Mac software recommendations, please!

[Andrew]

I'm looking for Mac equivalents to the following Windows-only software:

• Picasa -- Google's free photo cataloguing and touch-up software. I am aware of iPhoto but haven't taken the plunge just yet.
• Paint.NET -- Image and photo editing. I don't need anything nearly as complex as Photoshop or the GIMP. Mac OS doesn't seem to have any image editor built in.
• ActiveSync -- to sync my Windows Mobile device, which will not be swapped out for an iPhone any time soon. I'm aware of Missing Sync but am turned off by the $40 price tag.

I'm also looking for recommendations for:

• BitTorrent client -- I used uTorrent on Windows. I have Transmission, haven't played with it much yet. Anything better?
• FastTrack/OpenNap/Gnutella/ARES client -- I used KCEasy on Windows and haven't seen anything close on the Mac. Took a look at iSwipe and was not impressed.
• FTP/SCP client -- I used SmartFTP and WinSCP on Windows. I'm trying out RBrowser. Anything better?

[JeffG]

We just got a Mac yesterday, so I don't have much in the way of recommendations at this point. For an FTP client, though, I can suggest that you take a look at Filezilla, which is what I generally use on Windows boxes. It is a pretty full-featured open source tool and it does have a Mac version available. It doesn't do SCP, though, and I don't really have a recommendation for that as I use WinSCP myself.

I'll go ahead and join into your thread looking for advice for a couple Mac software items that I'm already seeking to replace often-used Windows tools, specifically ones that relate to managing our home network.

1. Directory comparison/synchronization: On Windows, I use the excellent Beyond Compare, but there isn't a Mac version of that. What I basically want is something that can compare the contents of two folders (typically one is a network share) and then let me selectively copy files between the two. I probably don't need something as full-featured as Beyond Compare, but I'd like to at least be able to pretty easily run comparisons when I need to.

2. Backup: The big thing that I need is a good backup solution for the Mac. The key requirements is that I need something that will do scheduled backups of the hard drive on the Mac and place it onto a network drive. We have a server (running Microsoft's Windows Home Server OS) with a little over 2TB of storage that is used primarily for backups and centralized file storage. I know that there is no Mac version (at least so far) of the regular Windows Home Server automated backup tool, but I'd still like to at least come up with something that will regularly do scheduled backups from the Mac to the server. There are a couple of freeware/shareware solutions out there that look reasonably decent, but I was wondering if anyone has any specific recommendations. The one I'm looking at right now is Silverkeeper from LaCie.

-Jeff

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by JeffG

We just got a Mac yesterday, so I don't have much in the way of recommendations at this point. For an FTP client, though, I can suggest that you take a look at Filezilla, which is what I generally use on Windows boxes. It is a pretty full-featured open source tool and it does have a Mac version available. It doesn't do SCP, though, and I don't really have a recommendation for that as I use WinSCP myself.

I'll definitely take a look at Filezilla. I just discovered that Mac OS has the full OpenSSH suite built in, which includes ssh and scp. I suppose there are GUI versions out there somewhere.

Originally Posted by JeffG

1. Directory comparison/synchronization: On Windows, I use the excellent Beyond Compare, but there isn't a Mac version of that. What I basically want is something that can compare the contents of two folders (typically one is a network share) and then let me selectively copy files between the two. I probably don't need something as full-featured as Beyond Compare, but I'd like to at least be able to pretty easily run comparisons when I need to.

RBrowser has a feature called "Folder Sync" that might be what you need. I use BeyondCompare at work and you're right, it is excellent.

[adriennek]

Andrwe and JEFFG are comparing notes about software for their Macs.

Got it.

Adrienne

[cstephens]

Originally Posted by adriennek

Andrwe and JEFFG are comparing notes about software for their Macs.

Hell has officially frozen over.

[Andrew]

Jeff -- TinkerTool looks to be more or less the equivalent of TweakUI.

[Lani]

Originally Posted by cstephens

Hell has officially frozen over.

Add to this list the fact that I've abandoned the platform as of Saturday.

