One of the more frustrating aspects of dealing with USB-based connectivity is that there’s no standard for deciding how devices are dealt with when plugged into your computer. Cameras by Flexibits takes an ultra-simple approach at filling this software gap by providing one place to specify what should happen when you plug in a camera. Within its pane in System Preferences, you can choose what you want to happen when certain cameras are plugged in. It supports an unlimited amount of cameras, and even iPods. It will only ask what you want to do (in the form of a popup dialog) once, but your decision can be changed within the aforementioned pane. In summary, if you have a lot of USB devices, Cameras can help you sort out the actions so you won’t be overwhelmed when plugging them in.

Rating: 4.5/5. Very simple, and has a very nice icon, but I’ve had trouble getting it to pick up my Canon Rebel T1i.

Developer site:
Flexibits.com

AOL Radio is a nice little app that lets you listen to a ton of genre-listed radio stations online.  There are more than 200 stations to choose from, so you know there’ll be something you like.  Surprisingly, AOL made a really nice user interface for it that looks right at home on your Mac.  It’s nice to get a decent selection of music without having to think about it.  And really, they have everything covered: Sinatra-Style Big band Jazz, Video Game Scores, Klezmer, Baroque, Industrial, and Blues Women, to name a few less-common genres they have stations for. It also has an identically functioning app for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Rating: 5/5. Great interface and ease of use, and an array of awesome stations.

Developer site:
DAOL.AOL.com/Software/Mac

MacFusion is an interesting application that can mount files on a remote server as if they were local drives. For example, you can SSH into a destination, and it will mount it in Finder. You can name remote servers and give them icons, and do a lot of customization with them. To disconnect, you eject them just like a disk image or external hard drive. Pretty slick. Overall this is a very cool app that’s worth looking into if you’re someone who frequently uses SSH or FTP.

Note: MacFusion requires that you have MacFUSE installed, which is available here:
Code.Google.com/P/MacFUSE

Rating: 4.5/5. Very nice, but some of the UI buttons look and feel strange.

Developer site:
MacFusionApp.org

OneButtonFTP is an ultra-simple FTP app for those of us who don’t need something as complicated as, say, Fugu. But, while it doesn’t have the most features, it does implement the ones it has very well. It’s really everything you need in an FTP app, but with a simple drag and drop-based interface. According to the developer, OneButtonFTP has been downloaded over 110,000 times since its initial release in 2004.

Rating: 5/5. Everything I would really need.

Developer site:
OneButton.org

TrailRunner is one of the most visually stunning applications I’ve ever seen. It has loads of incredible features that are extremely well-implemented. It supports lots of athletic gadgets, including the Nike+iPod device that goes in your shoe. You can keep an exercise diary within the app, as well as comprehensive exercise plans, all within its gorgeous interface. On the right side of the main window, you’ll find a map of the world, where you can click and drag areas to draw routes for yourself. These routes can then be exported to your GPS device, or even your iPod (as well as import it back). Another nice feature is the ability to select your map type. For example, you can select a roadmap, overhead satellite map, hiking map (which is awesome), a terrain map, or an “OpenStreetMap”,which combines several of the views. Then you can describe your route with directions. Another added bonus is he ability to add and save common waypoints and routes, or even search the world for a waypoint. This app is one of the most amazing free apps I’ve ever seen. Even if you don’t plan to use it, you definitely have to give it a test drive. You’ll be blown away.

Rating: 5/5. They could charge $99 for this app with all of its features. Absolutely stunning.

Developer site:
TrailRunnerX.com

OSx360 is a useful tool for burning Xbox 360 games to DVDs. Note that it’s intended for “test purposes only”, at the moment. This app looks great from my initial view, and is very impressive. It can also verify your games’ ISO images to make sure that everything is correctly formatted. Mac OS X Tiger and up.

Rating: 4.5/5. Nice app, great speed. Shows a lot of information, as well.

Developer site: NukedSoftware.com/OSx360/Index.html

NOTE: The intended use of this application is for legal purposes–burning games to DVDs. It is NOT intended for pirating games. It’s currently only used for testing, according to their site.

MacTheRipper is a Handbrake-like DVD ripper for Mac. It essentially copies your DVDs to your Mac for you to burn again. In other words, Handbrake should be used for copying DVDs to an iPod, and MacTheRipper should be used for copying DVDs to your computer and burning them to another DVD (generally, not always). It can even get past the copy protection.

Rating: 4.5/5. I still prefer Handbrake, but this one’s still very fast.

Developer site: MacTheRipper.org

Max is an excellent CD and DVD-burning app for Mac. It has tons of codecs available, and was created by a well known audio-buff (known as Sbooth). This is a very impressive app, complete with Growl support. It’s even open source, so you can see how he made it! This app is amazing, and is a staple in the Mac audio community.

Rating: 5/5. Amazing. Works fast and looks great.

Developer site: Sbooth.org/Max

Carbon Copy Cloner is a simple yet useful backup tool for Mac. It essentially lets you choose a location and mirror the files in it to another place. Great if you ever lose information.

Rating: 4.5/5. Needs an update, but is otherwise great.

Developer site: Bombich.com/Software/CCC.html

Burn is an easy to use disc-burning app with a simple interface. It lets you burn discs without any hassle, and goes quite fast (I got 1.3GB in 5 minutes). It burns audio, video, or data discs, and you won’t have a difficult time learning how to use it.

Rating: 5/5. Burn makes it very easy to make quality discs at high speeds.

Developer Site: Burn-OSX.SourceForge.net