Ubercool

CRM on the Mac

Michael — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:59:45 +0000

If there is one area where the Mac platform is weak, it’s database management, specifically CRM-type solutions. Managing contacts is an amazingly arduous process on the Mac, particularly considering we’re living in an era where everyone acknowledges that social networking is absolutely essential to your success.

Why is maintaining customer, or even personal databases, so difficult on the Mac? The majority of the blame lies with Apple itself. This innovative company provides a lackluster contact management tool, Address Book, a core feature of all MacOS operating systems.

Because Apple’s database manager does enough to keep most users happy, few developers have taken on the challenge of building a truly useful database manager for the Mac. Yet as most power users know, Address Book is one of the weakest elements of Apple’s ecosystem, one that leaves a lot to be desired.

And things got worse with Mac OS X Lion, which introduced an annoying split-window view of contact groups and contacts, all sheathed in faux leather that while cute looking contributes zilch to the productivity of Mac users.

Apple now forces you to change to the display mode to add new records, an extra step that’s totally unnecessary. I can’t tell you how many times I have added a new group because I clicked the + button in the group view instead of clicking “+” in contact view to actually create a new contact.

Take merging duplicates, for example. Apple’s approach is to do as it sees fit. The user has no interaction with what happens to duplicate records. Apple simply combines them and puts conflicting data in the Notes field.

That may be fine for some but it’s a major headache for users who need to wade through all their entries to find the ones that were deduped and look at the Notes field to see what Apple decided was the right data.

Since most people only have about 200 or 300 contacts that’s not too much of a chore, but when you have 2,360, like I do, it’s a big mess. It would have been nice if Address Book automatically created a Smart Group containing merged records, so one could easily track changes.

Luckily for us Apple appears to have seen the error of its ways and will bring the three-panel view back in Mountain Lion.

Things are looking up in other ways too. In our extensive exploration of Mac CRM, we have tried all kinds of tools, the complete and intimidating list is provided below, to help us achieve the quality contact management we deserve.

A new app called Cobook, created by Kaspars Dancis, is now in beta and gets around a slew of Address Book weaknesses. Cobook adds a book icon to my already crowded menubar, which lets me search, add and modify entries without having to open Address Book.

Cobook also adds a number of much-wished-for enhancements, like auto data recognition for placement in the correct field and social media integration, a major weakness of Apple’s Address Book.

Another promising solution is to use a new online tool by Streak that turns your Gmail account into a CRM solution.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. To best understand how you can build an effective CRM system on the Mac, you need to know the strengths of apps I use to manage each aspect of list creation and maintenance:

Assumptions

This article assumes you’re running a business using your Mac. It also deals with the need to achieve a very important objective: to separate your personal contacts from your business contacts.

You might, for example, want to keep certain business contacts in your Address Book because it syncs with your iPhone. But if you have thousands of business contacts, you don’t really want them all in your iPhone contacts because that makes finding a certain individual in your iPhone list an arduous task.

As business people who work in realtime we have to deal with a lot of these types of mundane problems. To help you understand the role of each software component used, we have created another list at the end of this article to help you understand how each component fits into the Mac CRM process.

Address Book (free)

As maligned at it is, Mac users rely on Address Book because Apple Mail and a host of other programs seamlessly sync with it, allowing you to instantly call up names for easy emailing but also to be able to store your personal database on iCloud for syncing with an iPhone or iPad.

Mountain Lion thankfully adds the three-pane view back to Address Book, which will be renamed Contacts in this next OS release to match its iPhone counterpart.

By right-clicking an email address in Apple Mail, you can quickly add a contact to Address Book. Apart from this nifty integration, Address Book is poor for fast entry and data cleansing.

For example, while Address Book allows you to categorize contacts by group, and a single contact can belong to multiple groups, you have to hold down the Option key in “groups view” to see what group(s) a contact belongs to. There is no table view that displays all this data at once.

Bento ($30)

Apple’s Filemaker division offers Bento, which can link directly to your Address Book and is able to display your contacts in table view, allowing you to quickly edit multiple contacts and also search on multiple field parameters, both features sadly lacking in Address Book.

