9 Useless Applications Just For Fun [Mac Only]

Make Use Of is well known for publishing articles mainly about useful stuff. Well, it’s time to turn the tables around, pull off my tie, untuck my shirt and have some fun. I have just found some applications that are so mind-numbingly useless but after playing with them for a while, I’m starting to enjoy them. These sort of applications probably gets ignored by most people but bear with me here, hang on to them and they might brighten your day or impress some friends!

Cuckoo

This little birdie chimes once every hour to remind you that, um the next hour is beginning? If you are into that sort of thing, purchase the license ($6) and it’ll chime the number of the hour instead of just once an hour. Wow. Impressive.

It’s way cheaper than buying an actual cuckoo clock anyway.

Offshoots

Got green fingers or love plants? Offshoots animates your desktop with growing branches and leaves. They grow from all directions and supposedly follows your mouse cursor. Not to mention, they’re very pretty to look at, and serene too. They can grow on a solid colour desktop or above your current wallpaper. You can also use it as a screensaver!

Everything is customizable, from the number of branches to the size of the leaves to the curliness of the branches.

iCursor

Getting bored of the regular, black Mac mouse cursor? Why do Windows users get to have all the fun with customizable cursors? Now you can have some cursor-fun too! iCursor adds particle animations to your cursor trails. Have stars shoot out from the end of your cursor or set it on fire. There are almost 20 different animations to choose from and you can customize each one to your liking.

Hah. Who needs them pretty cursors?

HeartMonitor

This application places a heart right on your desktop. It beats faster or slower according to your computer’s CPU usage. Turn on the sound and it gets kind of realistic. It even made me slightly worried when my CPU usage increased while I was running some CPU-intensive programs.

Forget iStat Menus or MenuMeters. This is all you need.

EvilMac

Turn your Mac evil. Not literally, of course. Not even close, actually. All this app does to turn my Mac evil is invert the colours. You could do the same thing by invoking Cmd-Opt-Ctrl-8. But watch your friends’ faces when you start this application. It’s even funnier when they accidentally start it themselves. They might even panic a bit!

Hide Folders

Have you ever wanted to hide certain files from view? Well, there’s the long method. And then there’s Hide Folders. Launch the app and simply drag anything you’d like to hide into it. And boom! The files are gone! It also allows you to add a password which needs to be entered before the files can be revealed.

This application might actually turn out to be useful. Wait a minute. How’d that happen?

BinClocken

Binary clocks have never made much sense to me. Why make something as simple as time so difficult to read? But once I learnt the basics to deciphering time on binary clocks, it turned out to be quite fun. They’re still quite enigmatic if your friends have no idea what they’re staring at.

BinClocken’s LED and background are customizable and there’re quite a few to choose from. Also, you can set its window level to normal, float or stay put on the desktop. It’s not too big until being obtrusive, neither is it too small to be read.

Snowflakes and XMasLights

Have you been feeling Christmassy? Winter is still a while away. You can have it start a little earlier on your desktop, though. Snowflakes superimpose falling snowflakes above your windows.

XMasLights adds a little holiday cheer on the side (or rather, at the top) with some blinking lights right below your menu bar! Turn this one on, especially XMasLights and you’ll be surprised how much you’ll be in the mood to party.

Sometimes life is too short to always be productive or efficient. Relive the child in you, have some fun and feel younger!

(By) Jackson Chung is a full-time medical student attempting to perform a juggling act with relationship, studies and his future.

Filed Under: Lists of tools ¦ Mac
Tags: animation, binary clock, cursor, fun, hide files, Interesting, Mac, time, useless