Many of you guys asked me what software I use on my mac. I came up with the few apps that I use on a daily basis. Most of these apps are free but some do come with a cost but I assure you that the ones that cost money are worth getting. I broke them down into different category for simplicity sakes.  Nevertheless here is the list of apps that I use.

Internet and communications

Google Chrome – Download
This is my primary browser at work and at home. It works great and there is a bunch of extensions that you can add to your chrome.  One of my favorite extension is the google voice extension because I can text back on the keyboard and continue working right away instead of wasting time looking at my phone.

Adium – Download
This is the only instant messaging program you need. Adium is open source and supports nearly all the popular messaging services out there. There is an unlimited amount of possibilities of how you can customize Adium and make it fit your desktop. The only down side is that there is no support for video chat.

Transmit – Download
Transmit has got to be one of the best FTP Client out there for Mac. It has an interface that is simple to use and easy to follow through. It is very stable and has never crashed on me once. The best thing I like about the app is the friendly to use interface that is flexible to navigate and view different folders.

Sparrow – Download
This is the only mail client you will ever need especially if you have Mobile Me, Gmail yahoo or custom IMAP accounts. I love this program because of how simple it is. It is simple yet very efficient mail client. The messages are threaded so you know what you last said and so fourth. There is also a unified inbox as well.

CloudApp – Download
This is a neat little program if you want to share something to someone really quick. To share an image to a friend or colleague, all you have to do is just drag the image to the menu bar and the link is automatically placed in your clipboard. Now just paste it and share away.

Twitter – Download
This is the official twitter app and it is very simple without any of the advance features. It gets the job done if you are just an average user like me. I mainly use tweetbot on the iPhone as my main source of tweeting but occasionally I tweet from the computer and the twitter app gets the job done.

Productivity

Quicksilver – Download
If you like shortcut keys and want to find or launch an app, this is definitely what you need. With Quicksilver you can type in exactly want you want and it will find that app and give you your choices depending on the app you are trying to run. You can also create your own keyboard shortcuts to launch a software you frequently use.

Reeder – Download
If you live life in the fast lane and want to be up to date on the blogs or news site you follow, Reeder is a Google Reader client that will allow you to sync the RSS feeds that your are subscribed to in Google Reader. It has a simple interface and works really well just like the iPhone version. I have it on my Mac and iPhone.

Utilities

The Unarchiver – Download
The Unarchiver is a unpacker app for Mac OSX. It supports many more formats than the built in app on your Mac OS X. It has no interface what so every but it gets the job done. It is also not bloated like some of the other applications I’ve tried in the past.

Growl – Download
Growl is a notification system from mac OS X. This is highly recommended for everyone, regards if your a power user or just the average Joe. A lot of applications that were created for Mac OS X have somewhat integrated this in their app. It essential notify you in any event related to the app.

Dropbox – Download
The one app that I would recommend to everyone. Dropbox allows you to share and collaborate files with friends and colleagues. It also keep a history of your file as well, so you can go back and take a look at different versions that may have changed along the way and so fouth. Sharing is as simple as dragging a file in a folder.

LogMeIn – Download
LogMeIn is a very useful app for me as it allows me to access my home server at anytime. If you are by a computer with internet access and a browser you can essentially access your home computer or work computer remotely. It is a wonderful software since you don’t need to download any other software.

Media

Spotify – Download
Spotify is awesome because it allows you to listen to any song in their database when your in front of a computer. Sure there are other programs and websites out there but the Spotify app and their song database is great. There were only a few songs that I couldn’t find, but other than its great.

MplayerX – Download
This is all you need to play all your visual medias. I use to use VLC Player to watch rmvb and would never be able to skip around since it was so unstable but MplayerX does a great job at it. I also dont notice any buffering issues that I was having with VLC Player. This is my VLC Player replacement.

OC fair is the time where family and friends come together and stuff themselves with lots of heart stopping food and drinks.  If you liked the thrill of carnival rides, there are plenty that you can go on. There are also shops and vendors selling hand crafted products or unique stuff. There is definitely something to do for everyone in the family.

Our (John, Neil, Nick, and I) adventure began with the food of course. No we didn’t get to try fried butter or chocolate covered beacon, we had something a little more normal. Super huge sausage links, Curly chilly cheese fries, and 2 Turkey Legs.  This was more than enough food us. In fact we were all stuffed towards the end.  Great food nevertheless, but the chilly cheese curly fries wasn’t as good as last year or the year before for some reason. Maybe the cheese or chilly was watered down or something.

After eating all that food, we gathered the team together and it was game time. combining all our heads together for a game plan to win some carnival prizes.  I’ve successfully won 3 times and failed multiple times, but overall it was a fun experience.  As you can see the Gloria and Mimi were happy. Distraction they shortly came along. Awesome Bulldog! His name is George Raza find him on facebook. LOL

Since we were there on the last day of the OC Fair at around 7:00PM and everyone had work the next day so the fun and happiness shortly came to an end afterwards. Good thing is that the fun doesn’t stop here, even though the OC Fair is now over in a few weeks there will be the LA County fair in Pomona Fairplex. We shall then see if I have the guts to take on the fried butter and other weird stuff.

Here is one last picture of the whole group together.

So you bought a new Apple computer and now your looking for the print screen button on the keyboard but you just can’t find it. Little did you know there isn’t a print screen button like there is on a windows computer. In this post I will go through the two different methods to do a screen capture. Print screen is known as screen capture in Mac OSX and there is a two methods in achieving this. One of the methods allow you to output to a .PNG (Portable Network Graphics) image on the desktop and the other method allows you to copy it on the clipboard.

Screen Capture to a file on the desktop

Command ⌘+Shift+3: captures a screenshot of the full screen (or screens if you have multiple monitors), and save it as a .PNG file to the desktop

Command ⌘+Shift+4: brings up a selection box so you can select an area to capture a screenshot of, then save it as a .PNG file to the desktop

Command ⌘+Shift+4, then spacebar, then click a window: captures a screenshot of a window only and saves it as a .PNG file to the desktop

Screen Capture to clipboard

Command ⌘+Control+Shift+3: captures a screenshot of the entire screen (or screens if you have multiple monitors), and saves it to the clipboard for pasting

Command ⌘+Control+Shift+4, then select an area: captures a screenshot of selection and saves it to the clipboard for pasting

Command ⌘+Control+Shift+4, then space, then click a window: captures a screenshot of a window and saves it to the clipboard for pasting

Pretty simple to do a screen capture on a mac right? The best part is that you don’t even have to open paint to create the image.