{"id":2613,"date":"2009-01-03T01:19:06","date_gmt":"2009-01-03T05:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/?p=2613"},"modified":"2013-07-04T14:33:50","modified_gmt":"2013-07-04T18:33:50","slug":"what-i-use-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/03\/what-i-use-2009.html","title":{"rendered":"What I Use &#8211; 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I thought I&#8217;d try something new and summarize the software that I use on a regular basis.\u00a0 I have been thinking about this, as I have recently switched from one software program to another in a couple of areas, and have been thinking about the evolution of the programs I have used over the years.\u00a0 This may become an annual (or occasional) update, or this may be the only installment.\u00a0 I also note which items have Portable Apps alternatives, as I use these a great deal.<\/p>\n<p>Here they are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Operating Systems<\/strong> : <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/windows\/windows-xp\/\">Windows XP<\/a> is still my primary day-to-day system at home, on my notebook, and at work.\u00a0 I use <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ubuntu.com\/\">Ubuntu linux<\/a> on a regular basis (I am set up to dual-boot both at home and on my notebook computer), but haven&#8217;t yet made the jump.\u00a0 Yet.\u00a0 I use <a href=\"http:\/\/www.apple.com\/macosx\/\">Mac OS-X<\/a> (Leopard) occasionally on my wife&#8217;s computer (usually when setting something up for her).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Web Browsers<\/strong> : <a href=\"http:\/\/www.firefox.com\/\">Firefox<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/portableapps.com\/apps\/internet\/firefox_portable\">PortableApps<\/a>) is my preferred browser (and has been since it was at version 0.6 or so).\u00a0 I occasionally use <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/chrome\">Google Chrome<\/a>, which is definitely faster, but my habitual use of certain add-ons (see below) keeps me from getting comfortable.\u00a0 I use <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/windows\/products\/winfamily\/ie\/default.mspx\">Internet Explorer 7<\/a> when I want to run Windows Update.\u00a0 My only complaints are occasional memory hog problems with Firefox.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Firefox Add-Ons<\/strong> : <a href=\"https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/en-US\/firefox\/addon\/3504\">Zotero<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/en-US\/firefox\/addon\/534\">Groowe Search Toolbar<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/en-US\/firefox\/addon\/60\">Web Developer Toolbar<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/en-US\/firefox\/addon\/4106\">Operator<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/en-US\/firefox\/addon\/5579\">Cooliris<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/en-US\/firefox\/addon\/3682\">Add to Search Bar<\/a>.\u00a0 Learn them, use them, love them.<\/li>\n<li><strong>E-Mail<\/strong> : <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mozilla.com\/thunderbird\/\">Thunderbird<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/portableapps.com\/apps\/internet\/thunderbird_portable\">PortableApps<\/a>) is my primary e-mail client, although I feel it needs a good updating (version 3, anyone?).\u00a0 I use <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/outlook\/\">Microsoft Outlook 2003<\/a> at work, mainly because we use the calendar features quite a bit.\u00a0 An add-on that makes Outlook worth using, however, is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xobni.com\/\">Xobni<\/a> (&#8220;inbox&#8221; spelled backwards).\u00a0 If you use Outlook, get Xobni &#8211; you will not be disappointed.\u00a0 I am eagerly awaiting a Thunderbird version.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Office Suites<\/strong> : I recently switched to <a href=\"http:\/\/download.cnet.com\/Go-OO\/3028-2079_4-10860621.html\">Go-Oo<\/a> (link updated on 3 July 2013 &#8211; thanks Lurie!) from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.openoffice.org\/\">OpenOffice 3<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/portableapps.com\/apps\/office\/openoffice_portable\">PortableApps<\/a>).\u00a0 It wasn&#8217;t too hard of a change, as it is an implementation of OpenOffice with some very intelligent add-ons and configuration.\u00a0 It is very smooth and easy to use, and hasn&#8217;t given me any problems yet.\u00a0 I still use <a href=\"http:\/\/office.microsoft.com\/en-us\/downloads\/CD010224941033.aspx\">Microsoft Office 2003<\/a> at work, but am rapidly switching to Go-Oo for everything but Access.\u00a0 Even that may change, as MS Access lacks some desired report functionality that exists in the Sun Report Builder.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Text Editors<\/strong> : I recently switched from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scintilla.org\/SciTEDownload.html\">SciTE<\/a> to <a href=\"http:\/\/notepad-plus.sourceforge.net\/\">Notepad++<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/portableapps.com\/apps\/development\/notepadpp_portable\">PortableApp<\/a>) when I needed better control over the encoding of the text.