1. App Cleaner

AppCleaner is a small application that allows you to thoroughly uninstall unwanted apps. Installing an application distributes many files throughout your system using space of your hard drive. When you uninstall these apps, many of these bits and pieces are left on your hard drive, needlessly taking up space.  AppCleaner finds all these small files and safely deletes them. Simply drag and drop an application onto the AppCleaner window. It automatically finds all the related files specific to that app and adds them to the AppCleaner window for you to review. You then have the option of deleting all the files, or keeping the ones you think you may need at a later stage, should you reinstall the app. You then simply click the delete button. No more orphan files on your disk!

2. Monolingual

Monolingual is a program for removing unnecessary language files from Mac OS X, in order to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space. As designers, we usually have huge files which can very quickly eat away at your hard drive space so getting rid of any superfluous files is sometimes very necessary. Having a fair amount of freed-up space on your hard drive for Photoshop to use as a scratch disk will help you work on your files will less drag, especially if your RAM is limited. If you’re running out of hard drive space, this is the app for you.

3. Quicksliver

Quicksilver is an application that lets you reach any program, folder or file in a few keystrokes and is aimed at increasing user efficiency. It allows you to use the keyboard to promptly do things like launch applications, manipulate files and data, run scripts, or send email. You don’t have to go searching through your files to find something and you don’t have to worry about how your folders are arranged. You can customize its search options to include your address book, iTunes, and recent email addresses. Set this application to load at start up then customize a quick launch key so it can be at your fingers when you need it. This is the fastest way to find files and open applications.

Alternate: Namely

4.  Growl

Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X. It allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications so you know what’s happening on your computer at all times. Growl installs itself as a preference pane and is added to the Mac OS X System Preferences. Users are able to fully control notifications by going to this pane. Here the interface will allow you to enable and disable Growl’s notifications for certain applications in their entirety, or select specific notifications for each application. The display options of the notifications can also be fully customized from small non-intrusive floating icons in the corner of your screen, to larger ones with sound.

5.  Teleport

Teleport lets you use a single mouse and keyboard to control several Macs. It allows you to synchronize your pasteboard between computers (and limit the size of the pasteboard if you wish), so you can cut from one computer and paste in another. It also allows you to transfer files by simply dragging them from one Mac to another (although this tends to work better with smaller files).

Teleport will need to be installed on all Macs you wish to link up. After installing you can find the program in the System Preferences pane. You will need open up two ports on your firewall they will be saved as “trusted hosts” under the security settings.

6. OnyX

OnyX is a multifunction utility for Mac OS X (PowerPC and Intel). It allows you to verify the Startup Disk and the structure of its system files; to run miscellaneous tasks of system maintenance; to configure the hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock and of some of Apple’s own applications; to delete caches; to remove a certain number of files and folders that may become cumbersome and much more…

Alternates: Deeper and TinkerTool

7. MagiCal

MagiCal is a menu-based clock and calendar. It features a huge range of configuration options for how the time and date are displayed, and can operate either in conjunction with, or as a replacement for the built in system menu clock. In addition to this, MagiCal features a handy drop-down calendar that can be torn off and placed anywhere on screen.

Alternate: MenuCalendarClock

8. FileZilla

FileZilla is an open-source, cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface. It is available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. Features include a message log, site manager, local and remote file and folder view, and a transfer queue. FileZilla also allows you to perform multiple file transfers simultaneously.

Alternate: Cyberduck

9. Aptana Studio

Aptana Studio is a top IDE for web developers. It offers integrated language support for HTML, DOM, JavaScript and CSS. Customize your Studio with additional plugins for PHP, Jaxer, Ruby on Rails, Python, Adobe AIR, Apple iPhone and Nokia S60 development. For Java support, plug Aptana Studio into Eclipse. Also available for Windows and Linux.

Alternate: TextWrangler

10: Disk Inventory X

Disk Inventory X is a hard drive analyzer for Mac OS X 10.3 (and later). It shows the sizes of files and folders in a special graphical way called “treemaps”. If you’ve ever wondered where all your disk space has gone, Disk Inventory X will tell you which folders and apps are eating away at your hard drive space. New features include a finder context menu plugin with an “Open in Disk Inventory X” command for folders (this needs to be installed manually in the preference window) and a new selection list which can show all files or limit them to a list of a specific file type.

