VLC media player is the most successful free open source multimedia player out there with over 500 million downloads according to the developers. In particular, VLC media player is a great alternative to , iTunes, and RealPlayer. It's lightweight, fast, easy to use and most importantly, plays almost anything.

Note that versions of VLC media player compatible with Mac OS X 10.1 to 10.6 are available. The main download link is version 2 for the 64 bit Intel version compatible with OS X 10.5 and above. However, you can find VLC Player for OS X 10.4.11 Intel Macs here. There is not, and there will never be, a version of VLC media player for Mac OS 9 say the developers.

It's been two and a half years since version 1.0 was released and version 2 ("Twoflower") brings a new interface, faster decoding, support for more formats and the ability to play HD and BluRay. It still remains however the most stable, flexible and lightweight audio and video player around today. While other media players will play unusual formats after downloading a codec, or simply refuse to play things, VLC media player handles tons of formats, from MPEG to FLV and RMBV files. Version 2 has seen some important additions too such as support for 10 bit codes plus multi-threaded decoding for H.264, MPEG-4/Xvid and WebM.

Also useful is the fact that you can use VLC media player to preview files you are downloading since it plays incomplete parts of video files. VLC media player is not just for video playback however. It also offers superb integration with video channel streaming services such as Channels.com giving you access to channels such as ESPN, Reuters and National Geographic. Just right-click or CMD-click on the playlist, select Services Discovery and Channels.com. Channels.com will then appear in your VLC media player playlist. Click on it to reveal the the different categories of channels available. Click on the category you want and a drop down list of all available channels appears in VLC media player. Just click on the channel you want to watch and streaming should begin almost immediately.

VLC media player also has great hotkey support and if you take the time to learn the shortcuts so it can be controlled without touching your mouse. If you're watching DVDs or video files through it, this is not an issue. For music, it plays more or less any file and features an equalizer and playlist creation. VLC media player isn't as intuitive as iTunes as a media manager, but it's a much more flexible player in terms of file formats. You can even use VLC to convert your files, and on top of all the formats and physical media it will play, many streaming protocols and TV capture cards are supported.

VLC media player makes it easy to add subtitles to your video files too - just add the SRT file to the folder where your video is kept, and it will automatically play with subtitles.

Finally, the interface has been somewhat improved in version 2 on Mac. In fact, the Mac interface is now considerably slicker than on Windows with a single window for everything. However, it's only available in 2 colors: Lion grey and QTX black. There are also new extensions support and better Lion integration. The preferences menu is still comprehensive without being overwhelming, and there is extensive documentation online.

Don't forget to check out some of our blog posts such as VLC media player v KMPlayer, How to rotate a video with VLC media player, How to sync audio with video in VLC media player and How to use subtitles with VLC media player.

There's very little to fault with VLC media player. It's a superb lightweight media player that will successfully play the most stubborn files where other players fail.

Download VLC media player 2.0.7 in Softonic

These days, when it comes to publishing your own photo albums and sharing them with your friends there are many programs to choose from. JAlbum is a free and intuitive tool to edit your photos and prepare good looking albums.

Although the interface feels a little crowded it will provide a good way of exploring your folders for pictures and quickly selecting the ones you want to put into your album. JAlbum also includes a good set of editing tools to tweak your pictures a bit, like removing red eyes, blurring or sharpening.

However the strongest feature of the application is certainly making albums. This is very easy to do and JAlbum comes with a number of styles to start out with. You can also download more skins from the developer's website. Once you're album is done, you can either upload it to your JAlbum account, if you have one, or to any other server if you have the login details.

With a good set of editing tools, and a straightforward process, the free JAlbum makes for a great way of creating photo albums to share with your friends.

Download JAlbum 11.1.5 in Softonic

Aperture could be defined as 'iPhoto on steroids'. It's a complete photo organizer and viewer, easy enough for the amateur, but with the powerful tools that any advanced user would need. Plus it features a comfortable interface that hardly takes a few minutes to get used to.

Aperture lets you import images from various resources (including your photo camera), organize them in an intuitive way and optimize or fix them if necessary. When ready, sit back and enjoy them in a fullscreen slideshow, or use them in various creative projects such as a book, an album or a web gallery.

When I said Aperture was a bit like iPhoto, I wasn't exaggerating. This new version includes Faces, the popular facial recognition technology implemented in the last version of iPhoto. But Aperture goes a step beyond and also includes Places, another special technology that geolocates your images using the information stored in metadata by some cameras. However, I have to say that this feature wasn't working properly: the map took ages to load and controls were over-sensitive – which made map navigation a real pain. It even caused a program crash while testing it.

Besides these organizational features, Aperture includes a bunch of interesting tools to enhance your pics. You can tweak the image's balance, exposure, color and light values, levels and more with easy-to-use slides. The so-called Adjustment presets let you apply quick, frequent fixes to images in just two clicks. Finally, the all-new precision brushes help you fix the problem with extraordinary accuracy.

