Back Door: Opens your Mac's normally invisible Temporary Items folder — find out what's going on behind the scenes, get rid of crash leftovers under MacOS 9, throw out Photoshop 6 garbage.

Dos2Mac: Drag & drop file converter - PC to Mac and vice-versa. Fast & efficient. Download Now (28k). Download includes full documentation.

MacZip: Zips/Unzips Mac files - kinda handy in a Windoze world. Any Mac, System 7 or higher.

Read/Write Interchange: Changes read-only text files to writable and vice-versa.

FontLister: Displays all your installed fonts using any text string you specify, at any point size. Perfect for previewing a sentence when you're not sure how's it's going to look. Very nifty (payware for professional users).

Fonts from MacFonts.com: thousands of them. Need I say more?

Microsoft Typography Web Fonts from Uncle Bill.

glTron: TRON-inspired superbike combat. Is it safe? Depends how well you can ride... Requires PPC, Mac OS 8.1 or higher, OpenGL 1.1.2 or higher.

Sigma Chess Lite Excellent Chess game. Payware version also available. Sure beats me...

Clip2gif Image Conversion Utility from Yves Piquet. For static graphics, this could well be the only image converter you'll ever need for the web. If you can copy it to the clipboard, Clip2gif can export it as a gif, customised to your requirements - and that's just for starters. Used extensively on this and related sites. Download now (226k). Full documentation is included with the download - be sure to read it.

DesignerDraw: Graphics program for drawing diagrams, especially such things as structure charts, flow charts, organization charts, dataflow diagrams and other diagrams which have boxes containing text connected by lines. Connections remain between boxes when the boxes are moved, making DesignerDraw diagrams much easier to maintain than those you can create with most other drawing programs. Very neat. Download Version 5.0.2 Now (94k). Full docs with the download.

DragPeek: Simple but powerful Drag & Drop image viewer - previews Quicktime-compatible images as you drag them over a small window. Download Now (57k); includes full info.

GIF Prep: Optimises files for the web by stripping out the resource fork. Intended for use with GIFs & JPEGs but will strip the resource fork from any file dropped on it: use with care.

Mac Badges Was your website made on a Mac? Then tell the world with an official Mac Badge from Apple! Or better yet, link to this site with a free Absolutely Mac web badge!

Pixels 3D: 3D modelling & animation tool.

Quicktime Pick up the latest version here. Strata 3D Complete 3D Development Package.

To JPEG Image Conversion Utility: converts other graphic formats into JPEG. Fast, efficient & easy to use.

Finder Options: Enables some Finder features that were hidden under System 7 - Control-Drag to make alias (Requires System 7.1 Pro); Reveal Original Item from an alias in File Menu (Requires System 7.5); Command-Delete to move files to trash (Requires System 7.5.3). Yes indeed, they were all built-in features long before Mac OS 8, but Apple never implemented them. If you're still using System 7, get these advanced features now, for free! Works beautifully on my old PB190. Download Now (15k). Full info with the download.

FinderPop Contextual Menu Enhancer for MacOS 8 and higher. Improves your contextual menus in more ways than I can count; you'll wonder how you managed without it. Pintware: it's free, but the author likes his Murphy's - go to Kagi and buy him a pint if you find you can't live without it.

Popup Navigator Control panel that adds a popup (or should that be drop down?) navigation menu to non-Finder windows. Excellent. Another freebie from Turly, the creator of FinderPop.

Scroll Control: Fine tunes your scroll bar controls, giving you the arrow & box ('thumb') styles you've always wanted: double arrows at both ends, the single arrows you're used to, fixed size or proportional scroll thumbs - in whatever combination suits you best.

Wapp pro Control panel that adds a windows menu to your menu bar, showing every window that's open in every active application. Also includes an application switcher and options for quitting or hiding applications with a single click. Very useful and highly customisable - you'll wonder how you ever managed without it.

Application Switcher Settings Suite: Applescript utility that controls Application Switcher settings. Very well implemented.

ClipAlias adds an alias to the Clipboard to your Apple Menu, giving you easy access from almost any application.

