“Wherever IT professionals gather, you can witness the rise of a new machine. Look through the windows of an InteropNet NOC, for instance, and it’s clear that the Mac has become the darling of the networking crowd,” Brian Chee reports for InfoWorld. “After all, with good old Unix under the hood, Mac OS X makes an excellent network troubleshooting tool”
“Of course, there are plenty of other ways an IT pro can put the Mac to good use,” Chee reports. “llow me to share some of the networking, server administration, and other tools that I’ve collected over the years to help me do my job better.”
15 awesome IT tools for Mac OS X
• NetSpot (Free)
• Chanalyzer ($599)
• ZTerm ($20 donationware)
• Evernote (Free)
• CoRD (Free)
• Hot-e-V ($14.99)
• TeamViewer (Free for personal use, scalable for enterprises)
• VMware Fusion ($49.99)
• Chicken of the VNC (Free)
• SplashID ($19.99)
• Camtasia Studio ($99)
• SnagIT ($49.95)
• iGlasses ($19.95)
• VLC (Free)
• Air Display (Free for Mac; $9.99 for iPhone and iPad)
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “j s” for the heads up.]
Hmmm, I have 5/10 (Parallels would make it 6). I think Dropbox shoulda been on the list, though.
VMWare is a Parallels alternative, having a long and good reputation on the Windows side for virtualization.
The free open source alternative is VirtualBox.
WINE has also come a long way on Mac OS X for running selected Windows apps (and games for when you need a break). You don’t need to buy Crossover to run WINE, but they contribute a lot of code to the project, making it nice to toss them a few bucks on occasion.
X11 anyone? Automator/Applescript? Disk Utility?
YES! All of the above!
It always freaks me how little people know about Disk Utility. Does everyone know that Disk Utility can created EXTREMELY useful AES encrypted sparse/sparse bundle disk images, which I consider ESSENTIAL for backing up stuff to the cloud? (That is, for services like DropBox that don’t provide server side encryption).
Disk Warrior
Invaluable.
TechTool Pro is a MUST!
Why?
… third party wares? Terminal is not listed, nor any of the box-standard CLI commands it offers. Certainly none of the tools made easier and included in the Network Utility. Itself a wonderful tool.
Still … yeah, the Mac is NOT a “toy”.
Camtasia and Snagit instead of ScreenFlow?
I’ll take ScreenFlow any day on the Mac but on the PC I can see Camtasia.
ZTerm? They’re still around? I remember using it in System 7 and earlier days.
Blast from the past.
From a networking perspective, I use nmap, WireShark and Zterm on a regular basis. Also Whatroute.
My additional suggestions:
• WhatRoute (as @Dan pointed out)
• MacTerm.
• Apple’s provided Network Utility (in your Utilities folder).
• Apple’s secretly provided Wi-Fi Diagnostics app, hidden here:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Wi-Fi Diagnostics
• The ICSI Netalyzr Internet connection analysis tool website:
http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/
• Drive Genius 3. (I also have DiskWarrior, TechTool Pro and MainMenu Pro on hand).
• Apple’s Remote Desktop (or Timbuktu, sadly now owned by Motorola).
• Network Link Conditioner, (provided with Apple’s Xcode).
• Time Out, (which helps prevent obsessive brain cell frying and burned out eyes).
• XQuartz (X11) and MacPorts, (for serious geeks, which have loads of obscure tools with which to play).
I have yet to play with WireShark, but have it on hand.
WINDOWS 8 IS COMMING. All mac’s going back to there places where they belong under the desk, the bottom of the tech department storage closet, or a very lonely corner collecting dust. Cheer up mac fans your desktops gonna look lovely. Again.
Loser, loser, all night boozer.
… under my desk. That’s where the BIG Bad Boys usually sit. There, or beside the desk. Too frigging huge to sit on top, no space for the monitor, then. Most desktop Macs are iMacs, though, and sit on top. Too pretty to replace with a Windoze box.
I use LogMeIn all the time for off-site support