Apps:

Text editor: BBEdit: It's very similar to UAEdit and it's an awesome text editor. They ONLY make their apps for the Mac, too. They are terrific people.

FTP client: Fetch.

Game: Snood. There's an adapted version for Windows but Snood was written natively for Apple, and the look/feel is substantially better on a Mac.

Web browser: Firefox. Forget Opera or Safari. Firefox rules.

I didn't use a graphics app, I just used Picnik.com.

[Bytebear]

I love GIMP, so I cannot recommend anything less.

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by Andrew

• BitTorrent client -- I used uTorrent on Windows. I have Transmission, haven't played with it much yet. Anything better?

I've now given Transmission a bit of a workout and it looks good.

[Sosai X]

Originally Posted by Lani

Snood

SNOOD! I had completely forgotten about that game! When I was an AOL tek support drone we had that game on our Macs in the call center..course, those were 6100/66 with 16 mb ram running 7.5.5. One of the guys even mastered the Evil level, though I always preferred the Puzzle levels.

[JeffG]

In my earlier post, I mentioned that I was looking for a backup solution that works over the network. While searching around online, I discovered that backing up to SMB shares is an unsupported, but available feature of the Time Machine backup program that is built-in to OS X. All you have to do is go into the terminal and issue the following command:

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

If you then go into Time Machine, it will show you any shares that are mounted on the system, regardless of type. I used this to set Time Machine up to backup to our home server and it does seem to be working fine.

From the various posts and such that I read, it sounds like this had some pretty significant bugs in it when Leopard was first released, but that those were addressed in the most recent updates and the feature apparently works pretty reliably now. The speculation seems to now surround Apple leaving this as "unsupported" (and disabled by default) mainly because having Time Machine officially support backing up to any network attached storage could potentially cut into sales of Apple's own "officially supported" Time Capsule NAS.

-Jeff

[Andrew]

Very nice. This should let me do automated backups to my NAS box at home.

[cyberwoozle]

Originally Posted by Andrew

I've now given Transmission a bit of a workout and it looks good.

I use Transmission as my client of choice. check out Clutch if you want to do remote control...

[JeffG]

Originally Posted by Andrew

Very nice. This should let me do automated backups to my NAS box at home.

Let me know how it works for you. So far, I've found that it does work, but that it doesn't seem overly reliable over wireless. That seems to largely jibe with what other people have been reporting online as well. It looks like you pretty much have to plug into the Ethernet connection to get it to reliably complete the backups.

-Jeff

[orangeplum]

I miss picasa so much! iPhoto isn't awful, but it doesn't rival picasa whatsoever. I'm hoping that eventually google will catch on and create a mac version.. please let me know what you find!

[Andrew]

A few months later. I'm using:

RSS newsreader: endo (subject to change)
ftp client: Fetch
Podcast recording/editing: GarageBand (built-in)
Chat client: iChat (built-in, Yahoo and Google Talk via Jabber)
VNC client: JollysFastVNC
Office suite: OpenOffice.org 3
Web browser: Safari and Opera
Archive tool: Stuffit
Code editor: TextWrangler
BitTorrent client: Transmission

Other Mac native: Angry IP Scanner, Book Collector, DING!, GetTube, Google Earth, Google Notifier, iTunes, KisMAC, Logitech Harmony remote software, Mail (just for mail, not RSS), Movie Collector, PRX Audio Encoder (for podcast production), Psi (alternate Jabber client when needed), SketchUp, SplashID (password manager), TinkerTool, VLC (alternate media player when needed).

I installed VMWare Fusion and use Picasa, Paint.NET and ActiveSync under Windows XP in Fusion (no-desktop) mode. Rumor has it there will be a Picasa Mac port sometime this year. I'm fiddling with KCEasy under DarWine, which sort-of lets you run Windows executables in Unix environments but not terribly well; Picasa won't run under DarWine at all (at least not for me).

This is still an experimental iterative process; I'm gradually figuring out what I like and discarding the unworthy.