i’ve been a mac os x’er for about a year and a half now and have gathered a fair few little applications in my dock. here’s some of the essentials;

cyberduck
my ftp client of choice, it’s a really great ftp client that does everything that is needed and it does so in a nice, clean and simple manor. get it here, cyberduck.ch.

cocoa mysql
a great little open source database management tool for os x, i’m not the most technically minded so i like small applications that make things simple for the not too technical and this is one of them. get it here, cocoamysql.sourceforge.net.

paparazzi!
paparazzi is a little application that takes screen grabs of websites, it’s one of these apps that does one thing really very well. you can export the final screen grab one of 4 different file types in either full size or as a reduced thumbnail. get it here, www.derailer.org/paparazzi.

adium
if you wanna chat on your mac, then you’re gonna need adium. you can login with your msn, aol, icq, yahoo messenger, google talk, .mac and many more. adium is also expandable and customisable – you can change the icons, add emoticons, messenger styles and more. get it here, adiumx.com.

snap ‘n’ drag
the screen grab function on os x is pretty good, but this app goes that little bit further. giving you options to grab the whole screen, a selection or an individual window. snap ‘n’ drag will also allow you to grab video clips from media players and the dvd player – which is the reason that i found it. get it here, www.yellowmug.com/snapndrag.

senuti
not being able to take tracks off your ipod – the only downside of connecting your ipod with itunes? maybe! but solve the issue with this smart little program. get it here, www.fadingred.org/senuti.

mac janitor
one that i can’t decide whether it’s needed or not, basically os x needs to be on during the night to run certain scripts that do a series of ‘house-keeping’ on your mac. i’m not sure what this house-keeping involves but it sounds helpful and for those of us who don’t leave their macs on 24/7 this program will run all the scripts for you. it did actually free up a load of hard drive space when i first ran it. try it for yourself here.

mac saber
now for something fun – if you have a mac laptop and one with a motion sensor you can run this application and throw your mac around and it will make light saber noises – just be careful with your mac, don’t let it slip out of your grip! get it here from macupdate.

holidays are more stressful than going to work all week. it’s a fact!

well maybe it’s the holidays that we take and what happens to us on them, in shot – i was ill for 3 days and we managed to kill our little car on the m11 motorway, the very nice man from the aa said it had a hole in the engine. oh dear.

it wasn’t all bad news though. we went to the new o2 arena to see prince, who was on top form – if you get the chance to check him out, then i highly recommend that you do! we also went down to the south coast for a few days, rye, camber and dungeness to be precise. i snapped some really nice photo’s which i’m hoping to publish on my new photography website which will be launched soon(ish) [www.photography.martinlucas.co.uk].