Bento not only syncs with Address Book directly but offers a list view that is fully editable and can be searched on multiple parameters as shown above.

Table views are much better for checking data integrity because you can quickly see where the missing gaps are, or which fields were entered incorrectly. Unfortunately, like Address Book, Bento is not able to show you the multiple groups a contact belongs to. For that you need the following tool, Cobook.

Cobook (free beta)

As we mentioned before, Kaspars Dancis’ Cobook is a godsend for Mac users. Cobook simplifies rapid data entry and searches, rendering the use of Address Book almost unnecessary. Cobook simplifies address entry with smart fields that can detect what type of data you’re entering and automatically enter it into the right fields. This doesn’t always work, of course, but it’s a big plus. Another Cobook feature is the easy way with which it allows you to integrate social media contacts within your Address Book.

Cobook shines in the contact editing department, offering users the ability to group edit contacts, like assigning or removing tags, indicated with a “#” (pound or hashtag).

However, you should be careful here. When I started using Cobook and connected my social media accounts, I activated the program’s ability to import all my LinkedIn contacts. Result: my Address Book grew by 800 contacts overnight.

That would be great if these contacts proved helpful but many connected with me after I spoke at an event. Interaction is minimal and there’s no real reason to carry all this extra bulk in my core Address Book.

However, they could be helpful for future business opportunities, so that’s why labeling contacts is very tactical. Cobook simplifies categorizing contacts. Unlike Address Book and Bento, Cobook actually displays group names, called “tags” by Cobook, in each record. You can easily add or remove tags, quickly organizing contacts. And Cobook can do this for single or multiple contacts at once.

Direct Mail (free)

Once you have all your email addresses organized, you need some way to connect with them on a regular basis. You can download Direct Mail, a free app, to email your contact list. Direct Mail lets you import email templates created by other programs or designers, and rapidly create ad-hoc lists or import existing lists to do promotions.

Direct Mail is an easy-to-use promotional tool that lets you send emails to small or large lists, and features its own built-in address list manager.

When emailing, you have two options. If the number of emails you’re sending is relatively small, say fewer than a 100-200 per month, you can use your own email account to handle the emailing. Direct Mail will also email for free, as long as you send no more than 50 emails each month.

But when email lists get large, it’s better to send them via the e3 Delivery Service built directly into Direct Mail, which charges about $10 per 1,000 emails sent. You must pre-pay for “tokens” to use against your monthly email allotment.

eMail Extractor ($20)

I like eMail Extractor because it does something unique: it can extract emails from text files. In “Doing CRM the Mac Way,” process described later, I will show you how I use this utility to create highly targeted lists of prospects you have been too busy to add to your Address Book.

eMail Verifier ($30)

The problem with collecting contacts over the years is that people move and many email addresses become outdated resulting in as high as a 20% bounce rate on a typical promotion.

eMail Verifier performs a very useful function — email address verification. This utility will ping addresses to verify their validity.

Email marketing services that charge by the number of emails you send love this of course, because the more email addresses you have the more they charge you. eMail Verifier will test each email address in your list by pinging them without actually sending anything and verify it they’re still valid or not.

That’s not only a money saver but you can also separately save invalid email addresses and let an intern search for them online to update your Address Book.

Export Address Book ($3.99; App Store)

Export Address Book deals with a very annoying shortcoming of Address Book: it does not allow you to export email addresses by address group.

Export Address Book is literally a lifesaver if you use Address Book and want to export contacts by category, or only include certain fields in your export file.

What if you wanted to let your suppliers know that you have a new head of accounts payable who will see to it that they never get paid? Export Address Book handles that task beautifully.

MailChimp (free for less than 2,000 email addresses)

MailChimp is one of the most popular emailing services in the business today. Run by the affable Ben Chestnut out of Atlanta, a former graphic designer for Cox Communications, Ben has turned MailChimp into not only the most fully featured email service in the business but one that has a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor that must be experienced.

Most importantly, MailChimp created one of the first APIs to allow third parties to connect directly to your email lists, which comes in handy when you use outside CRM services like BatchBook or Nimble, which both sync to it.

