Guides

After the great response from Part 1, here is Part 2. In this group, we cover DVD Backups, Binary News Tools, Password Management, Social Bookmarking, Project Management, Clipboard Solutions, Bluetooth Phone Integration, File Transfer, and OS X Enhancements.

Not all of these are free, but many of them are. Each piece of software is excellent, and I use them all. There are plenty of alternatives to even these, and if you have a favorite, leave it in the comments, and they might make it into Part 3.

DVD Backups:
I covered Mac The Ripper in part 1, but since then, protection has gotten tougher. The latest way to backup is with a combination of Fairmount and VLC. Could it be illegal? Perhaps. Check your local laws.
Fair Mount - Allows decryption of DVD content on the fly. It doesn't perform the actual decryption, but forwards it on to VLC for decryption. After decryption, simply drag and drop the VIDEO_TS folder somewhere on your Hard Drive, and then you can do with it what you wish. It comes with DVD Remaster, so you have to download it to get Fair Mount. Could it be illegal? Perhaps. Check your local laws.
VLC - If this player can't play it, odds are, the media on your Mac can't be played. You need this installed for Fair Mount to work. READ MORE »

View Switchers Guide - Part 2 Here
As more people begin switching to OS X from Windows, they are going to need some additional software, other than what comes stock with OS X. While this list isn't totally complete, it's a good starter list, to enable a somewhat seamless transition. I wanted to keep this list fairly simple, and not overwhelm the new Mac user. That's why you don't see my favorite podcast apps, big commercial packages, etc. Most of this software is free or donation ware. If you use it, support the developers.

Note: Nov. 27, 2007 - This list is becoming outdated, when I compile the new list, I will link it here.

Browsers:

Firefox, Camino, and Opera. While Safari is used 90% of the time on my Mac, I keep these on hand - most websites designed to lockout Macs will generally work fine if you use one of these browsers. You shouldn't have to worry about compatibility, but some web designers still cater to Internet Explorer.

Chat:

Adium X - If you access more IM services than simply AOL, then you will want to use Adium X, since it supports many plug-ins and also can keep you connected to multiple IM services at once.

Conversation - This is a very iChat like client for using IRC chats. READ MORE »

Everybody does a top 10... Here are the list of FREE Apps I recommend for any Mac OS X User.
1. BackityMac - New to the scene, and my now absolute FAVORITE backup program!
2. Camino Browser - From the people who work on the Firefox team is the super fast and Mac browser.
3. Image Well - Grab, crop, annotate your images. READ MORE »