All new Macs come with great bundled software. Between the iLife suite, Safari, iTunes, and TextEdit, plus the ability to access and use cloud applications for free, almost all of the most basic modern computing needs get met for most users.

That said, having used four different Macs over the past seven years, there are several applications that don't come with OS X that I find myself immediately loading onto a new Mac. Most of these are big-name apps that you've probably already heard of, but it's still pretty amazing how much extra functionality you can eke out of a Mac with only ten additional programs, and all of them (save the last one) are free.

Whether you're buying a new Mac for a relative this holiday season or getting a new one for yourself, these are ten applications you should download as soon as that shiny new machine loads the desktop for the first time.

Ever since upgrading to Snow Leopard, the one remaining 32-bit niggle I have has been with Growl's preference pane. Today, however,* Growl has released v1.2 of its famous application notification system with, among other things, 64-bit support.

While most of the updates in 1.2 are "behind the scenes," the biggest user-facing improvement is in the upgrade to 64-bit. What this means is that for Snow Leopard users, selecting the Growl preference pane does not require Preferences.app to re-launch in 32-bit compatibility mode.

In addition to the Growl preference pane, GrowlMail and GrowlSafari have been updated to 64-bit and are now Snow Leopard compatible. Further, the Growl framework has been re-written in Cocoa dropping support for the Carbon-based API.

You can see the full list of changes over at Growl's version history page. Growl users should have received a notification to download the update. Alternatively, you can head over to Growl's homepage and click "download" to get your ticket to the notification express.

*Several readers have pointed out that version 1.2, while the current version, wasn't released today but in fact has been out for several weeks. Our apologies.

I, like many people, am constantly checking my email. No matter where I am, I'm either getting messages pushed to my iPhone or Mail is checking for new ones every minute. A new app is promising to make using Gmail and checking for messages much, much easier.

Notify, a new free application by Vibealicious Apps, puts a small button in your menubar of your Mac that keeps track of unread messages. The app, which was released less than 24 hours ago has already received over 3200 downloads and is quickly making a name for itself. Notify's developers consider it "like a menubar app, but better" explaining that the application boasts a much better user interface and much more functionality than traditionally found in menubar apps and buttons.

The application has a lot of cool features including:

• Support for multiple accounts
• Tabbed interface
• Growl integration
• Sleek, simple UI

The developer promises that Notify will continue to evolve, adding that the next major release of the app will support any IMAP email client as opposed to just Gmail. They're also working on support for Google Apps, in-app replies and the ability to create and send new messages directly from your menubar.

The app is also promised to be "freeware forever", according to the developer's twitter.

Some shots of Notify in action:

It's crunch time and that big project has to get done. Next thing you know, you're on your favorite website, tinkering with Garageband or tweeting up a storm. We've all been there, but Roobasoft's Concentrate for the Mac is here to help!

Concentrate is designed to help you "work and study more productively by eliminating distractions." The simple application offers a number of options to help you get down to business. With it you can:

• Quit applications that distract you such as games or web browsers.
• Run applications, and only the ones you need for your task.
• Open websites you need to use for work.
• Block websites that you know will distract you (ahem, Facebook)

In addition to helping keep you on task by eliminating distractions, Concentrate takes it a step further to help keep you on the right track.

• Record spoken messages that help to keep you going.
• Play sounds to let you know how far you've gone.
• Alter your iChat/Skype status to keep friends from bugging you.

The application supports Growl notifications and easily allows you to incorporate scripts to control almost anything. Additionally, you can customize different setups for different tasks. For example, I can set up a "Study" task that will block social networking sites and keep me on task with spoken messages while having another task called "Design" that keeps me working within applications like Photoshop or Dreamweaver.

Concentrate sports an elegant interface and an intuitive system to set times and tasks. The developer promises that he has "big plans [for] a few updates to make it even better".

Roobasoft offers a 60-hour free trial and the full applications sells for $29 with a money-back guarantee if you're not happy.

If you've seen a string of notifications pop up on your screen and then gracefully fade away, you've probably seen Growl; it's the open source & popular system-wide framework that allows applications to let you know when something happens. For instance, a Growl notification might appear to inform you of a newly-arrived email, new mentions on Twitter, a change of song in iTunes, or a download completing in Safari or Transmission.

The notification itself is a customizable pop-up that can also include an auditory notification as well. Growl is very flexible; it allows you to choose exactly which events trigger a notice, or pick a particular notification style for a specific event. Growl includes support for hundreds of OS X applications and is one of the first items I install on a new system.

Probably the only feature that could make Growl even more awesome is if it were to support forwarding notifications to an iPhone or iPod Touch running 3.0 via the new Push framework. Enter iPhone application Prowl (iTunes link), it is a Growl client for the iPhone that sends your Mac's Growl notifications out to your iPhone. Read on for my experiences and thoughts on the first Growl application for the iPhone.

It was only a couple weeks ago that Growl version 1.1.3 was released, but as some commenters noted on the 1.1.3 post, there was a bug that caused some the inability to install Growl under Leopard. Well, the Growl team has heard your cries and issued an update to Growl that hopes to solve the problem. Some of the bug fixes include:

• "Install Failed" message on Leopard is now fixed
  
• Fixed the problem of Growl thinking it was 1.1.2 even after installing 1.1.3
• Fixed Growl updater to stop showing updates after you've already installed them
• Growl Safari actually works now
  

You can see all of the improvements before installing by visiting the Growl Version History page. You can also download the new update by visiting Growl's homepage.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Adium has a sweet new beta version available this morning. If you don't automatically see 1.3b2 when you check for updates, then make sure you've enabled "Update to beta versions when available" under the General tab in the Preference pane.

