Video Monkey is my go to application when I need to convert video. Development of the application was very slow in 2010, but the project is still in development and it remains a very solid application. Any video that goes onto my original Apple TV is converted with Video Monkey.

1Password continues to be one of my favorite Mac applications. It makes managing your online passwords incredibly easy. 1Password 3 added some nice features, including the ability to manage software license information. I’ve entered a number of my software licenses into the application. The 1Password iPhone App (iTunes link) gives you the ability to make your login information mobile, which has been incredibly helpful at times. There is also a iPad App and Windows version as well.

If you want to manage multiple calendars, BusySync will make it easy. My wife and I use Google Calendar and BusySync bridges the gap between my iPhone, my work Outlook calendar, my Mac, and my wife’s calendar. For work and home, BusySync keeps my calendars in sync.

Cooking is one of my passions and MacGourmet is what I use to keep my recipes organized. I watch a ton of Food Network shows (Throwdown, Barefoot Contessa, and Giada At Home are some of my favorites) and have added countless recipes from their website. MacGourmet includes a very easy method to import recipes from the Food Network site and a handful of other popular recipe sites. For recipes on any website, the text clipping feature makes adding a recipe dead simple. MacGourmet touch (iTunes link) allows you to take your entire recipe collection with you on your iPhone or iPod touch. Having my recipes on my iPhone has been immensely useful when grocery shopping and I’m not sure what to make. MacGourmet 3 was released in 2010 and an iPad version and update to MacGourmet touch are both currently in development.

Caffeine easily allows you to suspend your power settings to prevent your Mac from going to sleep. I didn’t use Caffeine as much in 2010, but it’s still heavily used on my Mac. If you watch video on your Mac, you need this application. Best of all, it’s free!

I still write every AMHQ post with MarsEdit. Simply put, blogging with MarsEdit makes blogging easier. MarsEdit 3 was released this year, but I’m still running version 2.4.3. MarsEdit supports all the major blogging software platforms. If you blog, this application should be on your Mac.

After three years in beta, Skitch 1.0 finally hit in 2010. Nearly every screen shot you see on this website has been captured with Skitch. After capturing and resizing the picture, I just drag it straight from Skitch into MarsEdit and click insert. The application remains free with Skitch Plus offering additional features and storage on skitch.com for $19.95 a year.

After loosing faith in Cha-Ching, I began to look for alternatives to manage my finances on my Mac. I eventually settled on Money. The budgeting features are more solid than Cha-Ching and the free iPhone/iPad App (iTunes link) is very easy to use. I preferred the Cha-Ching UI over Money, but have no regrets in moving to Money after Cha-Ching was abandoned by the developer. Money is solid, easy to use, and actively developed. Having both a Mac application and iPhone app sealed the deal for me.

1Password remains one of my favorite Mac applications. It makes managing your online passwords incredibly easy. I recently upgraded to 1Password 3 in advance of my move to Snow Leopard. 1Password 3 adds some nice features, including the ability to manage software license information. The 1Password iPhone App (iTunes link) gives you the ability to make your login information mobile.

I still write every AMHQ post with MarsEdit. Not much has changed over the last year with MarsEdit, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Blogging with MarsEdit makes blogging easier, so I’m going to continue to use it. Alas, MarsEdit still doesn’t have bullet and numbered list support. Maybe it will happen in 2010?

Towards the end of 2009 my wife didn’t use Google Calendar that much, but BusySync still remains incredibly useful. Since I upload my work Outlook calendar to Google Calendar, I’m able to sync it to my iPhone with the help of BusySync. For work and home, BusySync keeps my calendars in sync.

Nearly every time my Mac is turned on, Caffeine is running. Caffeine easily allows you to suspend your power settings to prevent your Mac from going to sleep. This year they added the ability to suspend your power settings for 7 different time periods. If you watch video on your Mac, you need this application. Best of all, it’s free!