Mail Designer ($70)

From Germany comes a nice program, Mail Designer, that lets you customize company emails by including your logo in the header.

I only mention Mail Designer here because I not only sprung $70 for the program but spent an additional $40 on their Business Edition stationery pack. This combination might work for you because the designs are nice and once customized to your liking they can be directly installed in Apple Mail to be used effortlessly.

But I found them a little constraining. For example you can’t modify the width of the templates and while Mail Designer works with MailChimp, another favorite emailer of mine, they failed to read MailChimp’s recommendation of keeping emails to no more than 620 pixels wide.

Mail Designer breaks that rule but not by much. Its templates are 690 pixels wide, which makes them unwieldy for simple business communications, but great for emailing a Google Maps picture directly in your office directions.

MailSteward ($50)

I have about 160,000 emails stored on my Mac. More than 90,000 are in Mac Mail and additional 70,000 are stored in a separate MailSteward database. MailSteward allows you to archive your old Mac email inbox folders to a standalone database that can be searched quickly using multiple parameters.

In “Doing CRM the Mac Way,” below, I’ll describe how I use MailSteward to resurrect old business development contacts for promotional mailings.

Numbers ($20; App Store)

You often need a spreadsheet to look at files that have been exported by other programs. Apple’s popular spreadsheet Numbers can handle this task. Numbers lets’ you look at exported data in a table to help you clean up your contact list.

One popular use of Numbers is to join two fields for using with an event invitation site like Pingg, which lets you paste two fields, a combined name field and email address, at once to add to your invite list. In Numbers you can combine First Name and Last Name, using this simple trick:

Start with a sheet that has first names in column A and last names in column B
Create a new column C and paste in the formula C=A&” “&B.
Replicate the formula down for as many contacts as you have.
Copy joined column C to Column D, and select “Paste Values” from the Edit menu.
Now you have a list of joined first and last names, and you can delete columns A, B and C.

Panorama Sheets ($50)

I’m glad to see that James Rea still runs one of the oldest Mac development companies, ProVUE, and continues to publish Panorama Sheets, an offshoot of the original Panorama.

What I like about Panorama is that you can handle big list manipulations very quickly, because Panorama does what few other programs do. For example, it can split database record fields or join them at the blink of an eye.

This is a boon for those of us who need to deal with bonehead salespeople who decided to store client names in their contact database using one field for both First and Last. Panorama lets you split those fields, and a lot more, with ease.

Plaxo ($80)

This is not your old grand daddy’s Plaxo. The reinvented service syncs Address Book and offers an optional Platinum assistant-driven service that actually plies the internet and unmentionable databases to make sure you have the latest and greatest on your database of prospects.

Unfortunately the service went from bad to good and then back to bad again when it comes to eliminating duplicates from your Address Book list. But I feel that the Platinum service is unique enough that you should spend some bucks to see if it meets your needs.

It’s definitely a big help in a world where there’s never enough time to do anything.

WhiteList (App Store; $6)

I was happier than a pig in you-know-what when I found this program. It may seem simple, but believe me, nothing else does what WhiteList does. WhiteList searches though email inboxes and it finds people you emailed most and ranks them by number of emails sent.

In the next section, “Doing CRM, the Mac Way,” I show how to use WhiteList to create a list of your most important business development contacts so you can reach out to them personally.

Doing CRM the Mac Way

I’m going to describe a process that every business executive faces. You have emailed hundreds of business prospects over the past few years, but you were too busy to add most of them to your Address Book each time you engaged.

Now your business development email folder is full of hundreds of emails of people you want to reach out to with an update about your firm or to send them “We just moved” emails. How does one do this?

Well the good news is that it can be done. The bad news: it takes many steps to get it right. Here, I’m going to describe the process flow using the tools mentioned above.

Capture Contacts With Address Book

Store all your contacts in Address Book, since everything, including your iPhone and iPad, lives off its contact list. You will want to add new contacts directly using that handy right click (using the Control key if you don’t have a new trackpad or two-button mouse). Make sure you categorize your contact so you can do custom list selections.

