.
  • The red and blue thermometer icon on its immediate right indicates graphically that around 73% of my processor is in use right this second, with the red area representing the User Load and the blue area representing System Load.
  • The green and red rectangles to the right of the thermometer are disk activity lights -- the red one lights up when a file is written to a disk, the green one lights when a read activity takes place. These two “lights” flicker pretty much all the time.
  • The red and blue numbers to the right of the disk activity lights -- U: 352MB and F: 160MB -- tell me how much of my PowerBook's 512MB of RAM is currently available (160MB).
  • Finally, the green and red arrows and text to the right of the RAM indicator display network activity -- sends and receives. (The reason nothing is displayed is ‘cause I was at a restaurant with no wireless access when I took the screen shot.)

Last but not least, if the menu bar display isn't enough information for you, click on any of the four icons and a menu appears with additional information, as seen for the RAM indicator icon in Figure 10.


Figure 10 Caption: More information than you probably need about RAM usage is just a click away...

Don't forget to make a donation for any or all of these programs if you like them enough to continue using them beyond a reasonable testing period.

And that's all he wrote...

Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus has been a Macintosh user for a long, long time and has written 49 computer books including Mac OS X Tiger For Dummies and GarageBand for Dummies. He also offers expert technical help and training to Mac users, in real time and at reasonable prices, via telephone, e-mail, and/or unique Internet-enabled remote control software. For more information on Bob and his services, visit www.boblevitus.com.

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Most Recent Columns From Dr. Mac: Rants & Raves

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Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:Guest
Subject: One thing you might have missed....

Thanks for this list of applications!

Though there is one thing regarding iTunes that you might have missed. You can control some functions of iTunes with a "click and hold" on the iTunes icon in the Dock.

Granted, there aren't as many as in Synergy, but it's free and built into the OS!

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Sizzling Keys

For those who require itunes confrol from any where use you keyboard. Sizzling Keys, it's great & it's free.

http://www.yellowmug.com/sk4it/

Close Name:kenaustus Posts: 602 Joined: 27 Jun 2003
Subject: I have a few

I use Mousepose ($9.95 at http://www.boinx.com/mousepose/) instead of Mouse Locator. It highlights the cursor by slightly darkening the screen and putting a "spotlight" on the cursor. You can change the size of the sportlight and the time it's displayed, allowing it to be used as a pointer as well.

SMARTReporter (Donationware at http://www.boinx.com/mousepose/). This puts a small HD icon on the menu bar. If the S.M.A.R.T Drive is OK the icon is green, and it turns to red if the HD starts going down hill - letting you know to keep your copy of Disk Warrior handy while the replacement HD is being shipped to you. Probably the most important little app I have as I've had one HD go bad - before I found the app!

Overflow ($15 at http://www.stuntsoftware.com/Overflow/) is a very nice dock based app launcher and the one I finally settled on.

Photodesktop (Donationware at http://www.alwintroost.nl/content/photodesktop/home.xml) lets you stick multiple pictures on the desktop - I've got about 60 on the 20" iMac at home. A simple, fun app even if it's not "productive".

Close Name:Biff Posts: 1479 Joined: 08 Apr 2004
Subject:

When I need to find my mouse cursor, I find moving the mouse works wonders. By looking at the pixels on the screen that are moving (as opposed to stationary), I almost always find what I am looking for.

Of course since those mouse highlighting utilities are free, its kind of hard to argue with that if someone is looking for something with a little more oomph.

Close Name:LaurieF -   TMO Forum Mod Posts: 3547 Joined: 15 Jun 2001
Subject:

Some people with poor eyesight, especially those with LCD screens with lower brightness/contrast, can find mouse finders a real boon.

Me, if I can't find the mouse (and I'm forever losing it when I run two screens!), I move it down and around the dock until I see the magnification cut in.

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