It’s 2010 and I still use Cha-Ching to manage the finances for my family. The iPhone App was released and I love having the ability to add transactions while on the go. I liked the Cha-Ching touch beta so much that I purchased version 1.0 the first day it hit the App Store. Cha-Ching for Mac is still in Beta however. In fact, I’ve begun to loose faith in the developers as the app has been in beta for well over a year and communication from them is thin at best. I’m slowly beginning to think that I need to look for another application to manage my finances.

Rising from the ashes of VisualHub is Video Monkey. Video Monkey is my go to application when I need to convert video. The very first version I tried was slow. Since then however, Video Monkey has turned into a very solid application. I use it often when converting video for my Apple TV.

I don’t watch many TV shows when they are first aired. Instead, I plug in my EyeTV Hybrid and use the accompanying software, EyeTV, to record shows onto my Mac and watch them later on my Apple TV. I just upgraded to version 3 which included Snow Leopard support and a updated UI among many other updates. There is also a companion EyeTV iPhone App.

Cooking is one of my passions and MacGourmet is what I use to keep my recipes organized. I watch a lot of Food Network show and have added countless recipes from their website. MacGourmet includes a very easy method to import recipes from the Food Network site and a handful of others. For recipes on any website, the text clipping feature makes adding a recipe dead simple. MacGourmet touch (iTunes link) allows you to take your entire recipe collection with you on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Despite still being in beta, Skitch was rock solid in 2009. I use Skitch to capture and resize pretty much every picture you see on this website. After capturing and resizing the picture, I just drag it straight from Skitch into MarsEdit and click insert. I wonder if 2010 will finally bring a 1.0 version?

When I needed to handle multiple Twitter accounts, I found Nambu. Nambu allows me to manage every aspect of the Twitter accounts I use. The ability to unfavorite tweets has been one of the most used features of Nambu. When I upgraded to Snow Leopard, Nambu started to crash randomly. Nambu moved from an open to private beta so I haven’t been able to update it for Snow Leopard support. Because of poor Snow Leopard support, I’ve been on the lookout for another Twitter app in 2010.

Blogging wouldn’t be as fun or as easy without MarsEdit. The ability to draft posts offline allows me to work anywhere and publish once I get online. I love the ability to add new categories without visiting my WordPress powered site. If you blog without MarsEdit you aren’t being as productive as you could be. My one wish for MarsEdit would be bullet and numbered list support.

While there are a number of good ftp clients for the Mac, many of them aren’t free. I’m not a power ftp user and Cyberduck allows me to get the job done. Cyberduck supports ftp and sftp and has integration with Spotlight, the Keychain, AppleScript, and Growl. If you don’t want to spend money on an ftp client, give Cyberduck a try. If you try Cyberduck and use it frequently, consider a donation to the developer (I donated).

In 2007 I used iBank to manage my household finances. Sometime in 2008 I switched to Cha-Ching as my Mac money management application of choice. Neither application is perfect, but I liked the UI and ease of use of Cha-Ching. Cha-Ching 2.0, currently in beta, improves the UI and a number of other features. There is even a Cha-Ching iPhone application in beta (I’m testing it right now) that will sync your Cha-Ching database to your iPhone. When both of these Cha-Ching applications are officially released, it will create a killer experience.

Caffeine is a one trick pony but it works like magic. When watching TV shows or movies, just activate Caffeine and it will stop your display and Mac from going to sleep. You don’t have to mess with your power settings, just a click to activate and a click to deactivate it when your done watching your video. Preventing your display or Mac from going to sleep couldn’t be easier. I use this all the time when watching my EyeTV recordings or viewing TV shows on Hulu.

If you have to use Windows and don’t want to reboot into Boot Camp, VMware Fusion is a great application to add to your arsenal. Though Parallels was first on the scene, VMware has closed the gap in a relately short amount of time. I use Fusion to access some IE only websites for my work. I’m so thankful I don’t have to tote home a Windows laptop and can instead just fire up WMware Fusion. Get VMware Fusion 2 for about $60 from Amazon.

