My Top 5 free OS X tools for 2015

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A new year has just started and I've decided to share my personal list of freeware applications that have been most useful to me in 2014. Though some of them also feature a paid version with more functionalities, I found the free version adequate and effective for my purposes.

1. Evernote: It's a very powerful tool that allows to take notes, record audio notes, capture the content of a page and much more. Evernote is my favorite tool for blogging. You can write a post and share it to the major social media. Additionally, if you activate the "posting using email" functionality in your Blogger blog, you can email a note to your Blogger account and have a post ready for publishing, which will include all images and web links you've added. Blogger allows to choose whether to publish the emailed note right away or to save it as a draft  (I recommend the latter option). By signing up and creating an account on Evernote, you can synchronize your notes, making them available on any device anywhere you want. The latest versions allows to convert a note to PDF by right-clicking it.
2. Super Duper!: A handy cloning tool. The trial version has no expiration date and allows to create a bootable clone of your Mac to an external hard drive and to restore it. I have personally used it to restore my OS X and solve a rocky situation and I definitely recommend it. The trial version implements only two  functionalities, allowing to create a clone of your OS X and restore it in case of necessity (Backup-all files and Restore-all files). The full version has more advanced functionalities but, if you use Time Machine for creating backups, you may not need them. A clone is generally used only when you need it. For you to restore a previously created clone, you'll have to boot from the external clone hard drive by pressing down the Alt key at boot up or by going to System Preferences/Startup Disk and and choosing to boot from it. To use SuperDuper! you need an external hard drive whose available space is equal or bigger than the size of the used disk space of your internal hard drive (Macintosh HD). SuperDuper! comes in handy to create a clone of a trusted configuration (including the most important files and applications)  to easily and readily re-image your HD in case of disaster. After restoring the clone, Google Drive and Dropbox may experience syncing issues (such as "Google Drive does not find the Google Drive folder"). If so, uninstall and re-install the application.  
3. Skitch: It's a handy app that integrates with Evernote, making it possible to easily and quickly take snapshots of your desktop or of a selected window and edit them (by adding text boxes or graphic elements such as arrows or ellipses, by resizing or cropping the image, etc.). Among the options available for the created snapshot (copy it somewhere else, save it by choosing Export File, etc.) is very interesting the possibility to share it online by selecting Share & Copy URL. If you choose this option, you can easily upload an image to your blog/website by selecting Upload from URL. You can also share it to your social media with a right-click.
4. Caffeine: It's a small app that keeps your Mac awake preventing it from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers for a desired time. It's very useful if you're performing activities requiring OS X to be fully active (such as downloading files, scanning your HD for malware, scheduled maintenance, etc.). Caffeine is started by clicking its coffee cup-shaped icon and setting up the desired time frame you want the program to keep your Mac awake (ranging from Indefinitely to 5 hours). Caffeine is nothing but a GUI version of the caffeinate command, but it's pretty handy, elegant and freeware, which won't hurt.
5. Thunderbird: Like I've explained in my previous post OS X 10.10 Yosemite issues - Bugs for all. Wake up, Apple!, OS X latest version (10.10 aka Yosemite) has left unsolved numerous issues regarding the interaction within Apple Mail and Gmail and had added new bugs, not addressed yet by the first update (10.10.1). If you're up with these problems or you're not big on Apple Mail, you may want to consider Thunderbird as an efficient alternative. It's very efficient in handling emails and, just like Firefox, there are numerous add-ons available adding further functionalities (like the possibility of playing customized sound when receiving an email from a specific sender, of adding customized themes, etc.).