Dolmere Talamasca - Second Life "resident"

PHOTOGRAPHY: iPhoto with FlickrExport

I take photography seriously but I have no intention of installing and using Aperture.

I don't take photography seriously. At best it's an after thought and at worst it's an annoyance to me. That would probably explain why I do not have a Flickr account and have no intention of creating one. I do use iPhoto to store and organize the few photographs I have.

PERSONAL INFO: Wallet

I have always used an encrypted wallet application for tracking website logins, personal ID info, etc. For the Mac, my favorite is Waterfall Software’s Wallet 2.x.

I've never even considered going outside the OS for soemthing like this. Worst case scenario there are encrypted disk image but I just use custom keychains instead. Keychain Access is in the Utilities folder and allows me to store website logins, personal ID info, encrypted notes and more. If you don't want it automatically unlocked then just create a new keychain and put the more sensitive stuff in there behind a super special secret one-ring-to-unlock-the-rest password.

EMAIL: Mail

I use a .Mac email account (IMAP protocol) which stores all of my email on the Apple servers.

Yeah, I use Mail.app to access my work email (IMAP), my .Mac personal email (IMAP) and my google gmail (POP). It's a great little app.

IM: iChat

Yes, I am using iChat. How uncool, right? Let me explain. I have always been a supporter of GAIM, the underlying application behind Adium, and absolutely love Adium for its ability to support multiple networks and eye candy.

I switched back to iChat recently out of frustration with Adium’s unreliable file transfer capability. Not only does iChat transfer files properly, but it has 4-way video conferencing (which is something lacking in Skype), connects to Google Talk, and integrates with Mac Mail and other parts of the OS.

What? Me too you say? Well, yes. I use iChat for access to my AIM account as well as to gmail's jabber service and bonjour local network users. I don't do vieo conferencing much but I have done multi party chats and it pretty much just works - barring odd firewalls some users have.

MUSIC: iTunes, Amazon S3+Bandwagon, Last.fm

As an iPhone user, iTunes is absolutely a requirement. I use it to sync all my stuff to the iPhone, listen to tunes on my Mac, and use it to manage my regularly listened to podcast subscriptions.

I backup and sync my iTunes libraries across two Macs using Bandwagon. I signed up for an Last.fm for keeping track of my listening habits, explore new artists, and find out what others are listening to. I love Last.fm much more than iLike. Do not use the bloated Last.fm application on your Mac. Use iScrobbler instead.

I use iTunes on a single machine with a 500GB external hard drive. Currently the external drive is filling up, with only 6GB avail after the most recent batch of imports, so I'm moving my riped DVDs and other videos off it onto another machine's iTunes library. Separate music and video libraries will work fine for me and it is possible to sync one video iPod (and I would assume iPhone) to two libraries as long as it's music to one, video to another (podcasts can go to yet another, etc).

I loved Last.fm but I just can't stand that they were purchased by CBS. I hope a competitor comes out that allows me to "scrobble" there. In the meantime it's back to just me and my smart playlists on shuffle. Maybe I should check out this iLike thing.

On my iTunes jukebox machine I have installed the Volume Logic plugin to give me on the fly processing. With 30,000+ songs in my database Apple's volume check feature gets lost in the major disparity of levels. Volume Logic makes listening to songs on shuffle a pleasant experience with no level jumping issues.

BROWSER: Safari

I love Firefox, but I have stopped using it as my main browser because Safari is faster [...]

Safari is my main browser, absolutely. I also have Firefox installed but rarley ever launch it - less than once a month I'd say.

VOIP: Skype

The Mac version of Skype seems to continually “eat” contacts from my friend list but otherwise runs like a champ most of the time. The latest OS X audio patch for the latest Intel Duo MacBook Pro seems to have corrected the speakerphone echo I had with Skype when not using a headset.

I have an use Skype. Like iChat I use it mostly for text messaging, it's a way to be in touch with users who refuse to create an AIM or jabber account (and gmail jabber does not support file transfer or audio chat, etc.)

DOCUMENTS: Pages, Keynote, NeoOffice

I use MS Word (rarely) and Keynote. I do not have NeoOffice installed although I've used it.

USAGE TRACKING: Wakoopa

I use Wakoopa to track what applications I am using and share it with the world. I dumped Slife because it doesn’t track all applications and it used so much processing power on my MacBook Pro that it caused the fan to run 24/7.

Like twitter this one is not even close to being on my interest radar.

PODCASTING: GarageBand, Levelator

It took me almost a year to switch to using GarageBand for producing audio podcasts. I was a long-time Adobe Audition user and just didn’t want to learn anything new. It didn’t take long to figure out GarageBand and I’ve used it ever since. I use GigaVox Levelator to prep my WAV files before bringing them into GarageBand.

I don't really consume podcasts so creating them is also not on my interest radar. However, I use GarageBand to create and perform my basstastic perversions in SL. I'll be checking out the Levelator tool to see if that would help in my audio workflow at all, good tip.

RSS FEEDS: Google Reader, Reader Notifier

After crashing most of the applications for RSS feed browsing, even my favorite NetNewsWire, I finally switched to Google Reader. The only application I run on my Mac now is Reader Notifier that tells me when new items are waiting to be read.

Like my lack of interest in podcasts I also don't manage or view rss feeds. For some reason I prefer to just stumble across my news. I suppose that Tao's WorldOfSL is the closest thing to a newsreader I use.

OTHER: Twitterific, delimport, Flip4Mac…

Twitterific is the best desktop app for tracking tweets. delimport pulls in del.icio.us bookmarks for Spotlight search. Flip4Mac opens Windows Media video content in QuickTime. QuickSilver is a popular tool for Mac OS X but I admittedly have not spent any time figuring it out. iGlasses and Conference Recorder are great tools for making iSight cameras rock. I use WireCast to stream live QuickTime video and NiceCast for streaming Shoutcast audio.

I've got WireCast and iShowU for working with video but have yet to do anything productive with it. For video editing I'm satisfied with iMovie.

I use Nicecast to stream audio. To DJ I directly capture iTunes and just play songs in party playlist mode. To perform live basstastic perversions I capture GarageBand's sound output. I also use Audio Hijack Pro in order to capture audio from sources that don't have an export option (Free Napster comes to mind).

Flip4Mac is a must as is Perian for quicktime video codec stuff. For video playback I find that VLC is the bomb though sometimes I'll use MPlayer.

Transmit and CyberDuck are my FTP clients of choice.

I've downloaded the eJamming AUDiiO beta but have yet to give it a shot yet. I think I'm intimidated.

That sums it up for me I think. I volunteered a few new items that I find useful on a regular basis. Anyone else wnat to chime in on their Mac application usage?