ChickSpeak

For all those Mac chicks (or wannabe-Mac chicks) out there, this is for you. I spend more of my time on the computer than anywhere else and despite the fact that it’s taken over my life, it now allows me to share my computer wisdom with you. There are so many different programs for Macs these days that’s its hard to keep track of which ones will give you the best end product, are the easiest, and of course, are the most fun. 

Check out ChickSpeak’s list of the top five Mac programs, and by the way, just to save you a pretty penny, they all come with the computer already:

iTunes 

What’s so great about iTunes is that you can store absolutely every song in the world on your computer.  But wait…what if you only have a 4GB iPod?  That’s the beauty of iTunes.  It lets you check and uncheck the music you want on your iPod and you can change it up whenever you feel like it.  This means I can keep my Brittney Spears CD’s from the 90’s on iTunes without it taking up all the space on my iPod. 

iPhoto

What a great way to stay organized! You can store all of your pictures on here and it will organize them automatically from newest to oldest.  You will always have the easiest access to your pictures. My favorite part of iPhoto is that you can create books, calendars, cards, and a million other things. The photo books make amazing gifts and they are so easy to create. The first thing to do is pick the album that you want to use to create your book. Then you select the album and click the book icon which will allow you to pick the book size and style. After that you get to pick the layout for each page and then place you pictures and whatever you want to write. It takes no time at all and you end up with a memorable end product.

GarageBand

This program lets you create your own music, sounds, or whatever you want. You can use the microphone that is already on the Mac to record yourself singing or playing an instrument. Then you can put it all together and make your own stuff. You can also use the instrument sounds or premade beats that are already on GarageBand to create music. 

I use it to make my own ring tones for my cell phone. It’s really easy. All you have to do is import a song by pressing the iTunes icon and selecting the “audio” button. This will allow you to look at your entire iTunes library and you can select any song you want to move forward with. Just drag the song into the working area and from there you can cut different portions of the song out until you get it exactly the way you want. GarageBand is also very useful for mixing songs together. You would take the same steps to get the songs into the working area and from there you would take the different portions of the song you want until it becomes perfect. It’s a great program to just play around with and see what you can create.

iMovie

Ever wondered how to put together a quick video that collaborates movies and pictures? Well here’s your chance to learn a new skill. The first thing you’ll do is import whatever movies or photos you want to put together.  All you have to do after that is drag them to your working space in the order you want them to appear. You can pick music after that by clicking on the iTunes button and choosing what music you want. You can add as many songs as there are picture and movies. When you’ve decided your work is complete go to “share” and then “export movie.” You’re movie will render itself and once that is done it will open up iDVD for you.  If it doesn’t, you can open it up yourself and luckily it’s another program that comes with the Mac.  When you get to iDVD you can pick what type of menu style you want. It’s that simple. All you have to do after that is grab a DVD and put your project on it. 

Photo Booth 

Finally, we have the one program that every chick loves, Mac girl or not. Walk past a Mac store on any given day and you will always find a group of giggling girls towards the back making silly faces at a computer. ”What are they doing?” you may as yourself; it’s Photo Booth!  It’s great for just taking fun photos or you can make it a bit more interesting. There are awesome filters to make yourself black and white, sepia, or even look like a comic book picture. You can also get background pictures that come with Photo Booth and if you really want to get tricky, you can create your own background pictures. Photo Booth is a great way to get fun pictures with all of your friends without shelling out a few bucks to use one at a theme park.

All of these Mac programs are fun, fast and easy to use. Play around in your free time and see what you can create. But most of all have fun, chicks! 

Sarah Lorsch is a journalism and graphic design major at Moorpark College.  In her free time she likes to go to the beach, hang out with friends, and spend way to much time on the computer figuring out which programs are the most fun to play with. So far her favorite is iPhoto!