What third-party apps would you install on a clean Mac to restore your preferred working environment? Adam Engst recently had the opportunity to learn just what apps he really uses—here’s the list.

We’re tremendously fond of collaboration tool Trello, which just announced that it’s being purchased by enterprise software company Atlassian for $425 million. Trello claims that it will be able to take advantage of Atlassian’s research and development to improve its service, but some users are concerned that Trello will become as complex as other Atlassian products. Regardless, since Atlassian paid so much, we suspect that the company has big plans for Trello, so we’re not too worried about one of our favorite tools going downhill.

The Web-based Trello collaboration tool has been refreshed with a redesigned boards page — they’re now arranged in a tight grid — along with customizable backgrounds for each board. You can also star boards for quick access, and Fog Creek Software has added a boards drawer to make it easier to jump between boards. Since boards tend to map to high-level projects, many of us were having trouble moving among our large collections of boards. Some of Trello’s heavier styling elements have also been removed, leaving a flatter look and improving performance.

Fog Creek Software has added a number of new features to the Trello information management service since we first reviewed it. Here’s an overview of what’s new with Trello.

Looking for an overview of all the cards assigned to you in Trello, the collaboration tool we reviewed recently? Fog Creek Software has added a Cards page that shows all the cards assigned to you, organized by board. You can also see similar pages for other Trello users. Also note the ‘q’ shortcut for quickly hiding all cards on a board that aren’t assigned to you (press it again to show them).

We’ve started using the online collaboration tool Trello for TidBITS, Take Control, and various personal activities. It’s more interesting than other task management tools we’ve tried because it doesn’t force us into specific ways of thinking or working, but lets us configure our own approaches.