Here are five of a few great OS X apps that anyone with a mac can, and should, use.

Sidenote - Sidenote is a great Stickies replacement. In case you didn’t know, Stickies is a program that comes with OS X that creates little digital Post-it notes, but not many people use them. Why? Well, stickies are kind of annoying. They clutter the desktop or dashboard, and while they can shrink into little pastel bars instead of a large pastel squares, they still get in the way. Sidenote hides on either side of your desktop until you need it, then automatically expands and like stickies, lets you jot down notes. Unlike stickies you can add in pictures, pdf files, and change the formatting and color of the text.

Xee - Xee is a small image viewing program which I use to replace the one built into OS X (called Preview). Xee opens just about every image format I can think of, including anything QuickTime or Preview can display, plus a few more. It can view single images or can be used to look through entire directories of media. It also includes some tools like rotation, transformation, move, rename, delete and copy. Also, unlike preview, it will display animated gif images, instead of a series of stills.

Uno - Apple has decided to change their graphical user interface several times over OS X’s lifespan. Apple apps can come in brushed metal, aqua, or gradient, it’s up to the developer. Uno makes every app use a slick gradient look, similar to the current version of iTunes. Uno gives OS X a great unified look, something it has needed for a long time.

VLC - VLC is a free media player that can play everything QuickTime won’t. VLC comes with all the codecs it needs to play XviD, DivX, and a number of other video formats popular today. (It can also double as a region free DVD player)

Flip4Mac - A (now) free plug-in for QuickTime that allows for the playback of downloaded or embedded Windows Media files (.wma and .wmv). Flip4Mac was originally a not-so-free competitor/alternative to Microsoft’s own lackluster media player for Mac, but the guys in Redmond decided to cease development on their player and just buy Flip4Mac and make it a free download. Thanks Microsoft!