If you read RSS feeds on multiple devices, you need NetNewsWire. The ability to read feeds from nearly anywhere and have everything seamlessly sync is absolutely amazing. I can read feeds at work, feeds on my iPhone (iTunes link), and feeds on my Mac and the changes are all kept in sync. NetNewsWire syncs with NewsGator online and the mobile version of NewsGator to allow reading from almost anywhere. Mobile NewsGator even has an iPhone optimized version which I actually prefer over the native iPhone application. If you are an iPhone toting Mac user and haven’t tried NetNewsWire, why are you waiting?

Skitch is a screen capture application from Plasq. It’s been in beta for well over a year but is very stable and ridiculously useful. Nearly every single picture you see here on Apple Mac HQ has been captured or edited with Skitch. The ability to easily resize and markup a picture and drag it from Skitch into the MarsEdit media uploader makes adding pictures to Apple Mac HQ dead simple. Skitch even comes with it’s own web-service which allows easy uploading and image sharing. When Skitch hits 1.0, there is no question I’ll plunk down my credit card to purchase it.

1Password is a password manager and form filler for OS X. These days nearly every website has a login of some kind. 1Password will help you login to those websites with ease. 1Password works will nearly every browser on OS X. If you ever find yourself forgetting your passwords or having to manage different passwords in your different browsers, you need 1Password. Currently, the 1Password iPhone application (iTunes link) is even free!

BusySync is the glue that keeps my family schedule together. My wife uses Google Calendar to keep her schedule up to date while I use iCal. BusySync makes syncing between iCal and Google Calendar completely transparent. I update my iCal and then when I sync my iPhone, my calendars and my wife’s calendar is available anywhere I have my iPhone. The synchronization of calenders prevents those moments when someone isn’t home in time to go somewhere or those “where are you” phone calls.

The ability to post date blog posts can really come in handy. If I’m going to be busy for the next day or two I might queue up a few posts and have them ready to post online. With MarsEdit it’s very easy to queue up a number of posts and set them to show up at the time of your choosing.

Here are the steps to post dating your blog posts: Type up the blog post as your normally would. Just before you hit the send button, click the “Post” menubar item.

Choose Edit Date from the Post menu options. Change the date to whatever you want and click OK.

Click Send to Weblog back in MarsEdit and you’re done. When your server reaches the time you entered for the post date, your post will appear. I believe your blogging platform must support post dating but I would image that most popular platforms do (I’m using WordPress). I know this may be a simple tip to many, but some users don’t poke around in the menubar options too often. This is a great option and I think anyone who doesn’t know about it would likely find it useful. That’s it for this Software Tip!

Blogging wouldn’t be as fun or as easy without MarsEdit. The ability to draft posts offline allows me to work anywhere and publish once I get online. The addition of the Media Manager in v2.0 made the decision to upgrade a no-decision. I love the ability to add new categories without visiting my WordPress powered site. If you blog without MarsEdit you aren’t being as productive as you could be.

While there are a number of good ftp clients for the Mac, many of them aren’t free. I’m not a power ftp user and Cyberduck allows me to get the job done. Cyberduck supports ftp and sftp and has integration with Spotlight, the Keychain, AppleScript, and Growl. If you don’t want to spend money on an ftp client, give Cyberduck a try. If you try Cyberduck and use it frequently, consider a donation to the developer (I donated).

Caffeine is a one trick pony but it works like magic. When watching TV shows or movies, just activate Caffeine and it will stop your display and Mac from going to sleep. You don’t have to mess with your power settings, just a click to activate and a click to deactivate it when your done watching your video. Preventing your display or Mac from going to sleep couldn’t be easier.

If you have to use Windows and don’t want to reboot into Boot Camp, VMWare Fusion is a great application to add to your arsenal. Though Parallels was first on the scene, VMWare seems to have closed the gap in a relately short amount of time. Dual-core support is one of the reasons Fusion seems so fast. In addition to dual-core support, Fusion has experimental support for DirectX 9 and is written in Cocoa. Get VMWare Fusion for under $45 from Amazon here.

