Over at Lifehacker there is an interesting conversation going on regarding what software readers have purchased this year. Paul Stamatiou and Glenn Wolsey have responded in a blog post, and I feel like that’s the best way also.
This year is perhaps the first year I have purchased software. Previously application purchases were left up to my parents or (gasp) Usenet. That’s changed a lot this year, and I’ve finally cleaned up my act (for the most part). So, without further ado, here’s the list.
My 2006 Application Purchases
- Assignment Planner – Has been invaluable in keeping track of the many assignments I receive at Penn State.
- AppZapper – I use it all of the time to cleanup applications I have been testing.
- BetterZip – It’s basically WinZip for Mac, but without the unneeded bloat. It has some handy features such as stripping the Mac resources files from created archives.
- Cha-Ching – Didn’t technically buy it, but received it in a MacHeist heist. It’s been perfect for keeping track of my personal finances.
- CSSEdit2 – Used it for my web design class and redesigning cavemonkey50.com. Wouldn’t have been able to work on websites as fast as I did without it.
- Disco – While most people will say there are better free alternatives, I still like Disco. I love the animations, and it really does make burning a million times easier.
- Flickr iPhoto Export – The most convenient way to get my photos from iPhoto into my Flickr account. A little pricey, but it seems to have been worth it.
- MacHeist Bundle – Delicious Library, FotoMagico, iClip, Newsfire, and TextMate – These are all great applications which I didn’t have before MacHeist and have worked their way into my regularly used applications.
- OmniOutliner Pro – Been using it since I got my MacBook. I take all my class notes with it, and its search function makes studying a breeze.
- Parallels – While I love my Mac, I can’t escape Windows at Penn State. I’ll occasionally need to boot up Windows to test a website in IE, or program a C++ program. For those times, Parallels has done the job exceptionally.
- Pukka – Cheap application for bookmarking to Del.icio.us.
- Synergy – I use it almost every second to control iTunes and submit my listened tracks to Last.fm.
- Transmit – No other FTP app stands a chance.
Upcoming Purchases in 2007
- Adobe CS3 Educational – I pretty much require this now with all the web work I do. Looking forward to CS3 being so much faster on an Intel Mac.
- Leopard – This is given. Though, I probably won’t install it until my next semester is over.
- Microsoft Office 2007 Education Version – If Microsoft can get Office 2007 out on Mac this year, I will be buying it.
- TextMate – I love this application so much that I’ll be buying the updated version for Leopard.
- Xtorrent – As soon as Xtorrent is publicly released, I’m buying it. It’s the only Mac torrenting app worth using.
There’s my list, now what have you bought or are planning to buy?
10 Comments
Why do you need Windows to do C++ programming? I been solely using Linux for my programming classes. G++ is available on Mac, I’ve done it before.
Simply because my programming teacher was stupid and we needed to submit our projects using a Borland C++ project file, an applications only available for Windows.
Hey Ron, I found an application that’s free and a lot better looking that Assignment Planner. It’s called Schoolhouse.
A Borland project file? That is rather retarded. My programming department is still I am sure anti-microsoft. Anything that even prints with line numbers gets marked down by some professors!
Is this project file though plain text? Can you fake it?
Well the C++ file was plain text, so I could code that out of Windows. I still needed to boot up Parallels once to create the project file though.
I mean is the borland project file just a plain text/xml file that just points to where the source files are and such. But I guess that gets more in the pain in the arse than using windows is!
I just opened it up. Surprisingly it’s only an XML file with three lines of code. So, I guess I could have done it your way.
Cool. I hope that is a teacher specific thing so you can use vim and g++ so you can code the fun way
.
Seems to me that alot of Mac users buy software. I personally don’t bother to buy software when I can find free/open source software that does a good if not better job than purchased.
There is some software that I would like to have. You know like Photoshop and stuff like that – web design stuff.
A lot of apps you have to install! I prefer apps on the web that you don’t have to install and always available everywhere (as long as Internet works
). Check out my blog where I try to uninstall ALL applications from my desktop and only run applications on the web.
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[...] Lifehacker has a nice post of software that there readers have bought this year and has turned into somewhat of a Meme with Marcus Vorwaller, Paul Stamatiou, Glenn Wolseyand, and Ronald Heft, Jr all jumping in too. Since this was my first year with a Mac, I thought it was a great idea to post mine. I think I bought more software for my Macbook this year than I’ve ever bought for the PC combined. [...]
[...] It started with this post on Lifehacker and it has make quite a number of other bloggers put up their own posts on what apps they bought in the past year and what they plan to buy in 2007. So, I decided that I should join in the fun and list down some of the apps I bought this year. [...]