Application Recommendations Part 3 - OS X Applications

The OS X software library continues to grow. However it's size still pales in comparison of the amount of software available on the Windows side. Fortunately for what it lacks in quantity it tends to make up for in quality. Most applications in OS X often have an emphasis on User Interface design which make using OS X applications a very different experience then using the common Windows one.
Apple bundles a very valuable amount of software with it's computers and operating systems. I suggest you look through these (all found in the Applications folder) before pursuing third party alternatives.
Lastly, although the Windows versions of Quicktime and iTunes leave much to be desired. I have found that their OS X counterparts function better.

• I like the LotsaWater and the Filigree screen savers.
• Adium is an extremely customizable Instant Messaging Meta Client.
• Transmission is a well designed Bit Torrent Client.
• Webkit Nightly Builds are development builds of safari that are frequently updated and tweaked by the developers.
• Safari Adblock is a plug-in for Safari that blocks ads.
• Safari Tabs adds additional Firefox inspired tab options for Safari.
• InquisitorX improves the Google search field in the top right of Safari's interface.
• The Unarchiver is a replacement for OS X's built in uncompressing tool thats adds the ability to uncompress additional formats.
• Xee is an image viewer that can open almost any format.
• Onyx is a general maintenance, repair, cleaning and customization tool for OS X.
• iStat Menues adds informative (and very comprehensive) statistics about your computer to the top of the menu bar. Ram and CPU usage, hard drive read/writes, fan speeds, temperature sensor information, voltages, current and more.
• Gmail Notifier to keep track of your Gmail.
• VLC will play many different, obscure and even broken video files. As well Perian will allow Apple's default Quicktime software to play many additional video formats.
• Flip4Mac allows Quicktime to open Windows Media files.
• SmartSleep is for Mac notebooks and tweaks the default sleep/hibernate settings. The "SmartSleep state" option is recommended, read about it on his site.
  
• SMCFanControl allows you to manually ajust the fan speeds of your Mac.
• Lab Tick allows you to manually ajust the keyboard backlighting on your Mac notebooks.
• Growl ties into many popular OS X applications and creates non-intrusive and customizable notifications for application events.
  
• Quicksilver, if you choose to accept it. Will change the way you use a computer. After a short adaptive period you will find yourself wishing every computer had this built in. Further Explanation.
  
• iStumbler is a wireless network sniffing software.
  
• Remote Desktop Connection 2 is Microsoft's Remote Desktop protocol client for OS X.
  

A couple sites good for finding software for OS X:
Versiontracker
iusethis

Application Recommendations Part 2 - General Windows Programs

It can be hard to find good software for Windows. Because it has the largest install base by far, it also has the largest software library. Unfortunately most of it is crapware. For the most part good Windows software comes from the open source community. As a side note: All the programs I will list in these entries will be free.

• Zune Theme is my Windows XP theme of choice.
• Filigree for windows is my screen saver of choice.
• Gmail Notifier helps you keep track of your Gmail.
  
• CCleaner is a brilliant application that everyone should have. It combines a very thorough cache cleaner, registry cleaner and startup items manager. I've seen it clean out up to 8GB of temporary files on very old computers.
  
• Defraggler is a nice defragmenter by the developers of CCleaner. I find it defragments more thoroughly then the default windows Disk Defragmenter. It allows you to defrag freespace to help prevent future fragmentation, check the hard drive for errors and defrag individual folders/files.
• Recuva, again by the developers of CCleaner, allows you to recover deleted files. The program is well designed and has many features including the ability to recover files from external sources such as digital camera memory cards.
• Eraser is a very thorough and feature rich program to securely delete files/folders or whole drives.
  
