I’ve posted some of my favorite Mac webmaster and writing tools here. The benefit of these is that they are easy to use and will save you a lot of time. I’ve attempted to provide decent windows alternatives for each of these solutions.
1Password
The average web or computer user has more passwords than they would like to remember. This is where 1password fits in. It will remember all your passwords for you. Furthermore, it can be used to store all of your other personal information such as credit card numbers, software serials and combination lock codes. The only thing you have to remember is the password to use the program hence the reason why it is named 1password. I cant live without this program, especially as a webmaster. Right now this program is mac-only but a windows beta version has just been released. If you run both windows and mac there is also a method described on Agile Solutions website to sync your 1 password data between mac and windows through Dropbox.
This top-of-the-line FTP program is loaded with features and has the ability to create multiple connections in the background so you can upload your content to your servers even faster. There are quite a few free options to Transmit as well including Cyberduck and Filezilla. I chose to use Transmit regardless because I found the upload speed a great deal faster than Cyberduck during a trial comparison. After looking at various forum posts I realized that other users found Cyberduck to be slow as well. However, I heard that issue is improving with each release of the program.
This is a cute text editor of mine. Text editors assure you that you won’t be adding any third-party formatting codes in the text you add to your web pages and breaking the sites in the process. It has a tab feature, a snippet feature and a colored coding so different parts of your code will stand out. This works great for tired eyes. There are plenty of other text editors out there like Text Wrangler and TextMate, but this is my favorite. Best of all its completely free. Windows users have a great text editor with Notepad. However , a more powerful option is available with a few text editors called Ultraedit, E Text Editor and TextPad.
Dropbox is a wonderful way to backup your files and assure that your files are accessible anywhere. Â Dropbox easily integrates with all the other folders on you machine so opening and closing files is the same as always. Â Overall Dropbox offers a flexible option for your working schedule. For example, you can have a powerful desktop machine at home to do most of your work and be able to share files with your laptop on the go. When both machines are saving to Dropbox you never have to worry about different file versions or emailing files back and forth. Furthermore you can share folders with others and work collaboratively. All in all, its a wonderful seamless tool. You can find out more about Dropbox here.
One Response to “Mac Webmaster Software You Can’t Live Without”
Before I learned about 1password, I had a multiple postnotes all over the place with password and usernames for all the multiple sites I have. It was an absolute challenge to keep track of them all not to mention the ones I lost because I was not organized which of course would require one to create a new password. I am sure this is common problem with most pc users. Then I learned about 1password from my daughter. Now, I never have to waste time hunting through my messy stack of loose postnotes to find the correct password. It is a simple process, so simple I do not have to think about it. I log onto a site and press 1password to automatically fill in username and password. A wonderful and simple device that you need to have.
My one and only complaint with 1password is that some sites resist an automatic fill-in with the username which requires you to have to manually type it in. This has happened to only two sites of the myriad of sites I log onto. If you do not remember the user name off hand it is easy to open 1password and find the file for that particular site then the username. Simple. My daughter's comment on this rare problem is that some sites are actually too old to adjust to the new coding method currently being used today. Since I am from an older generation I do have a tendency to gravitate to an period site which may be more than seven years old!
I highly recommend 1password for everyone, especially my generation..it makes life with the computer more manageable and less stressful!