Several new features have been added, including:

• Enhanced psychic abilities -- it opens a chat window as soon as a contact begins typing a message

• Filtered search in the Contact list

• Apple Address Book integration (access under Advanced tab in Preferences)

• Integration with Facebook chat (enable in the Accounts tab under Preferences)

• The latest Growl and libpurple updates

• Additional information (such as "Last Seen" and Apple Address Book notes) added to the Contact Inspector

Fixed issues include the linkification of enclosed URLs, a memory inefficiency, and a pesky tendency for closed chats to suddenly reappear. All told, there are more than 150 improvements and enhancements to Adium, one of the hardest working chat apps out there.

The best-in-class notification framework for Mac OS X, Growl, just got updated to version 1.1.3. One of the most missed features of Growl was GrowlMail, which allows Growl to issue incoming notifications from Mail.app -- Apple disabled this feature in the Mac OS X 10.5.2 release. However, the Growl team has re-written GrowlMail to work with Mail.app and 10.5.3.

Some of the other updates include:

• GrowlSafari now works with Safari 3.0 and later
  
• GrowlTunes doesn't show ratings from iTunes unless the song has a rating above 0
• GrowlTunes is now localized in German
• Memory leaks fixed in WebKit display
• You are now able to see notifications on every space in Spaces in Leopard

You can see the full list of updates / additions on the Growl version history page. You can also download this update by going to the Growl website and clicking "Download." Growl is, of course, free and open-source.

Thanks, Peter!

Attention all bloggers! The nerd bunnies at Brainjuice have just released Blogo 1.1, the latest take on their Mac OS X blogging tool. Blogo 1.1 now includes support for Drupal and Twitter in addition to WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, typo, and MovableType.

The new Twitter support allows users to post tweets and direct messages from Blogo, and can even send a tweet whenever you post. Brainjuice has fixed some existing issues, as well as adding these new features:

• Support for raw image formats
• Integration with NetNewsWire and Safari
• Use of Growl for all user notifications
• New text formatting options (quotes, lists, aligned, justified)
• Custom cropping of thumbnails independently of the full-size images

To give Blogo 1.1 a try, download a 21-day unlimited trial or purchase the app for $25.

Do you like Growl? Do you use Xcode? Then chances are you'll like GrowlCode. GrowlCode is a plugin to integrate Growl's on-screen alerts into the Mac OS X developer app, Xcode. GrowlCode integrates the following actions: Build Succeeded, Preprocessing Complete, Compilation Succeeded, Clean Complete, and many more.

To use GrowlCode, you will need to download both GrowlCode and Growl (which is available at Growl.info). GrowlCode is compatible with Xcode 3.0 and Mac OS X Lepoard (10.5) and Tiger (10.4). Instructions for installing can be found on the GrowlCode website.

If you know TUAW, then you know that there's one thing we cannot live without ... it's Growl. Growl is a great way to view important messages from multiple Mac apps as little pop-ups in the corner of your screen.

This weekend, Growl's website received a very nice redesign. It's never been this easy to navigate the styles and various extras on the site.

Thanks, Chris!

Can't say I ever really vibed with any of the default Growl styles (Music Video is cool for showing off your Mac, but a little too distracting for common use), and I've pretty much just stuck with Smoke, because it's simple and cool looking. But iPhonesque is nice enough to make me switch without a thought -- it's a Growl style designed to look like the iPhone's compact little dialogues. In other words, it's flashy enough to look cool, but minimal enough that it doesn't drive you nuts when messages back up in Growl.

Any other Growl styles that you all really like?

[Via DF]

The Growl website has been offline since last week due to the developers retiring their server for a new one. I am pleased to say that Growl.info is back online as of today. Growl is the indispensable Mac notification system which allows you to customize the way you see notifications, system-wide.

Tonight, I spoke with Chris Forsythe, one of the developers of Growl. He said that while the site is back up, the SVN and Trac are still down. However, you are now able to download the latest release of Growl on their site. Forsythe also mentioned that the new Growl website design will go live "soon-ish." On his blog, he has a picture of what the new design will look like.

Lots of readers have written in asking about the status of Growl, the very popular global notification program that we have covered in the past. For the last three or four days, the Growl website has been down, as has access to the SVN. Because both MacUpdate and Versiontracker direct their download link directly to the Growl servers, users attempting to download the application have been out of luck. What's going on?

Perusing the Google Groups set-up for the program, the developers report that because their old server was retired and taken down, they are in the process of setting up new hosting and getting the site and the SVN back online. Earlier this morning, lead developer for the project posted a message to the Cocoaforge Growl forum indicating that he should have time to start working on the process tonight. Please note, that does not mean Growl will be back up and running tonight - just that the process may start-up. Setting up new hosting and transferring the SVN over can be a tedious process, so I suggest users just remain patient - I'm sure the developers will be back up and running as soon as possible.

If anyone absolutely has to have Growl now, I believe that Adium 1.2 comes with it as part of the installer (if so enabled). For information on the status of the site, I recommend checking out the Google Group and Cocoaforge forum for updates.

One of the unfortunate incompatibilities Leopard brought with it was breaking GrowlMail, the plugin for Mail.app that shows new messages via the Growl notification system. However, Evan Schoenberg has now posted a test build of GrowlMail on the Growl discussion Google Group that appears to work with Leopard.

If you've been missing your Growl Mail notifications you can find the new plugin here (download link).

[via Hawk Wings]