Top Ten (Free) Back to School Apps

by Honda Wang • 09/10/2007 at 09:14 AM

It's time to go back to school again for all macteens, and we must ask ourselves a few questions: how can I integrate more of my studies with my beloved Mac? Can I really be more productive? What freeware apps do what I need them to do? Below is a list of ten great Mac apps that'll make your school year a better experience.

Quicksilver

A necessity for not only students, but also anyone who needs to do work on a Mac. It's not an app launcher, it's an everything launcher. Quicksilver has an interface similar to the
command line, but is more powerful and user-friendly. Quicksilver's ability to do things like rapidly resize photos or integrate with a GTD workflows can make you more productive in a matter of seconds.

Check out 43folders for some useful Quicksilver tips and tricks.

Adium

Who uses a Mac without Adium? It's arguably the best multi-service instant messaging application available for Mac OS X. It's highly customizable with a wide range of buddy list styles, sounds sets, dock icons, and window styles. While it might not support audio or video chat, it's certainly the best way to chat with all your friends.

GIMP

GIMP is the best open-source Photoshop alternative available. It's free, it has a similar interface, and it has all the bells and whistles you need for
image editing. No need to blow a few hundred bucks just to paste your principal's head on Paris Hilton's body.

iProcrastinate

iProcrastinate, an anti-procrastination application written by a student and made for students, helps manage your homework, classes, and various other to-dos. It has exactly what you'd expect of a good Mac app: an easy-to-use interface. If you need an easy way to manage what you have to do and get out of that procrastination habit, then iProcrastinate is exactly what you need.

Senuti

Let's say you really want this awesome song, and your friend has it on his or her iPod. Senuti will let you take a song from your friend's iPod and transfer it onto your Mac. Senuti's sole purpose is to transfer songs from an iPod to a Mac, and it's incredibly easy to use. And needless to say, it'll save your life if your Mac's iTunes library gets corrupted.

Ourtunes

You want to share music files over your dorm network via iTunes? Ourtunes lets you do just that, and it's cross-platform for those Linux heads. Ourtunes not only has no limit to the number of users that can connect (the iTunes limit is five), but it also allows users to download songs to their own library. All you have to do is watch out for those pesky RIAA agents who can't tell the difference between stealing and sharing.

iAlertU

iAlertU safely secures your MacBook with your Apple Remote by monitoring your MacBook's SMS (sudden motion sensor). If your MacBook is disturbed, an alarm goes off and a photo is taken using the built-in iSight. It's pretty handy when you're in a library and you urgently need to answer the call of nature. Here's a demonstration of how it works.

VLC

VLC Media Player is the Swiss army knife of media players, and if you don't already have it, then get it now. It'll do WMV, MOV, AVI, MKV, MPEG-2, MP3, OGG, and much more. VLC comes in handy if you have a library of videos in different formats, and you only want one media player for them all.

Schoolhouse 2

Schoolhouse is an extensive school life management application that will allow you to schedule homework and projects, attach files to those assignments, and even email your instructors. The only feature the developers forgot is the ability to fetch documents and assignments from the future. Think of it as an advanced version of iProcrastinate that procreated with iCal.

LaTeX (TeXShop for Mac OS X)

Everyone has Microsoft Office or Pages, but what about when you want to go beyond basic word processing? That's when you need a typesetting program like LaTeX. Why don't you shock your teacher by typing your calculus homework with work shown? LaTeX is not just for typesetting mathematical and scientific papers, however. It is the most flexible typesetting tool available.

Dario Taraborelli has a great article on why LaTeX is superior to any word processor on the market.

I hope you find this list helpful, and that you'll get a few apps that'll be handy for school. Is there an app that I might have forgotten to put in this list? Do you disagree with something? Make it known in the comments!