Don’t know how to organize your Address Book by category? Here are a few basic categories, or “groups” as Apple calls them, I use that will help you get organized:

Promo – this is your core business promotion group. All people who are to receive your promotional emails should be on this list, save perhaps for your personal contacts and suppliers, this a group you should definitely create using whatever name you prefer.
Personal – Put your family members, doctors, and other personal contacts here, so you can avoid sending them unwanted business promotions. Some may be interested, like that dentist who wants to invest in your business, so you can always add them to the Promo group too, because Address Book lets you assign contacts to multiple groups, a powerful feature.
Restaurants/Bars – You know visitors are going to ask you for personal restaurant recommendations, so keep this group separate from your personal contacts. This list also makes it easier to suggest a place for a business lunch.
Suppliers – Keep your suppliers or vendors separate so you are able to send them emails no one else wants to read, like “No more 2% cash discount!”

The sky is the limit when it comes to organizing contacts. Some will prefer to split family from the personal group, so they can keep their GFs or BFs separate from their better halves. You get the picture. But don’t overdo it. Part of being well-organized is keeping things simple.

Edit and Update with Cobook

You are encouraged to use Cobook to help update and maintain your contact list and avoiding having to use Address Book, which is largely unusable.

Parse Mail Inboxes with White List

Use White List to ply through your business development folder in Mac Mail and filter a list of people you emailed most. Set a cut off of two emails and consider everyone above that as candidates for your promo list.

You do have a business development folder, right? If not, make one pronto and use it to store emails of people you want to do business with in the future.

Distill Email Addresses with MailSteward

In our system, we export our Mail’s Business Development folder and import that inbox database into MailSteward. MailSteward will then create a list of all email addresses found in your business development folder.

Use Bioinformatics to Compare Lists

You can compare the list of email addresses generated by MailSteward with the one you created with White List to find the people you corresponded with most. A great list comparison tool is Bioinformatics’ Compare Two Lists. This nifty tool will show you the difference between two lists, their intersection (what they have in common), etc.

Isn’t it amazing that this functionality is not offered by a regular application? I would love to see a utility developed that would be able to do this based not only on a single field, but to compare complete Address Book databases, so you can find out which people are missing from one list to the other.

Test Email Addresses with eMail Verifier

Once you’ve extracted email addresses from a MailSteward database or exported them from Address Book, you can test the validity of email addresses using eMail Verifier, and save only the ones found to be still correct.

Send Targeted Promotions with MailChimp

Export your final list to MailChimp, where you will add them to your “Promo” list. MailChimp also synchronizes with Nimble, the app described below, so use the “Promo” tag to identify the correct list to sync with.

Using a (SaaS) CRM Service: Nimble

One way to deal with promotion lists is to use online services that fundamentally mimic Salesforce.com. Why not Salesforce.com itself? Because as most salespersons will tell you, Salesforce.com is very difficult to use.

If you like what CRM services can do for you, we recommend you look into Nimble. Nimble debuted in 2011 and shines in one regard: it integrates your social media contacts and lets you communicate directly with them via each service’s API. Nimble currently supports direct messaging with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

The basic version of Nimble is free. If you opt to pay $15/month you can get a few more features, notably that highly desirable syncing with MailChimp.

Turning Your Gmail into a CRM System: Streak

We have just learned about the application Streak, which uses Google Gmail to create a CRM system directly in your inbox. This is a promising solution, if it works, so we’re testing it out.

Google Apps Contacts

Google offers free Google Apps accounts for entities of 10 users or less. A Google Apps account lets you receive email at your own company email address, i.e. john.smith@yourcompany.com, while also receiving the benefits of Google Calendar and Contacts.

