I received an urgent e-mail message from Professor Mpondwe Nahabuto at the City University of Lagos, imploring me to assist him with negotiating some complex international financial procedures, and I was compelled to respond.

I had heard about other people receiving similar messages, and I was skeptical about why Dr. Nahabuto would have chosen me to aid him. But, I knew it was urgent, and perhaps risky not to help. Why, in April 2003, a Mrs. Edwina McMason of North Larchmont, Vermont, carelessy ignored a similar Nigerian plea, and, four weeks later, she found a bunion on her left foot. Also, in September 2005, 17-year-old Abby Applequints from Pussywillow High School in Highland, Kansas deleted a similar Nigerian e-mail message, and later that school-year, she could not find a prom date, and instead was forced to spend what would have been the most beautiful night of her life at home reading a book.

In my case, I figured I could avoid a similar senseless tragedy by responding to Dr. Nahabuto. We exchanged contact information, and I agreed to help him in any way that I could.


Almost immediately, there was a problem. “Your computer seems not to be running Windows system,” Dr. Nahabuto said. He was right: I got my first Macintosh system in May 2005, and, in a matter of a few weeks, I had completely abandoned my ugly, noisy, bulky, power-hungry, crappy Wintel machine. “Your machine cannot run required software,” Dr. Nahabuto continued, and when I asked for elaboration, I received no response. In fact, I never heard from him again.

What is this “software” that Dr. Nahabuto was so eager to run? It must have been very important. Perhaps it was one of the following applications that are very important to me:

  • Fugu - Whether for a wacky Japanese entrée, or performing secure file transfers, Fugu is what you need. A great user interface, combined with great SCP and SFTP support, this is a web developer’s dream to securely move files to and from your web host.
  • Smultron - Named for a minor character from the Space Battleship Yamato series, this fantastic tool will satisfy all of your text-editing needs. Whether composing HTML pages, or writing Rexx scripts, this program does it all: syntax coloring, clever multi-document interface, regular-expression find-and-replace, auto-brace-matching, auto-indent, and support for zillions of text encodings.
  • VLC - If it is a media file, VLC can play it. Period. No if’s, and’s or but’s.
  • Handbrake - OK, I lied about VLC. If you have CSS “encrypted” DVD media, VLC can’t help. Also, if you have lots of DVD media, isn’t it always a pain to find the disc you want to watch, sit through all the trailers, FBI warnings, Interpol warnings, and cutesy menus? In my case, I just want to watch the damn show. Also, I don’t happen to have terabytes of storage at my disposal for keeping my DVD media on-line. Enter Handbrake– it satisfies all three of the aforementioned issues: decrypts your DVDs, strips all the DVD “extras” crap, and transcodes the video to a format that’s maybe one twentieth of the original DVD size.
  • Tux Paint - If you’re one of the few computer geeks who has managed to procreate, Tux Paint is just the tool you need to keep your offspring occupied while you find something interesting to do. While not quite as powerful as PhotoShop, Tux Paint allows your child to draw pictures on a canvas using clip-art-like “stamps”, all while making wacky sound effects that will simultaneously delight your child and irritate you.

Upon further consideration, I realized that these software packages could not be what Dr. Nahabuto had in mind: they’re all Macintosh applications. With these five programs, along with others at FreeMacWare.com, I have everything I need to keep my computing life Windows-free. I strongly encourage you to do the same.