OpenSource Software for MacOSX

Thanks to a story on Digg I’ve come across some fantastic software for MacOSX that’s open source, easy to use and a good add-on to make my life a little easier on my PowerBook. It turns out that a few of my readers use the OSX platform (more than I would have thought), so hopefully you’ll find these programs useful!
OpenSoft Development is a relatively new development house, started by Dustin Bachrach that writes software for MacOSX and releases it free and Open Source under the GPL.
The 4 pieces of software that have been released are all really fantastic and fit perfectly in to a traditional MacOSX users expectations of integration. While I think some further development and polishing needs to be done on QuickTunes and DiggUpdate, this guy is certainly on the right path to writing some great software. I’ve found QuickTunes and DiggUpdate a bit slow to respond to mouse clicks and QuickTunes increases the pause between songs which is quite annoying for me when I’m listening to a series of continuing tracks like those from a live concert.
ToDo’s, an application launcher, is a fantastic idea, and is something I can see my self using quite alot. While I’ve used spotlight in the past to search for and launch programs, this app, with its shortcut key combination makes life a breeze when trying to find an application that you want to open that’s not not in the dock.
If you’re on a Mac, running 10.4 I strongly recommend that you try out these apps. They’re a great addition to any Mac users tool kit who either has alot of programs that they use frequently, likes listening to music while working or likes having the latest news just a click away!

Over at the MacDev Center, there’s been a great article written by Matthew Russell about OpenSource software for the mac. Recommendations in some main categories (eg. mail and internet applications) are given on opensource, free and commercial applications, with some great free replacements for some of the software you’d usually consider buying.

Thanks again to all the people visiting from the Sydney Morning Herald website. I’ve had more unique visitors than I think I’ve had for a good portion of the year. If you’ve got comments, suggestions or ideas for my blog please drop me a link at james[dot]kirsop[at]gmail[dot]com. I’ll reply to you on a different address, I use my gmail account as a spam filter to some degree – mainly because I can’t send outbound email using Mail on MacOSX. If you’ve got it working, please drop me a line.
-james