1. Adium for chat. It is just awesome.http://www.adiumx.com/

2. Quicksilver. if you just want an app launcher spotlight is already good at that. http://code.google.com/p/blacktree-alchemy/downloads/list [edit: updated link to point to the recent versions]

3. Caffeine is small program which puts an icon on menu bar on which you can click to prevent your Mac from going to sleep,dimming the screen etc. Very useful when watching long flash movies. http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/

4. MPlayer This is a video player which plays almost anything you can offer. Also comes with excellent keyboard shortcuts support making it the best video player on any platform. Most people prefer VLC though http://www.mplayerhq.hu/

5. Flip4Mac For those videos that MPlayer plays poorly, typically WMVs Flip4Mac provides a fee codec which integrates with your quicktime player. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcompo...

6. HandBrake For ripping your DVDs to MPEG4, there is no better tool. http://handbrake.fr/

7. Tweetie. if you use twitter, tweetie is the best mac twitter client by far. http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/

8. Virtualbox This virtualization product from Sun Microsystems totally eliminates the need for parallels or Vmware if you plan to use the VM sparingly. http://www.virtualbox.org/

9. Evernote http://evernote.com/

10. Eigenclock. I find the OS X, menu calendar extremely limted. Eigenclock is a good replacement http://www.twistedtheorysoftware.com/eigenclock/

11. Onyx for system tweaking http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html

12. Transmission - bittorrent client http://www.transmissionbt.com/

1. This may be obvious but as of the latest version, you don't gain much from a corporate email program like Entourage. I use Apple Mail, with IMAP and Google Apps for Your Domain. One account has 3.8GB of email and another has 4.1GB, according to Google. It scales fine and stays in sync across devices. Plus Address Book links to Google Contacts, and iCal links to Google Calendar.

2. I prefer MagiCal (http://www.charcoaldesign.co.uk/magical) rather than Eigenclock as it includes options to put "yyyy-mm-dd [day] hh:mm:ss" by the Spotlight icon, with [day] clickable for the calendar.

3. I like SpeakTime (http://www.mecanisme.net/software/speaktime/) for putting a row of glance-able analog clocks at the lower left of my screen (semi-transparent so they look like part of the background) to be aware of alternate time zones.

4. I use Skitch (http://www.skitch.com) for screengrabs with annotations to share with colleagues/clients.

5. I use Serverskine (http://www.serverskine.com/) to keep track of server logins.

6. I use Foxmarks (http://www.foxmarks.com/) to keep bookmarks in sync across all browsers and computers.

I don't use QuickSilver, Spotlight gets the job done.

I'd also recommend the following paid apps depending on your needs:

1. iWork '09 (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) for all office apps needs with MS Office 03-07 compatibility. It's worth the $79 for the polish and usability. The "free" alternative will cost more in the long run.

2. OmniGraffle Pro for diagramming with Visio (even Visio binary file) compatibility.

3. OmniPlan for MS Project compatibility.

4. Coda for text based web development. (Yes, TextMate is in my dock. But so is Coda.)

5. 1Password for credentials management across browsers and computers

6. Things for "GTD" methodology (or OmniFocus for more features)

For major presentations, I'd also recommend looking at some of the commercial themes available. E.g. keynotepro

Apple-Shift-3 captures the entire screen.

Apple-Shift-4 lets you select an area to capture.

Apple-Shift-4 then Space captures a window that you select.

I don't personally use GrabUp or Skitch, so I can't comment on what they add.

Skitch adds annotations and sharing with almost the same simplicity as the built-in keystrokes. I typically use "⌘-Shift-4, Space" as well, when using the screens in my own work, but not when annotating or sharing.

For quick annotations, pointing things out, highlighting things, and instantly pasting someone a viewable image URL (with one click to capture, and one click to share), Skitch is tough to beat.

I used to use transmission, but then I started using uTorrent, which I find has better performance. http://www.utorrent.com

I really wish it wasn't the case, but Quicksilver seems to have had its run and no one is stepping up to the plate to preserve it.

Most everything else you list is awesome though (although I think Evernote is far from essential and I'm not sure "free" is the right word for it ;)

Also, I haven't had any problems with crashes or anything like that... works great here.

Usually it's as fast as LaunchBar except for the very first time it is used. It has a reputation of being slow from 10.4 that is no longer justified.

The original author has been hired by google and is working on google quicksearch box http://qsb-mac.googlecode.com

Hmm. Sounds familiar. Or it would if I were still eating your company's dog food.

Doesn't do IRC. In fact I've been unable to find any osX chat client that does IRC and IM.