But syncing Google Contacts also presented challenges. Didn’t we warn you that managing contacts on the Mac is unnecessarily complicated? We are still finding our way through the Googleland process, so much of this information is preliminary:

Spanning Sync 3 – We tried using Spanning Sync, a $30/year service, but quickly found out that it had problems syncing with Google Calendar initially, producing a “Google account is over quota” message. Then we discovered that you have to turn off iCloud syncing of your contacts to make it sync with Google Contacts. When we turned iCloud syncing off temporarily, it did the job. What happened when we turned iCloud back on? iCloud wanted to merge local contacts with iCloud contacts. That would have instantly doubled my Address Book, with no promise that de-duping would work. So we had to trash our iCloud database to turn iCloud back on again. Clearly, not a workable solution.
SyncMate – Another option is SyncMate, which is free. SyncMate can synchronize Google Accounts, and we’re currently testing this option vs. Spanning Sync.

iPhone-only Contact Managers

There are two iPhone-apps-only contact managers that recently surfaced:

Smartr Contacts (free) – Smartr Contacts is made by Xobni Corp., bestknown for its Gmail application Smartr Inbox. Smartr also integrates social media profiles with your contact list.
VIPorbit – Much like Google+ Circles, VIPorbit Lite (free; $10 for the non-nag version) lets you organize contacts by “Orbits.” The program also syncs with your Calendar so that you don’t have to leave the app to view your schedule.

As you can see there are numerous challenges in maintaining contacts and doing email promotion, i.e. CRM, on the Mac. It is our sincere hope that a few smart Mac developers will read this story and be inspired to create a truly awesome solution. Meanwhile, please like us on Facebook and retweet this article if you found it helpful.

Apple New iPad

Michael — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 08:00:30 +0000

So many tech products are called “revolutionary,” but rarely truly are. The new Apple iPad ($500-$830) is an exception. The new iPad makes your computer feel outdated, how’s that for “resolutionary?”

Macintosh Apps List

Michael — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:52:49 +0000

Despite all the great reviews Macintosh computers have garnered over the years, we rarely see it said that Apple’s groundbreaking platform has attracted some of the best designed software on the market today. In fact, we would venture to say that with few exceptions, the Mac has the best possible software for the task at hand.

And that’s from a former Windows user. Party that’s due to the fact that Apple was first on the market with an integrated smartphone solution, leading many Mac app developers to create seamless synchronization solutions.

Here are our picks for the most ubercool software on the Macintosh:

Adobe Creative Suite CS5 ($1,250)
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/designstandard.html

Adobe Creative Suite

Adobe’s Creative Suite includes Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign CS5, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop and Acrobat X Pro. If you’re a designer, you can’t do without these famous tools. Pricey but necessary.

AppDelete ($8)
http://www.reggieashworth.com/

AppDelete

AppDelete is a great uninstaller that removes not only applications but also any other associated files that reside in the system folder.

Bento ($50)

Bento

http://www.filemaker.com/products/bento/
Bento is a simple database manager with built-in, predesigned forms that also lets you connect to, or edit, records in your Address Book.

BusyCal ($50)
http://www.busymac.com/

BusyCal

BusyCal is far better than the Lion calendar because it works just like the Leopard calendar. It can also be shared easily via iCloud or Google.

ChronoSync ($40)
http://www.econtechnologies.com/

Chronosync

Great solution for backing up and synchronizing files with an external hard disk or other storage device.

Cinch ($7)
http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com

Cinch

Gives Mac users a nice Windows 7 feature: Drag a window until the mouse cursor touches either left or right edges of the screen, and the window “cinches,” into place. Cinch will resize a window to half screen, allowing you to easily compare two windows side-by-side.

Cobook (Free beta)
http://www.cobookapp.com/

Cobook

Cobook resides in your Mac menu bar and can be called up any time to search, add and edit entries in your Address Book. Simply indispensable.

Coda ($100)
http://www.panic.com/coda/

Coda

Edit HTML code simply and quickly with this very nice web development tool. Coda lets you simply click on a file name and you can start editing web pages.

DecipherTextMessage ($10)
http://deciphertools.com/tm-mac.html

Decipher TextMessage

Decipher TextMessage backs up your iPhone text messages and MMS images to your Mac so you have a permanent backup.

Direct Mail ($99)
http://www.directmailmac.com/

Direct Mail

Direct Mail lets you create e-mail campaigns and send them to your lists using either your mail account or Direct Mail’s pre-paid e3 delivery service.

DiskWave (Shareware)
http://www.diskwave.barthe.ph

Diskwave

DiskWave is a utility that scans your hard disk to determine what files and folders consume most of your disk space. A necessity for SSD users.