I’ve been using iBank for a few months now to manage my finances. Scheduled transactions, smart import rules, ability to import multiple financial file types (QIF, QFX, etc), and the ability to create budgets are some of the great features in iBank. The developer is pretty good at making updates to the application as well. The only feature I’m missing is the ability to get a monthly spending average based on categories. If that is implemented, the application will serve all my financial needs.

Most of the images you see on Apple Mac HQ have been edited in ImageWell. Resizing or editing a screenshot is a simple task in ImageWell. I use ImageWell quite often in my blogging workflow. I just drag the file to the ImageWell icon on the dock and drop it. Once ImageWell opens, I edit the graphic, resize it if necessary, and then save. If you need some basic quick image editing done, ImageWell will likely fit into your workflow.

If you read RSS feeds on multiple operating systems or computers, you need NetNewsWire. The ability to read feeds from nearly anywhere and have everything seamlessly sync is absolutely killer. I can read feeds at work, feeds on my iPhone, and feeds on my Mac and the changes are all kept in sync. NetNewsWire syncs with NewsGator online and the mobile version of NewsGator to allow reading from almost anywhere. Mobile NewsGator even has an iPhone optimized version. If you are an iPhone toting Mac user and haven’t tried NetNewsWire, why are you waiting?

Much like NetNewsWire, syncing is the killer feature of PackRat. PackRat is a desktop client for 37 Signals’ web application Backpack. When at work or on another computer, I can visit the Backpack website and add a note, create a to-do, or create some ideas for future blog posts or anything else that’s on my mind. On my Mac, I just fire up PackRat and click sync and the changes I’ve made in PackRat and the changes online are all synced up.

Admittedly I probably use 5% of what Quicksilver can do. As an application launcher any application is only a few keystrokes away when using Quicksilver. As a conduit between applications, Quicksilver allows you to easily upload a file via ftp, add a song to a playlist, email a certain file to an Address Book contact, and so much more. Describing everything that Quicksilver can accomplish is virtually impossible. Visit the Quicksilver website to learn more. As info, the application has been open sourced and is no longer in active development by the original developer.

So that’s my list of applications I couldn’t live without in 2007. I’m sure 2008 will bring some additions to my list. If you have some applications you couldn’t live without, drop a comment below and let everyone know about them. I could always use a few more applications to make my Mac life easier! Have a happy and safe New Year’s!

December is known as the season for giving. It seems that Mac developers are also in the giving mood this holiday season. First there was Give Good Food To Your Mac, next up was MacUpdate, now it’s MacSanta.

MacSanta works a little differently than the other two previously mentioned promotions. While the other two promotions are based on the idea that you buy multiple applications and get a good price, MacSanta is a little simpler. Each day MacSanta features a set of applications and you get a set 20% off those applications when you purchase them that day. You purchase the applications directly from the developers website and use the coupon code MACSANTA07. After the applications are no longer featured, you can still get 10% off the applications during the extended deals period by using the coupon code MACSANTA07TEN.

Check the MacSanta website each day or subscribe to the RSS feed to see which applications are featured. Today’s featured applications include heavy hitters MarsEdit, BBEdit, Yojimbo, and more. The extended deals include software from Rogue Amoeba, C-Command Software (Spam Sieve), and more. Stay tuned to Apple Mac HQ in the coming days for yet ANOTHER Mac applications deal.

MarsEdit, one of my most frequently used applications, has been declared Leopard ready by its developer Daniel Jalkut. If you’re unfamiliar with MarsEdit, it’s a great blogging client that truly makes blogging easier. MarsEdit offers Flickr integration, a very nice UI, compatibly with the most popular blogging systems today, and many more features. I’ve found myself posting significantly more often since purchasing MarsEdit.

In addition to MarsEdit, Daniel has given the Leopard blessing for all applications from Red Sweater Software. If any bugs pop up with Leopard, he’s stated he would address them quickly once Leopard hits shelves this Friday. If you rely on MarsEdit or other Red Sweater applications, go forth and upgrade to Leopard with confidence.