Here is a list of ten apps I use on a daily basis (both web and desktop apps). The main system I’ve been using for a while is a unibody MacBook, so many of the applications on the list are mac-only.

Mint

Mint is a site-stats program that promises to give a “fresh look” at your site. Many of you are probably familiar with mint. I use it a lot for tracking visitor habits and to see stats from this blog. I’ve installed lot of peppers, which add extra functionality  like Secret Crush, User Agent, Feedburner and Visits Differ. Be aware that more peppers means more javascript code loading when someone visits your site, which leads to slower page loading. Mint costs $30 (no subscription or year-by-year costs). All updates until the next major version (which will be version 3) are free as long as most of the available peppers (about 90% of them). Keep in mind that mint is self-hosted, which means that after you buy it, you have to install it on your hosting server.

Safari

I’ve been using only Firefox for almost three years now, but recently switched to Safari, which seems to run faster on my MacBook. Safari lacks the extensibility of Firefox, but its clean layout alongside with fast page loading are huge pros. The only thing I miss is Google Toolbar which is not available for Safari. Plus I am now used to Safari bookmark management and it will be a hard time for me to make a switch again.

WordPress

WordPress is probably the best piece of software I’ve ever came around. Free, 0pen-source, bringing tons of new features with every major release. I use it on a daily basis for managing this blog, update plugins, read comments and clean spam. I’ve tried some time in the past to use other software for blogging, but it lasted only for about two days. After using WordPress for about two years, I feel very familiar with it, and I cannot even imagine my online life without it.

iTunes

iTunes has become my main music player. I love the options it offers for organizing music. Most of my albums have full ID3 tags including cover arts and genres. I use iTunes also for managing movie trailers, movies and for syncing my iPhone and my iPod.  What I love in the last version of iTunes (version 8 ) is the grid option which is the way I usually use to navigate through my library.

Things

Before Things I’ve never used a GTD application. I’ve read lot of reviews on Things application after the recent Macworld 2009 expo, so I decided to give it a try. Things is the best to-do management application out there. I downloaded the trial version (which lets you use the app with full functionality for 15 days) and I bought a license just after 4 days of trial use. I am so excited with the features of this app, that I will write a separate post reviewing the app alongside with its companion product for the iPhone.

Transmit

Transmit is an ftp client by Panic. It offers great capabilities and is the only ftp program I use for managing the files of this blog. Transmit offers drag and drop interface which makes file exchange between your mac and your server a piece of cake. It supports ftp and sftp and integrates well with Panic Coda, the well known editor.

Coda

Coda is a text editor by Panic. Although it is called a text editor it offers much more like terminal, svn capabilities, css, even books and in general everything that a web developer needs.  I use it for editing the php files of the blogs, manage css files (I use also CSS edit for this purpose) and of course for html editing. When I need to edit a file on Typpz’s server, I find the file using Transmit ftp click, ctrl+click>edit with Coda, and after editing cmd+s to save it directly on the server. Coda costs $99 and worths every penny. I find it better and much more easy to use than Adobe Dreamweaver which costs much more. Both Coda and Transmit are mac-only apps.

Xcode

Xcode comes built-in in every Mac. It is a great IDE. I use it on a daily basis for practicing with the iPhone SDK. I also use it as a simple text-editor for java and c programs I write for my studies. I write the programs in Xcode and I prefer to compile them using the Terminal. In general Xcode and the other development programs that come with every Mac, offer everything you need for developing applications for Mac OS X using cocoa, java and objective-c.

iPhoto

I use to snap large amounts of photos each day with my camera. Right when I am back home I plug my camera to my mac and import them to iPhoto. iPhoto offers exactly what I need and use: tagging, album creation and most important it is easy to use. For professional users there are also Apple Aperture and Adobe Lightroom.

Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop needs for sure no introduction. I use it daily for editing images for this blog, editing my photos and for designing layouts for web sites I design. 

Next to come is a post about apps I use on a daily basis on my iPhone.

As you know, if you use a Mac, you can uninstall programs just by moving them to the trash. That uninstalls the program but leaves on your hdd some preferences files which have to be deleted manually (they are too small though, so you do not have to delete them as they do not slow down your mac). AppCleaner is a small, free app that manages to completely delete applications. Another key feature of AppCleaner is that it deletes widgets from your Dashboard with a single click. That is for me very useful, because I do not have to navigate to user>library>widgets to delete them. The video above shows how easy this process becomes using AppCleaner.