DayFinder: Lets you type in a date then tells you which day of the week it is, was or will be. So which day of the week is your birthday in 2026?

Installer Observer: Worried that you'll never track down all the garbage that the latest demo is likely to dump into your system? Worry no more: run Installer Observer before you install any new software and it'll log the way things were for comparison afterwards.

Joliet Volume Access Functional replacement for Apple's ISO 9660 File Access extension. Improves cross-platform compatibility by making long Windows file names accessible — without it, all you'll normally see on a Windows CD is the old DOS style 8.3 type file name. Download Version 1.4.2 now (75k)

Memory Mapper: Maps memory usage in an easy-to-read graphical format, and allows you to quit background apps that you wouldn't otherwise be able to quit. Full documentation is included with the download. Download Now (48k).

Phil's Dialogues: Creates custom Finder dialogue boxes, that say what you want, when you want. Why settle for anything else?

QuitFinder: Quits the Finder. Handy if you want to rebuild the desktop without having to restart; not kosher, but can come in handy.

SoBig: Control Strip Module that shows your available RAM and startup disk space, with a pop-up display showing available space on any other mounted disks. Excellent. Download Version 1.2 Now (6k). Download includes full documentation.

StartupList Lets you use your StartupScreen as a to-do list. So the more extensions you've got, the longer you get to plan your day whilst they load...

TechTool Diagnostic utility from Micromat: checks for damaged system files, deletes your desktop files, zaps the PRAM, and tells you almost everything you ever wanted to know about your Mac. Don't leave home without it.

Icicle Beep: Way cool alert sound from ClixSounds. Go there for more or Download Icicle Beep Now (128k). Full info with the download.

Igor Engraver Musical notation program. 342-page pdf manual available — serious stuff for serious musicians, with a friendly user interface (or should that be user-friendly?).

iTunes: Apple's own MP3 player.

Sound Shuffler: Control panel from No-U-Turn — randomizes your system alert sound. Why get stuck in a rut? System 7.1 or higher.

Riff Beeps Collection of six cool alert sounds - includes Golgotha, Kiss, and Stigmata. Ace, man. Download Now (171k). Download includes 'Read Me' file.

BBEdit Lite Text editor: probably the most powerful freeware text editor you'll ever come across. Lightning-fast multi-file search & replace — makes Sherlock look like a sluggard. No indexing required. Used to build this site. Several other free Barebones utilities available too: Drop•PS, DVD Player Helper, PopupFuncs and TextChanger. Visit Barebones' freeware pages for more info.

MicahText Word Processor. If you want an alternative, it's a good replacement for SimpleText.

Nisus Writer Word Processor - without a doubt, the most powerful WP available for the Mac. Now in version 6 (version 6 expected soon), Nisus have been giving away two earlier versions to whet your appetite: Nisus Writer 4.1.6 and Nisus Compact. But will you get there in time?

SpellTools Stand-alone spillchecker... oops, sorry: spellchecker. Helps you avoid gaffes like these.

Macromedia Downloads: Head this way for the latest Flash and Shockwave players, plug-ins and other gizmos. Personally I think they're best avoided, but some people seem to like them - me, when I find a site that says "You need blah blah blah to view this site," I tend to head elsewhere...

MacTidy: Checks and corrects HTML and XML to make it compliant with the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) HTML standards. Excellent. Also available as a BBEdit Plug-In, BBTidy.

MT-NewsWatcher: Usenet newsreader, based on John Norstad's NewsWatcher application. Requires Mac OS 8 or higher.

Quid Pro Quo: Web Server from Social Engineering (who appear to have vanished into a black hole in cyberspace - please get in touch if you know where they are). According to MacWorld (February 1999), Quid Pro Quo "offers most of the abilities of commercial server software and can handle thousands of hits per day."
Download Installer Now (1.7Mb)

WebCheck Drag & drop websearch utility, with a way-cool interface. Still in its infancy — the link will take you to the Mac Beta download page — but well worth taking a look. Online search may never be the same again.

Where in the World Database of geographic domain name endings.