Other features in Aperture I found specially interesting were the possibility to share your images online in MobileMe, Facebook and Flickr right from the program, and to create printed copies of your photos – which always works as a nice present for grandma.

Aperture is an excellent photo application, there's no doubt about that. But in a way I felt disappointed when testing this new version. I expected to have more editing and drawing tools, and – why not – support for layers and masks. I found the controls uncomfortable and hard to manage, and my overall impression was one of disappointment.

Aperture is a powerful photo organizer and viewer that includes a handful of features to view, fix, optimize, enhance, share and enjoy your photos!

Download Aperture 3.4.4 in Softonic

Folder Factory makes it super-easy to design beautiful folders that will help you to improve your working environment, productivity and will keep you entertained while working on your Mac.

This software is meant for Mac OS X users that want to make their working environment more entertaining and colorful.

Download Folder Factory 1 in Softonic

It can automatically apply filters and effects to your photos similar to the way Instagram does. FX Photo Studio for Mac includes over 173 photo effects and filters plus 40 frames and borders to give your photos an extra special touch. It's also available for iPhone too meaning you can apply effects on the move.

The photo effects and filters range from the classy to the bizarre. The 40 photo frames have an equally broad range of styles and tastes including classic and even grunge styles. There are additional masking effects and a color splash tool for applying manual effects so that you can create your own or fine tune.

FX Photo Studio for Mac is fully integrated with Aperture, Lightroom, iPhoto and PhotoShop meaning its easy to import and export images.

The user interface is generally very slick with some useful social media buttons for sharing your creations.

FX Photo Studio for Mac is a powerful photo editing suite that will breathe new life into your photos.

Download FX Photo Studio 2.6 in Softonic

? Which Features? - Processing Pipeline & Real-time Preview: Hydra first aligns the imported images, and then merges them in a smart way to preserve the interesting inputs of each image. This allows you to tune parameters in real time while observing the changing result until you are satisfied, and then render the full resolution image in less than one minute. Resolutions above 20 Mega Pixels supported. - No tripod required: Unlike most HDR software, Hydra does not require pictures taken with a tripod. Thanks to this unique feature, you can take photos anywhere to later merge them in Hydra. - HDR from a single RAW image: You can also import a single RAW photograph into Hydra, apply tone mapping, and render an HDR image. - Ghost handling

- The user interface is 100% Mac style. - The batch processing feature is the best available on the HDR software market. You can drop a folder, and Hydra Pro automatically splits images in photo sets. - Hydra Pro relies on an efficient method for aligning input images. As a result, you don't have to use a tripod when shooting pictures.

Hydra Pro is for photographers who create a lot of HDR images as it includes a batch processing feature. Besides, it gives them access to a feature for locally processing the output image using scopes (related to brightness, color and distance).

Download Hydra Pro 3.0.2 in Softonic

- View WMF and EMFs at different zoom amounts, - Convert mac wmf files to vector formats, - Convert wmf files to most common raster formats with different resolution amounts, - Export images to PDF, EPS, BMP, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PNG, TIFF and other image formats, - Batch convert images, or folders with wmf/emf files, - Multiple WMF and EMF files processing, - Replace colors feature in vector based WMFs, - Export WMF and EMFs as mac 'ICNS' files, - Export folder hierarchy.

WMF Converter Pro is a simple and effective tool for anyone wanting to view and convert WMF on Mac

Download WMF Converter Pro 3.3.1 in Softonic

Like the basic version, the interface of Contenta Converter Premium is very simple. The toolbar across the top gives you access to the program’s main features, all of which are available in the Premium version. These include advanced features such as read/write of JPEG 2000 files, reading of RAW formats, PSD formats etc.

You can convert photos between formats (both popular and less common ones), reduce the size of images and automatically rename them and sort them into subfolders according to their metadata. Contenta Converter also lets you preview images and check the amount of space you save when optimizing their size.

In the Premium version, there are additional features such as the ability to flip and crop images, converting multiple PDFs to images and adding special effects.

However, the main problem with Contenta Converter Premium is the same as the Basic i.e. if your metadata for images is very generic or inaccurate, it doesn't work very well as it uses this information to identify files.

Overall though, Contenta Converter Premium is a very powerful tool for sorting, renaming, converting and manipulating images that have the correct metadata attached.

Download Contenta Converter Premium 5.9 in Softonic

EagleFiler stores content in Finder format so you can also use Spotlight to find files. However, EagleFiler makes it somewhat easier to separate different file types.
To archive data, all you need to do is import web pages, mail messages, PDFs, or any file. EagleFiler then offers you the opportunity to encrypt the files, add tags, notes, color-coded labels, and other metadata which you can use to browse data.

However, although EagleFiler generally uses formats that can be read by any application, it can occasionally archive Mail files into something that can´t be re-imported easily.
This can be easily fixed via the Help Guide but it's not an entirely uncomplicated process.
EagleFiler is an elegant and powerful archiving tool that could be one way of moving towards a paperless office.

Download EagleFiler 1.5.6 in Softonic