Software you should know: Panic
So after months of adding up pros and cons and tossing in your sleep, you finally did it. You made the switch to Apple from the familiar world of Windows. No longer do you have the security blanket of 1000’s of programs and hkeys that made XP so soft and fluffy.
So what do you do? Where do you go? Well, if you’re truly new to the world of Apple, more than likely you can find anything you need on your computer itself. Preview replaces Picture Viewer, PDF readers, and even Word, Excel, Photoshop, and several other document/picture programs with the advent of Quicklook; an application which opens any document simply by clicking on it and pressing the space bar. It will open in a window like the one below:
Ready to venture outside of your hard drive and onto the virtual expanse that is the internet? Okay. Try panic.com. They have grown from a company that once rivaled iTunes with their application Audion, into what I consider the best independent Mac application coders around.
Okay…so Panic isn’t exactly software. They’re a company. But seriously, they make great products. Pick any of the applications above and download a seamless integration of essential tools to your operating system.
You have ‘Transmit’, ‘Coda’, and ‘Unison’.
Transmit is a powerful and fast FTP program that is feature rich. You can do things like upload files, download files, upload files while you’re downloading files, and even download files at the same time that you’re uploading files. There’s magic in the code.
Coda is a WYSIWYG editor for site design and coding. Plus, it’s icon is a leaf. Dreamweaver and Frontpage can’t even begin to touch that. I think at one point Photoshop had a feather. That’s the closest Dreamweaver ever came. Seriously, a leaf.
And Unison does everything and is only limited by your imagination. But when that runs out, there is a forum to help you along. It’s mail, music, photos, documents and more all rolled into one application.
So there you have it. Welcome to Apple. Don’t forget your badge and decoder ring. Also, watch out for that third step. It’s a doozy.
