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Colloquy does the same resizing thing by default, but has a hidden preference you can use to change the behavior. It's pretty nice that way because it's not there in the GUI, but if it does bother you it's possible to change it.

Also it's not that tiny and obscure for an IM client. Since most of the things you would do would be to..read and type..

http://colloquy.info/project/wiki/Documentation/TipsAndTricks/HiddenPreferences

It's called HTML+CSS+JS.

I don't care for the iPhone, myself -- another closed proprietary system? I'll wait for OpenMoko.

But you kind of have to give them credit for one thing. If they had released an iPhone-only SDK, you'd see iPhone-only apps. By not releasing any SDK, and by releasing a real web browser for it, people are writing web apps designed for mobile devices. Which means they're not really tied to the iPhone.

I think that's kind of cool, actually.

There's plenty of great Mac apps that are freeware and /or open-source. Much of the PC-type shit that's washed ashore lately, on the other hand, is shareware (what the fuck).

A few things I personally couldn't live without that are missing from this list

* VoodooPad - for general note taking, todo lists, etc
* TextMate - self explanatory
* Camino - for web surfing
* Paparazzi! - for taking quick screenshots or thumbnails of web pages
* Colloquy - irc client
* twitterific - interface for twitter
* NetNewsWire - Feed reader

Free, or gratis? There's some really nice OS X software out there, it's all Shareware though. I'd love to see some really high-quality, OS X native (F?)OSS. There a few out there though. Some goodies include, Adium, Colloquy, Smultron and Cyberduck. I just wish skEdit were Free though.

I quit my job a couple of weeks ago to try my hand at full-time Rails development (I was stuck in corporate ASP/SQL Server land for too long, with a nagging love for OS X...). I have found that #rubyonrails on freenet is "OK" for the most part, and I've already been able to help others on it as I slowly assimilate all of Ruby and Rails. I found an awesome chat client called Colloquy and I'm pretty much always on the channel lately.

Check out Colloquy. It rules.

The trend in Tiger is moving towards Smart . iPhoto has Smart Albums. Finder has Smart Folders. Mail has smart Folders. Address Book has Smart Groups. Probably a bunch that I've missed.

Some third-party developers have already taken it to heart. NewsFire recently added Smart Feeds, which combine news items from different feeds based on criteria - every news item from the last 3 hours containing the word iPod, say. And Colloquy's developer is working on adding Smart Channels, combining messages from any IRC channels you're currently a part of.

It's most definitely a good trend. This shit is cool.

Some additions, corrections:
- Don't discount Safari as a browser - it's the best browser I've ever used. just turn on tabs (looks in preferences), and popup blocking, which for some reason I'll never understand are disabled by default.
- Third party utilities including Path Finder and Onyx will allow you to quit the Finder. there's really no reason to, though.
- You really don't need to reinstall when you first get the machine - just look through places like your Applications folder for things you don't want.
- And now, my "things no Mac should be without" category:
Quicksilver - the app/document launcher on steroids.
Adium - multi-protocol IM client
Desktop Manager - virtual desktops. Cooperates with expose and multiple monitors.
MenuMeters - CPU/bandwidth/HD Monitor and more, in the menubar.
SideTrack - replacement trackpad driver allows the sides to be used as scroll wheels.
Colloquy - modern IRC client

• Mac Rumors - Good rumors website
• Mac Slash - Slashdot like mac news site
• Mac News Bytes - Good quick links to mac related articles
• Version Tracker - Software update website. Kind of like download.com for mac.
• Mac Update - Similar to versiontracker.com
• Mac OS X Hints - Good tips site for beginners and experienced people alike.
• Think Secret - Another good rumors site. Very accurate, most of the time.
• Emulation.net - Links to game emulation for mac

• Adium - Multi-protocol IM client
• Byte Controller - Good itunes hotkey/menu pager applet
• Camino - Nice mac based gecko browser.
• Colloquy - Webkit based IRC client. not too newbish.
• Cyberduck - SFTP/FTP client for os x
• Desktop Manager - Multi desktop app for os x
• Apple X11 Server - Apple's integrated X11 server. you'd want this for the next two items
• Fink - UNIX software for your mac
• Gimp.app - decent free photo editor
• Handbrake - DVD to mpeg4 ripper
• iTerm - Multi tabbed terminal
• Logorrhea - iChat log viewer/searcher/indexer
• Meteorologist - Weather applet for the menu bar
• Menu Meters - Menu applet for cpu usage, net usage, and more.
• Mplayer OS X - This app will play just about any media format in existance
• Poisoned - GiFT (Kazaa) and mldonkey based P2P mac client.
• Quicksilver - Very cool file/application/url/itunes/etc/etc/etc indexing program. It's like spotlight, only here TODAY and free!
• VLC - Another good video playing app. Nice to have a backup sometimes if mplayer doesn't play a file (which is very very rare).

Imagine a browser that can run a native lightweight UI (through Avalon). Imagine a world where such applications are trivial to build.

That sounds awfully similar to Apple's WebKit (except the Avalon part). There are boatloads of tiny OS X browsers built on WebKit, because it is indeed trivial to build them.

What's more, WebKit is lightning quick (the version of it in Safari 1.3 is, at least) and it's being used for more than browsers. Colloquy uses it to allow CSS and XSL formatting of IRC. Several multi-protocol IM clients (Adium, Proteus, Fire) do the same thing. Tiger's Dashboard will use it to display its widgets. WebKit is popping up everywhere because (shocker!) it's easier to write webpages than graphics code.

For Mac OS X, I recommend the following free software:
Audacity . Audio Editor.
Colloquy. An IRC Client.
Cyberduck. FTP client.
Fugu. FTP client.
Shiira. Web browser written in Cocoa.
Camino. Web browser.
Firefox. Web Browser.
Mozilla . Browser/E-mail/Composer/Address/Chat.
Thunderbird. E-mail Client.
GnuPG for Mac. GNU Privacy Guard for Mac = Encryption for the people!

Give the kids choices. All of the above are free as in freedom as well as gratis.