Anyone found a solution?

That said, if you're looking to access IRC easily, that's the way to go.

Use irssi or xchat.

How is Mibbit for idiots? It lets me give URLs to people who want to join chat rooms, so if I want to invite somebody to a channel I don't have to say "Download this, then fill out this and this and this in the boxes," I can just link them and they click it and they're in. I can style it to my heart's desire. It's customizable as anything. It supports tabs for multiple rooms at once.

I do use Colloquy or irssi when at home, though.

http://perian.org/ - adds native support to QuickTime for many video formats

http://www.fluidapp.com/ - Fluid, SSB (site specific browsers)

http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/ - LittleSnitch, Monitor and block outgoing internet connections

http://www.skitch.com/ - Skitch, screen capture and sharing

http://derailer.org/paparazzi/ - Paparazzi, Full screenshots of websites

http://www.sequelpro.com/ - SequelPro, MySQL gui (I like Querious, but that's a paid app)

http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html - The Unarchiver, unpacker program handles almost every format

http://freeverse.com/apps/app/?id=7013 - Think, helps you focus on a single app

http://www.heliumfoot.com/mercurymover/ - MercuryMover, resize, move windows with keystrokes (If you're OCD about window sizes like me)

Other honorable mentions: Coda, Transmit, TwoUp, Typinator, UnRarX, CSSEdit

Yummy FTP ist the fastest and feature-richest FTP-client for the Mac. It’s synchronization feature is really good. (I bought both)

The last release was 11/24/08. It's always updated to take advantage of/fix bugs introduced by new OSes. There hasn't been a release in a whopping 5 months (?) because Leopard's been out for a while and there aren't any outstanding bugs.

+1 Fluid

+1 Unarchiver

2.) SizeUp - size and and position windows with hotkeys. For example, quickly set two windows to use exactly one-half of the screen each.

3.) Expandrive - mount S3 buckets, ftp sites, sftp sites as network drives. (Works great with textmate)

4.) Miro - excellent video player and torrent client with rss built in. Sort of like a torrent TIVO.

5.) Warp (http://www.ksuther.com/warp/) - adds some new methods for switching spaces. I have mine set to switch if I drag the mouse to a screen border while holding command.

6.) Also, if QuickSilver doesn't suit your tastes, give LaunchBar a try. Getting used to using one of those two apps pays huge dividends.

1. Things - Awesome task management - http://www.culturedcode.com/

2. Mailplane - If you use GMail this is a must. - http://mailplaneapp.com/

3. AppZapper - Remove everything about an app - http://www.appzapper.com/

4. LittleSnitch - Filters and prompts on outbound ip connections - http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html

5. Undercover - Stolen Laptop Recovery app - http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/

6. Fugu - SCP/SFTP App - http://rsug.itd.umich.edu/software/fugu/

7. On The Job - Time and Expense Tracking - http://stuntsoftware.com/OnTheJob/

8. Versions - Awesome SVN client - http://versionsapp.com/

If you want to have todos available in more than one place, Things will bring you nothing but tears.

http://osx.iusethis.com/

1) Quicksilver. (free) http://blacktree.com/?quicksilver

2) VLC Media Player. (free) It plays pretty much every type of video file. http://videolan.org/vlc

3) Skitch. (free) Essential for quick screenshots, and quick annotations of screenshots. http://plasq.com/skitch

4) Tweetie. (free - ad supported - or $20) The best native Mac app for Twitterring. http://atebits.com/tweetie-mac

5) TextMate. (~$54) It's handling of projects, bundles, etc. is excellent. http://macromates.com

6) HTTP Client. (free) http://ditchnet.org/httpclient/

7) OmniGraffle. ($100-$200) Excellent for constructing user flow diagrams. http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/OmniGraffle/

8) The Hit List. ($50) It's one of the best GTD apps for the Mac. http://www.potionfactory.com/thehitlist/

9) TinkerTool. (free) For customizing OS X. http://www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html

10) Secrets. (free) For easy access to hidden application preferences. http://secrets.blacktree.com/

11) Sequel Pro. (free) For accessing MySQL databases in a nice GUI. http://www.sequelpro.com/

12) Fluid. (free) If you have a commonly accessed site, Fluid is great to create a SSB (site-specific browser) for it. I have a Fluid SSB created for railsapi.com, which allows me to easily launch it with Quicksilver and start searching the Rails docs right away. http://fluidapp.com/

- Ask YC: Mac virgin wants to know, what would you install? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=131241

My earlier list http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=131263 hasn't really changed but I do find the recently posted Black Tree Visor http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465334 to be very useful.