Dropbox (Freemium)
http://www.dropbox.com/

Dropbox

Dropbox lets you save files to the cloud, so you can instantly access them on other computers, your iPhone or iPad.

eMail Extractor ($20)
http://maxprog.com/

eMail Extractor

eMail Extractor extracts email addresses from text files, which is a great way to build a customer contact list using your mailbox data.

eMail Verifier ($30)
http://maxprog.com/

eMail Verifier

This email verification tool actually connects to your mail server and checks whether an email address exists or not, and disconnects without sending.

Evernote (Freemium)
http://www.evernote.com/

Evernote

Evernote saves notes or web clippings and lets you access them from any platform. Indispensable for people who do a lot of research, like yours truly.

Export Address Book ($4)
http://www.subclassed.com/

Export Address Book

Apple’s Address Book does not let you export contacts by group. Export Address Book does that and a lot more. Totally worth $4, don’t you agree?

Fetch ($30)
http://www.fetchsoftworks.com

Fetch

Fetch is file transfer utility that is easy of use and supports FTP and SFTP, the most popular file transfer protocols used to manage your web site or blog.

FinalDraft ($250)
http://www.finaldraft.com/

FinalDraft

Need to write a screen play or Broadway book? FinalDraft lets you approach it the right way, seamlessly formatting your script as you type.

Flip4Mac (Freemium)
http://www.telestream.net/flip4mac-wmv/overview.htm

Flip4Mac

Flip4Mac WMV Player lets you import Windows Media video and audio directly into various Mac applications, so they can play automatically.

Free Ruler 1.7b5 (Free)
http://www.pascal.com/software/freeruler/

Free Ruler

Free Ruler is a floating horizontal and vertical ruler that measure on-screen items in pixels, inches, picas,or centimeters. A necessity for web designers.

Google Chrome (Free)
http://www.google.com/mac/

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is quickly gaining on the most popular browsers, because it’s frequently updated, in the background, lighting fast and easily extensible.

Google Earth (Free)
http://www.google.com/earth/index.html

Google Earth

Puts the world at your fingertips. Fly to any place around the world and see maps with 3D buildings and street-view terrains. Mindbendingly fun.

GoToMeeting ($40/mo.)
http://www.gotomeeting.com

GoToMeeting

If you like to demo or hold online briefings, GoToMeeting is definitely one of the gold standards of online meetings. Promo fee: $40/mo.

GrandTotal ($70)
http://www.grandtotal.biz/GrandTotal/

GrandTotal

Create invoices and estimates with a customized design. Automatically attaches a PDF invoice to email for quick sending. Great for consultants.

iBooks Author (Free)
http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/

iBooks Author

From Apple with e-books love comes iBooks Author, which lets you create sophisticated e-books with video, photo gallery widgets and much more. Download now.

iMovie ($15)
http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/

iMovie

iMovie lets you edit your camcorder and iPhone movies and organizes them for easy browsing and watching. Totally Apple, totally ubercool.

iPhoto ($15)
http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/

iPhoto

iPhoto grabs photos from your digicam, organizes them by event or import date, lets you retouch photos and sends them to your friend’s inbox or mailbox.

Keynote ($20)
http://www.apple.com/iwork/

Keynote

Keynote was the program that made yours truly switch back to the Mac. It’s that good. Outstanding ease of use and power, makes PPT fans green with envy.

Kindle for Mac (Freemium)
http://kindle-for-mac.en.softonic.com/mac

Kindle for Mac

Want to read Kindle books on your MacBook? No problem with the free Kindle for Mac app makes, which can now be also downloaded in the App Store.

Lion Tweaks (Shareware)
http://www.ifredrik.com

Lion Tweaks

Lion Tweaks allows you to customize and correct certain features in Mac OS X 10.7, many of which are undoubtedly annoying to you.

Mail Designer ($70)
http://www.equinux.com

Mail Designer

With Mail Designer, you can create beautiful email messages, including invitations, business updates and newsletters, which are directly installed in Mail.

