As the first Mac Virtual Assistant, I blog on all things Mac. I “heart” Mac and am fortunate that all of my clients either came to me on the Mac platform, or due to my enthusiasm, switched to Mac shortly after we began working together.

Last year I wrote an article on some of my favorite Mac or cross platform applications and I wanted to take the opportunity to update that. Some time has passed, and due to the ever changing needs of my Virtual Assistant clients and how we work together collaboratively, plus recommendations from colleagues, some things have changed:

1. iWork: I have been using iWork in place of Microsoft Office for about a year now. It costs a fraction of Office, at a mere $79.00 USD compared to hundreds for Office. To me and my clients, it has about 98% if the features of Office, without the excess cost. And it is so easy to share with non iWork users, with export to PDF, Word, CSV, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.
2. Fetch: For those of us who do a lot of website creation and updating, as well as working with images for blogs and newsletters, Fetch is indispensable. For instance, many newsletter services, such as Constant Contact, only allow you to upload a certain amount of images. For the more web savvy, Fetch allows you to Control + Click and “copy web address”, which you can use for Constant Contact, WordPress, etc. It’s a great way to get around the image number limitations.
3. Bento: Bento is a sort of scaled down and easier to use version of Filemaker. Bento 2 adds Apple Mail integration and improved exchange with Numbers and Excel. Emails can be dragged and dropped to the Bento interface, and viewed with OS X’s Quick Look feature. Bento is now integrated with iPhone and MobileMe via iCal and Address Book. Bento 2 comes with new templates and at a mere $49.00 USD, again is a major price saver of FileMaker Pro.
4. PDFPen: PDFPen by Smile On My Mac, is the application I use most on a daily basis. It is a lower priced version of Adobe Acrobat and is my best friend on most days in the office. As a Virtual Assistant, I often complete documents, contracts and forms for clients. Plus, many give me a scanned image of their signature. With PDFPen, I can effortlessly fill in the document, add their signature, and either email it or fax it with Send2Fax, my favorite online fax application. I also use the “Split PDF” feature when there is the need to split up a multiple page PDF into single pages. When one is dealing with 200 page PDF’s, this feature can be a lifesaver! The developers are awesome, very approachable and very quick to help out. You can find them on twitter here.
5. Dropbox: I have been using Dropbox with two clients now. This is a cross platform (Linux, Mac, Windows)  file storage and sharing application with a web and desktop interface. I like the smooth ease of use, the lightness of the application and the fact that you can get 2 GB of storage space for free. One of my clients uses this in tandem with Google Beta Sync for a free “sort of” version of MobileMe, which costs $99.00 USD / year.

What about you? Are you a Mac based business or Mac entrepreneur? What applications do you find to be lifesavers on a daily basis?

Author bio: Taryn Merrick is a Professional Mac Virtual Assistant and Online Business Manager (OBM). As Principal of Merrick Management And Media Services, she has over 20 years of administrative management experience. Taryn works to promote the Virtual Assistant industry and to make it stand out as a true profession of excellence. Her style is easy going, yet precise, with emphasis placed on exceeding customer expectations, client communication and satisfaction.

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