- InstantShot: nice little screenshot utility (I use it daily)

- VueScan: swiss-army knife of mac scanning apps if you need to hook up a scanner. Costs a little, but you get lifetime upgrades. Well worth it.

- LittleSnitch: network monitor. tracks what kind of network activity your apps are up to. Costs a little, but also worth it if you value your privacy.

- JollysFastVNC: fast and free VNC client (I've been using it over Chicken of the VNC).

- OmniDiskSweeper: Disk utility shows you which files are hogging up the most hard disk space. Free. I also recommend many of Omni's other products. Omnigraffle (not free) is also excellent for diagramming.

Also, not mac specific, but the sqlite manager plugin for Firefox is also very helpful.

I don't know where others go to find different Mac apps, I usually hit macupdate.com (and sometimes versiontracker) these days, mostly out of habit, but would love to hear other recs for this.

http://atomized.org/wp-content/cocoa-emacs-nightly/

http://www.activestate.com/komodo_edit/

free and open source.

http://tuppis.com/smultron/

My point was mainly comparing Coda to other GUI text editors for the mac. It has other useful features such as one-window editing, integrated terminal, ability to preview CSS/HTML changes side by side with code, etc.

- DragThing; you will never miss Apple's Dock, this is an absolutely essential desktop enhancement, e.g. to create multiple tabbed docks anywhere you want, with themes.

- OmniWeb (now free); I've tried many web browsers, and I like this best. Safari engine.

- MacTelnet (tabbed terminal). It now works for local programs and not just servers, so I use it instead of Terminal.

- SnapzPro X (or alternatives), useful for doing more intelligent screenshots or video captures.

- DesktopCalendar (by Takashi Hamada), a really nice use of space and very configurable. Also has a menu option.

- Growl, for pretty and unobtrusive notification windows. This is actually really well supported by 3rd party applications.

- SCPlugin, if you're a Subversion user; nice Finder integration.

[1] - http://www.sxipper.com/

DiskWarrior will reliably maintain and rebuild your FS. It will work when fsck fails and is better than the other paid alternatives. It looks like (and is) a Mac OS 9 port, but it's the same filesystem so no worries.

If your filesystem is ever, ever fucked, DW will save it if anything can.

It costs $100, so don't buy until when you end up needing it. But at that moment, buy it (unless your data is worth less than $100, I guess).

MenuMeters: http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/

Hyperspaces: http://hyperspacesapp.com/

Yojimbo: http://barebones.com/products/yojimbo/

Leap: http://www.ironicsoftware.com/leap/

1. Terminal: Visor - Quake-style terminal http://visor.binaryage.com

2. Uninstaller: AppTrap http://konstochvanligasaker.se/apptrap/

3. SFTP: http://www.expandrive.com/mac

4. Quick remote filesharing: http://www.getdropbox.com

5. IDEA: NetBeans or ZendStudio

6. Virtual machine: Parallels - http://www.parallels.com

7. Text editor: TextEdit or TextWrangler - http://www.barebones.com/products/TextWrangler/

8. VPN: The native OSX thing does the job

9. Mobile sync/Addressbook: iSync does the job (Use http://www.feisar.com/ to find your mobile plugin if iSync doesn't have it natively)

10. SIP softphone: Telephone (works with Googlevoice+Gizmo5 and my local UK SIP provider) - http://code.google.com/p/telephone/

11. Notifier: Growl - http://growl.info/

12. Movie player: VLC or Quicktime+Perian codecs - http://perian.org/

13. Chat: Adium

14: Desktop display: GeekTool - http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/geektool/

Adium: http://adium.im/ - general-purpose chat client

Cog: http://cogx.org/ - For those of us who don't like iTunes, or want to play FLACs.

WriteRoom or Scrivener: http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom | http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html - if you like to write (those are not for code)

Textmate: http://macromates.com/ - if you're a coder.

Transmission: http://www.transmissionbt.com/ - for your torrenting needs.

Torrent: uTorrent

RSS: NetNewsWire

PDF, Document Reader: Skim

http://code.google.com/p/qsb-mac/

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/110065/must-have-tools-fo...

It listed all the userful tools that would be relevant to a programmer.

http://code.google.com/p/qlcolorcode/

taskpaper http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/taskpaper

scrivener http://www.literatureandlatte.com/trial.html

curio + small pen tablet http://www.zengobi.com/products/curio/, http://www.wacom.com/bambootablet/bamboofun.php

This app hides app you haven't used for a little while so the app you are using currently is the most prominent thing on the screen. I find it really helpful to declutter my screen in a non-invasive way.