MailSteward ($50)
http://www.mailsteward.com/

MailSteward

MailSteward archives huge volumes of email by storing them in a database that offers sophisticated searching and the ability to extract mail addresses.

Numbers ($20)
http://www.apple.com/iwork/

Numbers

Numbers is the Excel of the Mac. It has much of its power, but some might feel it’s not enough. While Apple needs to update the iWorks suite badly, it’s well worth $20.

OmniOutliner ($40)
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnioutliner/

OmniOutliner

OmniOutliner is our favorite tool for creating to-do lists, data lists, or any task that requires outlines. While it’s a bit hard to use, it offers many features.

1Password ($50)
https://agilebits.com/onepassword/mac

1Password

1Password can create strong, unique passwords, organize them, and insert them in web pages using a handy button installed in your web browser.

OnyX (Free)
http://www.onyxmac.com/

OnyX

How about a versatile utility with a nice interface that handles system maintenance tasks and is shareware? That is OnyX, and it’s only available on the Mac.

Pages ($20)
http://www.apple.com/iwork/

Pages

Pages is the Microsoft Word of the Mac. Like Numbers, Pages has outstanding layout capabilities, as exemplified by its built-in templates. Well worth $20.

Panorama Sheets ($40)
http://www.provue.com

Panorama Sheets

Need to manipulate data? Like join two fields or clean up a database marred by sloppy data entry? Panorama Sheets parses your data fast working in RAM.

Pixelmator ($30)
http://www.pixelmator.com/

Pixelmator

Need Photoshop but don’t want to pay Adobe any more money? Pixelmator does what you absolutely need: resizing, retouching, layering and more.

Presentation Prompter ($65)
http://www.nextforcesw.com/presentationprompter.html

Presentation Prompter

Presentation Prompter turns your Mac into a teleprompter, offering full control over display preferences, including scrolling speed and character size.

QuarkXPress ($800)
http://www.quark.com

QuarkXpress

We created MacWEEK using Quark. It would not have been possible to publish a 50,000-circulation weekly in 1987 on the Mac without it. Enough said.

Quicken Essentials ($40)
http://quicken.intuit.com/personal-finance-software/mac-personal-financial-software.jsp

Quicken Essentials

Here’s one case where a Windows version still outshines, but if you want balance your checkbook the Mac way, Quicken Essentials is good enough.

Reeder ($10)
http://reederapp.com

Reeder

Silvio Rizzi has written the most gorgeous RSS reader bar none. Reeder syncs with Google Reader feeds but showcases articles beautifully and simply.

Safari (Free)
http://www.apple.com

Safari

Certain extensions, like ResizeMe, are only available for Safari, so for those with consistent window size capturing needs, Safari is the only way to go.

Skype (Free)
http://www.skype.com/

Skype

Since its launch in August 2003, Skype has reshaped the chat and internet calling market. The Mac version, while radically different from Windows, is pretty nifty.

Smultron (Free)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/smultron/

Smultron

Smultron is no longer updated, but I have yet to find a simple text editor that does what it does, which is quick-and-dirty CSS or text editing.

Snapz Pro X ($70)
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/

Snapz Pro-X

Mac designers create a lot of user manuals, so taking great screenshots is key. Snapz Pro X works the same way as Apple’s Grab but offers more options.

Sol Basics Solitaire ($10)
http://www.solbasics.com/

Sol Basics

If you’re addicted to Solitaire, specifically Spider Solitaire, you will dig Sol Basics. For 10 bucks, you get Sol Basics Solitaire, Spider, Free Cell and Klondike.

Sparrow (Freemium)
http://sparrowmailapp.com/

Sparrow

Unhappy with Apple Mail and a Gmail user? Sparrow is a simple mail program that interfaces with Facebook and Dropbox. For $10 you can get rid of the ads.

SplashID Safe ($20)
http://www.splashdata.com/splashid/desktop/

SplashID

We have two password keepers in this list. That’s because SplashID does a better job of organizing, while 1Password is better at inserting. Both could be easier to use.

Things ($50)
http://www.culturedcode.com

Things

Things is a well-executed list manager and was one of the first apps that let users synch between Mac and iPhone app ($10), perfect for list checkers.

