Revealed: What’s On Tera Patricks’ Newest Mac

If you’ve been a Mac user for any length of time, you’ve probably collected a handful of useful applications to go along with the basics, such as AppleWorks, Microsoft Office, PhotoShop, and others. This is the first in a series of “What’s On My Mac.” You’ll be surprised.

It’s always fun to compare. When we visit a friend’s home, it doesn’t take much to open the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, to, you know, just look.

Here’s the first of a regular look at what’s on my Mac and why.

First, I have more than one Mac. I couldn’t help myself. There’s the PowerBook, an eMac (used as a server for awhile), and new dual CPU PowerMac with the 23” HD display (you gotta watch a DVD on this thing).

Second, I try out lots of software. It’s the nature of the business. However, to all you developers out there, I BUY shareware. It’s only right. Someone said Windows users steal software, Linux users think all software should be free, and Mac users actually buy what we use.

Finally, let’s start with a quick overview of the Macs I use most-- a PowerBook and a PowerMac-- and what’s on each machine. Then, day-by-day, I’ll let you know more of what’s there and why.

OVERVIEW: What’s on Tera Patricks’ Mac:

The basics include AppleWorks and Microsoft Office. As much as some in the Mac community don’t want anything to do with Microsoft, their Mac Business Unit got Office right. It’s very Mac-like and works very well. AppleWorks? It’s aging but manages to work very well considering the lack of an upgrade in about, oh, what feels like 15 years.

I keep a handful of browsers on both Macs. Safari gets used the most, although Camino is a favorite. I use the others, Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, OmniWeb, and Internet Explorer just to test rendering of HTML (amazingly, all browsers don’t show pages the same way-- what a shock!).

Of course, it goes without saying that all the iLife applications reside on my Macs and I use them all. iTunes has just under 3,000 songs; 1,000 from iTMS, and 2,000 from an aging but extensive CD collection that dates back to the 80s. Yes, I’m THAT old. Zoom in on an image. You’ll see. The silver pants are there to keep your eyes from looking too closely at mine.

OK, I also maintain the full suite of Macromedia’s MX 2004; Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks et al. There’s the Adobe collection, too: Photoshop Elements, Photoshop CS, ImageReady CS, InDesign CS, and Illustrator. I’ve had them all for years and continue to upgrade.

For the video producers, yes, I have the Apple Pro Suite as well. I’ve had Final Cut Pro since version 1.2 (now at 4.xx), DVD Studio Pro, and eMagic’s Logic.

Then we get into utilities. I must have about 50 that get used regularly (paid for) so keeping track of them is a challenge. I used DragThing for that. Here’s a screenshot of DragThing; note all the utilities.

Sorry about the size. You get the idea. There’s lots to organize. DragThing does a great job.

In future articles I’ll give you details about which Internet utilities I use; such as Cronnix, BBedit, BatChmod, Apple’s Server Administration, the great StyleMaster for CSS editing, the venerable Transmit for FTP and SFTP, EvoCam, iPick, and El Gato’s EyeTV (the old USB model; I keep hoping Apple will buy TiVo so I haven’t upgraded to the new Firewire model).

That’s a first look at what’s on my Mac. More to come in the days ahead.

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