With free software this good, you don't need to steal! Here are some really very useful, and totally free, bits of software I've found recently. Interestingly, they're all cross-platform, so you can not only get Mac versions of them, but you can get Windows and Linux versions as well.

Plucker


A page on this very web site viewed on a Palm m125 in Plucker

I have a Palm organiser and I used to use AvantGo a great deal to download web pages for browsing on the train. But there's no OS X conduit for AvantGo, and as they show no desire at all to develop one - and it's just a conduit, I mean how hard can it be? - so I think stuff 'em... and Plucker - once unusable unless you were a Unix-head - now comes in a nice fluffy OS X installer.

It's very configurable in terms of how deep into each site it goes, what it does with images and so on. If you have privacy issues with all your web-browsing being done through a third party (AvantGo), then you don't have a problem with Plucker as it talks direct to the content-provider. The only major disadvantage I can see compared to AvantGo is that it only gives you a small number of suggested channels, but, hey, you've got the whole world-wide web at your fingertips... and you can be a bit sneaky by visiting sites ready-formatted for PDAs, like www.guardian.co.uk/avantgo, www.wired.com/news/avantgo and http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/pda/ - notice anything interesting about those first two URLs?


The same web page viewed in AvantGo (top) and Plucker

You can download Plucker from their slightly flaky web site or from VersionTracker.

Next: An audio editor and mixer and a wonderful painting program for children... check back soon!