Software For Your Mac

March 27th, 2009 by J.R. Miller Leave a reply »

Since switching to a Mac 2 years ago, I have never once regretted my decision to put my Microsoft Windows years behind me (I am not an OS evangelist, so if Windows works for you, awesome.  Stick with it  It just was not working for me anymore).  

Anyway, I use my Mac for a LOT of different things from web design, graphics design, video & DVD creation, Preaching, Worship, Teaching, my Doctoral studies, and the list goes one.  
Over time, i have found some really useful applications, so I wanted to take just a few minutes to share them with my readers.
Bible Study
Over the past year I helped Beta test the new Logos for Mac.  Just today they released their 1.1 version that you can download from their website.  You can check out their site for details and videos, and below is a screenshot of my desktop.

Video From YoutTube
Tubesock is a great little application that allows you to copy any video from YoutTube and save it to your computer or iPod. This has been a great way to share videos as teaching illustrations during our Sunday service and in small groups or anywhere that you do not have an internet connection, but want to show a great YouTube clip.

Worship & Teaching
LiveWorhip is an amazingly easy to use and incredibly powerful tool. The best part is that you buy just ONE site license and you can use it on BOTH a PC or Mac.  As a church plant, we use different computers on different weeks, so this is great for us!   I use my Mac version at our Sunday service to display song lyrics, show videos, and a few teaching aids–stuff like maps, illustrations, or graphics I have created for my talk.

Floating Clock
You will notice in the screen capture above for LiveWorship a big clock telling the current time. Since I run my own slides while I talk, I wanted a way to keep track of time without having to look at my watch. This piece of free software called “Simple Floating Clock” is perfect. It permanently floats over any application, I can make it any size, adjust colors and transparency. It is a great free app that works perfectly for my teaching.

Mac On Remote
Macbook Pro comes with a cool little remote control, but not every program can communicate with it. I found this great little program called Mira. It allows me to run LiveWorship or any other program on my computer. Pretty sweet!

Mac Security Alarm
Finally, this little free application called iAlertU is a great way to protect your Mac from getting swiped. I do a lot of work in local coffee shops. I consider Starbucks my office and a cup of coffee as cheap rent (plus I have an office thousands of locations around the world). Anyway iAlertU is like a car alarm for your Mac. You just set the alarm using your Mac remote and if anyone tries to move it, unplug it, or even just look at your files, it sets off an alarm. So when I get up from my table to say hello to a friend or get a drink refill, I don’t have to worry if my back is turned to my computer. Check out this cool little video!

Educational Research
Endnote is one of the best investments I ever made toward my education!  I use it for my educational research, note taking, and best of all, it automatically inserts and formats all my footnotes for my dissertation!  Oh, what an amazing time saver!  There is just way too much to write about, so if you are a student at any level that needs to write papers, check out their site!
On-line Backups
Oh, I almost forgot.  I use a great tool called Mozy to backup my entire hard-drive.  You can get 2 GB free or for only $5 a month you have unlimited backup space!  That’s right UNLIMITED backup security for just $5/month!  Mine is set to run every night while I sleep!
Okay, that is all for now. Please let me know if you found this useful or please post some links in the comments of other software tools you find useful.
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2 comments

  1. Stephen Hultquist says:

    Nice list!

    I use Evernote for note taking on my iPhone and Mac, as well, and have a few others you might find interesting:

    OmniFocus for Getting Things Done(tm)-based task management (iPhone and Mac)

    Ulysses for writing books

    1Password for managing passwords and secure notes

    Adium for IM (although I tend to use TweetDeck for Twitter more than IM these days).

    The most amazing timesaver I have is QuickSilver.

    HoudahSpot for better searching.

    And SpanningSync for syncing my Google calendars and contacts with iCal and Address Book.

    Steve Hultquist
    http://thoughts.stephenhultquist.com

  2. J. R. Miller says:

    Hi Steve, thanks for the list!

    I have heard of Evernote before, and it looks pretty cool. I just may have to break down and get it one of these days.

    I will have to check out the others on the list. Thanks again!

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