From Walkenbach and Doctorow.
Desktop: HP HPE-150f, i7 860@2.80, 8G RAM, Win7 64bit, Dual 22? Acer monitors. I used to be strictly a laptop guy, but when the D810 died, I decided to go for a desktop. I’m happy I did. It’s quite a bit faster for the money.
Laptop: ASUS R1F Convertible tablet, T2700@2.00, 2G RAM, Win7 32 bit. They don’t make Win7 drivers so not all the doodads work. For instance, I have to rotate the screen via software, but it’s better than using Vista.
Keyboard: Microsoft Wireless Multimedia Keyboard 1.1
File Sharing: Dropbox. I can’t tell you how useful this is. Wait, yes I can. Very useful.
Backup: Mozy. Offsite, daily backups. About $200 bucks every two years for 18.2G from my computer and 24G from wifey’s computer. What the hell does she have on there anyway? Photos, I’ll bet.
Phone: iPhone 4. I switched a few months ago. AT&T service sucks in my area, but I can survive for the 22 minutes of phone calls I make per month. This thing is a great computer that also sometimes makes phone calls.
Scanner: CanoScan LiDE 35 using LiDE60 drivers so it works on Win7-64.
Printer: HP LasterJet 1200
Storage: I have a 200G Maxtor. I used to have two, but its brother died. This one too shall die soon. I really don’t need it with Mozy, but I’ll probably get another one when this one goes.
Email: Gmail. I still have MS Outlook for programming/testing purposes, but I don’t use it. It opens every Sunday morning and downloads everything from Gmail, so I have a backup.
Calendar: Google Apps
RSS: Google Reader
Search: Google, but I’ve been reading about alternatives because I’m sick of the whole first page being crap sites. I started using Blekko recently – better on some things, not on others.
Newsgroups: I don’t read nntp much anymore, but I use Agent as my newsreader and an NNTP bridge to convert MSDN web fora to nntp.
Browser: Firefox. Chrome is not customizable enough for me.
Music: iPhone 4 and ITunes. I would love to eschew iTunes, but there’s simply nothing better for podcasts. Podcasts to which I subscribe include Marketplace Tech Report, Cincinnati Bengals Audio Minutes, Coffee Break Spanish, College Football Podcast, Jordan Jesee GO!, Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day, Methods in Excel, Motley Fool Money, Car Talk, Fresh Air, Science Friday, You Look Nice Today, and 37signals. For the car, I use a Griffin iTrip FM transmitter hooked up to the iPhone.
Radio: Pandora. Yet another service I pay money for in a world where everything seems like it’s free.
eBooks: Dead trees.
Todo lists: Goodtodo
Note taking: Evernote. Every crazy idea I have goes here. It’s fun to go back and read what I thought was a good idea a few months ago.
Screen capture: SnagIt
Blog: WordPress
Text Editor: Notepad++
Bookmarks: Delicious. I heard they’re going out of business so I signed up for pinboard.in, but I haven’t used it yet. I need a good Firefox Addon for it, and there isn’t one yet.
FTP: Filezilla
Code: VBA goes in the VBE. Ruby goes in Intype. I’m very impressed with that as a code editor. HTML and CSS go in AlleyCode out of habit.
Compression: JustZipIt. I love programs with fewer options (except browsers apparently).
PDF: CutePDF for printing, FoxIt for reading, and PDFCreator for VBA stuff.
Graphics: IrfanView
File Copy: SynchronizeIt
SCP: WinSCP
Office: MS Office 2003 and 2007.
GPS: Garmin Approach GS – got it for xmas, so no commentary yet.
I used this program called ExamDiff recently. I started updating code in the wrong version of the spreadsheet and I needed to figure out the differences. I exported the modules, loaded them in ExamDiff, and it saved the day. Nice program, that.
Most used iPhone Apps: Gmail, Dropbox, Evernote, Netflix, Google Reader, and Cribbage Lite.
As for wish lists, I’d like to get an iPad. I really don’t have a use for it, so I haven’t pulled the trigger. I’d also like a scanner with a document feeder, but for the 10 pages a year I scan, it’s probably not worth it. I wish my car had an iPhone dock, but I’m allergic to car payments, so that one will have to wait. I’d like to get a golf simulator for my house, but then I’d need to get a house with 15 foot ceilings. I haven’t had great luck with robots, but I think I’ll be trying the new Scooba 230. If cleaning the bathroom isn’t the worst job, I can’t imagine what is.
