My favorite Mac applications
There are many aspects that make Macs such a different experience. One is how intuitive and natural it feels to work with a Macintosh. Another is the cool and versatile third party software available for the Mac OS X operating system. Here’s a list of my favorite Mac apps: 
1. Quicksilver: QS, for me, is the ultimative application launcher. It builds upon the keyboard centered Mac approach and renders the mouse almost useless. With only two keystrokes I can launch any application I want without removing my hands from the keyboard. You can also search for docs, send them to applications or email them to an address stored in address book all in one go without clicking around and searching in folders. It boosts your workflow like a rocket and makes searching so much easier – especially when you are still on Tiger where spotlight is a stubborn beast. So check it out, it’s free. 
2. Journler: Journler is my digital note book, my digital moleskine. I store almost any information in there: my daily memos, text snippets, domain lists, software licences and serials and all the different access codes to my costumer’s webservers. It has a powerful search feature that makes searching and finding really fast and easy. I also like the smart folders which organise your information autmatically according to the tags you applied to a piece of information . In addition you can add e-mails directly from Apple Mail, Adobe PDFs, Page or Word docs, jpg or png images and screenshots, urls and much more to your entries. Thus you can create information clouds that bring together all the information that is relevant to your entry. No more searching in different folders or opening multiple documents in order to get all you need. This is such a great way to organise your information that it makes office work a pastime. Check it out – it’s donation ware. However, I have purchased a licence for US$ 25,00 to support the project. 
3. 1Password: I was a bit uncertain about this but after testing it for a while I have become a power user. 1Password stores all your sensitive information in a secure database protected by a master password. You do not have to remember your passwords, codes or other sensitive data any more. 1Password does that for you and protects it from inquisitive eyes. In addition, it creates really secure passwords and fills in forms automatically so that you do not have to go searching for or trying different passwords. This can be quite a nuisance, especially if you do not stick to one password – which, for security reasons, is recommended. 1Password has made my password universe much wider and I feel much more comfortable, now my mind can relax and does not have to think so hard any more to remember what kind of combination I chose for a particular account. There’s also a web based feature included which enables you to access your secure password database on different machines and OS. Well, worth its price of US$ 29,95. 
4. OmniFocus: Based on David Allen’s Getting Things Done, omnigroup’s latest offspring is the ultimative task management application, built for different approaches to task management – not just David Allen’s. It is a flexible app teeming with a multitude of features, making task management really easy. You can add tasks from everywhere using the Quick Entry feature but sometimes I still rely on making paper notes for urgent things that I have to jot down fast. Still it keeps your tasks together so that you can relax your mind, knowing that nothing will be forgotten. It’s nice to have a buddy like this. I purchased it during the sunrise period for about US$ 40,00. It is now US$ 79,95 – an unattractive price for an attractive application. 
5. Scrivener: This is my favorite software to prepare my seminars, speeches and presentations . I am a structurist and Scrivener allows for structuring your material just like I have always dreamt of doing from a global to a very detailed perspective . It boasts a host of features like tagging, split document views, importing media, an integrated browser, tagging, keywords and so much more for US$ 39,90.
