Here is my (first) contribution to your list (I've included some new categories). Let's try to include only freeware/shareware apps (as much as possible). Media Players MPlayer - freeware Office Applications NeoOffice - freeware CD/DVD Burning LiquidCD - freeware Instant Messaging Skype - freeware Torrent & P2P aMule - freeware Video Rippers/Converters HandBrake - freeware IRC X-Chat - freeware FTP Cyberduck - freeware Emulators Q - freeware Hi-Toro/E-UAE - freeware BTW, does anyone know any free Audio & Video Editing apps for OSX? I like MPlayer the best, but VLC was great too.
MPlayer seems more stable. For Torrents I use Transmission - Freeware For music I like Cog - freeware, but that's just bcoz I have many ogg vorbis and musepack songs. If you have just mp3 stick to iTunes. Other Cool APPZ - Seashore - image editor - Freeware XFolders - finder alternative - Freeware Minuteur - egg timer - Freeware Max - cd ripping - Freeware Gimp - image editor - Freeware (X11 app) flvthing - play flv, something neither MPlayer nor VLC do well - Freeware FFView - Image Viewer - Freeware Mac The Ripper and DVD2ONE - Rip DVD's and compress to single layer - Payware Backlight2 - Have screensaver as wallpaper (silly buy hey) XAOS - Real time fractal zoomer, fun!
Enabling hardware acceleration in VLC. Open VLC Media Player and click on Tools > Preferences or press Ctrl-P to open the settings window of the program. If you are using the simple settings interface, click on Input & Codecs on the left sidebar and make sure Hardware-accelerated decoding is set to Automatic. The ordinary preferences are settings for the simpler parameters of the application, the advanced settings require some deeper knowledge to use them effectively. What you will notice is that in the preferences are items that are simple to understand and use as well as items that probably require you to be a developer to understand let alone use.