10 Great Free Mac Apps for Web Developers

c.bavota — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:06:15 +0000

I have been a Mac man for almost ten years now, and though many Web developers swear to working on a PC, I find my Mac has everything I need to develop, design and program Web sites. Luckily there are tons of great free apps available to help any developer work more efficiently on their Mac.

Here is a list of 10 great free Mac apps for Web developers that I use:

TextWrangler

TextWrangler is the powerful general purpose text editor with some great features. Whether you are working with HTML, CSS, PHP or any other Web programming language, TextWrangler has everything you need to easily edit your code.
http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/index.html

MAMP

MAMP installs Apache, Mysql and PHP on your Mac to create a fully functioning Web environment which will allow you to test all aspects of your Web site locally. It’s smart to have an environment to test and work with offline before making your changed on your live site.
http://www.mamp.info/en/mamp/index.html

Paparazzi!

Paparazzi! is a small utility for Mac OS X that takes screen shots of Web pages. This is helpful for creating your portfolio or sending screen shots to clients.
http://derailer.org/paparazzi/

YemuZip

YemuZip is an easy-to-use application for making zip files. Just drag, drop, name your zip file and you’re done. The native Mac file compressor utility adds Mac-specific info to zip files that, when extracted on a PC, looks like garbage.
http://www.yellowmug.com/yemuzip/

VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware that allows Mac user to load Windows software on their desktop. Creating an IE testing environment on your Mac is pretty simple using VirtualBox.
http://www.virtualbox.org/

Skype

Everyone probably already uses this, and if you don’t, you should. Skype is great to communicate with clients from around the globe. Skype to Skype is free for instant messaging and calls.
http://www.skype.com/

GIMP

GIMP is an open source versatile graphics manipulation package similar to Adobe’s Photoshop, but it won’t put you in the poor house. It may not be as robust but GIMP has some amazing features and who can beat the price.
http://www.gimp.org/

Cyberduck

Cyberduck is an open source FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Cloud Files and Amazon S3 browser for the Mac. It features an easy to use interface with quickly accessible bookmarks.
http://cyberduck.ch/

SvnX

SvnX is an open source GUI for most features of the svn client binary. It allows you to browse your working copies, spot changes and operate on them but also to browse logs and revisions of your repositories.
http://www.lachoseinteractive.net/en/community/subversion/svnx/features/

Sequel Pro

Sequel Pro is a fast, easy-to-use Mac database management application for working with MySQL databases.
http://www.sequelpro.com/

Creating an Internet Explorer Testing Environment on a Mac

c.bavota — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:39:00 +0000

I have been a Mac man for a long time. I know some people hate ‘em for whatever reason, but I have always found them to be great machines for what I do. The only thing that makes it a little tough when it comes to working on the web though, is the fact that you can’t really test in IE, unless you install something like Parallels Desktops and Windows. That works somewhat, but a copy of Parallels Desktop will run you $79 and Windows can cost you $100 or more. In the end, it costs quite a bit and you can only run one version of IE. That doesn’t really make for a great testing environment, especially when there is a better option out there that is absolutely FREE.

I had previously written about Installing Microsoft Explorer 6 on a Mac but recently I discovered a better way of setting up a testing environment for IE thanks to Andrew Odri and Jeff Couturier and their great articles. (All credit goes to them in steering me in the right direction on this one.) There were a few problems I encountered along the way so I thought it would be a good idea to let you know exactly how I got it to work.

Here is what you need before we start:

VirtualBox 2.0.6 – Only version 2.0.6 will work for this tutorial.
Q – this make it possible to install 3 versions of IE
Zipeg – to convert the IE files to a format we can use
Internet Explorer – download these three files: IE6-XPSP3.exe, IE7-XPSP3.exe, IE8-XPSP3.EXE

Once you have downloaded everything, install VirtualBox, Q and Zipeg.

I’ve broken it down into three sections. First, I’ll show you how to get everything ready. Next I’ll walk you through installing IE with VirtualBox. Then I’ll help make sure everything runs properly.

For this tutorial, I’ll use IE6-XPSP3.exe as an example. Afterward, just repeat all the steps below to install IE 7 and IE 8.

1. Change the extensions on IE6-XPSP3.exe from .exe to .zip.

2. Create a sub-folder in your Applications directory called “IE”.

3. Launch Zipeg and drag the IE6-XPSP3.zip file into it for extraction. Extract the .vhd files into the IE sub-folder you created.

4. Open up your IE sub-folder and you will see a folder called “IE6-XPSP3″. Open that folder and you should have a file called “XP SP3 with IE6 2009-Apr.vhd. Rename that sucker something simple like ie6-xpsp3.vhd.

5. Now launch Terminal (Applications => Utilities => Terminal) and type:

/Applications/Q.app/Contents/MacOS/qemu-img convert -O raw -f vpc /Applications/IE/IE6-XPSP3/ie6-xpsp3.vhd /Applications/IE/IE6-XPSP3/ie6-xpsp3.raw

This will take about 5 minutes to process so just wait until your Terminal prompt returns.

6. Next, type:

VBoxManage convertdd /Applications/IE/IE6-XPSP3/ie6-xpsp3.raw /Applications/IE/IE6-XPSP3/ie6-xpsp3.vdi

This will also take a few minutes so just wait for that prompt to return.

Now we need to launch VirtualBox to get the show on the road. Once you have the software opened do the following.

1. Click the New button in the top left to enter the “Create New Virtual Machine” wizard.

2. Click “Next” and enter “IE 6″ in the Name field and select “Windows XP” as the OS Type.

3. Click past the next screen until you reach the Virtual Hard Disk page. Click the Existing button and a new window will open.

4. Select “Add”. Browse through your folders to Applications => IE => IE6-XPSP3 and select the .vdi file that we created through our Terminal commands above. You will return to the Virtual Hard Disk page. Click next.

5. You should now be at the Summary screen. Click finish and you will see a selection for IE 6 in VirtualBox.

Now that everything is installed, let’s launch IE 6 and make sure it runs properly.

1. Select IE 6 in the VirtualBox window and click start in the tool bar at the top. Press F8 right away to load Windows into Safe Mode. If it doesn’t load in Safe Mode, just close the window and try again. It will automatically load in Safe Mode the second time around.

2. A bunch of hardware prompts will appear. Just cancel them all. Go to the Start menu and select Run. Type “cmd” to open the command line.

3. Type the following at the command prompt.

cd \WINDOWS\system32\drivers
ren processr.sys processr.old
exit

4. Restart Windows.

5. When Windows loads up, close all those popups. Go to the top menu of Virtualbox VM (your Windows window) and select Devices=> Install Guest Additions. Click through the windows. If a warning comes up just click Continue Anyway and move on. When the process is complete, select Reboot Now and click Finish.

6. After Windows reboots, more popup windows will appear. Cancel them all and go to Start => My Computer, right-click and select Properties. The System Properties window will appear. Go to Hardware => Device Manager.

7. Now you will see a list with two items that are not recognized. First, select Batteries => Unknown device and right-click. Disable this because you will never use it. Next go to Ethernet Controller and right-click. Select Update Driver.

8. In the Hardware Update Wizard, select the middle option “Yes now and every time I connect the device” and click next. Click next again to install the driver automatically. Close all your windows.

9. Click on the desktop icon to open Internet Explorer 6.

And there you have it. Repeat the process to install IE 7 and IE 8 so you can round off your testing environment.

TIP: If you don’t want to wait for Windows to load each time you open your VirtualBox VM, click the red x at the top on your window and select Save the machine state. Next time you access your IE 6 VM it will be exactly how you left it.

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