My Mac Software List 4 - internet connection

Besides the web browser, there are many other important ways to connect with the internet. First of all is instant messenger (IM):

 Adium, freeware
The best IM on mac: integrates all your IM clients (MSN, QQ, icq, gtalk, ichat, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL etc); lots of customization (skin, icon, message/panel display), and FREE. The only downside is no voice/video chat yet.
 Skype, freeware
Good reception for voice/video chat, and call to phone numbers too.
 iChat, build in iLife, but need MobileMe for advanced features
Very nice video chat interface, including presentation style (showing you slides along with your video chat), but need MobileMe subscription (not quite worth the money in my opinion).
 MSN Messenger for mac, freeware
Workable, but lack lots of features compared with windows version. Suggst use Adium to replace it.
There is also the Yahoo! Messenger for Mac (freeware), but I never used it, no comments.
There is no standalone Google Talk application, you can either use firefox to chat, or use adium to for the features. Also, if you use Internet Relay Chat (IRC), don't miss Colloquy  freeware, or Linkinus  shareware.

For FTP connection, I strongly recommend Cyberduck  freeware. It is so great that I don't even need to compare with other similar applications. Of cause, you can also use the Terminal  build in for sftp connection with usual linux/unix commands. For bit-torrent downloads, try Transmission  freeware, good enough for casual use.

For Virtual Network Computing (VNC), Chicken of the VNC  freeware used to be great, but it seems to have a little bug on intel macs (under fullscreen mode), and lacks support/update for over two years. There seems no perfect solution, but Jollys Fast VNC  freeware is worth trying.

For Virtual Private Network (VPN), for exmaple, download papers from Duke subscription using netID, you can use Cisco VPNClient  commercial, or download it from Duke OIT website.

To access windows machines remotely, you can configure Remote Desk for windows XP professional, or Vista Primum, and access it uisng Remote Desk Connection Client for mac  freeware. See my other post for details, you might also need to configure your firewall property.

For old fashioned people still use old terminal style Bulletin Board System (BBS), the best application on mac is iTerm  shareware. It is actually a full featured terminal, which can run usual shell commands, but also can display BBS nicely.