Since you have an iPhone 4 I would recommend a couple of things. 1) Check out the Reeder app $2.99 to replace Google Reader (you won’t be sorry), 2) Simplenote is free app for text-only notes that syncs better than Evernote.
Dick, I don’t do online backups but have been thinking about it. I see that Dropbox also does online backups. Is there a reason that you prefer Mozy? (I didn’t look at the pricing.)
Since you showed me yours, let me show mine too
Desktop : N.A.
Laptop : Dell Precision M4500, Intel i7 740QM, 16 G RAM, 500 G HDD, Windows Server 2008 R2
Keyboard : One of thosee ancient IBM PS/2 clicky keyboards, best typing experience EVER.
File Sharing : Live.com if any.
Backup : a 1 TB USB3 external hard drive. USB3 is lightning fast!
Phone : Ancient Nokia, no bells ‘n whistles
Scanner : HP PSC 1215; one of those combo deskjet printer/scanners
Printer : See scanner.
Storage : a couple of external HDD’s ranging from 120 GB to 1 TB
Email : Virtual Access, http://www.virtual-access.org. Ancient but highly effifient for the keyboard minded users. all email and newsgroups in one place.
Calendar : a paper one!
RSS : Nope
Search : Google
Newsgroups : See email
Browser : IE
Music : Zune
Radio : Hardly listen
eBooks : N.A.
Todo lists : N.A.
Note taking : Word
Screen capture : Snagit, unsurpassed.
Blog : N.A.
Text Editor : Ultra Edit
Bookmarks : N.A.
FTP : Filezilla
Code : VBE, whast else?
Compression : Winzip
PDF : Native Office 2010, PDF995
Graphics : nothing special
File Copy : Explorer
SCP : N.A.
Office : 2003, 2010, Virtual machines with anything from 97 to 2007. Still have the 23 Office 4.3 floppies
GPS : n.a.
Most used iPhone Apps : Don’t have such a contraption, would waste way too much of my time
For podcast You should try gpodder:
http://www.gpodder.org
It’s a combination of a podcast-downloader
and a website (www.gpodder.net).
At the website You control, add or remove podcasts.
The downloader syncs with the website, so when You
add a podcast on the site, it’s added to the downloader.
That way, You can control Your podcasts from anywhere.
Regards
I totally agree on Dropbox. It’s so useful. Do you pay or stay within the free limits? I’m storing almost my limit at the moment – am torn whether to purge files or pay for the extra space….
Got Reeder and signed up for simplenote. Thanks for the suggestions.
When I was originally looking for backup, Dropbox came off as more of a file sharing/transfer service than a real backup, so I didn’t really consider it as an option. I’m nowhere near my limit on Dropbox, but I’ll gladly pony up the dough when I need to.
JKP: What do you use for non-VBA code like HTML for your website?
Morten: thanks for the link. I’ll check out gpodder.
for music management, try mediamonkey (www.mediamonkey). It managesyour iphone+podcast+audio books. pretty good.
Reeder app for iphone is a good alternative to read feeds on the go. I use it as a offliner when im at airport or on the move.
SynchronizeIt and goodtodo are good pointers. Thanks for sharing.
If you’re a fan of Motley Fool Money, they have a new daily ~10 minute podcast called MarketFoolery.
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MarketFoolery
Thanks to Chris Hill for the heads up.
Dick: I have a style called VBA which only sets a non-proportional font.
My site is not done using a cms, I use MSFT Expression Web 2.0, using plain XHTML and CSS with a touch of VBScripting to add the navigation and commenting bit. If I need VBA with pretty colors on my site I use a small add-in called HTMLMaker, which I edited, which converts the VBA to HTML using my own css style names where needed.
Some items I trust:
Picture batch resize: Irfanview plugin – Riot (free)
Picture batch rotate: Rota (free, quick)
ScreenPrint: Greenshot (free, simple)
PrintUtility: FinePrint 5.85 (my all-time favorite)
Desktop organizer: Fences (free, great)
File defrag: WinContig (free, new)
Mirror: ICE Mirror (free, old)
Copy: TeraCopy (free, good for large files)
Mouse: Evolount Mouse (brilliant)
NAS: Synology DS209 (good software, 4 is better)
Laptop: HP/Compaq 6910p
Dropbox is a fine service indeed, though I personally prefer FilesDIRECT (http://www.filesdirect.com) for file sharing – lots of features and tons of storage too (30GB to start!)