My Mac Software List 1 - general, windows compatibility and chinese input

As I am getting more friends using mac, I would like to take a little time to organize my favorite programs and share them with you. Most of the software are free, but there are still a bunch of very good shareware (meaning, free trial but need to pay afterwards). If you want to discover more software, please visit:

• iusethis：http://osx.iusethis.com/
• apple：http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/
• versiontrack：http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/
• macupdate：http://macupdate.com/

I'll use a five star system to rate them, and give a link to the developer's website, along some short comments. All shareware/commercial software's rating have be subtracted 1 star (apple) because they are not free. To begin with, a little gem on mac: to generate a text apple icon like this , use Shift+Option+K on any text field.

If you want me to give you just ONE application I cannot live without, that is
 QuickSilver, freeware
A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data. In other words, you can use the keyboard only to do anything (open application, open a particular folder etc) in very few key strokes. In my opinion, it should be build in the OS! It is so cool that I recommend every one use it (except for grannies that prefer moving the mouse clicking everywhere). Also, the developer is a Googler!

If you are transiting from a windows platform, and still miss some of your favorite windows programs, you can install them on the intel-based macs in four ways: (of cause, you need a separate windows installation disk and license)
 Boot camp, build in in leopard
You get a full featured windows machine (play 3D games etc), and the only downside is that you have to reboot the machine, and there is almost no interaction with your mac system.
 Parallels Desktop, shareware
The good thing is that you can run windows within your mac OS X, and runing windows programs as if they are mac programs. It is also not very stable at the beginning (when I tried), but should be OK now, and I guess it is the most used solution. The downside is that it is not free, but I still give thumbs up for the developers, and purchased a copy.
 VMware Fusion, shareware
The biggest competitor for Paralles Desktop, and big company does greate virtualiztion stuff. I never tried, but it should be as good as Paralles Desktop. My naive suggestion is to check which ever is cheaper (both are quite expensive in my views).
 CrossOver, shareware
If you do not want to give out your money to Microsoft for a windows license, but still want to run some of your windows applications, check crossover's software list. This might be the cheapest solution considering the rediculous price of Windows XP/Vista, but it only support a few windows software, and CrossOver is not free :(

Chinese Input, check chinese mac website at Yale. How I wish Google Pinyin release a mac version (only windows version for now)!
 Pinyin, build in in leopard
Decent, but slow to type (bad dictionary). Only exciting feature is that you can split the words like: "yiwei" and press enter get: 袆 instead of flip a long list under "yi".
 QIM, shareware
The best input method for now. Good dictionary (collaboration with sougou), and only downside is too expensive. If you have a Chinese credit/debit card, you may save a few bucks from the Chinese version of the payment website. I did purchase a copy of QIM, but still think it is over-priced.
 FIT
Fun Input Toy, based on fcitx. Best part is that it has 五笔 and it is free! Bad part is that QIM has a better pinyin dictionary.