Antivir – My personal favorite Antivirus program. I’ve had a lot more luck with Antivir than I have with AVG or Avast .

Dropbox – 2 gigs of free cloud-based storage that automatically sync my folders and files between computers. I don’t know how I survived the days of Dropboxlessness.

Evernote – The only note taking, scrap collecting, journal writing, website clipping software suite I will ever need. Evernote also takes full advantage of the cloud while also syncing locally to all my computers.

Filezilla – My favorite FTP program by far. Simple and does what it’s suppose to do.

Firefox – Still the best browser out there. I switched to Chrome for a while and although faster in a lot of situations, it tended to be a little too buggy for me to use on a daily basis. Not to mention its lack of Mozilla’s impressive collection of add-ons.

While we’re on the subject of Firefox add-ons, here’s a mini-must-have bonus list.

Google Gears – Lets you to store data from websites locally allowing you to access it while offline. Very useful at times.
Xmarks – Syncs my bookmarks between all my computers. So nice.
Nice Translator – An extension to a great website of the same name which enables me to translate words and sentences on the fly in a plethora of different languages.
Web Developer – A must have for any web developer or tinkerer.
No Script – Blocks all flash and javascript from running without my express permission. I highly recommend this one.
Dictionary Tooltip – Does just what you think it would. Highlight a word and it gives you its definition.
LogMeIn – This is an add-on which enables me to log into my home or work PC from anywhere. You need to install a small app onto the target PC, but it’s well worth it.

Audacity – A cross-platform, open source sound editor.

iTunes – I know there are a lot of alternatives out there, but honestly, I haven’t found a reason to switch yet. (It’s funny that I feel like I have to justify the use of such a mainstream program)

Launchy – An open source keystroke launcher. Enables me to launch anything in a split second. I would be lost without it. I use Quicksilver for the Mac.

Notepad++ – This is a fantastic, open source text editor with syntax highlighting. I absolutely love it.

Open Office – The open source alternative to M$ Office. Much better too, in my opinion.

Python – An open source, general purpose programming language which allows me to do…, well, anything I want.

Sandboxie – This cool little app can isolate programs from the rest of your computer, essentially rendering them harmless to your system. Great for testing software or surfing the web, i.e., Firefox in sandboxie mode. (Sadly, not for Mac).

Skype – Instant message and VoiP. The best of the best of the best…sir.

Steam – Because we all need to unwind. Steam is by far the easiest way to game.

Truecrypt – Create an encrypted container of any size to securely store content or use it to encrypt your entire hard drive. Either way, your data is safe from prying eyes. I keep a 100 megabyte encrypted container in my Dropbox folder so I can access it from anywhere.

uTorrent – My favorite bit torrent app. And now available on Mac, yay!

VLC – A cross-platform video player that just works — all the time.

7-Zip – A good compression utility. There’s nothing more exciting than a good compression utility, am I right?

Tweetdeck – A power user’s window into the world of Twitter. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t understand the hype surrounding Twitter until I started using Tweetdeck. With this program, I can get real-time information from anywhere around the world, from real people, anytime of day or night. Did I mention real it’s real time? Literally, Twitter is the chat room of the world and Tweetdeck is the interface.

Cygwin – A Unix emulator for Windows for us command-line warriors. (No need for Mac / linux)

Virtualbox – Very handy, open source virtualization software, ideal for running operating systems within operating systems.

And there you have it.

For the last few days I’ve been messing around with a great program for the Mac called Journler. It’s like a journal on steroids. It has all the basic features you would expect from journaling software, but then takes it to a whole other level. You can do things like add audio, video, and photos to your entries with the click of a button, or record them directly using your built-in hardware. You can even publish your entries to your blog (I haven’t actually tried this yet, cross your fingers). The interface is sleek and intuitive, just what you’d expect from a Mac app.

Don’t look at this as a full review of Journler though, since I’m still plummeting head first through the learning curve, but I was impressed enough with what I saw to give it a mention to anyone who has never heard of it.

Journler

I’m still a big time Mac noob. I’ve had this MacBook for about a year now and I just recently discovered what that weird little diagonal line is that all the Mac tutorials refer to. But I do listen. The OS X gurus may not think I’m listening, but I am — and every now and then I pick up on their good habits. I’ve recently been introduced to another little app called Quicksilver. I’m really not the guy to be giving a full review of this app either, or any Mac app for that matter, but from what I’ve seen of it so far, it’s pretty damn incredible. Here’s what I can tell from the little time I’ve spent with it — it’s an extremely powerful search application with a slew of built in macros (is that the right word?) which allow you to do all sorts of things to the items that you’ve just searched for. It uses a lot of keyboard shortcuts (which I love) to accomplish tasks at a lightning fast pace.

I’m really not doing this program any justice, so I’m gonna shut up now. The guys over at the Blacktree Inc. will most likely be sending me a cease and desist letter any day now anyways because of this literary mutilation of their product. Go ahead and check it out for yourself. I think you’ll really like it. If you don’t, blame the gurus.

Quicksilver

Twitter is sort of a cross between a blog and an away message. Unlike a blog, you can only post 140 characters at a time. You have the ability to post entries, or tweets as they are so affectionately called, via the web, a cell phone (sms), an IM client, or from a variety of desktop applications. Twitter asks the very simple question, “What are you doing?”. All you have to do is answer that question. It’s strange, I know. It’s even more strange that people are doing it. Not a few people mind you, but thousands. People use it to keep tabs on their friends. Organizations may use it to keep interested parties up to date. Some people even use Twitter to campaign for the Presidency.

I know, still a little strange. In fact, be sure to bookmark this page, because you’re probably going to dismiss Twitter pretty quickly. I know I did. It’s the natural Twitter cycle — a couple of weeks will pass and every time you hear the word twitter your ears will perk up. You’ll start hearing about it more and more, until finally, curiosity gets the best of you. You’ll sign up, you’ll post your first tweet, and you’ll be hooked. It’s usually around a 2 to 4 week process. At that time make sure to come back here for a list of some pretty handy Twitter resources.

Ah good, you’re back.

Let’s start with twittervision. This site pretty much sums up the Twitter experience. It grabs tweets from the public Twitter timeline and places them on Google maps in real-time. It’s addicting all by itself.

Remember those desktop apps I referred to up above? They allow you to post tweets and receive updates right on your desktop. You can choose to receive updates from the public timeline or limit it to people in your friends list. There are a few different applications to choose from, depending on what operating system you are running. Let me make it easy for you:

Twitter Desktop Applications

• Twitterific - for Mac users
• Twitteroo - for Windows users.
• gTwitter - for Linux users.

Recommended reading:

I really enjoyed the Twitter write-up over at Kottke.org. Check it out if you get a chance. While you’re it, another good article to read is Hacking Twitter for Fun and Profit. Good stuff there.

Some extra tidbits:

The founder of Twitter, Evan Williams, was also the co-founder of Blogger.com and more recently Odeo.com. Blogger.com was eventually acquired by Google and Odeo.com has since been put up for sale. From what I understand, Evan’s company Obvious Corp wants to focus all it’s time and energy on Twitter. That’s good for you Twitterholics.

And there you have it. Now go give it a try. You can look me up at twitter.com/skyecade. Just in case you want to know what I had for breakfast,… or what movie I’m watching,… or what pants I decided to wear,… or what project I’m working on,…or what I’m thinking about at any given moment, etc…

Installation is a breeze. When you sign up with Tracksy (or Google for that matter), they will generate a little javascript snippet that you place in the html of your website. It’s literally cut, paste, done. I’m currently running both on all my sites.

Here is a list of some of tracky’s user generated reports and features that they offer:

• Exclusion Cookies
• Exclude Selective I.P. Addresses
• Invisible or Visible Counter
• Detailed, Real-Time Reports
• Recent Visitor List
• Traffic Reports
• Traffic Per URL
• Traffic Per Year
• Traffic Per Month
• Traffic Per Weekday
• Traffic Per Day
• Traffic Per Hour
• New vs. Returning
• Referrers
• Referring Sites
• Search Engines
• Search Engine Keywords
• Visitor Computers
• Browser
• Operating System
• Language
• Screen Size
• Screen Color Depth
• Internet Service Provider
• Connection Speed
• Visitor Locations
• Country
• Region
• City
• Visits
• Pages Viewed
• Visits Per Month

Not bad for a free service. Give it a try and if you don’t like it, it’s as simple as deleting the javascript from your website. It can’t get much easier than that.

Granted, I won’t be able do much text formatting. I also won’t be able to add photos or videos to my posts. At least not easily. I do think it will be a great little widget for posting quick thoughts though.

Let’s try it out…

I had a chance to mess around with it for a couple of minutes. It seems very smooth, considering it’s a web app. I’ve used other online spreadsheets that are clunky by comparison. It also seems to have all of the features you would expect from Google, i.e. sharing capabilities, import/export options, etc…

At first glance, it looks like a nice little spreadsheet for day to day use. It’s definitely a great addition to Google’s ever growing list of web apps. Free web apps at that. I look forward to playing around with it some more.

But what I’m about to reveal to you just can’t wait! I found what could be the greatest program ever written! It’s called MacSaber. Simply put, it takes any MacBook and transforms it into a Jedi weapon of death.

In case you didn’t know, MacBooks, and I believe older Powerbooks and iBooks, have motion sensors built into them. The reason for this is quite brilliant. If you, or anyone else, accidentally hits the laptop or knocks it off the desk, the motion sensor detects this and immediately locks down the hard drives to protect your data (more about this in my review).

Enter Ian ”isnoop” Anthony. This guy wrote a brilliant hack that takes complete advantage of the MackBooks motion sensor technology. Just install this little program and start swinging your $1400 MacBook around the room to hear the melodious sounds of a Jedi’s lightsaber. It’s music to your ears.

And to think, a week ago I was carrying my MacBook around the room like it was a new born baby. No more I say. My MacBook has since been converted into a finely tuned instrument of death. One in which I flail around the room as if I was battling Emperor Palpatine himself. Not unlike this actually.

I think it’s fair to say that this little gem justifies the purchase of my new MacBook.

A Windows Vista Capable PC includes at least:

• A modern processor (at least 800MHz1).
• 512 MB of system memory.
• A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.

A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:

• 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor1.
• 1 GB of system memory.
• A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero2.
• 128 MB of graphics memory.
• 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
• DVD-ROM Drive3.
• Audio output capability.
• Internet access capability.

You can also download Microsoft’s Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor (beta). This utility will help determine whether or not to to toss your old XP system out the window.

Might as well check out the five versions of Vista that MS will be releasing while you’re there.

It’s called the Google Page Creator and it is yet another incredible piece of software that has been released by Google. If you read my last post, I mentioned that I was a bit disappointed with the release of the Google Pack. Well, needless to say, they’ve completely redeemed themselves (as I suspected they would).

Google’s Page Creator is a site that allows you to create your own web pages and host them on Google’s servers. It’s free, it’s simple, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s kind of like Blogger meets Geocities, but better and a lot better. The interface is extremely easy to use and you don’t need to know html to make a great website. You can host files and have multiple pages, all for the low, low price of nothing. This is going to make web hosting companies like GoDaddy very unhappy This is what the internet is morphing into. A true example of Web 2.0.

Experts are now saying that people, my generation and younger, will most likely accomplish the following in their lifetime:

1. Write a novel
2. Write a poem
3. Write a song
4. Create a website
5. Learn a new language
6. Write some kind of computer code
7. Make a movie/video of some kind

This isn’t because we are smarter than our parents and grandparents, but because the tools to accomplish these things are more easily accessible to us. The Google Page Creator is just another great example of this. It’s something anyone can use, and should.

I’ve always said that everyone should own a website of some kind. This will make it easier for people to do just that. I created this website in under ten minutes. No kidding. Now imagine if I actually put some effort into it. You could do some pretty incredible and useful things with this software.

Ahh Google, how I love thee.

Being the avid Google fan that I am, I, along with thousands of others, awaited the release of the Google Pack with high expectations. Not so much for the pack itself, but to see which programs Google deemed worthy enough to land a spot in this illustrious assortment of software. However, when it was finally released earlier this month, the wave of disappointment over the community was astounding. The mediocrity of the pack was completely out of character for a company known for its innovation, creativity, and originality.

Allow me to express some of my opinions about the software included in this bundle. Shall I? Indeed, I shall.

Realplayer – The problem with putting a multimedia player in the ultimate bundle pack is that there aren’t any that really stand out from the rest. Real Player is OK, but so is QuickTime, and Winamp, and VLC, and Sonique, and even Windows Media Player for that matter. Each player has advantages and disadvantages over the other. In fact, I haven’t found one media player that satisfies all of my multimedia needs (at least not without a struggle). I personally use Windows Media Player, VLC, and occasionally Winamp. It really comes down to personal preference, and putting it in a pack like this is like putting an onion pizza in an ultimate food pack when just as many people like pepperoni pizza.

Adobe Acrobat Reader – Now this is a great program. In fact, I would say it’s an essential program. The thing is most computers already have this installed on them. It ships with virtually every new PC on the market. Not to mention with any software package that uses the Portable Document Format (PDF) for their tutorials/how-tos/instructions or other literature. Case in point, I was installing a video game last night called Far Cry and after the installation it prompted me to install Adobe Acrobat Reader. Of all things, a video games offers Acrobat Reader? There’s nothing ground-breaking about it being included in the Google Pack.

Google Earth – This is just Google showing off. It’s a great program and a lot of fun, but I would say it’s far from being essential. But then again, it is Google’s pack and they are allowed to show off as much as they want. If I wrote an amazing program like that I suppose I’d want it in my pack too. It’s just not a necessity.

Google Desktop – I tried this software for about a month and found it kinda of messy and clunky. It’s almost the sort of product you’d see from AOL or Yahoo, not from Google. It seems to veer away from Google’s minimalistic approach. I also get the feeling that Google is trying to force this particular piece software on users, a trait that also doesn’t fit well with Google’s usually consistent theme of being unobtrusive.

Norton Antivirus- You’ve come to the wrong place if you’re looking for a Norton supporter, or a Mcafee supporter while we’re at it. Both companies are a thorn in my side. They are system hogs and a bitch to uninstall. I’ve also never trusted any antivirus company that charges for their products. Their whole business is built on people getting viruses. Do I even need to mention the trouble Norton (Symantec) got into recently for secretly installing rootkits onto their customers computers. Come on! That’s like an animal rights activist kicking the crap out of a helpless Poodle. Sure, it might be fun, but it’s just wrong. Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.

Google also tossed in a screensaver pack and an art gallery viewer. I’m assuming these were used as filler. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’re fabulous programs. My computer just doesn’t need anymore fillers.

Google didn’t get it all wrong though. They did manage to include some must have programs into their bundle. That got me thinking. If I had to make a Skyecade Pack, what amazing programs would I include in it? Hmm. Let’s give it a shot, shall we? Indeed, we shall.

• Firefox – A definite must have for the internet warrior. Firefox is a very customizable and secure web browser. This is one piece of software that Google got right. If there is one thing you should download from this list it should be this. And if you use Outlook for your mail, make sure to check out Thunderbird from Mozilla. It’s good alternative to Microsoft’s flagship mail client.
• Google Toolbar for Firefox Google got this one right too. But of course you’ll want to download the Firefox version and not the one for Internet Explorer since you’re a die-hard Firefox user now.
• Picasa 2 This cool little program made it onto Google’s list too, and I would have to agree with them. It’s a great program (owned by Google) that manages all of your photos on your PC. I was very impressed by it’s intuitive interface and use of tags, in addition to folders. It’s also relatively small and doesn’t install all kinds of other unwanted crap onto your computer *cough* AOL *cough* sucks *cough*. Excuse me, I had something gross in my throat.
• Trillian OK, well maybe Google’s not doing so bad. They did put this little gem in there pack. I’ve used this program for years now. If you’re like me, and pray your not, you may find yourself using multiple chat/voip programs. Trillian merges AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Windows Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk (Jabber format), and IRC in one tight little bundle. One chat program to rule them all. See that reference to Lord of the Rings right there? Yeah, that’s what I’m all about. Two other alternatives to Trillian are Gaim and Miranda. Both are also nice programs.
• Ad-Aware This is a spyware/ad-ware protection utility. This should be on every ones computer until a better program comes out. It detects spyware, trojans, malware, browser hijackers, dialers, etc… And it’s free.
• Antivir This is my rebuttal to Google’s endorsement of Norton Antivirus. It’s free, it’s better, it’s free, it doesn’t suck, it’s free, and unlike other companies, it will protect you against viruses, not install them. In 3 years of using this program there has never been a virus this program didn’t detect and remove. I recommend this antivirus program out of personal experience, but there are other free antivirus programs that are supposed to be excellent. A few are avast , AVG, and BitDefender. All come highly recommended.
• Keynote This is an outline program that I discovered by accident and now can’t live without. There are too many possible uses for this program to list here. Just download it and start experimenting.
• OpenOffice This didn’t make Google’s list, but in all fairness, I would be surprised if it didn’t make the next release of the Google Pack. I have completely abandoned Microsoft Office for this free office suite. It is fully compatible with all the standard office formats and continuously under development (an example of web 2.0 and the perpetual beta). It has has a word processor, spreadsheet application, presentation software, a vector based graphics program, and a ton more.
• WinRAR Windows XP has there own compression tool, but it isn’t nearly as robust as winRAR. Sooner or later you are going run into a .gz, or .tar and windows is going to curl up in the fetal position and crash. But fear not, you were savvy enough to install winRAR. Good for you.
• Filezilla Filezilla is an FTP program. Not all of you are going to need one of these, but should the day come that you need to upload or download large sums of files from a FTP server, this is the program you should have. I used to use smartFTP almost exclusively. It’s a good enough program, but I found when I really needed a work horse, nothing beat Filezilla. I could let the thing run all night and not worry about it losing a connection.
• Artrage I suppose I couldn’t classify this program as essential, but it’s cool as hell. It’s a very realistic creative art program. It’s also one of the coolest and most natural feeling art programs I have ever seen.
• Ubuntu This is the ultimate in free software. Ubuntu is a whole other operating system. Specifically, it is a version of the Linux operating system. Not only is it a free OS, but it comes with thousands of free programs, some of which are mentioned in this list. Other versions of Linux I’ve used are Red Hat, Mandrake (now called Mandriva), Suse, and Slackware. Slackware was my favorite for the longest time, but it definitely isn’t as user friendly as Ubuntu. And the Ubuntu community is amazing. See for yourself. Just be warned, this is not for the average Joe. Make sure you know what you’re getting into before you decide to go and wipe out you’re Windows partition. I don’t want any angry emails coming my way.

That’s all I can think of right now. That was kind of fun. I may add new programs as I remember them,
or as I discover them — which ever comes first. And don’t fret, I’m still a huge fan of Google, I just hope there’s no tension between us since the release of the extremely popular Skyecade Pack. I wouldn’t want to piss off Google’s shareholders or anything.

*No Poodles were injured during the writing of this article.