I would like to share what I have in my “Bag of Tricks” for getting the job done (software, hardware, ect…). Not only do I plan on putting this list together, but I also plan on writing post on how I use these goodies with the occasional tutorial.
Hardware / Gadgets:
• Apple MacBook Pro: Years years ago I was introduced to the Mac (back in the days of OS 9). I never went back. Ok, I jump around between different systems, but OS X has been my main system for years. I spend a lot of time away from home so being able to take my MBP with me is a huge plus.
• Drobo: Think of it as a external hard drive on steroids. For you techies out there, it is a lot like a RAID5 but for your home systems.
• Compaq P4 PC: I picked up a inexpensive PC a while back. I use it as a testing machine for Windows (7 RC), Linux, and BSD systems.
• Nikon D70: I love this DSLR. It is not going to produce the same images you will get from a D3 but if you know how to shoot with this camera you will get some amazing photographs.
• Mamiya C220 TLR: I learned photography shooting digital, but this medium format camera has just produced some beautiful photographs for me.
• Alien Bee AB800: Best quality of light for the price. I use this strobe with a shoot through umbrella and a 5-in-1 reflector.
Software / Services:
• WordPress: Blogging software and content management for the web. I use WordPress for this site.
• Adium: Multi-Service Instant Messaging Client. I use this to chat with my Gmail, AIM, and Facebook friends.
• Skim: Skim is a PDF reader with the ability to mark up a document with notes. This is perfect if you ever read books or other multi-page documents.
• FreeMind: Mind mapping / brain storming application. This is a free application. If you are not willing to pay for another mind mapping application, or have never tried mind mapping software, give this a try. When ever I start a project that requires extensive planning, this is usually the first application I fire up. This application can be a bit tricky to learn but once you have the basics down you will wonder how you ever planned without it. I hope to write a post / tutorial on how to use this. That said, there are some features I would love to see down the road (such as an outline mode).
• VirtualBox: A free open source computer virtualization software. I use it to run Linux and BSD on my MacBook Pro.
• TweetDeck: Adobe Air application for posting and reading updates on twitter and facebook.
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom: Lightweight and powerful. Great software for managing and working with RAW files.
• Mint.com: Excellent online service for keeping an eye on your money. It does an amazing job integrating with your online banking accounts and looking at where you are spending your money. You can setup budgets and set it up to email or SMS you if you have gone over budget. Since I started using this I have been able to see what I am spending my money on and where I can make cuts and save.
•Gmail / Google Apps: I have both a Gmail and Google Apps account. I love the features of gmail and the way things are done in gmail. With Google Apps you can host email for you own domain (eg: your-name@your-domain.com).
•ddrescue: You have to be a licensed geek to use this. This software will make a sector by sector copy of your drives. Not only that, but it also recovers data from bad sectors. I ran this on a drive where about 200MB worth of data was on bad sectors, this recovered all but 7MB of that data. Lesson: if the drive still powers up, you can still pull something off of it.
•TestDisk/PhotoRec: Another geek licenses piece of software. TestDisk is great for recovering lost partitions. PhotoRec is a life saver for anyone who has lost images from a hard drive or storage cars (like CF and SD cards). If you ‘lose’ images from a card from you camera don’t worry. DO NOT shoot over that card. If you computer can read see the card PhotoRec can recover those images for you. It looks for raw information on the card and will recover any images it recognizes.
Coding Software:
• MacVim: A nice GUI version the the classic UNIX editor vi/vim. It is not an easy editor to learn, but once you learn some of the basics you will realize you can go far with this application.
• Espresso: A great HTML IDE. It is a relatively new application but I hope they keep going in the direction they are going in the direction they are going.
• CSSEdit: I highly recommend this application for any Mac user writing CSS code. It has a great auto completion system and gives you an excellent preview of your work. I was glad to have this when I was building my photography site.
• TextWrangler: A free text editor from the people that bring you BBEdit. This is a great editor when you are editing code.
• TextMate: One of the best text editors for the Mac. I jump back and forth between this and MacVim. This is a great editor when you are writing code.
• Terminal.app: Knowing how to use the command line and powerful UNIX underlining of OS X is a huge plus and has helped me hundreds of times. Learning what you can do in a terminal with some knowledge of shell scripting and the possibilities of what you can do are virtually endless.
Food and Drinks:
* Green Tea: Maybe it is just all in my mind, but a good cup of green tea helps get me going. I don’t have a particular brand, but I do prefer lose leaf tea.
• It’s-It: Delicious ice cream for when you need a break for some sweets.
• In-N-Out: Number 1 Animal Style. If your not from Southern California please, for you own good, ignore this list item.
Note: I have since cut out the In-N-Out and It’s-It. Got to cut down on the fat.