I’ve gathered together some of my all-time favorite Mac programs for you to check out! In no particular order I give you…

1. Little Snitch

I’m the kind of person who just likes to know when my computer is accessing the internet. Especially when trying out new software that I’ve never used before. Little Snitch is awesome because it alerts me any time a program on my computer wants to access the internet. In such a case, a little pop-up alerts me to the program that is attempting access along with the URL and port # of the attempted request. From this pop-up window you can choose to allow or deny the request. Now I feel safe knowing that I’m in control of my computer’s access to the web.

2. Toast

I couldn’t live without toast for burning CDs and DVDs. The latest version of Toast Titanium includes a special “fit-to-disc” option that will re-compress dual-layer DVDs on to a single regular DVD. This option alone makes it worth Toast’s $80 price. Pair this with a copy of Handbrake (see below), and plenty of hard drive space, and you’ve got the best Mac OS tools for making legal backup copies of videos that you own.

3. MacTheRipper / Handbrake

Spot #3 is shared by two great DVD-ripping programs that each have a distinct strong point.

MacTheRipper makes easy work of ripping DVDs to iPod and AppleTV compatible formats. Just pop-in your DVD, select the tracks you want to convert, tweak the default settings if you want to (I rarely have to), and your tracks will be re-compressed in your desired format.

Handbrake is an essential tool for making whole DVD copies. I use Handbrake to copy the DVD’s VOB folder to my computer, then I use Toast Titanium’s “fit-to-DVD” option to burn the video to a regular single-layer DVD. I tend to scratch things easily so I use my backup DVDs so my originals won’t get all dirty and scratched up.

4. Text Wrangler

Text Wrangler is the best text editor available for Mac, hands-down. Some web developers like Komodo, but Text Wrangler is less-bloated, faster, makes it easier to handle multiple documents, and it’s free. It’s definitely the preferred text editor here at our shop (6 out of 6 designers use it!).

5. Suitcase

There is no better application for managing fonts on your Mac than Extensis Suitcase. Suitcase allows you to group your fonts into sets (I’ve grouped my fonts by themes such as “Serif”, “San Serif”, “Grunge”, “Script”, “Art Deco”, etc). Browsing font sets by typeface is easy and there’s a general keyword-capable search box for finding specific fonts. Suitcase is fast for managing lots of fonts (I have over 11,000 managed by Suitcase). I couldn’t imagine designing without it.

Suitcase also comes with a font auto-activation plugin for the major Adobe design applications that will automatically load up fonts that are needed for a specific document… Just open the document and all the appropriate font sets are instantly activated and available to use. Nice!