Use Kaleidoscope to spot the differences in text and image files. Review changes in seconds with the world's most advanced file comparison application.

os x system monitor

Hazel watches whatever folders you tell it to, automatically organizing your files according to the rules you create. It features a rule interface similar to that of Apple Mail so you should feel right at home. Have Hazel move files around based on name, date, type, what site/email address it came from (Safari and Mail only) and much more. Automatically put your music in your Music folder, movies in Movies. Keep your downloads off the desktop and put them where they are supposed to be.

Keyboard Maestro is a powerful macro program for Mac OS X Lion and Snow Leopard which has received glowing reviews.

Your Mac is capable of producing sound as well as playing sound channeled from outside sources—devices plugged into the Mac’s USB- and sound input ports as well as audio streamed from the Internet. Wouldn’t it be great if you could captures some of those sounds for later listening? You can. And you can for free with Soundflower. Here’s how it works.

This simple automator script adds a right-click option to count words, paragraphs, and characters to any Mac program:

ImageOptim optimizes images — so they take up less disk space and load faster — by finding best compression parameters and by removing unnecessary comments and color profiles. It handles PNG, JPEG and GIF animations.

ImageOptim seamlessly integrates various optimisation tools: PNGOUT, AdvPNG, Pngcrush, extended OptiPNG, JpegOptim, jpegrescan, jpegtran, and Gifsicle.

It's excellent for publishing images on the web (easily shrinks images “Saved for Web” in Photoshop) and also useful for making Mac and iPhone/iPad applications smaller (see Xcode warning).

Macs have a pretty good built-in screenshot utility, but it doesn't come packed with a lot of options. One of the problems is the fact you can't easily change the file type or save location of those screenshots. However, software blog Addictive Tips shows how to change both with a simple Terminal command.

Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features.

Read Later gives you access to your Read It Later or Instapaper accounts in a single easy-to-use application. Within Read Later you can manage your read later account without logging in to the services via browser. With Read Later all stored articles are just one mouse click away. Its design offers you a fast navigation and will save you time storing and accessing articles you are planning to read.

Safari has a hidden “Debug” menu that offers some additional features for debugging the browser, including stress and load tests, sampling, javascript error logging, the ability to intentionally crash a page, and more. Intended for Safari developers, the Debug menu is different from the Developer menu, which is geared more at web developers, although there are a few options in the Debug menu that general web developers would find useful as well, notably advanced cache choices and CSS animation controls. If this sounds confusing, just enable both of them and poke around and you’ll quickly see the differences.

Building a custom computer for Mac OS X can be a very rewarding experience, When you choose compatible hardware, the results can be astonishing. Based on our research, all of the components listed in this guide are compatible with Mac OS X. Included are bare bones builds and individual items through which you can design your own custom rig. All builds are fully compatible with UniBeast, have pre-edited DSDTs available in our DSDT Database, and are compatible with the CustomBeast Project.

Everybody loves the drag and drop nature of OS X. Drag an app into your applications folder, and it's installed. You'd think it would be that easy to delete an app — just a matter of dragging it to the trash. But it's not. Apps install support files on your computer that generate clutter. Introducing AppZapper. Simply drag one or more apps onto AppZapper. Then, watch as it finds the extra files and lets you delete them with one click.

If you’re fastidious about keeping your windows tidy, Stay is for you. Stay ensures that your windows are always where you want them to be, even as you connect and disconnect displays.

brings tabs to your native Finder and more!

Welcome to Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Network, Second Edition. This book helps you install and get the most out of your network using Apple’s AirPort and Time Capsule gear with the 802.11n Wi-Fi networking standard in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. It also gives advice for 10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard, and Windows 7. It was written by Glenn Fleishman, edited by Tonya Engst, and published by TidBITS Publishing Inc.

With thousands of predefined corrections for common typos and misspelled words for US and British English, German and French, Typinator is not only a typing assistant that speeds repetitive typing tasks, but also a system-wide auto-correction tool that automatically fixes typing errors and misspelled words.

The Mac calendar you'll actually enjoy using

Creating an event with Fantastical is quick, easy, and fun:

Open Fantastical by clicking the menu bar icon or pressing a customizable keyboard shortcut
Type in your event details and press return
...and you're back to what you were doing with a shiny new event in your calendar!

Fantastical's natural language engine is expressive and intelligent so you can write in your own style. Fantastical will even recognize the location of your event and let you invite people from your Address Book to the event.

What makes TrashMe special is that with the help of an add-on fron the developers, the app will also change permissions on apps you may not have write access to and uninstall them, which is perfect if you inherited a Mac from a friend or family member. TrashMe is $4.99 in the Mac App Store.

