is there any proven way to do keyword research that works?

Google Adword keyword tool is always out there to provide the best research for you. But for competition you can review manually or use traffic Tavis. It is not very hard to review first top 10 result for that keyword manually.

First of all, Market Samurai is available on both PC and MAC
Secondly, what exactly you mean by "proven" ? If you mean that you get only those keywords which are really good and will surely bring you sales then no. It is all about experience and techniques. You have to yourself find buying keywords. However, these softwares can help you a lot.

How you "do" keyword research really depends on what you want or what you intend to do with the results.

Are you building a mini site for quick, easy ranking?
Are you building an authority site that you plan to build over time?
Is it a personal blog?
Are you looking for organic search traffic?
Do want a specific niche ?
etc

I'll assume the first as that seems to be the most popular for newbies.

This is the very basic minimum formula I use that gets results.

Don't focus on any specific niche or keyword.
When you start it is best to just find keywords that fit the criteria (below).
There are 4 cornerstones to a good keyword. You need all 4

1. good search volume - at least 1000 exact USA local matches per month
2. good commercial value - at least $1 Adwords ECPC (Estimated/Average cost per click)
3. good commercial intent(will people searching for that keyword want to buy?) - at least 6 Adwords ads showing when searching for the keyword).
4. Low competition (can I get onto Google page 1) - Check top ten website results in keyword search. Use Market Samurai/Traffic Travis to check competition.


Basic process is

Use Tradekey.com to find a seed keyword or phrase.

Hot Products (a)

Each letter will give you 100's of keywords to start with. Pick any. The more unusual the better. Do not get stuck with thinking about this part just pick any keyword.

Use Google Adwords Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

sign up for free Adwords account if you do not have one (no money/not spending or costing money) That will give you more keywords from the tool.

Set search criteria to 1000 exact USA local searches and $1 CPC

Put in the keyword you chose from tradekey and get up to 800 results. Download them and put them into a spreadsheet (open office calc or excel).

Keep taking the top keywords from each search and put them into Google adwords keyword tool again for even more keywords.

When you have a few thousand keywords
Go to Godaddy.com Domains/Bulk Domain registration and drop in all your keywords (500 at a time). This will find any that have and exact match domain available. (.com/.org/.net only)

From these look for the lowest competition using Market Samurai or Traffic Travis.
Finally search on the keyword (US search) and see if they have more than 6 Adword ads showing.

Any final keywords will now be good keywords to build your website with.

Feel free to change/modify any of the above to suit your own needs.

I've been having a lot of problems with Market Samurai crashing recently. I just submitted a support ticket, but this has apparently been going for some people since June. After it crashed on me several times, I even went to the Google Keyword tool, downloaded my keywords manually, cleaned my list manually, entered them manually into Market Samurai and clicked "Analyze", but it's crashed three more times since then.

I'll guess I'll have to wait and see what support recommends.

wow that was pretty informative, thanks for your reply tony. i will practice your method, it's pretty interesting, and also a new method for me. basically i want to create a site to promote affiliate products, something to start with i guess because i don't know too much yet about internet marketing to be an authority, i just have a personal blog which i've been building with my learning progress but now i want to put it in practice and let me tell you that your method looks amazing. thanks again Mr Tony