The Never Ending Search: 5 Fun Mac Utilities For Free.

I’m always on the road looking for great Mac applications and utilities. If they’re free, that’s even better.

Software prices are not going down, which makes free software even more valuable.

I was stunned when I read of the new price tags for Adobe’s Creative Suite of applications. Yes, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash and friends are all best of breed tools for professionals.

The price tags on CS3 applications and bundles, ranging up to $2,500 US, are best of breeding that only Queen Elizabeth could afford.

If only the Queen can afford the best, what about the rest of us? Where do we get the news about great Mac utilities worthy of our use, if not our money?

As the resident Mac360 Value Vixen™ let me cut you in on a little secret. Good Mac software is made, then found. Adobe, Microsoft, Apple and a few others can afford to advertise their wares, hard or soft.

The rest of the Mac developer community scrambles to build value and utility, dance between the feet of giants aforementioned, and manage to make a living or two in the process.

Outside of those two camps are the hinterlands of software, those unique Mac developers who have a special place reserved in heaven for their utilitarian efforts sans remuneration. These are the folks who make free stuff.

Once every couple of days I’ll hit MacUpdate and click off a few of their search filters. Updater? Click it off. Commercial? Click it off. Demo and shareware categories? Click. Click. Off. Off.

Then I click the Filter button and begin searching. It doesn’t take long to find an American Idol Top 24 for the week. For example, there’s the Sanjaya Malakar of free software for April-- Google Desktop.

It doesn’t do anything well but apparently pleases enough people to stick around and not get thrown in the gutter where it belongs. But it’s free.

Twitterific is the Hayley Scarnato of Mac freebies. It puts you in touch with your Twitter, as Hayley apparently does with guys with eyes and cell phones but no brains.

If I were a guy, or gay, not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’d vote for Haley. I don’t care if she sings or not, just have her do a little more twittering on stage and I’d be happy for yet another week. If I were a guy. Think of it this way, among the 10s of thousands of women who came to American Idol, Haley ranks #4, and didn’t even have to sing.

As to Twitter, well, what’s to say that hasn’t been said?

Elegant and full of Jordin Sparks’ sparkly energy and enthusiasm is iGTD, the latest rage to getting things done on a Mac. No other Mac utility does GTD this easy and this free.

Who on Idol 2007 has a bigger, brassier, bolder voice than LaKisha Jones, the NeoOffice of free Mac utilities. This thick and heavy chocolate bar of software does Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and more and at a price even Simon Cowell would love.

Elegance, simplicity, power, and experience is the Melinda Doolittle of Mac freeware, Vienna, the RSS reader. Productivity will soar when using Vienna, so you’ll be able to view Firefly reruns and practice up on your Chinese. You’ll need it.

What’s your favorite Mac utility without a price tag? How do you find the Gems of Freedom™ for your Mac? Share your experience with Mac360 readers in the Comments section below.

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