AppleJack is a user friendly troubleshooting assistant for Mac OS X. With AppleJack you can troubleshoot a computer even if you can't load the GUI, or don't have a startup CD handy. AppleJack runs in Single User Mode and is menu-based for ease of use.

I keep seeing lists of 10 must have Mac programs, but the lists is they are well known can't-live-without programs like Launchbar and Windowshade already installed on Machead machines. Here are some slightly more obscure programs I use every day:

Command-Tab is great…if you only ever have one window open in each of your applications. With more than one window, though, it's a hassle to find the one you want. Witch solves that problem by taking you directly to the window you want to reach.

Import all your stuff onto your digital shelves using your Mac’s iSight webcam, our wireless barcode scanner, or your keyboard.

Last week I mentioned that, following Steven Frank’s lead, I’d completely disabled Flash Player on my Mac. But I have a cheat, for web pages with Flash content with no non-Flash workaround. I’m really happy with this setup, so I thought I’d document it here.

For the longest time, all I’ve wanted is a solid native Mac client for Gmail that supports starring of messages. Sure, there have been some out there, but they’ve all been lacking. Today, I may have finally found a good one.

Sparrow is a super-simple Mac client for Gmail. If you’ve used Tweetie for Mac (which is now owned by Twitter, but development is more or less frozen), you’ll feel right at home here. On the right hand toolbar you’ll find a big icon for you account (again, just like Tweetie), your inbox, your starred items, your replies, your drafts, and your trash. Along the top of the window, you’ll see an option to compose, reply to, archive, or delete. Naturally, there is also a search bar as well.

CoverSutra gives you a handy and attractive way to control iTunes without having to leave your current application.

See what's currently playing or enjoy your album artwork. Don't let yourself be distracted from your work... CoverSutra is never in your way but always by your side.

Cocktail is an award winning general purpose utility for Mac OS X. It is a smooth and powerful digital toolset with a variety of practical features that simplifies the use of advanced UNIX functions and helps Mac users around the world to get the most out of their computers. Cocktail is installed at more than 200 000 computers world wide. The largest part being private individuals, but Cocktail can also be found at large international companies (Puma, Sony), educational institutions (Harvard University, University of Texas) or newspapers (The New York Times, Business Week).

The application serves up a scrumptious mix of maintenance tools and interface tweaks, all accessible via a comprehensive graphical interface. Most of Cocktail's major features are arranged in five basic categories. In addition, a Pilot lets you clean, repair and optimize your system with one click of the button.

Snapz Pro X allows you to effortlessly record anything on your screen, saving it as a QuickTime® movie or screenshot that can be e-mailed, put up on the web, or passed around however you want.

VoodooPad is a place to write down your notes and thoughts. Plant ideas, images, lists and anything else you need to keep track of and VoodooPad will grow with you, without getting in the way. You can even drag and drop folders, images, applications, or URLs into VoodooPad — they're linked up just like on the web. And with powerful search, nothing will be lost or out of reach.

Caffeine is a tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menu bar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers. Click it again to go back. Right-click (or ⌘-click) the icon to show the menu.

Backdrop is a simple utility to fill your screen with a giant blank window. Fill the window with a solid color or a custom image, your choice. This is useful for:

With ScreenFlow screencasting software, you can capture the contents of your entire desktop at the same time as your video camera, microphone and computer's audio. Sophisticated editing tools allow you to create incredible screencasts in no time.The finished result is a QuickTime or Windows Media movie, ready for publishing to your website or blog.

Mac only: Wine has always been popular among Linux users for running Windows programs, but Wine is available for Mac, too—and now, free utility WineBottler can "bottle" Windows programs into separate application bundles that run as standalone Mac apps.

I’ve collated the best apps for recording Skype in this list. While some of the applications are free, most of them require you to shell out a few bucks. The list is split into separate sections for Windows and Mac.

I installed Snow Leopard over the weekend and decided afterwards to reset my Time Machine backup, which I was surprised to find went back more than a year and had grown to 1.5TB. If you ever find yourself in this position, do everything you can to just reformat the whole disk. Because I share my Time Machine drive with other stuff I tried to just delete the “Backups.backupdb” folder normally, but emptying the trash wound up taking two full days. Untold millions of files! While I was waiting I figured out a cool command line trick, which I share with you here so we can both avoid repeating my fate. All on one line, substituting your own variables:

Together lets you keep everything in one place. Text, documents, images, movies, sounds, web pages and bookmarks can all be dragged to Together for safe keeping, tagged, previewed, collected together in different ways and found again instantly.

it allows you to copy songs and videos from any iPod or iPhone to any Mac running OS X 10.4 or higher.

@marshallk This might work, free Mac audio tool: