MacMost: Mac Software

If you are looking for something to do with your Mac when you have down time, try one of these ideas that don't involve browsing the web or using social media.

When buying an app in the App Store on the iPhone, iPad or Mac, it can be hard to judge which apps are worth it. Here are some ways to quickly assess an app based on the information shown in the App Store and elsewhere.

Preview is a PDF viewer that comes with your Mac. While you can annotate PDFs, you can't really edit them. The proper way to edit a PDF is not to use a PDF viewer at all, but to go back to the original source document and edit that document in the app it was created in, then export a new version of the PDF.

Here are five great Mac apps for artists that are completely free. No trials or in-app purchases. If you want to edit images, draw vector graphics, edit audio or work with 3D, check out these apps that all have a proven track record and many years of development.

The Mac App Store is probably the best way to get apps for your Mac. Here are 20 tips for finding apps, figuring out if an app is worth downloading, and managing your apps.

While there is no Weather app that comes with your Mac, there are several built-in ways to see weather. In addition, you can access weather in a few other places, like on the Web, in email and even using the Calendar.

Here's my list of simple software features that Apple needs to bring to macOS and apps. Many of these come from years of taking user questions and hearing the same requests over and over.

The Mac App Store is the primary way to add Apple and third-party apps to your Mac. Some apps are free and others you need to pay for, sometimes with in-app purchases or subscriptions. There are many good reasons to prefer using the App Store instead of download apps from websites.

Many people online claim that there are certain third-party apps that you need on your Mac. But usually this isn't true, or only applies if you use your Mac in a specific way. As a super user, I often see these lists and notice I don't use any of these "must-have" apps.

Perhaps the most useful third-party tool you can get for your Mac is a clipboard manager. These will let you go beyond the single copy and paste clipboard and recall items you previous copied.

The Digital Color Meter is a utility that comes with your Mac that lets you find the color of a pixel on your screen. This can be very useful for artists and developers. You can grab the color of a pixel from an image or web page. You can also get the average color of a group of pixels and get the exact pixel location of the cursor.

The Unarchiver is a free utility that will help you if you need to decompress files of different archive types that are not supported by Mac's built-in Archive Utility. You can decompress old SIT archives and odd download archives like RAR.

You can obtain fonts from a variety of sources: retail packages, clipart web sites, font web sites and the Mac App Store. In most cases, you end up with a file that contains the font and need to install it. Just double-clicking on the file will launch the Font Book app on your Mac and you can install that font, and manage the rest of your fonts using this app.

There are many apps that come with your Mac that you can use in school. The Dictionary app is more than just a way to look up definitions. You can also use it to browse and search the world's largest encyclopedia. The Grapher and Calculator apps come in useful, and the free Google Maps app can help with geography. But perhaps the most useful educational app is iTunes because of access to thousands of free lessons through iTunes U.

I often hear myths and misconceptions about Macs in the comments and questions I get at MacMost. Here are some of the most common ones I see.

Hidden in your Applications/Utilities folder is the complex graphing program Grapher. You can use it to plot 2D and 3D equations on your Mac. You can also export 3D animated graphs. Very useful for math students or those who use complex equations in their work.

TypeStyler is an old Mac graphics tool that has reappeared in the new Mac App Store. You can use it to create beautiful text complete with textures, 3D effects, curves and other elements. It is a handy tool if you need to create titles for projects.

In your Mac's Applications folder you've got a Calculator app that you probably haven't given a second look. This is much more than a simple utility. You can use it in scientific and programmer mode, convert units, time and currency, work in octal and hexadecimal, produce a tape of your calculations, and even get it to talk to you.

Some Universal Access features in Snow Leopard can be used by everyone. You can enlarge the cursor, get feedback when you type, zoom in to see pixels and more.

In episode number 500 of MacMost Now, Gary Rosenzweig takes a look at the Mac App Store. After updating to Mac OS X 10.6.6 you can browse, purchase and download Macintosh software using the Mac App Store, which fundamentally changes the way Mac users get software.