The Beauty of Free

I love free stuff. I don’t mean free as in all the PC software available for free that slows down WinXP machines with tons and tons of SpyWare, but free in the sense of nice free productivity-increasing products available for OS X. And, now that Apple will soon have iLife, iWork, and Tiger out on the shelves of the local Apple Store taunting me during each day that passes in which I do not purchase them, I need to start saving up. There’s a tipping point coming where it will be a better move to buy a Mac mini with iLife ‘05 and Tiger included, but we’re not quite there yet, so I need to focus on what I love most and can afford: the freeware available for OS X.

Here’s some of my top picks of various free OS X software:

• NeoOffice/J—I’m sure that iWork is great, and I know that although Microsoft Office on the Mac has lots of fancy bells and whistles, it also has lots of bugs. Both products are highly useful for productivity, but they also cost money. Here is where many Linux lovers will start recommending OOo, the Open Source alternative to Microsoft Office. Unfortunately, OOo isn’t going anywhere on OS X. Fortunately, however, we have NeoOffice/J, a java port of OOo with a native aqua menu. Unlike Microsoft Word, you can actually copy and paste snippets of your current document into iChat without it oddly being converted into an image file (most annoying Word problem in my book). It’s in beta, but it is very solid. I’ve been using it to work on my dissertation with nary a crash. Download it. Check it out. It doesn’t have a nice Mac-like interface, but it is a rather fully functional and free office su! ite.
• Gimp.app—This one requires X11, but it is worth it. No need to spend hundreds of dollars on Adobe Photoshop when you are only trying to design a logo for your blog. Get Gimp. It’s the best free image manipulation program out there.
• Audacity—For all you aspiring musicians out there, we have Audacity. It may not crank as a substitute amp for your guitar, a la Garageband, but it will handle nearly all of your editing needs. Sell your 4-track on ebay! Time to go digital.
• Cyberduck—Although there are several free ftp/sftp browsers out there, Cyberduck is my favorite. I don’t know if it’s because I always find myself humming along to Ernie crooning “Rubber ducky, you’re the one…” every time I use it, or in spite of this tendency, but I like it. Check it out.
• Onyx—Onyx is a good free maintenance and customization tool for OS X. If things start acting screwy, run Onyx to clean out all the cobwebs you’ve developed from running for a month without a reboot. (I should note here that in the system maintenance category, I actually prefer and use Cocktail, but it’s not free).
• Desktop Manager—This virtual desktop manager opens up the world of multiple desktops to your Mac. It’s like fast-user switching between multiple task-specific users, but without having to actually switch users. Give it a try.
• Quicksilver—This is the best free launcher for OS X, hands down. It’s like having Tiger’s Spotlight functionality in Panther.
• Goliath—If you are a .mac member and use your iDisk, you need Goliath. It is the fastest way to navigate your iDisk. Easy access with no spinning beach balls of death. Period.
• iTerm—for the shell coders among you: iTerm brings tabbed browsing to terminal emulation.
• GoBan—This one is both for fun and for flexing your mind’s muscles. If you like strategy games, you’ll probably dig Go. GoBan is a nice free interface for playing Go, either against the computer, or over the internet via a free account with the Internet Go Server.

This rather short list of the plethora of free software tools and apps available for OS X is admittedly skewed towards my personal preferences. If you think I’ve looked over the BFAE! (Best Free App Ever!), then please share your ideas in the comments.