If you’ve been following this series, we have been discussing creating a Mac “Toolkit” in order to get you and keep you prepared, should you ever need to set up a new Mac, or rescue a Mac in distress. The name of the game is preparation. So, if you’ve been following along with Parts I and II, you’ll know that you need to have your backups sorted out. You’ll also need to have made disk images of your software (that is, the one’s you haven’t downloaded from the Mac App Store).

A lot of times, it’s easy enough to just drag Apps out of your Application folder and save them as-is on an external drive. This is true of a lot of Apps, although, with a half decent internet connection and the Mac App Store, this backing up of Apps is something I’m doing a lot less of.

But there is a certain class of Apps that should be on a list, and if need be on an external drive for quick installation. Now, when it comes to vital programs, you’ll consider iPhoto, GarageBand, Office for Mac as programs you must have. But they are already in your toolkit ready for action. But there’s a whole host of other “side” programs that you’ll need to keep handy – or at least a list of that you will want to install.

I’ve set up (over the last decade) about a thousand or so separate Macs. There’s been times I’ve forgotten to install entire software packages, and the person using the computer has not actually noticed for days (and sometimes weeks). But there are certain programs that I have to install, or I end up with complaints within seconds. So what are these programs?

1. Perian – This is a “driver” that let’s you play a number of different video formats using Quicktime. You can imagine, most teenagers spot the absence of Perian about 3 seconds after logging onto their Macs…..
2. Flash Player – Now, say what you will about Flash, there’s times when on your Mac you will have to deal with it. Myself, I use Chrome which has it’s own built in Flash player, so on my personal machines I by pass Flash Player.
3. Stuffit Expander – now on the Mac App Store. It was the first ever Mac program I ever used(!) and this latest version will unzip, unrar and un-anything you can throw at it. It doesn’t take up much space, and it does it’s job without any fuss whatsoever.
4. Onyx – This is a great program to throw into somebody’s Application folder. When they call you up late at night complaining about something not working on their Mac, you can get them to run Onyx

Now, my list would include the likes of Skitch, Wacom Bamboo Drivers, Yoink, Evernote, ClamXav, iA Writer, Taskpaper and Text Wrangler. But if you look at this list, you’ll soon realise that these programs are my daily tools for getting things done. If I was going to a desert island with a restriction on the amount of software I could take on my laptop, I grab Skitch, Text Wrangler and iA Writer. But seeing as I’ve got a choice, I’ll choose all of them!

And that’s the essence of your Toolkit. Your list is going to be different from mine. And that’s the whole reason to have the Toolkit in the first place. I switched to Macs a decade ago, simply because the fuss and pomp needed to get my Windows machine up and running every few months (I normally ended up having to re-install Windows regularly) was just too much to bear. Getting a Mac up and running from scratch to full function is now in the order of minutes for me (40-50 tops). So, grab the things that you need, and keep them in a place where you can install them onto your New / repaired Mac in the quickest time possible. The great thing about making a toolkit, just like spring cleaning, is that it forces you to choose what you need and what you don’t need.

Much like your Smoke Alarm, you car alarm, double bolt locks on your door, a Mac Toolkit is there to keep you safe – “just in case”. When I get a call from somebody who needs some Mac help, I grab my portable WD hard drive, and I’m off. No disks, no USB sticks, and I’m good to go.