TimeMachineEditor (Free)
http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor/

TimeMachineEditor

While Time Machine is a great backup solution, it has one annoying habit, it backs up all the time, slowing your Mac down. TimeMachineEditor solves that.

TurboTax Home Business 2012 ($75)
http://turbotax.intuit.com/

TurboTax Home and Busines

This is great tax preparation software. While you can choose between the online and software version, the software has more features.

TweetDeck (Free)
http://www.tweetdeck.com/

TweetDeck

If you tweet, you’ll like TweetDeck — a fave of power users all over. Handles Facebook and LinkedIn posts too, and is highly customizable.

UnRarX (Shareware)
http://www.unrarx.com/

UnRarX

Some online repositories like compressing files in a weird format called “rar” UnRarX lets you expand these rare rar archives.

Webbla ($23)
http://www.celmaro.com/

Webbla

One area where the Mac suffers in comparison to the PC is bookmark keeping. Webbla manages bookmarks the way iTunes would, either visually or as lists.

Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate ($70)
http://www.wondershare.com/mac-video-converter-ultimate/

Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate

Despite the fact that Macs are hugely popular among video pros, you rarely find good info on the best video converter utility. Search no more, we think Wondershare is it.

WriteRoom ($10)
http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom

WriteRoom

If you need to write without distractions, WriteRoom is a full-screen writing environment that eliminates clutter. WriteRoom even lets you mimic those word processors of yore. Fun!

Xee (Shareware)
http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/xee

Xee

Xee is an image browser that lets you turn any folder into a slide show. It will open any format Preview can open, plus a few esoteric ones, like PCX.

XMind (Free)
http://www.xmind.net/

XMind

XMind is a brainstorming and mind-mapping software program that lets you diagram web site structures or org charts. It’s free, so no arguments here.

Note Regarding Pricing

Price – all prices are list but promotions are frequently available, as are Amazon.com discounts.
Free – means the product is free.
Freemium – means that there is a more capable version available, or you can avail yourself of services.
Shareware – means that the author would like you to donate an amount to survive. Make sure you do if you use the software a lot.

D-Link Mobile Companion

Michael — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:10:55 +0000

The D-Link DIR-505 Mobile Companion ($75) is a travel router with built-in power plug, USB port and Ethernet jack that lets you turn any wired connection into an instant wireless one. The size of a mouse, the USB port can charge devices too.

Logitech Cube

Michael — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:09:47 +0000

The Logitech Cube ($70) is a portable mouse that also functions as a presentation remote. It has touch sensors for clicking and detects when it’s held in the air. Relies on a rechargeable battery and equally diminutive “unifying” USB receiver.

Samsung AirPlay Dock

Michael — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:02:52 +0000

The retro Samsung DA-E750 AirPlay dock features a hybrid design: vacuum tube pre-amp, 100-watt solid-state amp packaged in a high-gloss wood case. The 2.1 speaker system and built-in subwoofer handle Galaxy and iPhone.

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Unicorn Magnum Plus

Michael — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 03:24:11 +0000

The best peppermill does not hail from France, as you might suspect. The Magnum Plus ($45) is made right here in the U.S.A. and comes in “pro black” and is the best high-capacity peppermill money can buy.

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Romisen MXDL RC-G2

Michael — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 02:38:49 +0000

LED lights are all the rage and will soon replace just about all conventional lighting. You can’t do better than the Romisen MXDL RC-G2 ($12), which packs an enormous beam of light in a small package and runs on just one AA battery.

Zippo Outdoor Utility Lighter

Michael — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 02:24:31 +0000

The Zippo Outdoor Utility Lighter ($14) features a built-in LED light, protective cap and wind-resistant dual flame to better light up your BBQ or cigar and is well-designed, as this hands-on YouTube video shows.

Audioengine 5+

Michael — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:55:13 +0000

The Audioengine 5 (black/white: $400; bamboo wood: $470) has great bass, handcrafted wood cabinets or high-gloss finish, built-in amplifier plus a USB port for your iDevice. Just connect one speaker to another and plug in.