Feeling Lucky? Friday’s Freebie Mac Software.

I love a bargain and can’t wait for my Mac mini to show up. That’s a lot of power for little money. Our Friday Freebies this week cover a wide range of low end (cost-wise) Mac applications. Here’s mine. Now show me yours.

Mops 5.6: Ever wanted to use your Mac to program? You know, develop your own applications. Nope. Me neither. However, the free application Mops 5.6 is a great stand-alone development environment for programming on your Mac.

Click Here for the MacUpdate reviews, download link, and developer link. Hey, it’s 4.5 stars. And free.

iSnip 1.0.6: Finally, some Friday Freeware that lets me manage and edit text clippings. What I like about this is the ability to create a text clipping from the clipboard. Waaaaay cool.

Click Here for reviews from MacUpdate readers and then drool over those 5 star ratings.

Skype 0.4: Great logos and great ideas do not a great Mac application make. Is Skype more hype than reality? Using P2P (peer to peer) technology, Skype allows you to talk on the “phone” (your Mac) to family, friends, and co-workers without long distance telephone charges.

Isn’t that what iChat does (and does very well)? I thought so. Click Here for this Less-Than-4-Star™ Friday Freebie. Nice logo.

update from Tera In the Comments section, Mac user “greensandblues” has a great take on Skype, as it goes beyond iChat. For one, I’ve tried setting up AIM Windows for video chat and it’s a monster. It really makes you wonder if AOL isn’t outsourcing their development to folks in Dilbert’s Elbonia. end

My rule of thumb for Friday Freebie power Mac utilities is 4 stars and above. I’ll make exceptions, of course (for something promising), but consider the 4 star level to be an “average” for the Friday list.

Assignment Planner 1.3: Above average (barely) is Assignment Planner. Got a college or high school kid who’s also a Mac user? They’ll like Assignment Planner and you’ll like the price. Free.

AP stores courses and homework assignments matched to the course. It even integrates with Mac’s iCal and can be exported to an iPod. Just what every college student needs. Homework assignments following them around.

Click Here for all the reasons why college and high school kids will love this little utility.

The Edge 1.1: What? Who says there’s no games for the Mac? The Edge may not keep you on the edge of your seat but the price won’t make you cut yourself in despair (think of you Windows-using friends).

This is a simply and addicting card game. Think of it as a clone to the Mac Classic game, On The Edge. Simple. Works. 5 stars. Click Here to count each of the stars.

iPod Backup 1.3.2: OK, there’s about 10-million iPod users and most of them are on Windows, so iPod Backup doesn’t apply. iPod Backup isn’t what you think, either. It doesn’t backup your iPod.

It backs up your Home Directory on your iPod. That’s handy. All your Mail, preferences, and other goodies now get stored on your mobile iPod. Not to be used with the new iPod shuffle unless you have a really teensy weensy itty bitty, ah, um, Home Directory. If you get my drift.

Click Here to see the only Mac application I know of using Platypus.

They say the mountain climbers climb Mt. Everest “because it’s there.” So it is with “wheels.” Haven’t you ever wondered why people re-invent the wheel. Over and over and over again?

Battorox 1.6: Battorx could also be named YABRFMM. Yet another battery reader for my Mac. This one monitors the battery information in your laptop (where else?).

You can keep tabs on battery capacity, amps, current capacity, voltage, flags, and more. It’s the perfect laptop companion application to Temperature Monitor which, well, monitors your Macs temperature (much cool on PowerMacs which are hot and have a gazillion sensors, than are laptops which become hot plates for your lap).

Click Here to read about all the gold stars for Battorox (rhymes with Clorox). Finally, Click Here for Temperature Monitor.

By the way, we use Temperature Monitor on two PowerMac G5 servers. The temperatures for each setting are wildly different all the time. Sometimes by 10-degrees or 15-degrees. I added up all the temperatures and the number was the same for each machine.

Averages. Go figure.

What’s your favorite Friday Freebie Mac utility application? Click on the Comments link below to share with other Mac readers.

Oh, please don’t mention Quicksilver. I still can’t figure out how to use it.

Check out the daily list of our 9 Word mini-Reviews at NoodleMac, and Kate's daily in-depth Mac software reviews at PixoBebo.