You can also exclude things like video players and the like from being hidden.

Web Designer: CSSEdit, Flux, Dreamweaver, xScope, Xyle Scope, Picturesque

Researcher: Evernote, DevonThink Pro, ConceptDraw MindMap

User: LaunchBar, Overflow, Little Snitch, Super Duper

Web Junkie: 1password, Firefox, Tweetie, NetNewsWire, ClamXav, DoorStop Firewall, Net Monitor

Freelancer: TimeLog & GrandCentral

Photographer: Photoshop CSx, Portrait Professional, Aperture 2, GraphicConverter, PhotoReview

About 40% are paid apps.

http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

Quicksilver, to avoid the terrible GUI as much as humanly possible.

(I have my MacBook because it is the only non-Windows notebook with fully working suspend mode and peripherals. Why did you buy yours?)

KeyRemap4MacBook will give you a lot more options.

http://www.pqrs.org/tekezo/macosx/keyremap4macbook/

1-quicksilver

2-iTerm (terminal. with tabs)

3-Photoshop CS3 (cs4 is slow on my macbook)

4-Transmit

5-DropBox client

6-Textmate

7-Git

8-The Hit List (best osx app for lists)

9-LimeChat (irc client)

Onyx (Maintenance scripts)

Apple Developer Tools (Terminal/GCC/XCode)

SubEthaEdit (Collaborative Editing)

Textmate (Defacto standard editor)

Cyberduck (SFTP Client)

Perian (Codecs)

Here are the ones I consider absolute essentials for my daily work:

MegaZoomer - http://ianhenderson.org/megazoomer.html - lets you full-screen zoom any application. That mixed with TextEdit gives you the best word processor you'll ever need.

Quicksiler - linked all over - this will fill in every hole you have in your computer usage. I use it to fix a lot of shortcomings in iTunes, for instance, and while I don't use it as insanely as some people do, even light usage makes your life a lot easier. It's also a full-featured file browser, which is excellent.

Perian - http://perian.org/ - makes your life a lot easier when you're watching videos or listening to music, without forcing a reliance on the ugly VLC.

GlimmerBlocker - http://glimmerblocker.org/ - Unless you use Firefox, this adds every feature you'll need to every browser you've got. (Firefox is an awful browser that rebuilds a lot of Mac features from the ground up, and so it isn't affected by this.) It blocks ads (selectively, so you can allow the ads you don't mind), blocks entire sites, and adds retroactive functionality to sites. The big one for me is the Youtube downloader.

Growl - http://growl.info/ - This one's really easy to abuse, but if you set it to notify you of all the really important things - FTP file uploads and long processes and so on - then you get a very nice way of keeping yourself informed of all your computer's goings-on.

Those are the ones that I absolutely need for my Mac. Here are the ones that are obscure-ish and rarely recommended and yet are terrific:

Max - http://sbooth.org/Max/ - converts every format but wma, so your library stays neat and organized without any complaints about iTunes.

Freedom - http://macfreedom.com/ - disables the Internet, so you can't procrastinate at all.

FuzzyClock - http://www.objectpark.org/FuzzyClock.html - makes your clock much more humane.

Chax - http://ksuther.com/chax/ - Fixes a few things in iChat to make it an acceptable chat system (I really dislike Adium for a number of reasons).

Follow me on twitter as I explore the world of OSX and my adventures with all things "Hackintosh": @cericsmith

Here's my list:

1Password -- Perhaps the greatest piece of Mac OSX software. You must try to believe it. Password storage/sync/creation/ID management at its finest.

http://agilewebsolutions.com/products/1Password

Unison -- If Windows newsreaders hadn't stopped evolving around 1998, they might have come up with something like Unison in... 2150.

http://www.panic.com/unison/

MusicBrainz Picard -- For fixing the "Unknown Artist/Album" issues.

http://musicbrainz.org/doc/PicardDownload

BluePhone Elite -- Neat Smartphone/iPhone tricks with Bluetooth. Ever wanted to have your machine wake up or sleep when you were just out of range? This is an app for you.

http://mirasoftware.com/BPE2/

Toast Titanium 10 -- Sure, Leopard can burn discs... but Toast is much more than that, and it's elegance exceeds anything on Windows.

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/toast/titanium/overview.ht...

iLife 09 -- iPhoto's face rec. is just cool, and iMovie beats the snot out of Movie Maker.

http://www.apple.com/ilife/

Stuffit Deluxe 2009 -- Not as necessary as it used to be, but still nice to have available.

http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/stuffit.html

Parallels 4 -- Many people like VMWare Fusion, but Parallels 4 has support for a lot more configuration of the VM -- support for up to 8 processors, the ability to have VM's start off of CD and/or Disk Image/ISO, is killer.

http://www.parallels.com/

Little Snitch -- knowing when your applications are "phoning home" is important.

http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html

DiskWarrior -- HFS+ disk maintanance package and more. Fix disk errors...

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/index.html

AppZapper -- Yes, theoretically uninstalling apps on the Mac is straight forward, but AppZaper gets all the flotsom and jetsom that would otherwise be left behind. Great for nuking preference files, etc.

http://www.appzapper.com/

ClamXav -- Ok, we know that Mac's don't get virii, per se... but this cross-platform, donation-ware AV tool gives peace of mind when running random software you download from the Net.

http://www.clamxav.com/

FileSpot -- Spotlight is nice, but FileSpot takes it to another level.

http://mac.synthesisstudios.com/mac/filespot/about

GimmeSomeTune -- integrates with iTunes and pulls/updates album art and lyrics, and works with Growl. Updates iChat status and images based on what you're listening to. Sweet.

http://www.eternalstorms.at/gimmesometune/

HighLight -- Instantly add file(s) or folders to your Spotlight search index.

http://homepage.mac.com/superpixel/highlight/

SimpleComic -- a great comic PDF viewer.

http://dancingtortoise.com/simplecomic/

TED -- This program scours the usual suspects for new TV episodes and integrates with your favorite Torrent program to automatically download them!

http://www.ted.nu/

DropBox -- 2GB of free, sync'ed cloud storage for your Mac (or PC/Linux box). Incredible in conjunction with 1Password.

http://www.getdropbox.com/install?os=lnx

The Unarchiver -- Ok, so you don't like Stuffit? This will pull apart almost anything.

http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html

Movist -- A media player based on ffmpeg/VNC that has a more polished UI than VNC.

http://code.google.com/p/movist/ VNC -- open and play anything.

Perian -- Add the ability to open and play most media formats that ffmpeg can handle inside of QuickTime.

http://perian.org/

Pixelmator -- who needs Photoshop? This $50 application is the bees knees. Cool UI, great features.

http://www.pixelmator.com/

doubleTwist -- Part media manager, part file conversion utility. If you need those TV shows on your PSP, this can handle it. Notably, doesn't support iPhone (yet).

http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Index.dt

MPlayer OSX Extended -- the benefits of Mplayer on OSX. More polished than VNC, more stable (at this point) than Movist.

http://mplayerosx.sttz.ch/

FreeDMG -- The ability to create Disk Images/.dmg files.

http://www.kelleycomputing.net/freedmg/

Tweetie -- The newest and most controversial OSX Twitter program.

http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/

Boxee -- a "10 foot interface" for managing your media and Internet content sources such as Hulu.

http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/

SuperDuper -- quickly and easily clone your HFS drives.

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription...

iWork 09 -- Pages is what Powerpoint will never be -- Fun.

http://www.apple.com/iwork/

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/multiwinia/

VLC Player http://www.videolan.org/

2. MacPorts - If you are a developer or you're just an open-source lover, this is a must have app for you. It has 5811 open-source programs ready to install, easy and... open-source! ( which is good... )

3. TexMate - My every day editor, I don't use another one besides this one.

4. Adium - For chatting.

5. pgAdmin - For PostgreSQL administration. I don't use MySQL that much.

6. Growl - Another must have for system notifications, I don't realy know why Apple hasn't put one in OS X yet.

7. OmniGraffle - For Visio projects and such.

8. Things - For task managing.

9. Tweetie - The best Twitter client I've ever found.

10. Transmission - For P2P file transfers. I don't like uTorrent very much.

11. AppZapper - To uninstall programs. When you delete an app some configuration files are left behind, with this program all the files related are also deleted.

12. Evernote - Well... to take notes! Even better if you have an iPhone.

13. VMWare Fusion - For virtualization

14. Scribbles - For those moments when you get inspired and just want to make some draws :)

15. Adobe - Photoshop and Dreamweaver between others are a must.

16. Teeworlds - Best game ever and... Open-Source!!!!

17. Toast Titanium - For recording CD's and DVD's.

18. ScreenFlow - To record your screen and make nice video editing

These are not by "like" order, they're by the order I remembered them. I wouldn't recomend installing iTerm because Terminal.app does the job nicely and it has tabs as well. I'll had more if I remember some.