I’ve been using a Mac for about 4 years now, since the first Intel-based model was released. Prior to that, I’d been a Windows user since Windows 3.0 was first released – around 1990. In spite of my long history with Windows, I don’t think I could ever go back to using it full-time.

There are still times that I run it, for specific software that isn’t available for the Mac, but even then I run it through a virtual Windows program on the Mac, like Parallels or VMWare fusion.

I’ve been seeing more and more internet marketers buying Macs when it’s time to replace their computer, so in this post I’m going to share some of my favorite programs for the Mac.

Let’s jump right in…

1. Text Editor

I do a large part of my work in a text editor. I edit web pages, WordPress themes, blog posts, articles, ebooks and almost everything else I write in plain text.

My editor of choice is Textmate. It has a lot of handy functions for dealing with specific types of files, such as .php or .html. Things like automatically wrapping lines with opening and closing HTML tags, so instead of having to type < li>blah, blah, blah< /li> I can just highlight “blah, blah, blah” and hit a keyboard shortcut to add the open and close tags.

There are only a couple of downsides to Textmate – it costs money (about $50) and it hasn’t been updated in quite a while. It hasn’t needed any updates, frankly, but it isn’t clear whether the developer has abandoned it or not, which could be an issue if there’s an OS X update at some point that causes problems.

Textwrangler is another excellent text editor, which I used for several years before finding Textmate. It’s from the same people who make BBEdit, which is probably the most widely used and longest-standing text editor in the Mac world. It has a large chunk of the features in BBEdit, but it’s completely free.

2. FTP Software

FTP software is another thing that I use almost daily. Whether uploading entirely new sites or just making little changes to existing ones, my FTP software stays open almost all the time.

There are two FTP programs that I recommend for the Mac – Transmit and Cyberduck.

Transmit is the one that I use most often, partly because I’m familiar with it and partly because of a couple of features that Cyberduck doesn’t offer.

First, Transmit lets you edit files on the host so you don’t have to download them, edit them and then upload them back to the server. If I’m testing something or making a minor change to a file this can save a lot of time.

The other thing Transmit does is let you create “shortcuts” to folders on your web server on your local machine. For example, if you have a site that you upload files to on a regular basis, you can create a shortcut to it that looks like any other drive on your system. When you copy a file onto that drive, it gets uploaded to your server automatically.

Once again, Transmit is the “for cost” option – $34 – where Cyberduck is completely free. Both support Amazon S3 as well as most other server types, so if you use S3 for hosting your files they both make it easy to upload them and set permissions.

3. Browser

This is one category of application where I tend to jump around a bit. I used Firefox exclusively for years, but I’ve found the last few versions have started to get a bit bloated and slow. Especially when you add a bunch of extensions to the mix.

Currently, I’m actually using Safari more than anything. I find it a lot faster and the latest version supports extensions (finally) so I’ve been able to add a few of the features that I had in Firefox via its extensions.

I also use Google Chrome quite a bit, however. It’s also quite fast and supports extensions, so it’s a close second to Safari.

I do use all of them at one time or another (even Internet Explorer via a Windows virtual machine) since it’s a good idea to check your page layouts with different browsers. I’ve run into things that looked great in Safari, but not quite right in Firefox, or vice-versa.

This category is ultimately a bit of a personal preference as much as which browser works the best.

4. Mail Plane

If you have multiple Gmail accounts, Mail Plane is a great way to manage them all. It lets you open all your accounts in a single application, and switch between them at will without having to log in and out or worry about which account you’re accessing.

Google has added multiple account sign-ins recently which makes this a little less unique than it used to be, but the way Mail Plane manages the different email accounts is still head and shoulders above doing it directly in Google.

Mail Plane costs $24.95 and they have a free trial if you want to try it out before you buy it.

5. Flip4Mac

Most online videos are in Flash format, and I’m finding more and more are in formats that are supported natively on the Mac, but once in a while I come across Windows Media files (WMV) that aren’t supported on the Mac by default. This seems to be the default format for GoToWebinar recordings, in particular.

Flip4Mac is a free plugin for the Quicktime Player that lets you play WMV files. It’s actually the recommended solution from Microsoft themselves, even though they don’t make it. If you click through to download the Mac plugin on their site, you get redirected to Flip4Mac.

There are several versions of Flip4Mac, but the basic one is all you need to play WMV files and it’s free. The other versions that cost something are for creating and editing the files as well as playing them.

6. Instant Messenger

This is a category I don’t use quite as often, but there are two applications that I use when I need to contact someone. The first is Skype, which is free on the Mac just like any other platform.

The second is called Adium. It supports pretty much all the instant messaging formats – Google/Gmail, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, ICQ, etc. It’s also free, and because it can integrate all the different messaging platforms into a single application, I prefer it to iChat or the dedicated apps for each service.

7. Screencast Recording

Camtasia is the 800 pound gorilla for recording screencasts on Windows, and they recently released a version for the Mac as well. It is nothing like the Windows version however, so if you’re familiar with it on Windows you’re still going to have to re-learn it for the Mac.

I actually prefer the other major screen recording application for the Mac – Screenflow. It has been around longer than Camtasia and is a bit more polished. The Mac version of Camtasia seems to have been modelled after Screenflow more than Camtasia for Windows, in fact.

This is one category of software that there’s really no great free options available. Screenflow will cost you $99 (as will Camtasia, incidentally). They both have trial versions available, so it’s a good idea to test them both and see which one you prefer.

If you don’t want to spend the money on either of these, the best free screen recording software I’ve found is the Jing Project, which is available for both the Mac and Windows. It actually works pretty well, but it’s limited to 5 minute recordings so as long as you don’t need to record anything longer (or don’t mind splitting it up into multiple videos) it will work until you can justify spending the money on one of the others.

There are other tools that I use on a regular basis, many of which are not specific to the Mac. I’ll take a closer look at some of those in a future post. And if you’ve got any I’ve missed, or disagree with any of my choices, let me know in the comments. I’m always looking for new software to play with!

Tagged as: applications, apps, internet marketing, mac, osx