Mac OS X Applications for Everyday. Keyboard Layout Switchers.

After two years of Mac user experience, I'd like list the applications I use everyday.

I am Russian, so I need a to write the texts in other encoding than ISO. Under windows, there is nice tool called Punto Switcher. For long time there was no such tool for mac, except RuSwitcher by Alexey Proskuryakov. RuSwitcher works only on Tiger and does not work under Leopard.

Hopefully, guys from Yandex has ported PuntoSwitcher to Mac OS X (Leopard & Snow Leopard). It is still a beta but I have no problems using it.

Some of the Punto Switcher's features are:

• Switching keyboard layout automatically or with a hot key.
• Fix incorrect layout for selected text.
• Mac and Windows layout support.

MacOS Applications

As a new Mac user, I was faced to choose and install applications to make my work (and entertainment) more pleasurable.

One of the most important reason when choosing applications to install is to prefer Free and Open Source than Commercial ones. Then comes size and performance. All

Localization

Is my native language is Russian, I need a to write the texts with other encoding than ISO. Here comes RuSwitcher by Alexey Proskuryakov. It is similar that PuntoSwitcher for Windows.

Web

Web Browser

I desided to stay with Safari as it's really fast web browser.
But there are a number of plugins which make work with Safari more comfortable.

SafariBlock

The SafariBlock plugin is absolutely necessary to block unwanted ads. - does not work in Safari 4 beta

Glimps

Glimps - search plugin for Safari. - better then Inquisitor.

Keywurl

Other useful extension is Keywurl - A small, free plugin for Safari that adds keyword search to the browser’s address bar. (just like in FireFox).

Communications

Mail

On Windows and Ubuntu I prefer Mozilla Thunderbird. But on Mac, I found native Mail.app is useable enough. And it seems to be faster than Thunderbird.

Reading

Reading RSS

Initially, I have installed ... But when I tried Vienna, I stayed on it.

Reading CHM files

There are a number CHM file readers available. For now, I've stayed on Chmox. Significant disadvantage of this program it is not possible to view CHMs with windows-1251 encoding.

Entertainment

GimmeSomeTune - iTunes Plugin

Nice iTunes plugin that fetches lyrics and artwork for currently playing composition. It has last.fm. support. It may start automatically when you start iTunes and shutdowns when you exit it.

Development

SVN Client

SCPlugin - My choice is SVN client with Finder integration.

Games

I like RPG and Battle for Wesnoth is very nice, balanced and playable game. And it's absolutely Free and Open Source!