Bonus App. Adium

Adium is a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X. It can be used to connect to any number of messaging accounts on any combination of supported messaging services, including, AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, AOL, GTalk, ICQ, Facebook, LiveJournal, Bonjour, MySpaceIM, Skype, Twitter and more. The latest version includes support for file transfers, and for the Growl notification system. Adium is highly customizable and allows users to alter the appearance of dock icons, contact list styles, message windows, and emoticons.

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Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator  are still the best softwares to use when it comes to image manipulation.  But for the budget conscious and those just trying it out for the first time or working on personal projects.  Some might even feel intimidated buying the premium soft wares so we have put together 12 alternative digital tools.  The aim here is to empower our readers to try out different tools and use which one they would feel they can be comfortable with.

The GIMP

The “GNU Image Manipulation Program” (originally the General Image Manipulation Program) sired by Spencer Kimball & Peter Mattis.   In their own words, “GIMP is our answer to the current lack of free (or at least reasonably priced) image manipulation software for GNU/Linux and UNIX in general.”

It is a raster editor, which means that it performs operations directly on the pixels that make up the image, and not a vector editor.  Users wanting to edit photographs will certainly want a raster editor like GIMP. Graphic designers and illustrators may prefer a vector editor depending on their tastes.

Inkscape

An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.  Yes! While Inkscape does not have all the features of the leading vector editors, the latest versions provide for a large portion of basic vector graphics editing capabilities.  People report successfully using Inkscape in a lot of very different projects (web graphics, technical diagrams, icons, creative art, logos, maps). For example, thousands of images on Wikipedia are created with Inkscape, as is the majority of the content on openclipart; many examples of Inkscape art can be seen here and here. We try to always keep the codebase usable for real users, as we believe that a tight iteration cycle between users and developers will give best results. You can start using Inkscape alongside your other tools now!

Line Form

Lineform is the ideal Mac app for vector art, diagrams and illustrations. Useful features combined with a simple interface to create a wonderfully intuitive artistic process. Lineform has all of the most popular tools, including everything from freeform gradients to compositing effects, enabling you to create the designs you want without getting in your way with superfluous “features” you don’t need. Lineform is the clear modern Mac alternative to Illustrator, FreeHand, and other more costly or bloated vector drawing apps. Giving it a spin to try out its features and interface is sure to showcase its powers.

Blue Fish

Bluefish is a powerful editor targeted towards programmers and webdesigners, with many options to write websites, scripts and programming code. Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages, and it focuses on editing dynamic and interactive websites. See features for an extensive overview, take a look at the screenshots, or download it right away. Bluefish is an open source development project, released under the GNU GPL licence.  The latest stable version is Bluefish 1.0.7. This is the preferred version. It requires gtk version 2.0 or newer (gtk 2.4 or newer is recommended), libpcre 3.0 or higher and (optional) libaspell 0.50 or higher for spell checking and (also optional, but recommended) gnome-vfs for remote files. More information is available in our manual.

Creative Docs.NET

Creative Docs .NET is a vector-based graphic design tool with support for rich text, ideal to quickly write short documents, manuals, posters, illustrations, schemas, plans, flow charts, and much more.  The interface is tailored for high productivity: it does never get in your way. Creative Docs .NET tools are simple, yet powerful. All styles and attributes can be modified interactively with a minimum number of mouse clicks. A color gradient, for instance, can be modified directly by dragging its handles in the document window.

Note: This software is being actively developed.

Pixlr

While it’s not the most full-featured image editor you’ll ever use, Pixlr makes it fairly easy to do some sophisticated (and unsophisticated) things with images online. The Flash-based web app has an impressive set of tools, from a text engine that can use nearly any font available on your computer to layers and filters for masking and effects, respectively. Incredibly, there’s even a multilevel undo! You can import images from your machine or via URL, or paint something up yourself, and either way save it to your desktop. It’s fun to play around with, though quickly frustrating if you’re used to more powerful tools.