\u00a0 Both are excellent for editing HTML and CSS, as well as editing a variety of text files.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Web Design<\/strong> : I primarily use a text editor (see above), but when I want something more powerful, I use <a href=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/Amaya\/\">Amaya<\/a>, or sometimes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aptana.com\/\">Aptana<\/a>.\u00a0 If you need a basic WYSIWYG designer, I recommend <a href=\"http:\/\/kompozer.net\/\">Komposer<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/portableapps.com\/apps\/development\/nvu_portable\">PortableApps<\/a>).\u00a0 I use <a href=\"http:\/\/filezilla-project.org\/\">FileZilla<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/portableapps.com\/apps\/internet\/filezilla_portable\">PortableApps<\/a>) as my FTP client.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Photo Software<\/strong> : I currently use <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irfanview.com\/\">IrfanView<\/a>, but suspect that this may change in the near future, as my needs are changing.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Online Software<\/strong> : I use <a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.org\/\">WordPress<\/a> for blogging; <a href=\"http:\/\/gregarius.net\/\">Gregarius<\/a> as a blog reader; <a href=\"http:\/\/gallery.menalto.com\/\">Gallery<\/a> for photo storage and viewing; I am trying out <a href=\"http:\/\/opengoo.org\/\">OpenGoo<\/a> for online applications (calendar, tasks, contacts, basic word processing); <a href=\"http:\/\/obiblio.sourceforge.net\/\">OpenBiblio<\/a> for my church&#8217;s ILS; <a href=\"http:\/\/about.scriblio.net\/\">Scriblio<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/drupal.org\/project\/millennium\">Drupal<\/a> for OPAC replacements (just playing around with them); and <a href=\"http:\/\/textpattern.com\/\">TextPattern<\/a> as a Content Managment System.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Security<\/strong> : <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zonealarm.com\/\">ZoneAlarm<\/a> firewall; <a href=\"http:\/\/free.avg.com\/\">AVG Free<\/a> anti-virus; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stevengould.org\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=15&amp;Itemid=223\">Clean-Up!<\/a>; and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.download.com\/Trend-Micro-HijackThis\/3000-8022_4-10227353.html\">HijackThis<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>CD Authoring<\/strong> : I switched from <a href=\"http:\/\/cdburnerxp.se\/\">CDBurnerXP<\/a> to <a href=\"http:\/\/infrarecorder.org\/\">InfraRecorder<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/portableapps.com\/apps\/utilities\/infrarecorder_portable\">PortableApps<\/a>) earlier this year.\u00a0 I haven&#8217;t tried the newest version of CDBurnerXP, so there may be some switching back in the future.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Odds and Ends<\/strong> : <a href=\"http:\/\/www.7-zip.org\/\">7-Zip<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/portableapps.com\/apps\/utilities\/7-zip_portable\">PortableApps<\/a>) for compressing and decompressing all sorts of files; <a href=\"http:\/\/sourceforge.net\/projects\/pdfcreator\/\">PDF Creator<\/a>; <a href=\"http:\/\/oregonstate.edu\/~reeset\/marcedit\/html\/\">MarcEdit<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you are looking for a common thread, there is this:\u00a0 all of these, except for two of the operating systems, and the software on my work PC, don&#8217;t cost anything.\u00a0 Much of it is Open Source (of which I am an advocate).\u00a0 You can do a lot with an internet-connected computer, a sub-$100 per year web hosting service, and some trial-and-error experimentation.<\/p>\n<p>I hope this list helps to inform, and perhaps even connects someone else with software that I have grown to enjoy using for everyday tasks.\u00a0 It has been interesting to see just how much software becomes part of my daily routines, and how much value I get from the above programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I thought I&#8217;d try something new and summarize the software that I use on a regular basis.\u00a0 I have been thinking about this, as I have recently switched from one software program to another in a couple of areas, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/03\/what-i-use-2009.html\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2940,2982,2966,2977],"tags":[4764,4765,4220,5350,3010,3120,4222,4763,3036,4762,3121,4745,4221,4219,3547,5388,3067,3658,5377,4460,4092,3021,3766,4610,4223],"class_list":["post-2613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ils","category-open-source","category-software","category-web-design","tag-advocate","tag-basic-wysiwyg-designer","tag-firewall","tag-google","tag-html","tag-internet-explorer","tag-internet-connected-computer","tag-leopard","tag-linux","tag-mac-os","tag-microsoft","tag-microsoft-windows","tag-much-software","tag-notebook-computer","tag-online-applications","tag-open-source","tag-operating-systems","tag-search-bar","tag-software","tag-text-editor","tag-ubuntu","tag-usd","tag-web-developer","tag-windows-xp","tag-year-web-hosting-service"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSU5g-G9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}