What APPs do you use without fail?

chiyo · March 24, 2013

What apps do you use without fail?

We all use a lot of applications but which one's do you fire up everyday without fail?

This is just a starter conversation. If we find a program like "Evernote" is super popular, we can break those out into distinct topics and share how we're using it.

Me first! Everyday I fire up the engine by opening:

Mail
iChat
iCal
Safari
Google (Drive, Docs, Calendar, Google Hangouts)
Evernote
FileMaker 12 Advanced
Dracons 2empowerFM Developer Assistant
BBEdit
Jing
Characters (toolbar utility to copy )
Clocks (toolbar utility to see what time it is elsewhere)
Deskscribble (utility to mark up your screen)
TextExpander (custom keyboard shortcut, text expander)

LaRetta · March 24, 2013

Text Editor (Sublime Text or Notepad ++ )

Pixie (PC color selector)

It would be nice if we could check the ones we use (turn it into a survey) and then you can really see which categories might need special addressing. Just another idea. I use most what you listed except Characters (drat - it looks great but appears to be Mac only).

dansmith65 · March 24, 2013

Interesting topic! Here is my list of apps that are always open:

PortableApps.com Platform (I use the portable version of as many apps as I can - makes moving between computers quicker)
zbar (multiple-monitor start bar)
AutoHotkey_L Portable
Ditto Portable (clipboard manager)
Listary Portable
Zim Wiki (small daily tasks/notes/brainstorming)
Notepad++ Portable
CubicExplorer Portable
Google Chrome (GMail, Drive, Docs, Calendar)
GreenShot (screenshot utility)

This one isn't open all the time, but super handy for documenting that new feature you just added to your client's database - client's love it!

CamStudio Portable - with the CamStudio codec for high quality low file size videos after conversion to H.264 mp4

LaRetta · March 24, 2013

Oh! We need to track this in a database! I wonder if any of us know of a good one we can use to put on the list! :jester:

But seriously, by Type of application and then the brands we like most. Oh, I can't help always trying to categorize the universe ... it is a curse. I just found CamStudio few weeks ago, Dan! And I'll check out portable - good idea.

Edited March 24, 2013 by LaRetta

dansmith65 · March 24, 2013

I was thinking of Desktop apps, so I forgot to mention Feng Office. I use it like most people would use Basecamp; for project management and client portal. I like that it's open source which allows me to host it myself and tweak the code if I want. I specifically love the infinitely nested tasks and ease/speed of task creation.

Also, a few notes on Zim Wiki: I think I use it somewhat like others are using Evernote, except I don't get the integration with web/other devices feature. I use it like a daily journal, so I keep notes from phone calls with clients, tasks (will either be completed within a day or two, or moved to Feng Office), and especially for brainstorming where I write out a problem/task, then write out the different ways it could be resolved, then narrow down to which one I think would be best and why.

jbante · March 25, 2013

I use many of the apps already mentioned, but I've also found these indispensable:

ShareMouse — I spend most of my day at a multi-computer workstation, which would be an ergonomics nightmare if I had to use separate input devices for each machine.

JITouch — Because why should anyone settle for a 2-, 3-, or even 10-button mouse when they can have an infinity-button mouse?

Divvy — Who doesn't like organized windows?

TweetDeck — Everything started going downhill after Twitter bought it, but it's still the only app presenting social media in a format that matches how I think about it.

ClipManager — Copy & Paste is the unjustly neglected sibling of DRY programming.

On iOS:

FMP Ref — It's not actively maintained and so is no longer comprehensive (are you listening, CNS?), but what it does have is still mostly accurate, and much faster to navigate than FileMaker's documentation or any available third-party reference book.

Eternity — I haven't found an app that's good at tracking both what I need to do next and how long it took me to do what I've already done, but I've settled on this for the latter for now.

Colorblind Vision — For getting a quick idea how colorblind users might see a layout I'm working on.

chiyo · March 28, 2013

WOW! Awesome comments!! Sorry, it took me a bit to catch up. This is a fantastic start. I already see things I want to check out. I hope you all do too.

This is the brainstorming stage of this conversation. Let's keep tossing things up and we'll find the natural way to start categorizing and making this information more structured. All things start with a beginning.

Thanks for the posts!!

webko · March 28, 2013

Looking left to right on my dashboard...

FireFox, FileMaker Advanced 11, Outlook, FileZilla, Remote Desktop Organiser, Skype, Cmd Prompt, Office, 4 different VPN connections...

Ocean West · March 29, 2013

Teleport A KVM switch without the M - must have for multi machine workspace.

SecondBar Adds a second menubar on your other connected display saves mouse miles any way you can get them.

LauchBar - quick app switching - and good built in calculator.

Shade Quickly hide all the desktop clutter - especially handy when you doing show & tell via a screen share.

Hazel This little helper keeps track of downloads and the rules setup it moves them to appropriate folders - keeps my download folder manageable. Keep all my .fm12 files in their folder - even have a rule to label (color) files that are over a month old.

Its not really an app - but did you know you can option click on the SPEAKER icon in the menu bar to quickly change the input/output.

Also for when I want to consume some larger blocks of text or reading I highlight the text and use mac's text to speech to have it read to me. (option click on selected text - under Speech...)

And another way is to copy a block of text and pasted it in to spreeder.com to read the text one word at a time - If you have a lot of text to get thru you can read pretty quickly over 350 WPM - I find i have better concentration and retention of the documents.

(although the last too don't do too well with technical text with lots of code)

Steven H. Blackwell · April 5, 2013

Here's my list:

It's important to note that I do not keep all these open at once on any machine, and especially not on the development machine.

On development machine:

FileMaker Pro 12 Advanced

Admin Console (as needed)

Notepad

Wordpad

Cisco Anywhere VPN (as needed)

JoinMe (as needed)

Remote Desktop

TimBukTu for Windows

MS Word

MS Excel

Skype (as needed)

On large screen iMac:

Safari

FireFox

Admin Console (as needed)

MS Word

MS Excel

iChat

Skype (as needed)

OmniGraffle

RDP

TimBukTu

Cisco Anywhere VPN (as needed)

Text Wrangler

iTunes Jazz Stream

On the FileMaker Server machine:

FMSA 12

NotePad (as needed)

Win FTP client (outbound, as needed)

On the two test network machines:

I'd go on, but I'd get into trouble.

Steven

dontforgetmario · April 6, 2013

Hi,

this is one of those things where we could apply a shared concept, and see which are the ones most used here.

- Evernote:

for almost anything: taking notes, archive scanned documents, archived websites favourites, links, share images via links on emails...

- Basecamp:

When I work in a project wth more people no doubt Basecamp is the champ I love the New Basecamp. FYI we were working like two months long on Asana and at the end we decided to move to Basecamp... was such a big releaf... what a difference..!

- Firefox:

Don't use Chrome on your Mac... or your Mac will slowwwwww dowwnnnnnnn (known in internet)

- Apple Mail of course

- Final Cut Pro X

- Pixelmator or Photoshop

- Skype

- TeamViewer por Remote Supporting my customers

- Audio HiJack for recording meetings online

- Transmit for FTP

- iShowHD for recording self-made tutorials

- Skitch (from Evernote)

- My iPad 4 for reading articles, webs, pdf, books... very easy on the eyes thanks to Retina Display, is like reading on paper.