Sumo Paint 1.1

If you’re looking for an alternative to Photoshop or would just like to be able to create and edit images from any computer with a flash enabled browser, then Sumo Paint is your answer. While Sumo Paint May not be a Photoshop killer, it is a great alternative for those who either can’t or won’t pay the price for Adobe’s Photoshop.  Check out the video of Sumo Paint in action after the jump.

Sumo Paint is a free online image editor that operates within any flash enabled browser. Surprisingly fast loading and stable, Sumo Paint is packed with many great features and tools that will be very familiar to any Photoshop user. Some of these great features include: layers with blending modes and layer effects, filters, shape tool, brush tool, eraser tool, magic wand, clone stamp, blur tool and many more. There are also a few unique tools like the symmetry and curve tools. The user interface looks a lot like Photoshop and is very straight forward and clean.

source

Artweaver

Artweaver is a Windows Freeware program to simulate natural brush tools. It is therefore suitable to leave your creativity free run. Artweaver offers you a clear program window, which can be used without training immediately.

Artweaver is available in English and German language. Through support for language files, the Artweaver program window can be translated easily into other languages.

Artweaver supports only 24-bit color depth. Other color depths (e.g. 256-colors) are automatically converted to 24-bit. I.e. pictures with another color depth than 24-bit are converted to 24-bit when opening/importing. For what can I use Artweaver? Artweaver is meant for users, who want to bring their creativity on digital paper. Artweaver can be used for different work, e.g.:

• Digital art, for creating realistic works.
• Photo improvements, for converting photos into realistic paintings and changing or improving parts of them.

Aviary

Aviary is a suite of free web-based multi-media applications currently in development from Worth1000, using the Adobe Flex platform. The individual tool names are bird-themed, hence the suite name. The scope of proposed tools has drawn comparisons to the Zoho Office Suite. Aviary exited their invitation-only beta in October, 2008 and announced subscription plans for private collaboration under their blue plan. They have 2 plans: a free plan and a Pro plan. Only Aviary Pro members can test current alpha releases ahead of time. Pro Members also have the ability to remove the Aviary Watermark, create groups, and view Premium Tutorials as well as unlimited storage. Aviary released Raven, their web-based vector editor on February 9, 2009.  ^(source)

Choco Flop

ChocoFlop is a graphics manipulation Mac-based solution.

ChocoFlop is based entirely on Core Image.

ChocoFlop allows you to edit your photos or design stuff using Apple’s CoreImage technology. It takes advantage of the power of your graphics card (GPU). Thanks to this it is able to show real-time previews of filters and keep modifications live for as long as you want.

This means that you can add for example a blur filter on your text and keep everything dynamic. You can change the strength of your blur filter at any time or edit your text, the blur will apply on the updated text. That’s called non-destructive image edition and it really saves you a lot of time.

Sk1

sK1 is an open source vector graphics editor similar to CorelDRAW, Adobe Illustrator, or Freehand. First of all sK1 is oriented for “prepress ready” PostScript & PDF output.

sK1 editor is a fork of Sketch 0.6.15. It was a result of day-by-day patching of Sketch in an attempt to migrate our printing firm to free software. Sketch development seemed to be stalled already, so when the Sketch/Skencil maintainers decided to switch to Gtk+ widgetset, we were forced to fork. We migrated to Ttk (former Tile widgetset), added CMYK support, color management, and Cairo-based engine.

The “sK1″ name derives from “Sketch/Skencil” and second large K character means that application layout is similar with KDE applications althouh sK1 has no dependencies on KDE libraries. Number 1 means our goal – stable application compartible with Corel Draw and Adobe Illustrator and useful for regular usage in prepress.

DrawIt

DrawIt is a vector editing application with support for bitmap-like image filters. Vector editing as well as the filters are completely non-destructive which means that a vector layer can still be edited even after a stack of filters has been applied.

Every vector, image, or text object is a layer. Layers can be grouped and because a group is also a layer, a group can in turn contain other groups. Groups can be resized and filters can be applied to its contents. This in turn creates a truly powerfull tool that can be applied and used into almost endless possibilities.

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