• ImgBurn is a program for creating and working many types of disk images and burning CDs, Audio CDs, DVDs, HD DVDs and even Blu Ray discs.
• 7-Zip will not only uncompress almost anything but it will also compress into a number of high compression ratio formats.
• MediaCoder is a "free universal batch media transcoder" designed to convert almost anything to anything else.
• MagicISO/MagicDisc is a small little program for mounting different types of disk images. (don't forget to disable it's startup item with CCleaner)
  
• Sumatra PDF is an extremely lightweight PDF viewer that will most likely meet your needs. However if you need some extra features Foxit Reader is recommended. I would strongly recommended against using Adobe Reader to view PDFs, it is the definition of bloated and intrusive software.
• CutePDF is a small and free program for converting documents to PDF.
• DriveImage XML can create/restore/view drive image backups of hard drives.
• Digsby is a pretty and customizable Instant Messaging Metaclient (multiple IM networks at once, such as AIM and MSN concurrently) it also includes E-mail and Social Networking support.
• CCCP+MCP thats the Combined Community Codec Pack and Media Player Classic. This suite will play any type of movie file you could want. VLC is also notable for having the ability to open almost anything you can throw at it. Including half downloaded or corrupted files, although it's subtitle support is lacking.
  
• uTorrent is a nice and lightweight bit torrent client.
• Combofix is an excellent virus removal tool. However you really shouldn't use it unless you really know what your doing.
• and of course FireFox, which I cover in more detail on my first post.

Edit: Added November 22, 2008

• FreeCommander is a free replacement for Window's Explorer. It has an impressive feature list that can be viewed on it's website. I find FreeCommander is useful to use if Explorer.exe is corrupted, broken, infected or otherwise borked.
  
• Process Explorer is a more advanced version of the Task Manager already in Windows. It is an essential tool for diagnosing performance issues or tracking down viruses and other malicious software.

In fact Process Explorer was created by the now legendary Sysinternals team and all of their software are highly recommended for those who are technicaly minded.

Software developed by Piriform (CCleaner, Defraggler, Recuva), Sysinternals and Sumatra PDF are all self contained .exe files. Which means they can easily be stored and run from USB sticks.
If your looking for more "portable" programs then PortableApps is a good resource.
More advanced customization of the Windows interface can be found here.

Application Recommendations Part 1 - Firefox

Being in the IT industry I frequently get asked to recommend certain programs for this and that.
What do I use to open swap.avi? How do I block the ads in Firefox? Et cetera.
Because of that I've decided to create this list of my most commonly used programs for both Windows XP and OS X.
I'm going to start with Firefox on Windows and move on to more general Windows and OS X software in later entries.

Firefox It's a great browser that is both fast and secure as well as standards compliant (more or less) and extremely customizable.
I use the following Add-ons:

• NASA Night Launch as my Theme.
• Adblock Plus as a ad blocker.
• Ctrl-Tab to add a graphical alt-tab functionality between large numbers of browser tabs.
• Download Statusbar a cleaner and more efficient downloads manager.
• Firebug a comprehensive and invaluable web development toolbox.
• IE Tab lets you render websites using Internet Explorer inside Firefox.
• NoScript secures your browser by blocking all scripts by default unless you allow them. As well as an asortment of other security enhancements. It's a trade off of security vs convenience.
• Web Developer adds a small toolbar with numerous useful web development tools.
• Firecookie is an extension for Firebug that adds cookie support.
• Flagfox creates a small icon of a country flag showing where the website you are currently viewing is hosted. Right clicking on this flag reveals a collection of useful information about that website.
• Flashblock stops all flash content from auto playing.
• GooglePreview adds a visual thumbnail of the web page beside every google search result.

Now these add-ons are obviously not for everyone, they are just the ones that I personally use.
There are quite a lot of add-ons for Firefox and they can all be found listed here.

There are also many settings and options that you can tweak in Firefox. I've always been happy with the default settings myself. However is there is one tweak that I would particularly recommend. I use a slightly different version of the streamlined layout explained here.

(click for larger image)

It essentially involves hiding the Bookmark and Navigation tool bars and adding whatever elements you need to the menu bar instead. This gives you the maximum viewing area possible as well as efficient use of space. I like it a lot but it's largely up to personal preference.