Every user that uses a Mac has came across Dashboard widgets. Creating widgets is very easy using the Dashcode IDE which comes preinstalled with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. So I decided to create my first widget, which parses typpz blog feed and displays it on your dashboard. Dashcode provides a ready-to-use template for RSS feeds, so if you want to build such a widget, you only have to make it look as you want and tweak in few things in the code.

Most of the operations like changing the appearance or adding images can be done with few clicks, without even write a single line of code. Below are some screenshots of Dashcode (clicking the run button on the upper left side, deploys the widget on your dashboard, so you can see how it acts in real time).

You can download Typpz widget to bring typpz feed on you dashboard here. After you download the .zip file, double click it to extract (most of the times it will be extracted by itself when download finish) and click the widget icon. When Mac OS asks if you want to install the widget click “Install”. If you later want to uninstall a widget you installed, you have to visit Mac HD>Users>”Your Name”>Library>Widgets and move to trash the widget you want to uninstall.

If you have an iPhone, you will probably have came across webclip icons.  Webclip icons are the icons that apear on your iphone homescreen when you bookmark a web site. It is very easy to create a webclip for your own web site. Let’s see how:

1. Create a 57×57 png icon with your logo or whatever you want.
2. Save the image as “apple-touch-icon.png”.
3. Upload the image to the root folder of your web site (not the root of your server, the root of your site).
4. Do not mind about designing a glossy icon because MobileSafari (the browser of iPhone) will create the glossy effect by itself.

You can see the webclip I created for Typpz blog on the screenshot. As I mentioned glossy effect and round edges are created by Safari, I just uploaded this image.

Recently I decided to upgrade my 2nd generation ipod nano with a 3rd generation one. Not that I had a problem with my old nano, but it just seemed too outdated -just after one year- with no video playback capabilities and only 2GB of memory.

The new nano is as thin as its predecessor, but it looks a little bit thinner due to the rounded corners. Its much shorter though, and with bigger display which led to a much smaller clickwheel. New nano is powered with a 2″ display with 320×240 resolution and 204 pixels per inch. Although the display is small, its high resolution makes it comfortable for viewing movies or movie trailers. If you run the latest ipod software alongside with the latest iTunes version, you can rent movies and watch them within 30 days.

3G Nano’s software is completely updated and reminds of the ipod’s software. Cover flow lets you navigate easily through your albums (assuming that you have them well organized with covers and artist information). Cover flow runs smoothly but it is a little bit slow, especially if you have too many album artworks. If you find the built-in display small, the new nano can be connected to your HDTV, via a component cable (which is sold separately). When viewing movies on your ipod, there is an option to enable zoom (pan and scan) and get rid of the letterbox (black lines above and below the movie due to 16:9 format) but that cuts part of the movie information (a small piece from the right and a small from the left).

Navigating through nano’s menu is easy and screenshots of album artworks, photos and animated menus are everywhere. New graphics make navigation easier. Pre-installed applications are almost the same with the previous nano, but with better graphics: Global watch, photo slider, calendar and contacts (can be synced with Outlook or Entourage), notes and three games: Music Quiz (which is completely updated and is my favorite game in the new nano), a 3D version of the brick game and a completely redesigned solitaire.

Sound quality is great as with all ipods. I think that low-frequencies (bass) sound better here and that volume can be adjusted louder than the older nano. Songs can be browsed in any imaginable way: by artist, creator, genre, album, etc. Music transfer from your PC/Mac to your ipod is done via itunes software.

Battery lifetime is the same with 2nd gen ipod nano and lasts for up to 24-hours music playback and 5-hours video playback. That is nice if we consider that 3rd gen nano’s display is much brighter. Although if you use your nano for playing games, battery lasts for 3-4 hours. Nano is charged using the USB cable. What is liked is that while nano is charging, display’s light remains turned on, letting you know when your nano is charged, even if you have not exported it from itunes. Battery indicator appears also in iTunes. The device can be used (like every ipod) as portable flash drive for transferring data. Note that when you carry your nano, you should take care of the back surface, because it can be easily scratched.

Nano package contains the basics: USB cable (used for charging, syncing and data transferring), earphones (same with the previous version), dock adaptor and a brief manual. Full operating instructions can be found in apple’s website in pdf format. New nano is available with 4 or 8GB of memory. 4GB model costs $149 and is available in silver color only and 8GB costs $199 and is available in a variety of colors.

In general I can say that if you own an older nano, upgrade worths it, especially if you are going to use your ipod for movie playback. Better sound quality, smaller size, brighter display and battery lifetime should also be considered to pros.